Sentencing Law and Policy

New report on recidivism rates in the Bay State

A helpful reader pointed me to a new study released today by the Urban Institute looking at recidivism rates in Massachusetts.  The study can be accessed at this link, and here is its abstract:

The Massachusetts Recidivism Study is a collaborative effort between the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center and the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) that aims to better understand the experiences of recidivists and how their previous incarceration and time in the community relate to their returns to prison. The study consists of three interrelated components: an analysis of DOC administrative data, interviews with recidivists as they return to prison, and parole officer focus groups. This report provides findings from the analysis of administrative data on the 2002 release cohort comparing recidivists with nonrecidivists.  The report compares the two groups across demographics, criminal history, offense type, time served, release type, and in-prison reentry preparation.

This is why your brain, after being on drugs, cannot go to college

This post at How Appealing lead me to this post at the School Law Blog providing this report on a new Eighth Circuit ruling:

A federal appeals court has rejected a constitutional challenge to a federal law that restricts, and in some cases bars, students with drug convictions from participation in federal college aid programs.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, in St. Louis, ruled in Students for Sensible Drug Policy Foundation v. Spellings that the controversial sanctions do not violate the double-jeopardy clause of the 5th Amendment.

The student group argued that the primary purpose of the law is deterrence of criminal action, so the secondary sanction on those convicted of drug crimes is form of double jeopardy. But the court noted that, under the law, a student may restore his or her eligibility for federal student aid by completing a drug-rehabilitation program.

The relatively brief ruling from the Eigth Circuit is available at this link.

Federal prisoners do the darndest things

This AP story, headlined "Texas prison inmate cons way onto Idaho primary ballot," seems ripe for use in a late-night talk-show monologue.  Here are the basics:

A federal prison inmate who once gave an Internal Revenue Service line in Ohio for the phone number of his campaign coordinator has got himself listed on the ballot for Idaho's primary as a Democratic presidential candidate, the state's top election official said.  Keith Russell Judd is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999.  He's scheduled for release in 2013.

Judd, 49, qualified for the May 27 ballot by submitting a notarized form and paying the required $1,000 fee, state Secretary of State Ben Ysursa said. As a result, Democratic voters will be able to choose among Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Judd. "We got conned," Ysursa told The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash.

It's Judd's second presidential bid in Idaho, the newspaper said Wednesday.  In 2004 he declared as a write-in candidate for president, which requires only the submission of a declaration, and didn't get any votes. No matter how many votes he gets this time, he won't get any national convention delegates. Idaho's delegates are chosen at party caucuses. "The good thing is the Democratic presidential primary has absolutely no legal significance," Ysursa said.

Prison officials told the state elections office that Judd sent about 14 checks to states seeking to get on the presidential election ballot and about half had been returned.  He qualified as a write-in candidate in Kentucky, California, Indiana and Florida, but Idaho apparently is the only state where his name will appear on the ballot....

Somebody needs to tell Mr. Judd that he has things backwards: the standard politician life-plan is to get elected and then get sent to federal prison, not the other way around.

Effective NYT editorial on Second Chance Act

Today's New York Times has this effective editorial discussing this week's big news of the Second Chance Act finally becoming law.  Here is a snippet:

The compassion and bipartisanship that President Bush promised in the 2000 election campaign made a long-awaited appearance this week as he signed a law to help prisoners re-enter society. The Second Chance Act, five years in the making, is a welcome relief from the simplistic lock-’em-up posture of recent decades that has the United States leading the world in incarceration. It is an important start, but more still needs to be done....

The $326 million that the law promises has yet to be appropriated. Congress should quickly allocate the money as a down payment on a goal that Mr. Bush described as redemption, as he alluded to his own past struggle against alcoholism.

The Second Chance Act should be the start of a new, more enlightened approach to criminal justice. The obvious next step is for the administration to retreat from its support for unduly harsh prison sentences, which are enormously expensive — and leave the criminal justice system with too few resources to do the sort of rehabilitative work the new law wisely calls for.

Some recent related posts:

• Official coverage of President Bush signing the Second Chance Act
• Some media coverage of the Second Chance Act
• Second Chance Act finally poised to become law
• Second Chance Act (finally!!) passed by Congress
• More on the passage of the Second Chance Act
• The right's prison conversion
• Looking at some the realities of reentry
• Previewing forthcoming FSR issue on reentry issues
• Great public radio series on prisoner reentry

Some media coverage of the Second Chance Act

The signing by President Bush of the federal Second Chance Act has generated a wide array of press coverage, with various outlets having different focal points for their coverage.  Consider these different headlines from the different sources:

• Bush Signs Substance Abuse Law, Reflects on Past Drinking Problem from ABC News

• Prison Groups Get Boost from the Capitol from the Christian Broadcasting Network

• Bush justly admits ex-offenders get bum rap from society from the Pioneer Press

• Bush Signs Legislation Meant to Help Ex-Cons Stay out of Jail from U.S. News & World Report

• Bush Signs Into Law a Program That Gives Grants to Former Convicts from the Washington Post

Second Chance Act finally poised to become law

As detailed in this New York Times article, "President Bush is to sign the Second Chance Act in a public ceremony on Wednesday, making rehabilitation a central goal of the federal justice system."  Here are some excerpts from the NYT piece:

With the new law, the federal government is to provide more money and leadership in a field where progress is likely to be difficult at best, experts agree.  “From our perspective, this is a huge development,” said Michael Thompson, director of the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments.  “Governors, legislatures, corrections and law enforcement agencies around the country were all very supportive of the act.”

The new push to help prisoners reintegrate into society has been driven in part by financial concerns: states cannot afford to keep building more prisons. It also reflects concern for the victims of repeat offenders and for the wasted lives of the offenders themselves, who are disproportionately black and from neighborhoods of concentrated poverty.

The act authorizes $165 million in spending per year, including matching grants to state and local governments and nongovernmental groups to experiment with efforts like more schooling and drug treatment inside prison and aid with housing, employment and the building of family and community ties after release. It also directs the Justice Department to step up research on re-entry issues and establishes a national Reentry Resource Center to promote successful approaches and provide training....

Over the last decade, the re-entry cause has been embraced by an unusually wide range of groups and individuals, including evangelical Christians and liberal activists.  Mr. Bush called for such a law in 2004 and in Congress, key sponsors included Senator Sam Brownback, a conservative Republican from Kansas, and Representative Danny K. Davis, a liberal Democrat from Illinois. “It’s been a bipartisan coalition,” Mr. Travis said, “the sort of thing that doesn’t happen in Washington these days.”

Some recent related posts:

• Second Chance Act (finally!!) passed by Congress
• More on the passage of the Second Chance Act
• The right's prison conversion
• Looking at some the realities of reentry
• Previewing forthcoming FSR issue on reentry issues
• Great public radio series on prisoner reentry

UPDATE:  This local article from the Brattleboro Reformer, "New bill will help released offenders," provides a local persepctive on the Second Chance Act:

State lawmakers and corrections officials are hoping that a bill President Bush is expected to sign today will help Vermont's struggling prison system.  The president is expected to sign the Second Chance Act in Washington, D.C., today, which will give states money to invest in treatment and rehabilitation programs.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., co-sponsor of the bill, worked with the Vermont Department of Corrections and the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services to identify programs in the state that support offenders when they re-enter society.

Vermont's director of planning in the corrections department, John Perry, said the federal law will hopefully bring much needed dollars to the state corrections system which is struggling to pay for many of the creative and successful reentry programs.  "We are desperate for this money," Perry said. "The bill as it is written is very supportive of the sort of restorative justice and community justice programs we have here in Vermont."

Corporate executives helping with reentry in New York

This article in today's Wall Street Journal, headlined "Executives Teach Inmates How to Be Employees," spotlights that the reentry movement can be aided by, and benefits from the involvement of, all types of people.  Here is how the article starts:

Mark Goldsmith didn't expect to go to jail when he volunteered to be "principal for a day" at a New York City school. But after requesting a "tough school," he was assigned to Horizon Academy, a high school for inmates ages 18 to 24 at Rikers Island prison.

Mr. Goldsmith, a former executive at Revlon and Shiseido, was ushered through locked gates to the prison's classrooms. Standing in front of his new class, he looked at the young students and saw in them signs of his own difficult youth. He had never committed a crime; but he told the students he thought he was dumb, and graduated near the bottom of his high-school class....

Mr. Goldsmith felt the teaching experience was rewarding for both sides and volunteered again for the program. After, he decided he needed more than just one day a year with these inmates if he were to help them turn their lives around. In 2005, he launched his own nonprofit, Getting Out and Staying Out. GOSO, as it is called, now is working with 275 inmates serving sentences in upstate New York prisons and 150 at Rikers.

Mr. Goldsmith and 14 other current or retired executives who volunteer at GOSO, based in Harlem, plus a paid staff of six, are working to counter the familiar story of prisoners getting released without skills, jobs, money or a place to live, and then resorting to crime only to get locked up again. Fewer than 10% of the 400 released inmates GOSO has worked with have been arrested again since the group was formed three years ago. That figure compares with two-thirds of prisoners released annually nationwide who have been rearrested, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. In addition, three-quarters of the former prisoners counseled by GOSO, which receives private and public funding, are employed or attending school.

As former business executives, Mr. Goldsmith and other GOSO volunteers offer something else that's different: They understand who gets hired and promoted in a variety of industries and can teach inmates how to turn the entry-level jobs they typically get after prison into a career. "A lot of programs for prisoners are run by former prisoners or social workers, but Mark brings a business perspective, he's a role model of success and he tells kids who have never thought they can be successful that they're entitled to that," says Anthony Tassi, executive director of adult education in the mayor's office, New York.

Great public radio series on prisoner reentry

In a week in which the Second Chance Act finally became a reality (details here and here), it is my pleasure to note a great public radio series on prisoner reentry.  Here is the e-mail I received discussing the series:

I’m writing to let you know about a series we did here at Southern California Public Radio/KPCC this week on prison reentry, including a ton of great Web extras like photos, bonus Web audio, and links to additional web resources, as well as audio and transcripts of all the stories. Here are links to the whole series:

• State Parolee Struggles to Leave the Life of Crime
• Parole Agents Struggle to Manage Caseloads
• State Parolees Get Little Help Coming Out of Prison
• The Politics of Prisoner Rehabilitation
• Faith Groups Step In to Help Parolees

More on the passage of the Second Chance Act

Over in this post at a WSJ blog, Gary Fields reports on the passage of the Second Chance Act:

After three years of procedural and legislative delays, a prisoner re-entry bill first introduced in 2005 has cleared the Senate and is heading to the president’s desk....   The Second Chance Act passed Tuesday evening, and is now expected to be signed by President Bush. The measure provides about $180 million a year in 2009 and 2010 for prisoner re-entry services to curb a recidivism rate that has held steady at about 66%, meaning that two-thirds of all inmates released annually from state and federal prisons re-offend or violate the conditions of their release within three years and are locked back up.

Close to 700,000 people a year are released from prisons, according to Justice Department statistics. The recidivism rate is one of the reasons the nation’s prison population has grown to more than 2.2 million from 501,886 in 1980. As a result, corrections costs are among the fastest growing expenditures for states. Annual criminal-justice expenditures for police, prisons, probation and courts have risen to more than $200 billion from $36 billion in 1982.

The bill provides more than $360 million in 2009 and 2010 to help prisoners return to society....

One of the chief architects of the bill, Illinois Democrat, Rep. Danny Davis, said he hopes the bill, beyond the money, triggers a discussion at the state and local levels about incarceration and alternatives to imprisonment. “We add this up and the impact will be far greater than just the amount of money that gets appropriated. We know it’s not a panacea,” he said. “It’s not close to any kind of panacea but our hope is this becomes a sort of trigger for a great deal of additional action.”

The bill’s passage comes at a time when states are grappling with rising costs and looking for ways to reduce prison construction. States like Kansas and Texas have all undertaken programs that emphasize drug treatment and cutting the recidivism rates as a way to save hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming years.

The event brought a number of press releases from the likes of American Prison Consultants and FAMM and the NAACP and Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Senator Sam Brownback.  How is that for an eclectic and diverse mix of excited folks.  And I bet Eiot Spitzer is now glad to hear this passed, too.

Second Chance Act (finally!!) passed by Congress

I am pleased to report that, late last night, the Senate approved the Second Chance Act, a long-stalled piece of legislation that should provide significant resources for much-needed reentry services.  This press release from the Council of State Governments provides more details:

The Council of State Governments Justice Center lauds the members of the U.S. Senate for their passage [Tuesday] of the Second Chance Act of 2007.  This landmark bill, introduced by Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), provides critical resources designed to reduce recidivism and increase public safety. The legislation passed the Senate by unanimous consent and now proceeds to the President’s desk for signature....

The Second Chance Act includes key elements of President Bush’s Prisoner Reentry Initiative, announced in the 2004 State of the Union address, which provides for community and faith-based organizations to deliver mentoring and transitional services. The bill will also help connect people released from prison and jail to mental health and substance abuse treatment, expand job training and placement services, and facilitate transitional housing and case management services....

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, an estimated 95 percent of all state prisoners will be released—with half of these individuals expected to return to prison within three years for the commission of a new crime or violation of their conditions of release. This cycle of recidivism not only compromises public safety, but also increases taxpayer spending.  A February 2007 report from The Pew Charitable Trusts stated that if federal, state, and local policies and practices do not change, taxpayers are expected to pay as much as $27.5 billion on prisons alone from 2007 to 2011 on top of current corrections spending.

“The Second Chance Act will provide an opportunity for realistic rehabilitation for the more than 650,000 inmates who return to their communities each year,” said Senator Specter. “The bill’s focus on education, job training, and substance abuse treatment is essential to decreasing the nationwide recidivism rate of 66 percent.”

HUZZAH!!!

Some related posts discussing the Second Chance Act:

• Why is Senator Sessions really blocking the Second Chance Act?
• Will Congress (finally) pass a Second Chance Act?
• The right's prison conversion
• Food for sentencing thought
• NY Times editorial pushing Second Chance Act
• Looking at some the realities of reentry
• Previewing forthcoming FSR issue on reentry issues

What's just right in Kansas...

Proving yet again that the states are way ahead of the feds in figuring out how to do sentencing and corrections, this local article reports encouraging news from everyone's favorite bellwether state:

The percentage of Kansas inmates who commit new crimes while on supervised release has dropped significantly over five years.

The rate, which was a little more than 5 percent in 2002, fell to 2.2 percent last year, Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz told lawmakers Monday.  He attributed the reduction to increased legislative funding for programs that supervise inmates after they leave prison, and more dollars for alcohol and drug treatment.

Werholtz said that with fewer offenders returning to prison, the number of inmates in Kansas prisons has decreased from 9,153 in 2004 to 8,854 in mid-2007. “There is sufficient (prison) capacity to meet our needs for the next 10 years,” Werholtz told the House Appropriations Committee. However, he said that prediction assumed that the Legislature would not pass new sentencing laws that would put more offenders in prison. “During the last week of January, the prison population fell below 8,700, which was the first time that had been done since July, 2002,” he said.

Werholtz praised the passage last year of SB 14, which enacted a grant program to encourage community corrections programs to reduce revocation rates at least 20 percent.  The law also reduced sentences by 60 days for offenders who complete job training and drug abuse programs in prison.  Rep. Pat Colloton, the Leawood Republican who sponsored the House legislation, said the goal was to save money and rehabilitate criminals by preventing return trips to prison.

Seeing the (inevitable) light on faith-based prisons and re-entry programs

I have long been intrigued by — and an agnostic supporter of — faith-based prison and re-entry programs, largely because these programs emphasize the rehabilitative needs and potential of criminal offenders when politicians only want to posture about being the toughest on criminals.  Consequently, I found heartening and telling this op-ed in today's New York Times, headlined "The Faith to Outlast Politics."  Here are a few excerpts:

In his State of the Union address Monday evening, President Bush asked Congress to permanently extend the federal laws permitting religious nonprofit organizations to compete for federal grants.  Seven years ago this week, Mr. Bush started his faith-based initiative. He promised to build on these “charitable choice” laws, which were begat by bipartisan compromises between President Bill Clinton and Senator John Ashcroft. “Government cannot be replaced by charities,” Mr. Bush declared, “but it should welcome them as partners, instead of resenting them as rivals.”...

[But over] the past six years, federal grants to faith-based programs have shifted away from the local “armies of compassion” praised by Mr. Bush and toward large, national organizations with religious affiliations.  Every nonpartisan study has concluded that the initiative has not delivered the grants, vouchers, tax incentives and other support for faith-based organizations that the president originally promised.... President Bush has promised much. It will be left to the next president to deliver on those promises.

The good news is that every major presidential candidate seems open to doing just that.  Hillary Clinton has declared that there is no contradiction between “support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our constitutional principles.”  John McCain has supported the idea especially as it relates to improving educational programs for disadvantaged children.  Barack Obama describes faith-based programs as a “uniquely powerful way of solving problems” especially where former prisoners and substance abusers are concerned.  When he was governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney created his own faith-based office.

Politicians from both parties have come to realize that faith-based programs are indispensable even if they are not miraculous.  America’s churches, synagogues, mosques and other congregations supply dozens of major social services — like day care, homeless shelters and anti-violence programs — worth billions of dollars each year, as Ram Cnaan, a professor of social work at the University of Pennsylvania, has proved in several studies. Dr. Cnaan is not even counting the work done by inner-city religious schools and other local faith-based programs.  From coast to coast, the primary beneficiaries of these services are low-income children and families who are not otherwise affiliated with the religious nonprofit organizations that serve them....

Increasingly, governors and mayors, with or without Washington’s help, are on the case.  Since 2001, governors by the dozens and over a hundred mayors have started faith-based initiatives on their own. In numerous places, the initiatives have persisted through changes in administrations and party control — further evidence for the emerging political consensus in favor of using public dollars to support faith-based organizations.  The ideological disputes that infect inside-the-Beltway debates over the separation of church and state have little life in cities where what gets accomplished (or not) in juvenile justice, health care and other social services is a visible, life-and-death drama.

Though not focused specifically on faith-based prison and re-entry programs, this op-ed sheds light on all the different forces that make such programs inevitable in the years ahead.  As this story from NPR spotlights, states from coast-to-coast are facing "looming budget shortfalls" and prison/corrections costs are among the largest budget items for so many states.  Governors and mayors will surely turn to faith-based ports during this economic storm, particularly to provide services to offender populations that won't be able to preserve public funds through the usual political process.  Thus, the faith-based realities here will likely become another manifestation of my new slogan, "It's the prison economy, stupid."

Some related posts on faith-based prison programs:

• Is faith the best thing to happen to prisons since ... the faithful started prisons?
• Interesting Ohio report on correctional faith-based initiatives
• Another report tentatively praising faith-based prisons
• The virtues of faith-based prisons
• Interesting examination of faith-based prison movement
• A thoughtful, but disappointing, attack on a faith-based prison program
• Religion, sentencing and corrections
• Having faith in prisons
• How the media can do better: ask the candidates tough crime and punishment questions

Will President Bush's last State of the Union address have any crime and justice talk?

Though President George Bush's last few State of the Union addresses have lacked any criminal justice talk, it bears recalling that his SotU history includes a few criminal justice surprises:

• Calling America "the land of second chance," President Bush in his 2004 State of the Union address spotlighted prisoner re-entry issues and proposed "a four-year, $300 million prisoner re-entry initiative to expand job training and placement services, to provide transitional housing, and to help newly released prisoners get mentoring, including from faith-based groups." 

• Asserting that in America "we must make doubly sure no person is held to account for a crime he or she did not commit," President Bush in his 2005 State of the Union Address asserted that he was bringing "to Congress a proposal to fund special training for defense counsel in capital cases, because people on trial for their lives must have competent lawyers by their side." 

I spotlight these prior highlights in part because, as detailed here, the Second Chance Act inspired by the 2004 speech still has not managed to secure passage through Congress.  (As lameted here, even though the current bill only provides roughly half the funds that the President initially proposed, Senator Jeff Sessions has blocked blocked the bill purportedly because of concerns that it would increase federal spending on untested programs.)  And yet, while the Second Chance Act still awaits enactment, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has the unvarnished chutzpah to express concerns about the re-entry challenges facing the few federal prisoners soon to be released as a result of the new crack guidelines (details here and here).  Grrr, and a pox on all their houses.

Why is Senator Sessions really blocking the Second Chance Act?

I have only done occasional blogging on the federal Second Chance Act (see here and here), in part because I was waiting and hoping for this long-stalled legislation to finally become law.  But now I see from this news article that "Sen. Jeff Sessions, in the final days of the congressional year, temporarily blocked legislation to help former prisoners re-enter society because of concerns that it would dramatically increase federal spending on untested programs."  Here are more details from the article:

The Alabama Republican's staff asked for more time to review the Second Chance Act, which passed the House in November by a wide margin and has broad bipartisan support in the Senate.  Sessions supports the goal of helping released prisoners become productive citizens and less likely to commit another crime, his spokesman Stephen Boyd said Wednesday.  But the proposal increases spending on grants for state and local governments from $16 million to $55 million.  Sessions argued that some of those programs have not been fully evaluated and may duplicate existing programs.

The grants can go toward helping the recently incarcerated find employment, housing, substance abuse treatment and other assistance. "We are looking at ways that we could improve the bill's language in those respects," Boyd said.  Overall, the proposed legislation would spend about $165 million annually on grants, research, career training, family counseling and mentoring, according to the Council of State Governments Justice Center, which endorses the bill.

With about 1.7 million people in state and federal prisons and most of them serving less than a life sentence, advocates say the issue of recidivism has attracted liberals and conservatives who want to keep people from cycling back through, costing taxpayers money and causing prison crowding.  Almost 68 percent of prisoners are rearrested within three years, according to Department of Justice statistics.  "A modest expenditure to help transition offenders back into the community can save taxpayers thousands of dollars in the long run," Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said when the bill passed the House 347-62....

I have a hard time accepting at face value the claim by Senator Sessions that he is worried that the current version of the Second Chance Act might allocate some small amount of monies to "untested programs."  Our nation is currently spending more than $200 million every single day on "untested programs" in Iraq, and there is little reason to have much faith that we are ever going to get a decent return on our investments there.  In contrast, lots of research shows that monies spent up-front on re-entry programs is a terrific investment that, as Rep. Cannon noted, can save lots of money (and also prevent much non-economic suffering to potential crime victims) in the long run.

It bears remembering that the head of Senator Sessions' own political party is, in a sense, the chief sponsor of the Second Chance Act.  The bill can be traced back to this wonderful passage in President George Bush's 2004 State of the Union address:

Tonight I ask you to consider another group of Americans in need of help.  This year, some 600,000 inmates will be released from prison back into society.  We know from long experience that if they can't find work, or a home, or help, they are much more likely to commit crime and return to prison.  So tonight, I propose a four-year, $300 million prisoner re-entry initiative to expand job training and placement services, to provide transitional housing, and to help newly released prisoners get mentoring, including from faith-based groups.  America is the land of second chance, and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.

How sad that, a full four years after President Bush made this pitch, Senator Sessions is balking about the costs of a bill that only provides roughly half the funds that the President initially proposed.  Not only am I disappointed with Senator Sessions, but I am also troubled that none of the prominent Senators running for President have made an active or vocal pitch for getting this legislation finally passed.

Some related posts discussing the Second Chance Act:

• Will Congress (finally) pass a Second Chance Act?
• The right's prison conversion
• Food for sentencing thought
• NY Times editorial pushing Second Chance Act
• Looking at some the realities of reentry
• Previewing forthcoming FSR issue on reentry issues

Previewing forthcoming FSR issue on reentry issues

FSR editor Michael O'Hear is putting the finishing touches on the next issue of Federal Sentencing Reporter, which is focused on re-entry issues.  Michael's introductory essay for this issue (FSR Volume 20, No. 2) is now available at SSRN here.  This piece is entitled "The Second Chance Act and the Future of the Reentry Movement," and here is the abstract:

Recently passed by the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support and currently awaiting action in the Senate, the Second Chance Act of 2007 (H.R. 1593) would authorize about $340 million in new spending on programs that support the reintegration of returning prisoners to their communities.  If enacted, the SCA would represent a new milestone in the growing influence of the prisoner reentry movement, which has focused public attention on the daunting obstacles facing returning prisoners who seek to rebuild their lives as productive citizens. This essay, which introduces a forthcoming issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter devoted to the SCA and the challenges of reentry, critiques aspects of the SCA, considers the implications of the reentry movement for sentencing, and argues that reentry-based reforms should not be conceptualized primarily as recidivism reduction measures, but as opportunities to fulfill ethical obligations to some of the most marginalized and disadvantaged members of society.

Other recent FSR issues:

• FSR Issue 20.1: Learning from Libby
• FSR Issue 19.5: Assessing Crack-Cocaine and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Provisions
• FSR Issue 19.4: Information-based Sentencing Analysis
• FSR Issue 19.3: Claiborne & Rita: Reasonableness Review in the Supreme Court
• FSR Issue 19.2: Victims and Sentencing II: Beyond the CVRA
• FSR Issue 19.1: Victims and Sentencing I: Victim Impact Evidence, the Crime Victims' Rights Act and Kenna

Looking at some the realities of reentry

Though not quite stated in these terms, some of the debate over the retroactivity of the new crack amendments is really a debate about whether the offenders that might benefit from the reduced sentences are prepared to re-enter the community and become productive citizens.  Against this backdrop, this new article about reentry realities in US News & World Report is a must read.  Here are some highlights:

Getting cons to stay ex-cons has long been one of the most vexing challenges of the criminal justice system.  One out of every 31 American adults is in jail, on parole, or on probation, and the central reality is this: Nearly everyone who enters the prison system eventually gets out.

The problem is, most of those ex-offenders quickly find themselves back inside. Today, ending the cycle of recidivism has become an increasingly urgent problem as communities nationwide are forced to absorb record numbers of prisoners who also often struggle with addiction and other illness.

There are more than 1.5 million people in state or federal prison for serious offenses and 750,000 others in jail for more minor crimes.  Prison populations have swelled since the early 1970s, and now offenders are returning to their neighborhoods at a rate of more than 1,400 per day. In 1994, nearly 457,000 prisoners were released from state and federal custody, and in 2005, almost 699,000 prisoners were released. That is the largest single exodus of ex-convicts in American history....

The process of coordinated prisoner reintegration is now known as "re-entry," rather than rehabilitation or release.  Whereas rehabilitation assumed that individuals could change on their own, re-entry focuses on educating employers and communities about how they can help the offender on the outside. It aims to break though the red tape that has historically delayed social services for felons and to prevent the snags — like drug treatment programs that reject offenders who have been clean only a short time — that keep them from making a healthy return to society.

In practice, that means synchronizing many different social and correctional services while offenders are still inmates and continuing that assistance after their release. Re-entry programs don't necessarily require more funding, just better coordination of existing resources like job training and stable housing. "Rehab is focused on the individual offender; re-entry is about communities, families, children, coworkers, and neighbors," says Amy Solomon, a criminal justice researcher at the Urban Institute.

Any reports or news from today's House hearing?

I have been away from the computer all day, but I wonder if anyone followed this hearing today in the House of Representative's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on "Promoting Inmate Rehabilitation and Successful Release Planning."  The list of witnesses looks eclectic and interesting, as is their linked testimony.  I'd be grateful to get reader reports in the comments or via e-mail.

NY Times editorial pushing Second Chance Act

This morning's New York Times has this editorial entitled "A Second Chance for Ex-Offenders." Here are excerpts:

If past patterns hold true, more than half of the 650,000 prisoners released this year will be back behind bars by 2010. With the prison population exploding and the price of incarceration now topping $60 billion a year, states are rightly focusing on ways to reduce recidivism. Congress can give these efforts a boost by passing the Second Chance Act, which would provide crucial help to people who have paid their debts to society....

The Second Chance Act would add to what the country knows about the re-entry process by establishing a federal re-entry task force, along with a national resource center to collect and disseminate information about proven programs....  The programs necessary to help former prisoners find a place in society do not exist in most communities.  The Second Chance Act would help to create those programs by providing money, training, technical assistance — and a Congressional stamp of approval.

It is sad but telling that the Second Chance Act has not yet become a reality even though it has had bipartisan support since President Bush in his 2004 State of the Union address spoke passionately about the importance of showing compassion (and providing job training and placement services) to convicted offenders because "America is the land of second chance."   

Some related posts discussing the Second Chance Act:

• Will Congress (finally) pass a Second Chance Act?
• The right's prison conversion
• Food for sentencing thought

Continued pitch for cert on an important Blakely issue

As detailed in this post, I am part of a team seeking cert in Faulks v. US, a case from the Fourth Circuit concerning the procedures for revoking supervised release.  Our initial petition is here, and earlier this month the government filed its brief in opposition (BIO).  A few days ago, we filed our reply to the government's BIO.  These latest filings can be accessed here:

Download faulks_bio_from_government.pdf

Download final_faulks_reply.pdf

Though I am partial, I am genuinely convinced that the issues we have raised in Faulks need the Supreme Court's attention ASAP.  If the Justices in the Blakely five (or the Cunningham six) are genuinely committed to its articulated Sixth Amendment doctrines and principles, the judge-centered procedures employed in federal supervised release revocation proceedings ought to be cause for significant constitutional concern (especially in a case with extreme facts like Faulks). 

As has been well documented in the SCOTUSblog stats, SCOTUS needs to grant cert in a bunch of new cases to fill its fall argument calender.  And the Court has not taken up any new Blakely issues in a while (although, of course, Claiborne and Rita might address Sixth Amendment issues).  I am hopeful we have a real shot with Faulks.

The need to treat treatment better

Legal Times has this interesting new article detailing the limited number of opportunities for drug treatment for DC probationers and parolees.  Here is an excerpt:

With more than 2,000 former inmates returning from prison each year to the District, the shortage of drug treatment threatens public safety by contributing to more street crime.  Many studies across the country have shown that expanded and well-managed treatment programs for offenders reduce rates of recidivism.  Many parolees also get sent back to prison for drug-related violations even though they never received treatment to help them conquer their addictions.

CSOSA Director Paul Quander Jr. says the limited substance-abuse funds force difficult decisions about which offenders will get treatment.  The agency received $2.8 million for the new center this year and is seeking an additional $2.1 million from Congress in CSOSA's $190 million budget request for the 2008 fiscal year.  "We have to triage it," Quander says.  "The issue has always been one of limited resources. We're a criminal justice agency. We’re not a treatment agency."

Will Congress (finally) pass a Second Chance Act?

In his 2004 State of the Union address, President George Bush spoke passionately about the importance of showing compassion (and providing job training and placement services) to convicted offenders because "America is the land of second chance."  Since then, various bill seeking to live up to this mantra have surfaced in the House and Senate, and now there seems to be some real momentum in Congress to pass a Second Chance Act.

FAMM has this helpful webpage (with links) discussing the progress and particulars of the Second Chance Act of 2007.  Here is a summary account of the bill:

Among other things, the Second Chance Act would provide reentry funding on the state and local level to support former prisoners' needs for housing, mental health and substance abuse treatment, education, employment and rebuilding family and community ties. Nearly 650,000 individuals are released from federal and state custody each year only to find limited support to aid in their reentry efforts.  The Second Chance Act of 2007 would help the formerly incarcerated successfully transition back into communities.

NYTimes reentry editorial

Today's New York Times has this editorial discussing prisoner reentry issues.  Here is how it begins:

With corrections costs going through the roof, states and localities are beginning to figure out the long-term costs of just shoving inmates out the door when their sentences are finished. To prevent people from ending up right back inside, states will need to embrace re-entry programs that provide ex-offenders with training, jobs, places to live and a range of social services that don’t exist in most places.

Community supervision debate in Washington state

As evidenced by the Blakely ruling, Washington state is often at the forefront of cutting-edge sentencing issues.  And this AP article spotlights that Washington, after a high-profile crime, is now aggressively facing important reentry and community supervision matters.  The start of the AP article provides the background:

Gov. Chris Gregoire turned up the heat on the state Department of Corrections Monday, sending a letter to Secretary Harold Clarke requiring that the department implement interim prisoner release guidelines within a week.

The department had set a June 15 deadline for implementing new guidelines, which are meant to give parole officers a clearer idea on when a released felon who violates the terms of his or her release should be sent back to prison.  Right now, it's up to the officers' discretion.  "I believe a thoughtful collaborative approach to developing these guidelines is essential; however, I also believe public safety demands immediate action," Gregoire wrote.

The department released reports last week that were commissioned by Gregoire after three released convicts were implicated in the deaths of three Seattle-area law enforcement officers in recent months.  The reports, written by the Corrections Department and reviewed by the National Institute of Corrections, found that Washington's sentencing statutes are too complex and often conflicting.

The Washington state Corrections Department report can be found at this link, and the last 20 pages of this document includes the report from the NIC to that department.  Both reports are great reads for anyone interested in cutting-edge reentry and community supervision issues.