Cutting Food Benefits for the Formerly Incarcerated?

An amendment to a farm bill, currently debated in the senate, would permanently drop anyone ever convicted of a violent crime from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Colorlines reports:

According to Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. . . 

The amendment would bar from SNAP (food stamps), for life, anyone who was ever convicted of one of a specified list of violent crimes at any time — even if they committed the crime decades ago in their youth and have served their sentence, paid their debt to society, and been a good citizen ever since. In addition, the amendment would mean lower SNAP benefits for their children and other family members.

So, a young man who was convicted of a single crime at age 19 who then reforms and is now elderly, poor, and raising grandchildren would be thrown off SNAP, and his grandchildren’s benefits would be cut. … Democrats accepted it without trying to modify it to address its most ill-considered aspects.

Two-thirds of SNAP recipients are children, elderly or the disabled, and two-fifths of SNAP households live below half the poverty line.

Beyond the obvious implications for the income gap and the disproportionate harmful impact on the African American community, this provokes some thought about the way the financial crisis has yielded a new perception of the offender. Our focus on inmates prior to their crisis had been on their risk level, and the crisis has focused our attention on their cost. This is what has yielded some of the advances in geriatric and medical parole, but it has also led to some bitterness over the "free healthcare" that inmates receive. This seems to be a development of the same ilk. In an era of competition over resources, formerly incarcerated folks are seen as somehow less deserving of help and compassion than others, and thus their benefits, regardless of economic condition, are first to go.

This is why, even though humonetarianism has made some significant dents in the mass incarceration machine, it cannot be relied upon as an exclusive strategy for reform. We've seen enough developments of the tough-'n'-cheap variety to know that savings don't always work in the direction of penal reform. The way to frame the savings argument here would be as a  long-term concern: Poor people with nothing to eat have less opportunities and might therefore resort to crime, and one way to save is to reduce recidivism.

Inmates Review Prisons and Jails on Yelp

I suppose in an age of free information and web democracy this was to be expected:

To me, this is interesting because it is the perfect retort to the increasing perspective of viewing inmates as customers. Jails that expect their "guests" to pay for their lodging, food, and health care, shouldn't be surprised if their "services" get reviewed.

Ban the Box: Screening Job Applicants by Criminal Record

Today's New York Times editorial is devoted to the problem of screening job applicants who have criminal records.

Sixty-five million Americans have criminal records that might cause them to be denied jobs, even for arrests or minor convictions that occurred in the distant past. Last year, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reaffirmed a longstanding ruling that it was illegal to screen out employees unless the offense was directly related to the job.

The problem, however, has become so acute that a growing number of states and municipalities have explicitly prohibited public agencies — and in some cases, private businesses — from asking about an applicant’s criminal history until the applicant reaches the interview stage or receives a conditional job offer. In addition, many jurisdictions now require employers to show that the disqualifying offenses are directly related to the position in question.

The editorial links to this report by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), which lists states and localities that have adopted "ban the box" initiatives, which do not allow employes to inquire about prospective employees' criminal records. Among the localities mentioned in the report are San Francisco, Oakland, East Palo Alto, Carson, Compton, Richmond, Alameda County, and Santa Clara County. As the report explains, many of the "ban the box" initiatives are fairly new (adopted within the last seven years) thanks to the work of prison and reentry activists, and some of them were adopted during the financial crisis and despite job shortages.

As far as statewide policies, a Schwarzenegger gubernatorial executive order from 2010 ordered two questions regarding conviction history removed from the State of California Employment application.  The State Personnel Board has issued a new application, and background checks will not be required for every position. For more information about the successful campaign to bring about Ban the Box in California, read how Legal Services for Prisoners with Children spearheaded the campaign or use the toolkit available on their website.

What about private employers? The California Labor Code, summarized in this report, asking employees to provide information about arrests that did not lead to a conviction is illegal. The statues do not prohibit employers from asking about arrests for which employees are out on bail, but it seems that seeking such information about applicants would be tricky, if not illegal. Asking about criminal convictions is allowed when accompanied by a statement that criminal records do not necessarily disqualify an applicant from consideration, and asking about certain marijuana convictions (more than two years old) and expunged/sealed convictions, as well as misdemeanor convictions for which probation has been completed, is illegal.

The progress made by Ban the Box activists is astounding particularly against the background of job losses in the last few years. It's a display of fairness and equity in a setting that usually does not have much empathy for currently or formerly incarcerated people. Readers - why do you think that is? Is this a rehabilitative animus - that is, people feel more inclined to help folks who have already completed their sentences? Or is there anything else afoot?

Gov. Brown Reveals Plan to Comply with Plata Mandate

A gym at the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy
emptied of triple bunks. Photo credit AP.

Yesterday, Gov. Brown revealed the State's plan to comply with the Supreme Court's mandate in Plata. The Greenwich Time reports:

Options in the state's plan include:

— Granting more early release or "good time" credits to inmates, including second-strike inmates who have serious prior convictions.
— Paroling elderly and medically incapacitated inmates who are deemed unlikely to commit new crimes.
— Expanding the number of inmate firefighters by letting some serious and violent offenders participate.
— Increasing the use of drug treatment centers.
— Paying to house more inmates at county jails with extra space, and possibly at private prisons within California.
— Slowing the return of the 8,400 inmates who are being housed in private prisons in three other states at an annual cost of about $300 million.
— Adding space for 1,700 sick and mentally ill inmates when a new $840 million treatment facility opens in Stockton this summer.
— Freeing a projected 900 inmates because voters in November softened the state's tough three-strikes lifetime sentencing law for career criminals. Proposition 36 changed the law to require that the third strike be a violent or serious felony and lets third-strikers with lesser offenses apply for shorter sentences. The administration rejected a proposal to release about 2,800 eligible inmates without court hearings.

The administration argued against many of the proposals even as it presented the options to the court in a series of legal filings.

There don't seem to be many surprises here; in essence, the plan follows standard paths to decarceration. But it is also important to note that CA intends to slow down the rate at which it will bring back inmates held out of state in private institutions.

The other thing that is not surprising is the state's tendency to speak in two voices at once every time these plans are discussed. The message is: We'll comply, so as not to be held in contempt, but we don't like this one bit, and are concerned about the implications for public safety. By now, Gov. Brown's grumpy rhetoric - there's no crisis, gyms are empty, everything's fine, inmate's lawyers and court-appointed masters are getting rich on taxpayer dollars, etc etc - should be familiar to regular readers. But the contempt threat, rarely made in the context of federal litigation, seems to have upped the ante.

It's also notable that CA intends to expand its fire camp program as a plan for decarceration. Any readers interested in learning more about fire camps, and about the difference in conditions, demeanor, and interpersonal relationships between prisons and fire camps, I highly recommend Philip Goodman's work, such as this terrific article.

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Props to Caitlin Henry for the Greenwich link; I am surprised not to see this covered in CA periodicals.

Devastating Overcrowding at Chowchilla Women's Prison

Litigation about overcrowding has focused on men's institutions. But what about women's prisons? Watch this video for some personal testimonies about heartbreaking tragedies caused by the lack of ability to attend to people medically at Chowchilla Women's Prison.

Effort to Speed Executions Dies in Committee

Image courtesy KALW News.

One of the main features of the Prop 34 campaign was an increase in support for abolition by people who are not necessarily ideologically opposed to the death penalty, but resent the wastefulness of essentially holding people in life imprisonment conditions in a costly and dilapidated facility while allowing them free representation and litigation space. The campaign emphasized that, since resuming the death penalty, only 13 people have been executed in California, while 84 died of natural causes. And several conservative editorials in support of Prop 34 explicitly said that they fully support the death penalty, but not as administered by the state. This trend is pretty pronounced not only in CA policymaking, but also in states that recently abolished the death penalty. The recent issue of the ABA Criminal Justice section journal features an article by yours truly and Ryan Newby in which we analyze the way in which savings have impacted the anti-death-penalty activism realm (I've said similar things here.)

But, Houston, there's a problem. One of the negative consequences of eliminating all activist arguments against punitivism save for the cost argument is that one can conceive of rather horrific criminal justice policies that are also cheap. You don't have to go as far as Texas to see the ill effects of tough-'n'-cheap mentality. If the death penalty is broken, a potential conservative argument goes, just fix it by making sure that these people DO get executed, and save money that way!

Which is why I found Bob Egelko's story on today's Chron fascinating. Apparently, the California District Attorneys Association proposed to amend the death penalty law in CA, proposing SB779, which would shorten death penalty appeals and habeas proceedings and resuscitate the gas chamber as an execution method (in response to the chemical shortage that postponed an execution a while ago.) The proposal died in the Public Safety Committee, 5-2. The Chron reports:

The bill would have limited most condemned prisoners to one round of appeals in the state court system and another in federal court. Other provisions would have eliminated public review of regulations on execution procedures, barred disclosure of the suppliers of drugs used in executions and authorized a new method of gas chamber executions. 

California's last execution by cyanide gas was in 1993. A federal judge ruled a year later that the gas chamber at San Quentin caused excruciating pain and violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. 

Lethal injections at the prison were halted in 2006 when another federal judge ruled that the executions, carried out by poorly trained staff in a dimly lit chamber, posed an undue risk of a prolonged and agonizing death. The court-imposed moratorium is likely to remain in place at least through 2013 as the state tries to validate new regulations and cope with a shortage of execution drugs. 

Under SB779, a gas execution would have been carried out by filling the chamber with a nontoxic gas, such as nitrogen or helium, displacing the oxygen and suffocating the prisoner. The condemned inmate could choose between gas and lethal injection, but the bill specified that the execution would be conducted by gas if injections were not legally available. 

To readers who are death penalty supporters, this is an interesting turn of events. It seems like, even in principle we endorse the death penalty, it is hard to live with the consequences of thinning out due process. There is no way back, folks. The only direction to go is forward, and any fantasy of saving money by hanging people in the town square cannot override the reality of many decades of death penalty litigation. Abolition is the only way to go now.

Thank You for Supporting Homeboy Industries!

I just donated the full amount raised by my marathon swim in Tampa Bay this weekend to Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. Thank you to all those who contributed!

It was an exciting day in Tampa Bay and conditions were fierce! If you'd like more information about how the swim went, read the update on the fundraiser page.