Snyder: A new vision of how criminal JUSTICE might work

 Rachel Louise Snyder writes in The New York Times:

The avenues that lead women to jail tend to differ from those for men. Criminologists have long understood this. What happens with women is often a layering of trauma and abuse. They might have economic instability or mental health challenges that allow them to be exploited by violent partners. They might exchange sex for food or housing, and then get arrested for any number of infractions: prostitution, trespassing, drugs. The criminal-justice researcher Stephanie Kennedy calls these “crimes of survival.”

These avenues have contributed to shocking rates of incarceration for women: Between 1978 and 2015, the number of women in state prisons has grown by 834 percent. The overwhelming majority are primary caregivers. When a woman goes to prison, the downstream effects can be staggering: children might enter foster care, itself often a traumatic system. Aging parents might be put into subpar facilities, or have to find alternative care and housing. All too often, the cost of such upheaval results in a cycle of crime, incarceration, addiction, poverty and broken families.

Courts have long struggled with how to respond. The question is: Can we create a system of justice that looks wholly different from what most of us imagine when it comes to crime and punishment, while still demanding accountability from perpetrators? What if court were a place that afforded someone the opportunity for a complete reset, with entryways to jobs, housing, education? What if instead of punishing people who’ve been broken many times over, we helped to heal them?

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Federal prison reentry programs failing inmates

Three federal prisons in California and others nationwide appear to be falling short in preparing inmates for safe release into society, investigators are warning, reported McClatchy Newspapers.

Most inmates don’t complete the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ formal pre-release program, investigators found. Individual prisons show “widely inconsistent curricula, content and quality” for the programs. Federal agency coordination is said to be poor.

“We found that the program’s overall effectiveness remains largely unknown,” the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General said in a report released Wednesday.

The findings rely in part on investigators’ evaluations of the Release Preparation Program at federal facilities in Victorville, San Pedro and Los Angeles, which are among 10 Federal Bureau of Prisons institutions in California.

The 48-page report also helps illuminate the prospects for nearly 125,000 federal prisoners released over the last three years. These ex-convicts are released directly into communities, home confinement or residential re-entry centers like those managed by a federal field office in Sacramento.

The California re-entry centers, commonly known as halfway houses, include a 27-bed facility in Fresno and a 25-bed facility in Bakersfield, among others.

Underscoring the high stakes for all these institutions, a March study cited in the new report found that 49.3 percent of federal offenders released in 2005 were later arrested for new crimes or violations of parole conditions.

Of the 68,695 federal prisoners released during fiscal year 2013, 16.4 percent had been returned to federal custody by 2015.

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GateHouse: Why give criminals a second chance?

Matthew T. Mangino

GateHouse Media

July 22, 2016

Several years ago when Ohio enacted legislation that provided an opportunity for offenders to wipe clean their record, Governor John Kasich said, “Who here doesn’t need to be redeemed? We are giving people a second chance.”

Why do criminals need a second chance?

When ex-offenders are released from prison their convictions make it extremely difficult to support themselves because of government-imposed barriers to successful reentry. For instance, Ohio has 46 statutes that impose driver license suspensions. Each of those contributes to the difficulty offenders have in finding or keeping a job.

Criminal records are easily available to potential employers, landlords and other members of the community. As a result, ex-offenders are frequently denied access to employment, housing and other community resources.

The stigma of a criminal past is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. An offender is convicted, goes to prison, gets out, can’t find legitimate work or housing, returns to crime, and back to prison. The cycle of recidivism is costly. The financial cost can be quantified. According to the Vera Institute, state prison population has grown 700 percent nationwide since the 1970s. The average cost to house an inmate for a year is $31,286. The human cost — equally enormous — cannot be broken down into tidy facts and figures.

Federal and state statutes prohibit certain types of employment for those convicted of a litany of offenses. Ex-offenders are statutorily prohibited from obtaining licenses for a number of occupations, according to the Urban Institute Reentry Roundtable.

Jobs requiring contact with children, some health care occupations and security firms are out-of-reach of ex-offenders. Many employers are simply reluctant to hire ex-offenders to positions that require handling money, merchandise, or where there is limited ability to monitor employee performance.

There are inherent obstacles for ex-offenders. Nearly 70 percent of all offenders are high school dropouts. In “Every Door Closed: Barriers Facing Parents with Criminal Records,” researchers found that about half of all offenders are “functionally illiterate.” Many offenders had limited, if any, employment history prior to incarceration and an absence of job skills.

However, a Texas study found that parolees who obtain employment spend more time crime-free in the community than unemployed parolees. The study further indicated that crime-free periods are indicative of positive behavioral changes that should be supplemented with clinical interventions to help offenders maintain the initial motivation associated with employment.

There are already some federal prohibitions against job discrimination regarding ex-felons. In the fall of 2009, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that screening out job applicants with a criminal record that would not affect their job performance is illegal because it has the effect of excluding minorities and males — these groups have disproportionately higher conviction rates than the general population.

This past June, the Obama Administration announced a series of education and jobs programs designed to ensure that people who are returning from prison to the community are equipped with the skills and resources necessary to obtain employment and support their families.

The Administration’s efforts include the Second Chance Pell Program. The Department of Education and selected colleges and universities will partner with a number of federal and state correctional institutions to enroll roughly 12,000 incarcerated students in educational and training programs. The Department of Labor will provide $31 million in grants to provide job training and a path to employment after prison.

Policymakers are coming to terms with the human and financial toll of a failed, and in some instances, a non-existent prison reentry system. Positive steps are being taken, but the road is long and the time is short.

— Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010,” was recently released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.

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GateHouse: President Obama takes on criminal justice reform

Matthew T. Mangino

GateHouse Media

April 29, 2016

This week is National Reentry Week. Reentry is a correctional term of art that encompasses the release of prisoners in federal, state and local lock-ups who are making the transition from prison to the community.

President Barack Obama chose this week to unveil a series of federal initiatives designed to model a new framework for prisoner reentry in the United States. The initiatives are being touted as important steps to alleviate the devastating consequences of mass incarceration.

The Obama administration, believes using evidence-based practices can reduce crime by 16 percent and reduce criminal justice spending by a whopping $10 billion.

A new report from the Council of Economic Advisers offers criminal justice reforms that center on the economic gains to be had from reducing the prison population, increasing the number of police on the street, providing for expanded reentry opportunities and investing in cutting-edge policing tactics.

President Obama’s plan has some similarities to Justice Reinvestment Initiatives enacted in 27 states. Justice Reinvestment is a data-driven approach to improve public safety, examine corrections and related criminal justice spending; manage and allocate criminal justice populations in a more cost-effective manner; and reinvest savings in strategies that can hold offenders accountable and decrease crime.

According to the Georgetown Public Policy Review, the reviews are mixed on state Justice Reinvestment. The Policy Review found “significant costs savings have yet to materialize for justice reinvestment programs on the whole. Justice Reinvestment states were slightly less likely to reduce annual costs as compared to non-justice reinvestment states.”

The Policy Review found that from 2006-2013 justice reinvestment states were only .125 times more likely to reduce prison expenditures than increase expenditures while non-justice reinvestment states were .136 times as likely to reduce expenditures.

“The (Obama) Administration is committed to a holistic approach to criminal justice reform that creates a fairer and smarter system in the community, the cell block and the courtroom,” the report suggested.

America incarcerates more people for longer periods of time than any other country in the world and though incarceration played a role in reducing violent crime to near record lows, it has cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

According to the report, “A large body of economic research shows that incarceration has only a small impact on crime reduction, and that this impact diminishes as the incarcerated population grows. Instead, the surge in incarceration has been driven by changes in criminal justice policies.”

Beginning in the 1960s crime became a political prop. As the Republican Party effectively used crime to elect local, state and national candidates, politicians of all persuasions wanted the label “tough on crime.” Even Senator Bernie Sanders, a so called Democratic-Socialist running a competitive campaign for president, voted for President Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill that has been blamed, in part, for soaring prison populations.

Politicians ignored the effects of their proposed policies in the 1980s and 1990s. Today the result of those policies is the enormous personal and financial cost of mass incarceration.

The report suggests some innovative ways of reducing crime. The authors forecast that hiking the federal minimum hourly wage from $7.25 to $12 would reduce crime by 3 percent to 5 percent, as fewer people would be forced to turn to illegal activity to make ends meet. By contrast, according to the Washington Post, spending an additional $10 billion on incarceration would reduce crime by only 1 percent to 4 percent.

The incarceration trends of the last decade cannot be sustained. If President Obama’s legacy is to include some success in dealing with an overcrowded and racially disproportionate correction system he and his advisers need to work fast.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010,” was recently released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.

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GateHouse: Feds prepare for mass release of prisoners

Matthew T. Mangino
GateHouse Media
October 16, 2015

During Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said, “We have got to stop imprisoning people who use marijuana.” Carly Fiorina said during a recent Republican debate, “Two-thirds of the people in our prisons are there for nonviolent offenses, mostly drug-related.”

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is slated to release 6,000 prisoners as a result of modest changes to federal sentencing guidelines. Why the need to overhaul the federal system? Since 1980, federal prison population has increased by 800 percent, and prisons are nearly 40 percent over capacity. Federal prisons consume a third of the Justice Department’s $27 billion budget.

The rhetoric, as perpetuated by Clinton and Fiorina, is that the release of these 6,000 inmates would focus primarily on “nonviolent drug offenders.”

The reality is — according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission — of 21,907 drug offenders sentenced under federal sentencing guidelines in 2014, only .3 percent were for marijuana possession. Roughly 18 percent of those drug sentences were for trafficking marijuana.

So who are these 6,000 inmates set for release? According to The Marshall Project, they are mostly black and Hispanic men. The average age is mid-30s. Their drug of choice was cocaine, including crack, followed by methamphetamine.

State and federal prisons release about 13,000 inmates every week as they complete their sentences, but 6,000 at once is different — “the largest one-time federal release,” according to The Washington Post.

An Associated Press analysis of about 100 of those inmates slated for release found that they are not as “nonviolent” as has been suggested. Some of those being released have histories that include carrying semi-automatic weapons, past convictions for robbery and other crimes, some moved cocaine shipments across states lines, while others participated in international heroin smuggling.

Twenty years ago, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that trafficking in illicit drugs tended to be associated with the commission of violent crimes. That has not changed. Some of the reasons for the relationship between drug trafficking and violence include competition; ripoffs among traffickers; dealers are prone to violence and drug markets proliferate in violent neighborhoods.

A greater concern is that any effort to get back to historic levels of incarceration would require prison population to be reduced substantially, that cannot be achieved by releasing only “nonviolent drug offenders.”

More than half of today’s state inmates are in prison for violent crimes, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics. There is no reason to believe that those numbers are not also representative of the federal prison system. Solving mass incarceration requires releasing some violent and dangerous people. The problem is how to do that without compromising public safety.

Mark A.R. Kleiman, Angela Hawken, and Ross Halperin wrote last spring for Vox Media, “For the transition from prison to life outside to be successful, it needs to be gradual. If someone needed to be locked up yesterday, he shouldn’t be completely at liberty today. And he shouldn’t be asked to go from utter dependency to total self-sufficiency in one flying leap. He needs both more control and more support. Neither alone is likely to do the job.”

Presidential hopefuls and policy-makers continue to suggest that prisons are flooded with “nonviolent drug offenders.” That argument is specious. The focus should not be on how many inmates can be released wholesale, but rather where the resources are going to come from to help those released succeed in society as law abiding, tax paying, productive citizens.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.

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The Cautionary Instruction:'Ban the Box' a second chance for ex-offenders

Matthew T. Mangino
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Ipso Facto
September 26, 2014

Former offenders are saddled for life with criminal records that make employment, education and public benefits difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. A prison term should not mean a lifetime of misfortune for a former offender. Yet, that is what the criminal justice system produces every day.
Job seekers with criminal records have always struggled to find work. It is not just violent offenders and felons who are rejected by employers. A misdemeanor or an old conviction can be enough to cost a person a chance at a job. About 70 million people in the U.S. have been convicted of a crime.
A conviction has real and lasting consequences. Forbes Magazine reported that a survey by the Society for Human Resources Management, found that 96 percent of human resource professionals say their companies perform criminal background checks on applicants.
Many criminal justice practitioners point to the lack of employment opportunities for returning prisoners as the most important obstacle to a successful reentry. A failed reentry means a return to prison; soaring taxpayer funded corrections costs; and increased victimization.
Some states, and cities, are trying to do something to eliminate barriers for former offenders seeking employment.
There is a growing movement called Ban the Box, a reference to the check box on a job application that asks, "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" Having the check box may prevent many ex-offenders from getting a fair shot at a job.
Some employers immediately set aside an applicant who checks the box. This prevents perspective employees from having an opportunity to sell themselves in an interview and it prevents perspective employers from evaluating an applicant on the merits.
Ban the Box will not prevent employers from checking an applicant's criminal record. The measure merely postpones the review to later in the assessment process to give former offenders a chance at getting a job.
Four states -- Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Rhode Island -- have passed laws that force private employers to remove the question regarding conviction history from job applications, according to National Employment Law Project (NELP).
Eight more states -- California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico -- have removed the question from applications for public or state jobs.
In addition, more than 60 cities have banned the box, including Baltimore, Louisville and Indianapolis. According NELP, New York City is considering its own version, called the NYC Fair Chance Act.
Is America a country where people get second chances or a country where a single mistake follows a person for life?
There is a lot of work to be done to provide former offenders with a meaningful opportunity to earning a living wage. Progress is being made. This week, Washington D.C. banned the box, Illinois’ governor signed a similar law and, according to National Public Radio, Wal-Mart and Target have eliminated the criminal history question from their employment applications.

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Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George, P.C. He is the former district attorney of Lawrence County and just completed a six year term on the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole. His weekly column on crime and punishment is syndicated by GateHouse New Service. You can read his musings on the criminal justice system at www.mattmangino.com and follow Matt on Twitter @MatthewTMangino. His new book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010: The Crimes, Arrests, Trials, Appeals, Last Meals, Final Words and Executions of 46 Persons in the United States is now available from McFarland & Company publishers.
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Cities Rethink Housing Ban for Former Offenders

Many cities are reevaluating the ban on public housing for former inmates, says the Wall Street Journal. As crime rates have declined and many of the most notorious housing projects were torn down, there's an increased focus on the buildup of prison populations and how the barriers ex-offenders face on release may feed high rates of unemployment, homelessness and recidivism.
Housing advocates increasingly are looking at the connections between homelessness and incarceration. New York corrections data show 22 percent of inmates from New York City paroled last year from state prison listed a homeless shelter as their address.
Encouraged by federal housing officials, cities are starting to rethink the restrictions. The New York City and Los Angeles housing authorities are testing programs to allow certain inmates to move in with family in public housing upon release, while Chicago is planning a similar trial. The New Orleans Housing Authority is going further, with a policy that states a criminal background won't automatically result in rejection.
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Dealing With the Problem of Parental Incarceration

Matthew T. Mangino
The Pennsylvania Law Weekly
November 12, 2013

Children with incarcerated parents are a growing problem in Pennsylvania and across the country.

The number of inmates who are parents has increased by 79 percent since 1991. The population of parents is following a trend similar to that of all incarcerated individuals. There are about 2.3 million people in jail or prison in this country. In 1980 there were about 502,000.

According to sociologist Bruce Western, it is estimated that about 2.7 million children across the country share the anxiety and uneasiness of having a parent locked up. Western estimates that one of every 28 American children—3.6 percent—has an incarcerated parent. Just 25 years ago, the number was one of every 125.

Black and Hispanic children are more likely than white children to have a parent in prison. In the United States, 6.7 percent of black children, 2.4 percent of Hispanic children and 0.9 percent of white children have a parent in prison, reported the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The percentage of women in prison is still significantly lower than men; however, the rate of growth of female inmates is much higher than men. Many of these women are mothers and had been their children's primary caregiver prior to being incarcerated.

In "The Adoptions and Safe Families Act: Barrier to Reunification Between Children and Incarcerated Mothers," Kristen S. Wallace made some startling findings when it came to incarcerated mothers. Seventy-seven percent of incarcerated mothers in state prison lived with their children prior to incarceration and 52 percent of them were single mothers.

Although child service agencies will say that reunification is the goal for the child and incarcerated parent, 62 percent of parents in state prisons and 84 percent of parents in federal prisons are imprisoned at least 100 miles away from their homes. The average sentence of an incarcerated parent is 80 to 100 months. Wallace's findings demonstrate the sad and likely failure of reunification plans.

The problem is so pervasive that a cultural icon has taken on the issue as a significant social problem facing America's youth. This summer, "Sesame Street" added a new character to its lineup. The show introduced Alex, a child whose father is in prison. "Sesame Street" has taken on the issue of children of incarcerated parents as part of the online "Little Children, Big Challenges" series.

The pain portrayed by Alex is palpable. Millions of kids like Alex are hurt by the absence of a parent. Those same children are horrified by the prospect that their relationship with their incarcerated parent can be terminated legally and unequivocally.

In Pennsylvania, the state House of Representatives passed a resolution in 2009 that required the Joint State Government Commission to complete a study on the effects of parental incarceration on children. The final report was issued in December 2011.

Parental incarceration can create a wide range of problems for children. Those problems include economic distress, anger, depression, shame and guilt. Not surprisingly, children of incarcerated parents often suffer in the classroom as well.

The most profound effect, according to the report, may be the loss of a child's sense of stability and safety. "The parent is usually a staple of those for the child, so when that pillar of stability is removed, the child may feel his or her whole world has fallen apart; the trauma of abandonment and insecurity may last for a very long time."

One area the commission focused on was the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act. The seemingly well-intended ASFA provides specific, and very rigid, guidelines to reduce the number of children in foster care and increase the number of children placed in permanent homes. The federal law, enacted in 1997, provides that courts are required to terminate parental rights after a child has been in foster care for 15 of the previous 22 months. This provision can have a devastating impact on children of incarcerated parents.

The commission recommended that Pennsylvania adopt legislation to ease the burden of the 15-month timeline in cases when it is in the best interest of the child, and also to emphasize that incarceration alone is not a basis to terminate parental rights.

As a result, state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf introduced Senate Bill 112. The bill seeks to incorporate the findings of the commission into existing law or new legislative provisions.

For instance, according to Greenleaf's legislative memorandum, the Domestic Relations Code, Section 23 Pa.C.S. §2511, lists the grounds for involuntary termination of parental rights. The advisory committee recommended, and SB 112 includes, a sentence that provides, "The rights of a parent shall not be terminated solely on the basis of parental incarceration."

The Judicial Code, Section 42 Pa.C.S. §6351, provides what a judge must determine at a permanency hearing. SB 112 includes language giving the court the authority, when determining whether the rights of an incarcerated parent should be terminated, to consider if the parent is making an effort to comply with the family service plan requirements and otherwise maintain a meaningful role in the child's life during the time of incarceration.

The legislation was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 9 with no further action.
SB 112 is a departure from the current case law in Pennsylvania. Under existing Pennsylvania law, incarceration has never been accepted as the sole basis to terminate parental rights. However, in In re Adoption of S.P., 476 WAL 2011, a termination was affirmed in spite of the father's wishes to maintain a relationship with the child and his pending parole.

Some states have taken it a step further. In 2010, New York passed the ASFA Expanded Discretion Bill. The new law provides discretion to child service agencies to delay termination proceedings if parental incarceration is a factor. This spring, Washington state passed a similar law providing the courts with discretion if a child's continued stay in foster care is a result of a parent's incarceration.

Pennsylvania and other states across the country need to take action. The consequences of even a relatively short sentence should not lead to the permanent severance of family bonds. According to the Children of Incarcerated Parents Bill of Rights, "When this happens, children are forced to forfeit the most fundamental right of all—the right to remain part of their families."

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George. He is a former district attorney for Lawrence County and a former member of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole. Contact him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

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PA DAs Assoc. Celebrates 100th Anniversary

Duquesne Law School Symposium Marks Occasion

On Monday afternoon, Duquesne University Law School hosted Prosecution and Public Policy in the 21^st Century, a symposium marking the 100^th anniversary of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association.

The symposium was moderated by Supreme Court Justice, and former district attorney, J. Michael Eakin.  The panel consisted of seven prosecutors from across the commonwealth.

The most compelling aspect of the symposium was the tone of the event.  I commented to one of my former colleagues that it was the “softer side” of the district attorneys association.  The panel was asked to look into the future for prosecutors in Pennsylvania and across the county. 

The answers were much different than they might have been even 20 years ago during the “get tough” movement in the criminal justice system.  Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman spoke of using best practices across the board.  With a reduction in resources DAs have to get it right.

Ferman spoke of initiatives in her county like videotaping homicide interrogations and changes in procuring eyewitness identification.

Butler County District Attorney Richard A. Goldinger said at first he had a problem with “helping people that I think are bad people.” But, now he has warmed, in difficult economic times, to reentry services for offenders leaving jail or prison, specialty courts and diversionary sentences.

A question from the audience further probed specialty courts, “Why doesn’t everyone have them?”  Crawford County District Attorney Francis J. Schultz got a laugh when he said, tongue-in-cheek, “We have go to jail court.”  Schultz pointed out that specialty courts are not for every county.  The cost, the work load of small judiciaries makes it very difficult.

The panel stayed clear of controversy, but Dauphin County District Attorney Edward M. Marsico, Jr made an interesting suggestion when asked about limited criminal justice resources.  Marsico suggested that countywide police forces, as opposed to the hundreds of municipal departments, may be an efficient and cost effective approach to policing.

The faculty and staff of Duquesne honored Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala, Jr for his continued support of internships and employment opportunities for law school students and graduates.

The panel also consisted of Washington County’s Eugene A. Vittone and Adams County’s Shawn C. Wagner.

Barriers to Employment Thwart Re-entry

The Pennsylvania Law Weekly
January 15, 2013

Pennsylvania, like many states across the country, is looking to ease persistent budget woes by reducing the state prison population.

The Justice Reinvestment Initiative is one example of Pennsylvania's efforts. The Department of Corrections looks to save money by improving on institutional inefficiencies and creating incentives for local counties to find alternatives to state incarceration. In turn, some of the savings would be distributed to state parole, county probation and local police to improve services — a laudable goal.

There is another way to lower prison costs, reduce victimization and generate tax revenue: remove barriers to employment for previously incarcerated offenders.

An offender facing reintegration into the community must deal with many obstacles. Finding employment may be the most difficult obstacle and yet may be the most important component of success. Offenders returning home from prison often identify employment as the most important factor that helped them stay crime-free, according to the National Re-entry Resource Center.

The unemployment rate of formerly incarcerated offenders one year after release may be as high as 60 percent, according to Joan Petersilia in When Prisoners Come Home, and there is an increasing reluctance among employers to hire people with criminal histories.

Further, studies show that inmates re-entering communities are most vulnerable to failure in the early stages after release from jail or prison. Offenders who do not reintegrate successfully into society often do it early; within three years of release, four out of 10 prisoners will have committed new crimes or violated the terms of their release and will be reincarcerated, according to the Pew Center on the States.

Formerly incarcerated men earn approximately 40 percent less per year than those who have never been incarcerated. Unfortunately, many offenders are ill-equipped to break the cycle of reincarceration. They lack the education and workforce skills needed to succeed in the labor market and the problem-solving skills needed to address the challenges of re-entry, according to Doris Layton MacKenzie in What Works in Corrections.

MacKenzie recently wrote that a growing body of evidence shows that providing offenders with education and training increases their employment opportunities, addresses their cognitive deficits and helps reduce their likelihood of recidivating.

There are certainly relevant concerns for employers that are seeking to fill ?vacancies in their workforces.

How does an employer know when it's alright to disregard a criminal record? Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are looking for the answer. Professors Alfred Blumstein and Kiminori Nakamura believe their research provides criminal justice practitioners with a scientific method for estimating how long is long enough for someone with a prior record to remain arrest-free before being considered "redeemed" by a prospective employer.

Their research found, in part, that an 18-year-old convicted of robbery is no more likely to commit another crime than the rest of the population once 7.7 years have passed crime-free since the offense.

The research is promising for former offenders who have remained crime-free, but it takes legislative action to remove the barriers to employment. Those most burdened by criminal records are those with felony convictions. Lawmakers in Pennsylvania have been reluctant to deal with even minor criminal convictions other than summary offenses.

For years, Pennsylvania has prohibited private employers from considering conviction records that "do not relate to the applicant's suitability for employment," per 18 Pa.C.S. §9125. Employers must provide written notification if denial was based on the applicant's criminal history.

Pennsylvania's neighbor to the east, New Jersey, allows certain nonviolent felony convictions to be expunged 10 years after release from confinement. For misdemeanors, the waiting period is five years.

Pennsylvania's neighbor to the west, Ohio, has a new law seeking to make the employment process easier for nonviolent offenders released from prison. The legislation breaks down employment barriers that commonly get in the way of ex-offenders trying to adjust to life on the street.

Even some traditional "law and order" states like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina recognized that old, minor offenses can plague job-seekers for years and took positive steps to allow the expungement of a number of low-level offenses.

In 2008, Pennsylvania extended its expungement law to allow those convicted of summary offenses to petition the courts to have their records cleared after five years without an arrest.

According to The Allentown Morning Call, nationwide, 37 states and the District of Columbia allow expungements for at least some misdemeanor offenses. Twenty-six states allow some felonies to be expunged.

In Pennsylvania, expanding expungement beyond summary offenses has failed during the last two legislative sessions. Two sessions ago, legislation to expunge misdemeanors passed the House of Representatives. The Senate Judiciary Committee reported the bill out from committee but the bill sat without a vote for the remainder of the session.

During the last legislative session, Senator Tim Solobay, D-Canonsburg, introduced SB 1220. The proposed legislation provided that an offender may seek to remove a conviction if it was a misdemeanor of the third degree and the offender has been free of arrest for seven years or a misdemeanor of the second degree if the offender has been free of arrest for 10 years following release from confinement or community supervision.

The bill had bipartisan support. According to The Morning Call, Solobay believes the legislation stalled because of opposition from Governor Tom Corbett.

Pennsylvania needs to pursue meaningful reform that lifts employment barriers for former offenders. Such an effort will lower prison costs — fewer offenders will be returned to prison; prevent additional victimization — offenders gainfully employed are less likely to reoffend; and generate tax revenue — employed former offenders pay taxes. That is a smart approach to lowering prison costs.

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Pennsylvania: Prison reform and justice reinvestment

Prison reform is coming to Pennsylvania in the form of Senate Bill 100, now Act 122 of 2012.  The new law aims to reduce both crime and imprisonment rates in Pennsylvania, while providing upwards of $300 million in savings over the next five years.

Pending in the General Assembly is House Bill 135—currently stuck in the Senate—which would reinvest a portion of the savings in programs that create a more cost effective and smarter correctional system.

"This has been a long process, but we have achieved great support for these reforms from both the public and state leaders," said Senator Stewart Greenleaf. "The passage of SB 100 marks one of the most important successes thus far in Pennsylvania's prison reform movement. Today, I think we all realize that punishment without rehabilitation is a failed policy, and we are making the final steps to slow recidivism and give former offenders a chance for a crime-free life."

According to the Commonwealth Foundation the changes look like this:

Sentencing

•Risk Assessments Guidelines. Establishes up-front risk assessments in state sentencing.

     ◦This will identify high-risk cases that require state prison and lower-risk cases that may be better   managed in less expensive alternative programs before judges and district attorneys determine an individual's sentence.

•Keep Low-Risk Cases Out of Prison. Prevents low-level misdemeanors from being sentenced to state prison.

     ◦Research demonstrates that imprisonment in state prisons does not make offenders less likely to commit crimes after release, and may make them more likely to do so.

     ◦Those who commit low-level misdemeanors will remain in local jails, keeping their support systems such as families, close by.

•Alternative Program Eligibility. As an alternative to traditional prison, offenders may be sentenced to one of the state's alternative sentencing programs, designed for nonviolent criminals, often dealing with substance abuse. SB 100 makes the following changes:

     ◦Eligible offenders could be sentenced to a state-level alternative program even if certain mandatory minimum sentences apply. Currently, minimum sentences disqualify many otherwise eligible offenders.

     ◦The maximum age for an inmate sentenced to Quehanna Motivational Boot Camp would be raised from 35 to 40.

     ◦Makes additional offenders ineligible for alternative sentencing programs. Those that would no longer be eligible include offenders registered under Megan's Law.

•County "HOPE" Courts. Allows counties to establish an innovative probation program that provides swift, predictable sanctions on probation violators.

      ◦Modeled after Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) program, this program incentivizes probationers to stay drug and alcohol free.

      ◦Thanks to HOPE, positive drug tests in Hawaii have dropped more than 70 percent and new arrests cut in half, saving an estimated $4,000 to $8,000 per offender.

•Deportation of nonviolent immigrants in state prisons. Allows nonviolent illegal immigrants be deported before serving their minimum sentence.

Parole Changes

•Redirecting Technical Parole Violators. Sends technical parole violators to community corrections center, a transition between prison and returning to the community, instead of expensive prisons.

     ◦Technical violations include failing a drug test or missing an appointment with a parole officer, not violent acts or new crimes.

     ◦Parole violators would remain nearer to their families, work and community, making for easier transition into life outside the corrections system.

•Parole Time Credits. Allows the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole to grant convicted parole violators a credit for previous time spent on parole before reinstitution.

•Improve Parole Hearings. Utilizes more efficient communication technology to increase parole hearing capacity.

     ◦System inefficiencies and lack of capacity for parole hearings have resulted in 1,900 inmates locked up in prison when they would otherwise qualify for parole.

Programmatic changes

•Eliminate Pre-Release. Repeals the pre-release program in its entirety. Currently, the prerelease program allows eligible low-risk offenders to transition from prison to the community corrections system before they serve their minimum sentence.

•Safe Community Reentry Program. Creates the Safe Community Reentry Program to bolster the corrections systems through partnerships with non-profit or for-profit entities that can aid an offender's successful reentry back into communities.

To read more:  http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog/id.5702,css.print/blog_detail.asp

Non-violent offenders get a second chance in Ohio

The Youngstown Vindicator
July 8, 2012

Some formerly incarcerated offenders in Ohio have had a difficult, if not impossible, time finding a job. Felonies, and even some misdemeanors, eliminate offenders from consideration for various types of employment.

A new law in Ohio is seeking to make the employment process easier for non-violent offenders released from prison. The intent of the legislation is to break down employment barriers that commonly get in the way of ex-offenders trying to adjust to life on the street. Overcoming job-related obstacles, commonly referred to as collateral sanctions, is a key to successful reintegration.

The legislation was signed into law last week. “Who here doesn’t need to be redeemed? We are giving people a second chance,” Gov. John Kasich told the Legislature during a recent address.

Barriers to re-entry

When ex-offenders are released from prison their convictions make it extremely difficult to support themselves because of government-imposed barriers to successful re-entry. Ohio has 46 statutes that impose driver license suspensions. Each of those can contribute to the difficulty offenders have in finding or keeping a job. Criminal records are easily available to potential employers, landlords and other members of the community. As a result, ex-offenders are frequently denied access to employment, housing and other community resources.

Federal and state statutes prohibit certain types of employment for those convicted of a litany of offenses. Ex-offenders are statutorily prohibited from obtaining licenses for a number of occupations, according to the Urban Institute Reentry Roundtable.

Jobs requiring contact with children, some health care occupations and security firms are out-of-reach of ex-offenders. Many employers are simply reluctant to hire ex-offenders to positions that require handling money, merchandise, or where there is limited ability to monitor employee performance.

There are inherent obstacles for ex-offenders. Nearly 70 percent of all offenders are high school dropouts. In Every Door Closed: Barriers Facing Parents with Criminal Records, researchers found that about half of all offenders are “functionally illiterate.” Many offenders had limited, if any, employment history prior to incarceration and an absence of job skills.

A Texas study found that parolees who obtain employment spend more time crime-free in the community than unemployed parolees. The study further indicated that crime-free periods are indicative of positive behavioral changes that should be supplemented with clinical interventions to help offenders maintain the initial motivation associated with employment.

The new law addresses many of the collateral sanctions that have dogged former inmates for years. However, the law does not address how Ohio will prepare newly released inmates for employment opportunities not previously available to them, or provide much needed interventions to assist with job retention. Having the ability to obtain an occupational license does not mean a former inmate has the training or skills to get one.

The law also addresses the ways and reasons for which a driver can lose and then regain driving privileges. The state had more than 2.6 million suspensions among 7.3 million licensed drivers, according to the Dayton Daily News.

Job discrimination

There are already some federal prohibitions against job discrimination regarding ex-felons. In the fall of 2009, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that screening out job applicants with a criminal record that would not affect their job performance is illegal because it has the effect of excluding minorities and males. Those groups have disproportionately higher conviction rates than the general population.

Ohio’s efforts to reduce obstacles that impede successful prisoner reentry are admirable. However, eliminating some collateral sanctions is only one component of a successful reentry program.

Investing in the Department Rehabilitations and Corrections’ — and community corrections’ — efforts at education, vocational training and life skills are essential to success. Lifting barriers to employment will not magically make unskilled, uneducated ex-offenders employable.

NC seeks to expand availability of criminal expungement

North Carolina felons would get a fresh start under a bill recently passed by a Senate panel.  The bill allows judges to erase some nonviolent convictions if the offender meets a series of requirements, according to The Associated Press.

The bill would affect current and future felons and has been in the making for a decade. The Senate Rules Committee approval moved it to the full Senate for debate but it adjourned for the night without taking up the bill.

To get the crimes expunged, 15 years must have passed since the conviction and "good moral character" must be established and vouched for. It also permits probation officers to conduct a background check, district attorneys to contact victims and judges to throw out requests they feel don't have merit.

Ohio recently enacted a collateral sanction bill.  The new law will permit former offenders to get employment and other relief from other sanctions imposed as the result of a conviction.  In North Carolina opponents worry the measure is soft on crime and harms business owners. The bill received some pushback in the House last week when it passed 76-39.

To read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NC_XGR_EXPUNGING_CONVICTIONS_NCOL-?SITE=NCWIN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Michigan Closes Prisons and Reduces Crime

Michigan has released more inmates and reduced crime. Sounds like an ideal situation in these difficult economic times. The Washington Monthly recently wrote a piece detailing the how Governor Jennifer Granholm pulled off this rather enviable feat. Below are some excerpts from the full Washington Monthly article.

According to the Washington Monthly, when parolees are less likely to reoffend, more prisoners can be let go without jeopardizing public safety. Going hand in hand with Michigan’s improved recidivism rates, therefore, has been a correspondent increase in parole approvals. Over 3,000 more prisoners were paroled in 2009 than were paroled in 2006; approvals for violent offenders have gone up by more than half (from 35 to 55 percent), while approvals for sex offenders have more than quadrupled (from 10 to 50 percent).

As a result, during the past three years, the number of state inmates in Michigan has shrunk by 12 percent, reversing a sixteen-year trend of steady prison population growth. The turnaround enabled Governor Granholm to shut down ten prisons last year, and an additional eight are slated to be closed by the end of 2010, reported the Washington Monthly.

Between 1970 and 2005 the number of incarcerated Americans grew by 700 percent, accounting for one-fourth of the world’s prisoners. A 2008 study by the Pew Center on the States found that more than 1 in 100 adults were behind bars. This isn’t just grim in humanitarian terms; it’s also extremely expensive, costing over $60 billion a year. If states are to cut back on the vast sums spent on prisons, they will need to focus on keeping parolees from reoffending. No state has taken the lead on this more than Michigan, reports the Washington Monthly.

In 1973, Michigan had a prison population of 7,874 inmates, and $38 million, less than 2 percent of the state’s general fund, went to corrections, according to the Washington Monthly. Crime was rising, however, and prison capacity was insufficient. Like many other state legislatures across the country, Michigan lawmakers attributed their worsening crime rates to what they viewed as overly lenient sentencing guidelines, so they enacted tougher policies and built more prisons. By the end of 1984, Michigan’s inmate population had nearly doubled, reaching 14,658. Five years later, it had more than doubled again, to 31,834.

By 2003, when Granholm became governor, Michigan’s prison population had increased to 50,591, and corrections expenditures had reached $1.6 billion, almost a fifth of the state’s general fund. It was becoming unsustainable. “If something wasn’t done, we’d be building more prisons, and that simply was not in the cards,” Beth Arnovits, executive director of the Michigan Council on Crime and Delinquency told the Washington Monthly.

Like thirty-three other states, Michigan uses a form of indeterminate sentencing in which each inmate gets a minimum (determined by a judge) and a maximum (established by the legislature). Often, the gap between the two can be vast—a sentence of three to twenty years, for instance. After serving his minimum, the inmate becomes eligible for parole; if he is never granted parole he eventually “maxes out” and goes free. Pennsylvania uses indeterminate sentencing. Pennsylvania current prison population is greater than 50,000 for the first time in history.

Holder: Prisons Do Little to Prepare Inmates for the Streets

This week U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder addressed a Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN) conference in New Orleans. He focused his attention on two issues--reentry and evidence based practices. Here are some excerpts from Attorney General Holder's speech:

Although PSN has helped to secure many important convictions, it’s also shown that we can’t simply arrest our way out of the problem of violent crime. Of course, incarceration is necessary for public safety. But it’s only partially responsible for the declining crime rates we’ve seen. It’s not a sole, economically sustainable, solution.

Over the last few decades, state spending on corrections has risen faster than nearly any other budget item. Yet, at a cost of $60 billion a year, our prisons and jails do little to prepare prisoners to get jobs and “go straight” after they’re released. People who have been incarcerated are often barred from housing, shunned by potential employers and surrounded by others in similar circumstances. This is a recipe for high recidivism. And it’s the reason that two-thirds of those released are rearrested within three years. It’s time for a new approach.
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Effective reentry programs provide our best chance for safeguarding our neighborhoods and supporting people who have served their time and are also resolved to improve their lives.

I’m proud that, last year, the Justice Department distributed $28 million in reentry awards under the Second Chance Act. And I’m pleased that we have another $100 million available for reentry programs this year.
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Finally, we must meet this problem with all the resources that sound science can bring to bear. Restoring scientific decision-making at the Justice Department is one of my highest priorities. And while research has told us much about the incidence and impact of violence, it hasn’t yet told us everything. We need more information about what works – and what doesn’t – so that we can make informed funding decisions and identify community-specific strategies.

For entire speech: http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2010/ag-speech-100713.html