Category: Criminal justice reform

Why are Newt and Grover jumping on the prison reform bandwagon?

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By Alan Bean

Sure, we can save a pile of money by cutting back on the size of our military and our prison system; but if we don’t reinvest that money in the lives of our most desperate citizens we are only sewing the wind.

Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan have published a surprising op-ed in the Washington Post asserting that our criminal justice system is broken and needs to be fixed. 

Here’s the heart of their argument:

The Right on Crime Campaign represents a seismic shift in the legislative landscape. And it opens the way for a common-sense left-right agreement on an issue that has kept the parties apart for decades.

There is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential. We spent $68 billion in 2010 on corrections – 300 percent more than 25 years ago. The prison population is growing 13 times faster than the general population. These facts should trouble every American.

Our prisons might be worth the current cost if the recidivism rate were not so high, but, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, half of the prisoners released this year are expected to be back in prison within three years. If our prison policies are failing half of the time, and we know that there are more humane, effective alternatives, it is time to fundamentally rethink how we treat and rehabilitate our prisoners.

We can no longer afford business as usual with prisons. The criminal justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it. (more…)

Faith and Mass Incarceration

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By Dr. Charles Kiker

Faith played a major role in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s, and the concomitant dismantling of the old Jim Crow. To be sure, not all people of faith, maybe not even a majority and certainly not a majority in the South, held the Civil Rights movement in high regard. I remember hearing one active Baptist layman say shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King, “He was a dadblamed communist, and somebody should have killed him a long time ago.”

But the faith and the liberation songs inspired by the Exodus from Egypt helped to sustain the civil rights movement through fire hoses, police dogs, beatings, and murders. And the civil rights movement insured the demise of Jim Crow I. The progress of the mid-twentieth century civil rights movement created an officially color blind society. (more…)

Cornelius Dupree, Jr. gets his life back

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Cornelius Dupree and his wife, Selma Perkins Dupree

By Alan Bean

Exoneration stories out of Dallas County are almost becoming routine, but this one is particularly gratifying. 

And maddening.

Cornelius Dupree Jr. spent three decades in prison because the Dallas Police Department thought he and his buddy, Anthony Massingill, looked like rapists.  They placed both men in a lineup.  An eye witness also thought the two men looked like rapists.

Cornelius was 21 at the time, Anthony was 19.

The media likes DNA exoneration stories.  Who doesn’t.  Because guilt has been scientifically ruled out, we know who the good guys and bad guys are.  Even the prosecutor is forced to admit that he messed up.  (more…)

A progressive icon hears from his critics

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Craig Watkins has been an inspiration to criminal justice reformers since he became Dallas County District Attorney in 2006.  There aren’t many black prosecutors in Texas so Watkins’ narrow election victory provided some much-needed balance.  But it went deeper than that.  Watkins had the backing of South Dallas ministers, people who have felt the impact of mass incarceration in their congregations.

“We’re going to reduce this crime rate,” Watkins promised in his 2006 acceptance speech. “We’re going to address the underlying reasons why people are committing crime.”

After generations of convict-at-any-cost prosecution, prevention and redemption were to be the new watchwords.

For the most part, Mr. Watkins has delivered.  He has cooperated with innocence programs and has created his own integrity unit to cull through old convictions for signs of wrongful conviction.  The Dallas County DA isn’t solely responsible for the dramatic stream of DNA exonerations flowing from Dallas County, but he has certainly facilitated the process.

No one was surprised when Watkins cleaned house shortly after his election by firing several of the prosecutors he inherited from the Bill Hill administration.  The new man was working with a new vision and needed assistant DAs who were willing to get with the program. 

But it wasn’t long before Watkins’ admirers were lamenting his thin skin.  A prolonged struggle with the County Commissioners punctuated by angry rants from the DA did little to enhance his stature as a statesman.  (more…)

Pardons in a punitive age

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By Alan Bean

‘Tis the season for executive pardons–or at least it used to be. 

The editorial board of the Washington Post is criticizing President Obama for making nine trifling pardons, most of which involve small crimes that date back decades. 

In a slashing opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News, Scott Henson of Grits for Breakfast questions the prevailing practice of handing out a few scattered pardons like Christmas presents while ignoring entire categories of people who have fallen victim to ill-considered policies like putting non-violent citizens  in prison for simple pot possession.

Meanwhile, NYT columnist Bob Herbert takes a stripe out of Mississippi Governor Hailey Barbour and the political establishment of Mississippi for their shabby treatment of the Scott sisters. (more…)

Georgia prisoners strike for human rights

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By Alan Bean

On December 9, prisoners at six Georgia state prisons launched a coordinated strike.  The silence from the mainstream media has been thundering.

Across America, prison labor remains a vestige of the old convict leasing system that Robert Perkinson describes in great detail in Texas Tough.  Some inmates receive nominal wages–ranging from a dollar a day to a princely forty cents an hour; others, like the striking inmates in Georgia, work for nothing.

When discussing prison labor, it is important to avoid vague generalities.  Every state has its own laws and practices vary widely.  Sloppy references to the “prison industrial complex” can conjure images of multinational corporations earning massive profits from unreimbursed prison labor.  This happens, to be sure, but more prison labor involves chores related to prison life: preparing meals, doing laundry, cleaning floors, landscaping, gardening and, in some prisons, large-scale agriculture.  In most cases, private corporations aren’t involved, but there are plenty of exceptions.

It has been estimated that 80,000 inmates in America work directly for corporate interests, which suggests that only one-in-twenty-eight American inmates fall into this category.  Most inmate labor mitigates the cost of incarceration–one reason why, since the days of convict leasing, it has been so popular. (more…)

Glover verdict in New Orleans raises more questions than it answers

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By Alan Bean

On December 9, a federal jury in New Orleans convicted two police officers for burning the corpse of Henry Glover, violating civil rights, obstructing justice, and misleading federal investigators.  The jury also convicted an ex-officer of shooting Glover with a .223 caliber assault rifle. 

Has justice been served, or does this verdict raise more questions about the New Orleans police force than it answers?

Writing for ProPublica, A.C. Thompson, prefaces his article with a troubling statement:

“I’ve been reporting in New Orleans for more than three years, and I can say I’ve never encountered more people who are terrified of the police. Looking at the sad and awful death of Henry Glover, it’s easy to see why.” (more…)

When the police knock down your door: more on the Richardson Raid

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Vergil and Mark Richardson

By Alan Bean

Friends of Justice was first to bring you the troubling story of Mark and Vergil Richardson, but we certainly aren’t the last.  First we had Wade Goodwyn’s excellent story for NPR’s All Things Considered, and now Jordan Smith of the Austin Chronicle is using the Richardson story as an entre into the strange world of no-knock searches for The Crime Report.  Radley Balko, one of the experts interviewed for Smith’s story, reports that “the number of SWAT call-outs averaged 3,000 annual between the 1980s and 2005. Now the annual figure is roughly 50,000.”

When Police Break Down Your Door

Jordan Smith

December 15, 2010

An increase in the use of  ‘no-knock’ warrants around the country has alarmed civil liberties advocates.

On Nov. 17, 2007, Vergil Richardson was sitting at a table in the house he owns in the small northeast Texas town of Clarksville, playing dominoes with several relatives, including his half-brother Kevin Calloway, when the front door exploded inward and the living room was flooded with police.

“They just broke into the house,” Vergil recalled recently. “They had guns on us and threw me down on the floor.” (more…)

“The Confessions”: Frontline highlights the case of the Norfolk Four

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I was out-of-town on a speaking engagement when “The Confessions” originally aired on Frontline.  I strongly urge you to watch the entire program online.  It won’t be a pleasant experience.  Listening to this twisted saga kept taking me back to the recent trial of Curtis Flowers–the stories are very different in some respects, but wrongful convictions follow a familiar pattern.

Two of the attorneys representing the defendents in this case, by the way, are Des Hogan and George Kendall, key members of the legal “Dream Team”  involved in the fight for justice in Tulia, Texas.

The story of the Norfolk Four revolves around aggressive interrogation, false confession, and prosecutorial tunnel vision.  Once the detectives responsible for the investigation latched onto a theory of the crime, they clung to it tenaciously–facts be damned. (more…)