Hilton Should Become a Poster Child for the Ailing Criminal Justice System
The world is focused on Paris Hilton’s incarceration. The circus even triggered a campaign to remove Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca from office for granting Hilton an early release.
Sheriff Baca is not the culprit; the real perpetrator is the malfunctioning criminal justice system. Thanks to overzealous prosecutors and the failed war on drugs, jails and prisons are filled dangerously beyond capacity. Some jails – especially in California – are releasing inmates after serving only ten percent of their time.
Minorities and the poor have suffered the wrath of an unjust system for years. Recently our prison-addicted society has inconvenienced a few wealthy white American’s like Hilton and the Duke La Crosse players. Their celebrity status should be used to draw attention to broader issues like the fact that the Dept. of Justice reported that over 7 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at yearend 2005.
Rather than complaining about Hilton’s release, activists would accomplish more by protesting the biased laws that result in long sentences for petty drug criminals and cause such overcrowding in prisons that officials are forced to release inmates early. In 2000 the mean sentence imposed on federal prisoners for violent felonies was 63.0 months as opposed to 75.6 months for drug felonies.* The fact that murders, child molesters, rapists, and other violent criminals can get less time than non-violent drug offenders is alarming and a lot more newsworthy than Hilton’s ordeal.
Augmenting the prison population is not the only accomplishment the drug war can claim. Since the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug users, the Federal Bureau of Prisons budget has increased by 1,954% from $220 million in 1986 to more than $4.3 billion in 2001.* That same year, the California’s prison expenditure was $4.2 billion, yet residents still live in violent, drug-infested neighborhoods.
Instead of questioning why Sheriff Boca sent the confused hotel heiress home, citizens should wonder why he, according to the Los Angeles Times, is the highest-paid local elected official in the nation. Find out why the state built 21 new prisons, and only one new university from 1984 to 1996. Or, ask California officials if they think increasing prison expenditures 30% while decreasing higher education spending by 18% from 1987 to 1995 had anything to do with California ranking the fourth dumbest state in Morgan Quitno’s annual state education survey.
The media could evolve beyond stories on Hilton’s prison stay and feature some of the talent wasted due to our prison-addicted society. Take for example, Kemba Smith, the Hampton student sentenced to 24 ½ years on conspiracy charges. Since her pardon in 2000 by President Clinton, Smith graduated from Virginia Union University with plans to attend law school; was awarded a Soros Justice Postgraduate Fellowship; and is the founder of the Kemba Smith Foundation educating youth about injustices in the criminal justice system. How many Kemba Smith’s are working for the average .93 cents per hour paid to prisoners?
The web sites of the November Coalition and Families Against Mandatory Minimums feature compelling stories about victims of the war on drugs, including an article about twin brothers Lawrence and Lamont Garrison. They were arrested just months after their graduation from Howard University when the owner of an auto body shop was apprehended for playing a major role in a drug operation. To reduce his sentence, the shop owner implicated the brothers in the cocaine conspiracy. Despite the fact that there was no evidence of drugs found on the Garrisons or in their house, instead of attending law school as planned, Lamont and Lawrence are in a federal penitentiary serving 19 and 15 years respectively. The shop owner was sentenced to three (3) years.
Americans have become so desensitized to locking citizens behind bars, many people don’t realize how barbaric it is to call for a troubled young lady to remain in jail instead of receiving treatment. Perhaps that’s why the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the reason Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker would fight for Genarlow Wilson to serve his 10-year sentence for having consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.
I have a dream that one day this nation will look beyond race and class and recognize that our criminal justice system is terminally ill. It suffers from swollen prosecutors, severely infected police departments, a paralyzed judicial system, and a fractured legislature passing cancerous laws.
Paris Hilton needs counseling; but our criminal justice system needs a transplant. The public needs to wake up from their celebrity-induced coma and focus on the real issues.
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*US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics
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"SnitchCraft" a novel by Edrea Davis http://www.snitchcraft.com
Hip-hop meets civil rights in this urban tale that sheds light on the corrupt environment created by the use of snitches
www.dogonvillage.com
Published with permission.
The CURE: America's ailing federal criminal justice system:
ReplyDeleteFedCURE is the world's leading advocate for America's, ever growing, federal inmate population. We are working to reinstate parole; increase good time allowances; provide for compassionate releases; restore PELL grants; and opportunities for successful reentry into the community, for all federal offenders; and promote a system that incarcerates fewer people and provides humane conditions for those who are incarcerated or under post-incarceration supervision via parole or supervised release. Over 45,000 people were released from federal prison last year.
FedCURE's lifetime member and PBS film producer and Soros Justice Media Fellowship candidate, Allan Mason and BNNreports.com (Broadcast News Network), are documenting FedCURE's activities for inclusion in the production of a one-hour special news documentary film titled, The CURE: America's ailing federal criminal justice system (suitable for Frontline, NOW, or an independent special report for the Public Broadcasting System and their affiliates). The film would examine the ailing federal criminal justice system in the United States and the impact of two pieces of proposed federal legislation that would reduce federal prisons sentences and provide for tax payer relief by enacting smart legislation that would revive the system of parole for federal prisoners; and reduce run-a-way recidivism rates by enacting smart legislation such as "The Second Chance Act," reauthorizing the grant program of the Department of Justice for re-entry of offenders into the community, to establish a task force on Federal programs and activities relating to the re-entry of offenders into the community, and for other purposes. See H.R. 3072, H.R. 1593 and S. 1060, respectively. http://www.fedcure.org/information/Legislation.shtml We desperately need this film and to produce short VNR's for our upcoming legislative campaigns. Time is of the essence.
Federal Parole:
FedCURE co-authored the last two federal parole bills in the 108th and 109th Congress with Rep. Danny Davis (D-ILL). This year FedCURE drafted a new parole bill for Rep. Davis and to float around to other members of Congress who may want introduce the bill in this Congress. The bill is titled as "The Criminal Justice Tax Relief Act of 2007" (CJTRA) (attached as a word.doc). The CJTRA, would, inter alia, reinstate the old parole statutes and would amend certain sections thereof; making all offenders eligible for parole and giving jurisdiction to the United States Parole Commission to set release dates in accordance with applicable parole guidelines or the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, whichever is lowest. The amendments would also increase good time allowances, provided for reduction in term of imprisonment of elderly offenders and clarify parole procedures. Unresolved at the time of the draft and at this time are issues that deal with inmates serving life without parole (LWOP) and the system of supervision, i.e., parole, or supervised release, or a hybrid. The legislation would be prospective and retroactive. Finally, the life of the Parole Commission would be extended for twenty years.
To gain congressional support for this legislation we have identified four main selling points that would provide safe harbor for politicians to publicly support the bill. First, "It's about the money!" and to famously paraphrase the obvious, "It's the economy stupid!" FedCURE's draft bill suggests a preamble, right up front, emphasizing that the bill is estimated to save the taxpayer 4 to 7 billion dollars annually and 80 to 140 billion dollars over a twenty year period. Second, it is about restoring the constitutional checks and balances in federal criminal sentencing, which has been one sided post 1987. Third, it's about fixing a broken federal criminal justice system-- letting people out of prison who do not need to be incarcerated. Fourth, it's about everyone keeping their jobs in the executive, judiciary and the legislative branches--the courts continue sentencing, the USSC and the USPC stay in business and the USPO expands.
The magnitude of competing interests in the business of federal criminal justice is awesomely huge and complex. Finding compromise to satisfy these interest is paramount. The release of a "Willie Horton" or a "Terrorist" and the "Lin Bias" factors will always be at issue. Regardless. And there is no way to totally guarantee an erroroneous release, or to fully predict human behavior, albeit, state-of-the-art technology such as GPS monitoring and tracking systems provide for 24x7 supervision of certain offenders and go a log way towards satisfying public safety needs. That said, any scheme to reduce prison sentences other then an all-or-none approach is troubling for a myriad of reasons. And it would be unwise to create more then one class of post incarceration supervision, i.e., parole and supervised release, albeit, personally, we favor a system of supervised release over parole, in as much as a supervised release violation is a contempt of court proceeding, heard by a federal district court judge vs. a parole violation that processes as a revocation hearing by the USPC. We would work towards developing a sort of hybrid system of supervision. The CJTRA dose not mandate that the United States Parole Commission will have to set 200,000 release dates all at once. The Act, as drafted, would require a release date to be established early enough to allow for an appeal. Moreover, the setting of release dates will kick the whole system in gear, including re-entry, to get ready to process releases and supervision. Whatever the initial number of releases, be it 50,000 more or less, the number should by portrayed in the most positive light--as a CURE to an ailing federal criminal justice system.
Coming at this from a purely academic prospective is disastrous. That school of thought is responsible for supporting the enactment of The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 (CCRA), Chapter II, Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA) (sentencing guidelines and no parole), which academia now readily admit, what we all know, is a dismal failure. Still, the academia protest that it can be fixed without returning to a system of parole and a system of second guessing sentence and release between the judiciary and the executive that was abandon almost thirty years ago. This is based on the mistaken belief that it is best that the judicial branch has exclusive release authority over the sentences of criminal defendants. They believe the Congress failed to build a fix into the SRA, to make corrections, if necessary; and that is why we have the sentencing issues we face today, so they want create a "relief valve" by tinkering with the statutes in such a way as to spill forth piece meal sentence reductions. They want to do this prospectively, not retroactively. They are of the mind set that the moment you mention the word "parole", your dead in the water.
As prison populations swell with non violent offenders trapped by minimum mandatory and long non parolabe sentences, including life, we are bemused by all of this thought and by the lack of knowledge of sentencing law. We would point out here that is was a Democratic Congress that enacted Public Law 98-473. Title II, The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 (CCCA), Chapter II, The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. FYI, President Reagan opposed the CCCA and stated that it was a bad bill, but that he had to sign it in order to get continued appropriations for 1985. We would suggest that now is the time for the Democratic Congress to make amends to the people and to the system.
In April 2007 FedCURE met with the point persons for Rep. Danny Davis, in DC, the main sponsor of last year's federal parole bill - H.R. 3072. FedCURE also spent about one half hour with Rep. Davis. We are working on the new parole bill to introduce in the 110th. Davis's people want to take on a different focus then that of which we propose in the CJTRA. The main focus would be on significantly increased good time, which will affect about 70% of all inmates. The other focus will be United States Parole Commission (USPC) review. We do not want to go into details at this time because the bill is still in a state of flux. Davis had planned to be ready for legislative counsel by now and hopes to see introduction before summer recess. However, we suspect that his staff have found the issue much more complex then they had anticipated. There have been a maze of amendments to P.L. 98-473 and other statutory enactments since 1984 that impact sentencing. A mine field to the unlearned. FedCURE's assets cover more then two decades of research, study and experience in this area of law. Having been through the parole process, we know the ins and outs, the pitfalls and what works and what does not. Moreover, what needs to be fixed. FedCURE feels strongly that the CJTRA is the way to go and is strongly urging the Congressman to sponsor the bill and we are floating the proposal to other members of Congress. Any help you can render to get sponsors for the CJTRA would be greatly appreciated.
The Second Chance Act of 2007:
Introduced in the 110th Congress on 20 March 2007 as H.R. 1593. Just a week after the re-introduction of the bill, 28 March 2007, members of the House Judiciary Committee passed H.R. 1593 out of committee. The bill will now be sent to the House floor for consideration, which sponsors say will take place before the summer session ends. During the mark-up of the bill, members voted down several amendments that would have jeopardized the bipartisan support for the bill. Sen. Bidden introduced S. 1060, an identical bill, in the Senate on 29 March 2007. Gene Guerrero, Director of The Open Society Institute/Open Society Policy Center (SOROS) is the lead lobbying effort behind this legislation.
If you would like to support these FedCURE' legislative initiatives, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Mark A. Varca, J.D., CIO,
FedCURE
P.O. Box 15667
Plantation, Florida 33318-5667
USA
Web Site: http://www.FedCURE.org
E-mail: FedCURE@FedCURE.org
E-fax: (408) 549-8935
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You know I think that having your life and reputation ruined for months on end as you face serious jail time on the word of a lying drug addict despite all physical evidence clearing you is more than inconvience.
ReplyDeleteThe Duke players were totally innocent and all physical evidence proved that. African americans should be far more sensitive to how easily people can be railroaded by prosecutors looking for political advantage. If the players hadn't been able to afford good attorneys and if people hadn't been willing to give up their time to expose the prosecutors time they would have gone to jail, as many african american men have no doubt done. Instead of trivialising the abuse they suffered you should be pointing out how typical it is and trying desperately to repair the flawed system that caused it. If you don't the next people to get railroaded for political advantage might not (and probably won't) be rich white men but poor blacks with nobody to back them up.
Michael:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. However, the Duke players were raced white and the prosecutor. African-American are frames for crimes just based on the fact of their skin color.
I believe their should be an alternative for certain crimes beyond prison. If you had read the various post, I think you would have come to that conclusion.
I also support more clinic opening to support indigent clients beyond civil action which would include some criminal offense. I also stated I briefly worked on the Innocence Project in my state.
I will visit your site, it appears that you have some interesting read there.