This is not the first accusation the LA County Sheriff has encountered.  In fact, the sheriff’s deaprtment asserts as much, telling the Wall Street Journal that “the suit contains no new allegations than the ones that have been leveled against the department for years.”

From the WSJ article:

The department has been accused of jail abuses for decades—well before Mr. Baca was elected sheriff in 1998. Under a federal decree resulting from an overcrowding suit, the ACLU has been monitoring treatment of inmates for years. Since at least 2008, the ACLU has issued reports alleging inmate abuse.

Considering the state prison realignment currently underway in California, it will be interesting to see how the sheriff’s department handles (or remedies) the accusations put forth in this suit.  As of the end of 2011, the LA County jail system had been receiving nearly extra 235 inmates per week as a result of the state’s realignment plan, according to an assistant sheriff.  With the state still under budgetary strain, it will be difficult for LA County to draw down the resources it would need to accommodate the extra inmates.  The same quantity of staff guarding an increasing number of inmates presents a potentially toxic correctional environment.

Of course, the Supreme Court ruling that prompted California’s realignment plan was not designed to shift the burden from one correctional agency (the CDCR) to another (the LA County Sheriff’s Dept.), but rather to compel the state to improve living and health care conditions for inmates in its care.  Hopefully, the LA County Sheriff’s Department can halt the alleged abuses before they face a similar edict.

Detractors point at these pardons and claim that the accident of proximity to the governor should not merit clemency for serious crimes. Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley summed up the prevailing sentiment in a quote run by the Associated Press: “Serving your sentence at the Governor’s Mansion where you pour liquor, cook and clean should not earn a pardon for murder.”

While it’s hard to disagree with such a rational-seeming sound bite, we nonetheless believe that the practice of clemency by the executive branch of state government is a valuable part of our criminal justice system, and do not find fault with Gov. Barbour’s end-of-term pardons.  Moreover, the fact that the governor had the opportunity to know and interact with these inmates on a daily basis should count for something.  We are not arguing for quid pro quo (no, Commissioner Presley, we don’t believe that bartending, cooking and cleaning should, on their face, erase a murder conviction), but we do think that the clemency tradition is augmented – not hurt – by having the pardoner know the person he’s pardoning.

This is the rationale Gov. Barbour used in defending the pardons.  In an article written by Jessica Bakeman for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, the governor recounts a childhood story about an inmate (convicted of murder) who was assigned to his ailing grandfather as a caregiver, saying that experience gave him insight into the importance of second chances.  “The state is not an individual that wants vengeance,” said Barbour, quoted in the Clarion-Ledger article. “We believe in the forgiveness of sins.” (Never mind the fact that there are currently 57 inmates on Mississippi’s Death Row, and that of the 15 executions carried out by the state since 1975, nine of them occurred during Barbour’s two terms as governor.)

As for the majority of the pardons issued by Gov. Barbour, we take him at his word that most were issued to already-released offenders, and that most were granted with the approval of the state’s parole board.  We recognize that end-of-term pardons are a generally accepted practice of outgoing chief executives – be they US Presidents or state Governors – and are a custom that, in the best case, can further justice when the justice system has failed, and in the worst case simply demonstrate the state’s capacity for forgiveness and second chances.

Today, though, we’re dedicating our space to other publications – those that put out the best corrections-related articles we read this year.  Some of them touch on topics we’re covered, others offer analysis on persons and events we would never have known about without reading the article.  In our opinion, these are all well-crafted stories, with exemplary writing and poignant subjects.  Since it’s the end of the year (and a time when many of us have an extra minute or two to read a longer magazine piece), we thought we’d compile these articles for you.

Enjoy! Let us know what you think.

Central Booking
by Keith Gessen
The New Yorker | November 2011

Part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the author is arrested during a demonstration and gets a close-up look at the central booking processing area at the Manhattan Detention Complex.

No Country for Innocent Men
By Beth Schwartzapfel
Mother Jones | December 2011

A wrongly convicted man dies in prison before the confession that might have exonerated him can make its way through the Texas Criminal Justice system.  Gov. Rick Perry issues a posthumous pardon.

Three at Last!
By Sean Flynn
GQ | December 2011

The West Memphis Three, a cause célèbre for the better part of a decade, were finally released this summer.

Fortresses of Solitude (Part 1)
By James Ridgeway and Jean Casella
SolitaryWatch.com | February 2011

An examination of solitary confinement, its widespread use in the American correctional system, and the activists and organizations that are fighting it.

Across CA, Jails Not Ready to Relieve Prison Overcrowding
By Justine Sharrock
New America Media | June 2011

In the wake of the landmark Brown v Plata Supreme Court ruling, the State of California began realigning its prison population, shifting many offenders to county jails.

Lockdown
By Brent Rose
Gizmodo | October 2011

Gizmodo’s four-part series on technology and other contraband in San Quentin prison.

Part I – Prison Hacks
Part II – Prison Weapons
Part III – Phones In Jail
Part IV – Prison Economy

Green Job Training in Prisons Benefits Everyone
By Leah Morgan
Corrections Today | April/May 2011

From Corrections Today’s environment and sustainability issue, a look at the benefit – both short and long term – of training inmates for clean energy jobs.

Harris-Moore pled guilty last Friday to all charges, and the judge handed down a sentence of seven years.  The sentence will run concurrently with a Federal sentence on similar charges.

The Barefoot Bandit’s story was so improbable and intriguing that it merited a movie deal; the story of a young man (a boy really) leading state and federal authorities on a chase that included James-Bond-esque near-misses and exotic locales was optioned for $1.3 million.

Harris-Moore’s family won’t be able to send him any of that through JPay, though – the money has been distributed to his victims as part of his federal plea deal.  The lesson?  Crime – even nation-captivating, Facebook-fan-page-producing, straight-from-a-movie-script crime – never pays.

Governor Kitzhaber made his announcement against the backdrop of a national debate over the death penalty, a debate that seems to resurface every year.  This year, Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis amid witness recantations and claims of questionable evidence inspired hundreds of protests and rallies worldwide.  Texas, always seemingly at the forefront of any death penalty debate, created headlines twice this year with the execution of Mexican citizen (and convicted rapist and murderer) Humberto Leal Garcia, as well as US Supreme Court intervention in the death sentencing of Duane Buck, whose trial featured racially-tainted testimony by the prosecution’s psychologist.

Oregon has largely been outside of these national debates, as it has only executed two people in the last 50 years.  Indeed, Oregonians have repealed and reinstated the death penalty statute three separate times since 1864, with the latest incarnation (in 1984) requiring a death row inmate to waive all right to appeal and effectively volunteer to receive the death penalty.  Yet faced with the order to execute Gary Haugen last month, Gov. Kitzhaber decided that he would no longer support the practice, not even at a ratio of one state-sponsored death every 25 years.

In making his decision, the governor cited some of the other states that have abolished the death penalty, including New Jersey and New Mexico.  He also cited the expense and inefficiency associated with the nation’s death rows compared to general prison populations.  But mostly, he cites the inequality of Oregon’s capital punishment laws, in impactful moral terms.  This, from his statement printed in The Oregonian:

Oregonians have a fundamental belief in fairness and justice – in swift and certain justice. The death penalty as practiced in Oregon is neither fair nor just; and it is not swift or certain. It is not applied equally to all. It is a perversion of justice that the single best indicator of who will and will not be executed has nothing to do with the circumstances of a crime or the findings of a jury.

The only factor that determines whether someone sentenced to death in Oregon is actually executed is that they volunteer. The hard truth is that in the 27 years since Oregonians reinstated the death penalty, it has only been carried out on two volunteers who waived their rights to appeal.

In the years since those executions, many judges, district attorneys, legislators, death penalty proponents and opponents, and victims and their families have agreed that Oregon’s system is broken.

He goes on to describe the shifting scope of the death penalty debate in the Supreme Court and in other states, and then declares this:

It is time for Oregon to consider a different approach. I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer; and I will not allow further executions while I am Governor. I do not make this decision lightly.

Gov. Kitzhaber’s approach is unorthodox, if not unique.  He raises important points concerning the viability of the death penalty, not just in Oregon, but in all states where it is legal.  He has added another voice to the national dialogue concerning this practice, and in our opinion, he has made an appropriate, good, and moral stand for the citizens of Oregon.

We at JPay imagine this is good news for the families of nonviolent offenders serving federal sentences for crack convictions.  Certainly, some of the anecdotes supporting the unfairness of the old crack sentencing guidelines (initially put forth by Congress in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, at the height of the crack epidemic) are compelling.  National Public Radio, in their report on this week’s case reviews, highlighted the story of Hamedah Hasan, who is serving a 27 year sentence for running errands for a family member who sold crack.  You can listen to the full story below:

We’re sure the comments to this blog post will also feature some strong personal stories.

While it is not necessarily our place to assess the rightness or wrongness of crack case reviews – JPay will leave that to the politicians, lawyers, and advocacy groups – we nonetheless want to point out that these reviews (and indeed, the Federal Fair Sentencing Act) do not apply to state crack convictions and offenders serving sentences in state prison for those convictions.  Many states still have laws that mandate longer sentences for crack offenses than those related to powder cocaine, and offenders convicted under these statutes are not eligible for review under the federal guidelines.

This is worth mentioning because the majority of our customers (and the majority of individuals who read our blog, participate in our forum, follow us on Twitter, and are fans of our Facebook page) have loved ones in state or local facilities, not federal prison.  And while the trend established by the Federal government is toward reducing the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences, there are still 12 states with such disparities built into their laws (according to a report produced earlier this year by The Sentencing Project).

Whenever a new policy suggesting the possibility or sentence reduction or outright release comes up, there is a natural instinct to wonder if it applies to your loved one.  In this case, if they’re in Federal prison on a crack-related conviction, it might be worth it to research the review process.  If your loved one is in state prison on a similar charge, focus instead on advocating for the sentencing reform on the state level.

That shift is underway.

An Associated Press article reprinted by the Silicon Valley
Mercury News posits that at current rates (700 extra inmates sentenced to
county jail instead of state prison since October 1^st), the Los
Angeles County Jail system could see all of its 17,000 bed capacity filled by
Christmas.  In a separate story broadcast by ABC affiliate KABC in LA, the
Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Office forecasts that by March of 2012,
overcrowding could become a concern.  With the state compelled to reduce
its state prison population by 30,000, fully 27,000 inmates are expected to
come directly to LA County.

This will certainly put a great amount of strain on the
county jail system, already one of the largest in the world.  We hope this
prompts the jails, as we’ve mentioned before, to explore new technologies to
enhance their efficiency.  Otherwise, it’s easy to envision the LA county
jail system encountering the same challenges as the state prison system.

It’s also in the best interests of both the CDCR and the
county jails to take every opportunity to reduce recidivism rates, which are as
high in California as anywhere in the country.  The only truly sustainable
solution to the problems addressed by this year’s Supreme Court decision is to
reduce the number of incarcerated individuals in the state, and the best way to
do that is to chip away at the doggedly high recidivism rates.  Both the
CDCR and the county systems should embrace greater inmate communication –
including secure email access, video visitation and other initiatives – that
can help improve reentry prospects for released prisoners.  If they can
introduce these initiatives while also decreasing their administrative and
processing costs – benefits JPay’s inmate communication solutions can deliver –
it’s a win-win for the California corrections industry and the citizens of the
Golden State.

The effects of realignment will be felt for some time to
come, probably most acutely toward the end of this year and the beginning of
next.  Hopefully, the agencies responsible for California’s inmates will
take the steps they need to make this process as easy and beneficial for
Californians as they can.