No More Prisons

Come to the DROP THE ROCK MARCH & CONCERT/RALLY in Harlem on SATURDAY, JUNE 15!
With a unified voice, we will demand that policy makers repeal New York’s mandatory minimum drug laws and end 29 long years of suffering and injustice. There will be education, poetry, dance, food and music.


MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD! JOIN US ON JUNE 15th:


12:30pm: MARCH: Meet on 126th St between Adam Clayton Powell & Frederick Douglass Blvd. (Take 1/2/3/B/D/A to 125th Street; there is street parking as well as an inexpensive parking lot very near our assembly point).


2:30pm: Concert/Rally in Marcus Garvey Park (122nd and Madison Ave)

For more information: Tamar at 212-254-5700 x306, tkstolar@correctionalassociation.org, or visit www.droptherock.org

"Life Without Parole? The System is Supposed to Help Men like John Scott Re-Enter Society. It Isn't Working. Is It Time To Rethink Parole Supervision - Or Do Away With It Altogether?"

(This article by a Village Voice writer appeared in the May 19th edition of the New York Times Magazine - still available on line, but for $2.50 )


The article examines the ills of the parole system through the life of John Scott, a 37 year-old former drug dealer who, at the beginning of the article, has gotten a minimum wage job and promises that this past stay in prison was his last. By the article’s end, he is being handcuffed and sent back to prison for "technical violations."



TECHNICAL VIOLATIONS

• Skipping meetings with the parole officer
  
• Leaving the state without permission
  
• Not disclosing the correct address
  
• According to the Justice Department, ½ of parolees who return to prison have not been convicted of a new crime, they are sent back for disobeying the rules of parole
  
• Under Governor Pataki the number of parolees locked up annual for technical violations doubled in the last decade from 6 to 13
  

The article acknowledges that what started as a "one-way system of oversight and rehab
functions today like “a circular conveyor belt:”

• 725,000 rsf men and women are currently on parole
  
  
  
• 40% of these people will be back behind bars with three years of their release
  

The conveyor belt the author speaks of has many different mechanisms working to keep up the cycle: the lack of preparation prisoners receive for their release, the lack of education prisoners have, the inability to obtain a home and job, and the lack of support once out of prison, and the technical violations which send a large number of prisoners back into o the system.


PUBLIC SAFETY

The parole officers themselves and the politics of “Public Safety” is one of the strongest driving forces behind this trend. Parole Officers know they won’t be punished if they send too many people back to prison, but if they fail to lock up one parolee who ends up committing a crime, the public backlash will be enormous. And so everyday people are sent back to prison as a preventative measure – so much for innocent until proven guilty

The original hope of the parole system was to reward well-behaved prisoners with early release and provide them with supervision and support when they return home.


·16 states have abolished parolee boards


·4 states have eliminated parole release for certain violent felons


·California, the most punitive state, has 120,000 prisoners and locks up around 70,000 each year


OTHER OBSTACLES

·1994 – Congress eliminated Pell Grants for prisoners despite studies showing that higher education reduces recidivism. As a result, every prison college program was shut down


·Without a college degree, former prisoners have little chance of earning more than minimum wage.


·Even low skill jobs are tough to obtain without a felony record


·Public housing agencies can ban anyone with a criminal record leaving a large number of ex-prisoners homeless


·16% of the men and women released from prison have a serious mental illness – it often takes months to place someone in a treatment center. Often these people are sent back to prison after a small technical violation for fear that without treatment they are a danger to “public safety”

SOME SOLUTIONS


·Decrease the parole-time for low-level felons


·Goal oriented parole - get off early for meeting certain goals


·Prepare prisoners for their release


·Train prisoners for jobs that pay more than minimum wage


·Higher education opportunities for prisoners