The head doctor at Monroe prison was fired over alleged negligent care. Now seven inmate deaths are under investigation.
This was sent to me by my friend and excellent attorney, Stephen Hampton, Esq. Steve has numerous lawsuits pending against Delaware D O C personnel regarding the awful “health care”, including a class action case with more than 100 inmate plaintiffs.
I dare say that more “heads will roll” in this case, with so many people leaving the sick inmates to suffer in agony!
Open the full article to view the horrifying comments made by medical staff in response to inmates’ complaints!
Excerpts from the Article:
One man died with a festering abdominal wound. Another lay struggling for breath in his final weeks of life as his lungs deteriorated. A third was left untreated for days with a pencil stuck inside his bladder. They’re among six inmates at Monroe Correctional Complex who suffered due to inadequate medical care — including three who died — according to a Department of Corrections (DOC) investigation that led to the firing of the head doctor at the prison earlier this year. State medical authorities are now investigating those six cases plus an additional four inmate deaths.
Dr. Julia Barnett, the medical director at Monroe, was placed on paid leave in October and fired for misconduct in April after DOC concluded that she’d “failed to advocate for these patients and delayed emergency medical care, which was essential to life and caused significant deteriorations in patients’ medical conditions.”
The care provided or supervised by Barnett was called “shocking” and “negligence” or “bordering on … negligence” by other DOC doctors who reviewed her work, according to more than 2,000 pages of investigative and medical records released to The Seattle Times in response to Public Records Act requests.
Dr. Patricia David, DOC’s medical director of quality and care management, described Barnett’s conduct to an investigator in January as “a breach of care, insufficient care, insufficient oversight and then really poor clinical decision-making.” She said she didn’t think Barnett made “the right decision on several of these cases and that resulted in bad outcomes and even death.”
Barnett’s management of the Monroe medical ward led staff there to submit a vote of “no confidence” in November to DOC administrators. In a letter, they wrote she’d created “a toxic environment” and appeared to make decisions “to reduce health care costs rather than for the benefit of the patient or for the benefit of her staff.”
The DOC probe found inadequate care of six Monroe inmates, including three who died. The agency sent its findings to the Washington Medical Commission, which opened an investigation that has expanded to include four additional inmate deaths in 2017 and 2018. The commission investigation is ongoing and Barnett remains licensed to practice medicine.
DOC faces several tort claims from inmates saying they’ve been harmed by inadequate medical treatment while Barnett ran Monroe’s medical facilities. One inmate has filed a lawsuit seeking $1.5 million for alleged misdiagnosis and negligent treatment of diabetic lesions on his feet.
A former pharmacist who graduated from Tulane University School of Medicine in 2007, Barnett was hired by DOC after working as medical director at Lewis Prison in Arizona, where she was employed by a for-profit health-care provider, Corizon Health, according to personnel records.
Barnett started at DOC in March 2017 as a temporary doctor and was promoted two months later to facility medical director at the Monroe prison, where she was making $260,000 a year at the time of her dismissal.
When she was hired, Barnett lacked some of the stated credentials for the medical director job. She had not completed an approved medical residency and was not board-certified, according to the DOC.
In her role as medical director, Barnett supervised two other doctors, as well as several physician assistants and nurses. Monroe is the state’s third-largest prison, with about 2,400 inmates.
Most of the inmates who suffered alleged harms were serving long sentences for crimes including murder, rape, assault, child molestation and possession of child pornography.
One man, serving a comparatively short sentence of 22 months for illegal possession of firearms, did not get adequate treatment for an infection in his mouth, the DOC investigation said. He complained he was having trouble breathing or swallowing, leading to an emergency hospitalization.
Letter to ACLU from DOC Inmates Regarding Heat Causing Inmate Death
I was inside the Smyrna prison for five years, during which I observed that the only buildings with AC were the infirmary and the segregated housing units. This means that the overwhelming number of inmates are left to suffer in the heat. It is awful.
The courts should order AC to installed, as they have with a couple of prisons in the South. READ After $7 million legal fight over air conditioning, Texas prison system touts new heat safety policies
Interim Director Dave Bever, Esq. Delaware ACLU
100 West 10th Street, Suite 801 Wilmington, DE 19801
RE: EXTREME HEAT CAUSED DEATHS IN SMYRNA PRISON
Dear ACLU,
We pray that you and your comrades are healthy and safe!
We would like to request that you investigate and help us to prevent any more extreme heat caused deaths within the Smyrna prison.
For instance, during the week of July 1, 2019, Mr. Joseph Jackson died from an extreme heat induced heart attack. Mr. Jackson was scheduled for release in October 2019. Mr. Jackson d.d have several health issues which should have resulted in his being housed within one of he air conditioned/medical buildings. However, Capt. Bruce Burton (the area shift commander) refused Mr. Jackson’s requests to be housed in a building more suitable to his medical conditions.
Mr Jackson was housed in one of the buildings (W- bldg.) that was not air conditioned. In such buildings the air circulation is either bad or does not exist. When it is hot outside it is even hotter on the inside. As you may be aware, the Smyrna area has already recorded four heat waves where temperatures on the outside of the buildings was 90°F or hotter for four consecutive days. With the sun shining in the windows, the temperatures inside the buildings can easily exceed 110°F, which has proven to be dangerous to both staff and inmates in these buildings, see attached “letter to the editor” (A-l).
There is an easy solution. Due to the movement of 300 inmates to Pennsylvania earlier this year and the release of other inmates, there are over 500 bed spaces available in the former MHU and SHU buildings (buildings 18,19, 21, 22, 23). This housing could at least be temporary or until the end of the extreme heat summer months (June, July, August, and September). The transfer of inmates who are over 50 years old, have medical conditions, or otherwise require alternative housing could be accomplished in a couple days and staffing would not be an issue since the staff could be assigned to follow the inmates. And, any programming needs can be accommodated by permitting the inmates so housed to come out to the education and program buildings as was done when inmates were temporarily housed in these buildings while their buildings were being updated for the WI/FI enabled tablets.
We would like to point out that it is illegal to subject pets to “conditions that are likely to cause suffering, injury, or death ….” see 11 Del.C. 1102,1325(b)(6); 16 Del.C. 3044F(b)(l).x Similarly, it is illegal to subject children to conditions that may endanger them. 11 Del.C. 1102. The courts that have considered this issue have ruled that it is a violation of basic human rights to house inmates in buildings that expose the inmates to extreme heat conditions.
Thus, this should be an easy issue for DOC to remedy. We realize that you are busy, but we need you to address this issue so that no more inmates die. Thus, we request your assistance with in this matter.
With Peace,
Joseph M. Walls, #107897
Jailhouse Lawyers Association
JTVCC
1181 Paddock Road
Smyrna, DE 19977
Letter to Editor or Editorial Submission – What a Monster we Have Created! Probation and Parole 2/19/19
Letter to Editor or Editorial Submission – What a Monster we Have Created! 2/19/19
Letter to Editor or Editorial Submission – What a Monster we Have Created! 3/5/19 = sent it out again. PUBLISHED in 7 papers that I know of. 7/18/19 Sent out again.
We write to express our long-held concerns about one aspect of our criminal justice system which is causing so much harm to individuals, and tremendous cost to the taxpayers … needlessly: our Probation and Parole systems. On any given day, there are about 4.3 million Americans on one or the other, with most being on probation.
There is a distinction: Probation is handed down by the judge at trial. It may be in lieu of jail time or in combination with some jail time. The judge will specify restrictions on the offender’s activities during the probationary period. Parole is granted by a parole board, after the offender has served some—or perhaps a lot of—time. The parole board may consider factors such as the offender’s behavior in prison and level of rehabilitation, and let him or her out early. The parole board can also specify restrictions on the person’s activities while on parole.
However, our concerns are valid regarding both systems, referred to herein as supervised release.
Yes, there is much chatter these days about prison reform, but we suggest to you that supervised release needs major reforms: primarily, far less use! We, and other “experts”, believe that at least about 3.5 million of the 4.2 million people on supervised release need not be there at all! Many more can be, and should be, flowed out of the system much sooner than they are.
Probationary sentences more than a year are absurd, yet there are countless people with 3, 5, 10 or more years of probation! In our small state of Delaware, there are about 17,000 people on probation, more than 3 times the prison population.
While reforms to the system suggested recently by Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings would improve the system, none of them is yet law, and addressing our Mass Probation = Revolving Door problem would improve it more quickly and more dramatically than any other change!
The system is designed more to trip people up, than to lift them up. The statistics bear this out as a high percentage of probationers end up back in prison within a year of their release, often for behavior that would not be a crime if they were not on probation. We spend vast sums of taxpayer money on programs that do little other than perpetuate the need for more such programs. The people supplying the programs get rich while society has to deal with all of the social problems caused by locking people away from the families who depend on them for support.
Reforming these systems is potentially the fastest and the best way to actually reduce mass incarceration! The proverbial “revolving door” of prisons is spinning much faster than most folks realize. Two thirds of the people entering prison every year are being sent there for violation probation or parole. The vast majority of them have committed no new crime [ i.e. they were 10 minutes late for curfew! These are called “technical violations”], or they have a drug problem. In New York state, for example, between 2014 and 2018, the percentage of people held on technical violations of parole increased by 15 percent, even as the overall jail population declined by 21 percent.T
The system as it operates now is set up simply to keep the monster fed, keep the revolving door spinning! Probationers receive little if any help finding jobs that pay a living wage from their probation officer, most of whom have too high of a case load to provide such help even if it was available.
This system is callous and cruel, and serves nobody well except the companies selling rehab programs to federal and state corrections systems.
Studies show that our supervised release programs drive recidivism, rather than reduce it! READ, for example: http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/the-problem-with-parole-theres-a-huge-need-for-probation-and-parole-reforms-kra/ The study we reference here, by Columbia University’s Justice Lab study calls on the New York Legislature to do a lot more. It recommends that the state adopt several common-sense reforms, most of which have already shown promise in other states. These include: adopting a system of graduated sanctions and rewards, instead of automatically dumping people into jail for minor infractions; capping jail terms for minor parole violations; requiring a judicial hearing before parole officers can jail people accused of technical violations; shortening parole terms for people who stay out of trouble for specified periods of time; and using the savings reaped from cutting the prison population to expand education, substance abuse and housing opportunities for parolees, who need considerably more help than they’re getting to forge stable lives in their communities. EVERY state should follow this lead and drastically revise its “supervised release” programs.
Do what works to reduce recidivism. Look at this shocking statistic: In 2016, Illinois saw 71,551 new convictions; of those, 70,610, or 89 percent, were reoffenders headed back to prison. The state predicted that it will cost Illinois taxpayers more than $13 billion over the next five years if nothing is done to curtail recidivism. READ Illinois Calculates the High Costs of Recidivism = http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/illinois-calculates-the-high-costs-of-recidivism/
We can’t reform the system if we can’t reform the individual. We ask you this: “Johnny” has been released from prison and is on probation. He has managed to get a job, has a car, and doing ok …. but he goofed and tested as a “dirty urine” because he had smoked a joint … BAM! They violate his probation and lock him up for two years. He loses his job and his car. He has, like millions of Americans, already completed prison so called “drug treatment” programs [they are a JOKE}, yet here he is again. What good does it do him or society to imprison him?! Clearly, none!
Here is the major problem, THE reason why that revolving door is making us dizzy: for every 1 person arrested, 29 people benefit financially. This includes prison personnel, prosecutors, probation and parole officers, etc. As a result, the unions representing them, private prisons, the thousands of contractors who supply prisons, and others spend hundreds of millions of dollars opposing needed changes to the system. It is simply job preservation, with millions “working” in a way which does nothing to increase public safety and wastes your hard-earned tax money!
We know whereof we speak because we, like too many others, get phone calls and emails every day – yes, every day – about someone being harmed – locked up – because they violated probation or parole. The desperate family members who contact us about their loved ones also bear a burden and pay a heavy price, as they deal with the situation which they know makes no sense, helps nobody, and is truly unjust!
Contact your lawmakers and express you concern about this huge problem with American “criminal justice”!
Ken Abraham, former Deputy Attorney General, founder of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, Dover, DE, 302-423-4067
And
Stephen Hampton, Esq, Grady and Hampton, Dover, DE, 302-678-1265
…………………..
I get lots of letters published, and ghost write for others. The keys to getting your Letter published are:
1. Keep it to 250 words or fewer.
2. Do not make it about “poor little old me”. Describe the problem as one which not only affects the individual, but is a senseless or ineffective measure, policy, or law which also harms communities and society. For example, with reentry, the obstacles make it unnecessarily difficult for the individual, but also harm society by making it hard to become productive, spending money and paying taxes in the community, and they cause increased recidivism = increased crime.
3. Speak from your heart.
4. Google any facts you are not sure about.
5. Do not name-call.
Do what works: Write that Letter! 🙂
…………
Letter to Editor – sign name, town, state, and your phone number (they often call to verify that you sent it), and “Member of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE” if you like – shows you are part of a large group.
Send the email to yourself, and put on the “bcc” bar the email addresses for Letters to the Editor for the top ten newspapers in your state and several national ones – The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, U S A Today (google the Letter to Editor email addresses). Any questions, CALL me at 302-423-4067! 🙂
Need a Letter on some criminal justice issue and not a great letter writer? NO EXCUSE! Email me a rough draft and call me and I’ll polish it up! kenabraham3138@gmail.com .
Louisiana Prison Officials Sued for Trying to Block Investigation into Abuse of Disabled Prisoners
You know that having SEEN it for 5 years, “up close and personal”, and realizing how counterproductive it is, and how lawless it is, prison abuse is my #1 issue.
See so many articles here under that subject. This article is yet another instance of it, and echos much of what I have been saying for 7 years now.
Knowing what really goes on in our prisons, I could only laugh at this statement! LDPSC spokesman Pastorick called the claims in the lawsuit “outlandish,” adding that prison officials “look forward to our day in court.” The case remains pending.
God Bless the Plaintiffs’ lawyers and the judge in this case!
Excepts from the Article:
Alleging a “culture of cover-up and excessive force,” the MacArthur Justice Center and the Advocacy Center of Louisiana (ACL) filed a class-action lawsuit in February 2018 against officials at the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (LDPSC) and the David Wade Correctional Center (DWCC).
The suit followed a contentious investigation by ACL, which was itself the subject of litigation that settled in August 2017, after the New Orleans-based non-profit accused DWCC staff of interfering with and impeding its efforts to investigate alleged abuse of disabled prisoners.
ACL is Louisiana’s designated advocacy organization for individuals with disabilities under the federal Protection and Advocacy system.
Prior to filing its initial suit in June 2017, ACL received “alarming reports of serious abuse of people with disabilities incarcerated in the lockdown units” at DWCC. A review of written complaints from prisoners and interviews led the organization to conclude that probable cause existed to investigate DWCC.
ACL then set up an appointment to tour the facility and interview prisoners. But when its investigators arrived at DWCC on June 21, 2017, they were not allowed to enter cells or recreation areas; they also were prohibited from asking staff or prisoners questions. Nor were prison employees allowed to talk to investigators or answer their questions.
After the initial tour, when personal interviews were finally allowed, investigators and prisoners were not allowed to exchange documentation – not even a business card.
MacArthur Justice Center attorney Katharine M. Schwartzmann and ACL investigators returned to DWCC on July 13 to see prisoner “J.W.,” because “the Advocacy Center had reason to believe that he was extremely suicidal and at risk of immediate harm.” However, Warden Jerry Goodwin and Col. Lonnie Nail refused to allow the visit because J.W. “was on suicide watch and hunger strike.”
ACL staff also wanted to investigate several alleged problems at DWCC, including:
• Failure to provide adequate mental health care to prisoners,
• Failure to properly screen for mental illness,
• Extended solitary and segregated confinement of mentally ill prisoners, and
• Other “acts and omissions.”
The latter included incidents of verbal and physical abuse – such as mentally ill prisoners who were struck or sprayed with bleach. Some were reportedly stripped of clothing during the winter, with fans turned on and windows opened. Others had heaters turned on during summer time and were not allowed to remove their jumpsuits to cool off. One allegation detailed how mentally ill prisoners were forced to kneel or get on all fours and bark like dogs in exchange for food. One prisoner was made to unclog a toilet by hand.
The settlement in the initial suit did not resolve any of those claims but merely allowed them to be investigated by ACL. Although concerned about the use of chemical agents on prisoners – LDPSC spokesman Ken Pastorick admitted to 149 incidents in 2016 and the first half of 2017 – Advocacy Center investigators also wanted to know how mental health complaints were being handled at DWCC. Prisoners said those seeking mental health care were charged with malingering at disciplinary hearings and punished with prolonged use of physical restraints and a restraint chair.
In addition to Warden Goodwin and Col. Nail, LDPSC Secretary James LeBlanc was named as a defendant in both lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana in Baton Rouge.
The settlement terms for the initial suit gave ACL complete access to prisoners and their records when conducting a lawful investigation. The only limitation was that ACL staff must be on an approved list of DWCC visitors and complete a training seminar in prison operations, safety concerns and security risks.
The settlement agreement spelled out details for ACL’s access to DWCC, prisoners, records and staff, including hours and advance notice requirements, as well as the equipment ACL investigators were allowed to bring with them. They were also provided a visitation room to conduct confidential interviews. The parties further agreed to the payment of attorneys’ fees to the ACL and MacArthur Justice Center.
“We’re very alarmed about how people are being treated,” said Schwartzmann. “There are some serious allegations that we’re trying to get in there to investigate.” See: Advocacy Center v. LeBlanc, U.S.D.C. (M.D. La.), Case No. 3:17-cv-00468-JWD-EWD.
The subsequent class-action lawsuit filed in February 2018 was a result of the investigation into claims that DWCC prisoners were subjected to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment due to “extreme, abusive conditions” at the facility.
Prisoners seeking mental health care were placed on suicide watch. Stripped naked, they remained in solitary confinement for weeks, leading some to mutilate themselves or attempt suicide to escape the conditions, according to the 53-page complaint. The suit concluded that “virtually no mental health care is provided to prisoners on extended lockdown, aside from scattershot, poorly administered and inconsistent medication.”
Two prisoners are named as plaintiffs in the case. Anthony Tellis claims his mental illness developed only after he was placed on extended lockdown in February 2016, where he remains. Bruce Charles, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder before entering DWCC, says he also has been on extended lockdown since June 2016.
A third prisoner named in the suit, Terrance Goudeau, was on extended lockdown when he hanged himself and died in June 2016, never receiving mental health care despite frequent requests.
In addition to the improper use of segregation, the class-action alleges widespread physical abuse of mentally ill prisoners at DWCC. The use of temperature extremes as a punishment tool – particularly cold weather, which ill-clothed or naked prisoners are forced to endure – is reportedly so common that it has a nickname: “bluesing” or “getting bluesed.”
LDPSC spokesman Pastorick called the claims in the lawsuit “outlandish,” adding that prison officials “look forward to our day in court.” The case remains pending. See: Tellis v. LeBlanc, U.S.D.C. (M.D. La.), Case No. 3:18-cv-00161-SDD-RLB.
Florida Democratic Party says they’re returning private prison contribution – Damn good news! – kra
These companies, including the ones operating the deplorable ICE “detention centers” so much in the news lately, are a blight on the Criminal Justice system and on America. They do NOT save money, and they needlessly cause untold abuse and suffering.
Both parties in every state should follow this lead! Of course, Republican’ts never will, because today’s Republicans, under the guidance of racist, criminal, inept, Donald tRump, have no moral conscience.
Excerpts from the Article:
Reacting to severe criticism from activist groups and other party members, the Florida Democratic has decided to give back a $10,000 donation to a political action committee for the private prison company G4S Secure Solutions.
G4S subcontracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to transport undocumented immigrants. It also runs prisons and immigration detention centers internationally. Campaign finance records show that the Florida Democratic Party accepted the $10,000 contribution in February, though Democratic activists have pushed to disassociate themselves from the private prison industry.
That contribution led to searing criticism from a coalition of progressive groups led by the Dream Defenders, a social justice organization based out of Miami, as well as from other Democratic party leaders from around the state. The coalition says the donation violated the will of their own membership.
In a letter last month sent to party chair Terrie Rizzo, executive director Juan Penalosa and treasurer Francine Garcia, the coalition wrote:
“Florida locks up a higher percentage of its state residents than most nations on the planet do. The hundreds of millions of dollars spent contracting with companies like G4S, GEO Group, and CoreCivic are starving our communities for resources while abusing and brutalizing children and families. Refusing to do business with these companies is not mere partisan opinion; protecting the very lives of people who call Florida home is what is at stake. So, what side will you choose to be on?”
The coalition also asked party leaders to ““exercise moral leadership and authority” by immediately returning the campaign contribution. On Friday, a party spokesman said they will do that.
“The Florida Democratic Party did not solicit the donation from G4S, but we did receive a donation from them and are returning it,” spokesman Alex Morash told the Phoenix in an email.
The national party has been moving away from accepting donations from the private prison industry. For example, the Hillary Clinton campaign announced in the fall of 2015 that it would no longer accept donations from federally registered lobbyists or PACS for private prison companies.
The Florida Democratic Party voted a year ago to support a resolution proposed by Juan Cuba, the chair of the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party, that they would “refuse any donations from private prison companies, namely CCA and Geo Group,” and encouraged all Democratic local, state and federal candidates in Florida to “refuse any donations from private prison companies.”
In addition to requesting that the party return the campaign contribution from G4S Secure Solutions, the activists say that want a “commitment” from party officials to meet with advocacy organizations and community members to develop guidelines for accepting campaign contributions “moving forward.”
Letter to the Editor or Op Ed Submission – The “Illegal” Immigrants – 6/19/19 – PUBLISHED!
UPDATE 7/16/19 – To be PUBLISHED in The Jackson Free Press. 🙂
They requested a head shot, so, once again I prepare for an onslought of calls from sexy Babes! lmao
PUBLISHED on p A 7 of the Sunday edition of The Delaware State News. 7/21/19
Letter to the Editor or Op Ed Submission – The “Illegal” Immigrants – 6/19/19
There is a great deal of confusion about what is an “illegal” immigrant. The need to revamp our immigration laws and the policies on enforcing those laws is glaringly obvious. People get all excited when this administration says it is cracking down on “illegal” immigrants, thinking that dangerous criminals will be getting what they deserve. Sadly, that is far from the truth. Hard working family people are getting what they never expected and what Congress never intended: abuse by the system!
The fact is that these “crackdowns” or “sweeps” mostly are rounding up industrious individuals and families looking for a better life here in America, just as our ancestors did. Because our current laws make it “illegal” to enter surreptitiously, or without completing all the paperwork, it is easy for racist enforcement policies to take hold. And make no mistake about it, this administration is racist. Remember our president’s first words about this in 2016: They were, in effect, “Mexico is sending us killers and rapists”. That is what the man said about immigrants.
Very, very few who are rounded up and placed in squalid, awful “detention centers” are what anyone would think of as a criminal – an evil, dangerous, malevolent wrongdoer. That is an inalterable fact.
Racist or not, people should know what is really going on. The administration is using the immigration issue for political expediency, not to keep America safe! One need not be an attorney nor a Rhodes Scholar to see this, but too many Americans are buying into the political B S.
Ken Abraham, former Deputy Attorney General, founder of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, Dover, DE 302-423-4067
READ Migrants targeted under Trump are much less likely to have criminal records !!
ICE Police Arresting the Statue of Liberty
Digital Jail: How Electronic Monitoring Drives Defendants Into Debt Ankle bracelets are promoted as a humane alternative to jail. But private companies charge defendants hundreds of dollars a month to wear the surveillance devices. If people can’t pay, they may end up behind bars. This is a HUGE nationwide problem – kra
Whether state operated, or implemented by the predatory private prison companies that have entered this arena, this is a huge, nationwide problem. Huge. The private prison companies are very clever at enhancing their blood-sucking revenue, and Courts – judges – have been all too willing to go along.
There are many issues involved here: racism, the problem of having judges elected, instead of appointed, in many states, “sex offender hysteria”, cash bail reform efforts – leading to more of this “virtual imprisonment”, and others.
The fact is that most, yes most, of these devises are completely unnecessary and do nothing to keep us safer!
The article is quite lengthy; anyone really interested in justice should read all of it!
Excerpts from the Article:
On Oct. 12, 2018, Daehaun White walked free, or so he thought. A guard handed him shoelaces and the $19 that had been in his pocket at the time of his booking, along with a letter from his public defender. The lanky 19-year-old had been sitting for almost a month in St. Louis’ Medium Security Institution, a city jail known as the Workhouse, after being pulled over for driving some friends around in a stolen Chevy Cavalier. When the police charged him with tampering with a motor vehicle — driving a car without its owner’s consent — and held him overnight, he assumed he would be released by morning. He told the police that he hadn’t known that the Chevy, which a friend had lent him a few hours earlier, was stolen. He had no previous convictions. But the $1,500 he needed for the bond was far beyond what he or his family could afford. It wasn’t until his public defender, Erika Wurst, persuaded the judge to lower the amount to $500 cash, and a nonprofit fund, the Bail Project, paid it for him, that he was able to leave the notoriously grim jail. “Once they said I was getting released, I was so excited I stopped listening,” he told me recently. He would no longer have to drink water blackened with mold or share a cell with rats, mice and cockroaches. He did a round of victory pushups and gave away all of the snack cakes he had been saving from the cafeteria.
When he finally read Wurst’s letter, however, he realized there was a catch. Even though Wurst had argued against it, the judge, Nicole Colbert-Botchway, had ordered him to wear an ankle monitor that would track his location at every moment using GPS. For as long as he would wear it, he would be required to pay $10 a day to a private company, Eastern Missouri Alternative Sentencing Services, or EMASS. Just to get the monitor attached, he would have to report to EMASS and pay $300 up front — enough to cover the first 25 days, plus a $50 installation fee.
White didn’t know how to find that kind of money. Before his arrest, he was earning minimum wage as a temp, wrapping up boxes of shampoo. His father was largely absent, and his mother, Lakisha Thompson, had recently lost her job as the housekeeping manager at a Holiday Inn. Raising Daehaun and his four siblings, she had struggled to keep up with the bills. The family bounced between houses and apartments in northern St. Louis County, where, as a result of Jim Crow redlining, most of the area’s black population lives. In 2014, they were living on Canfield Drive in Ferguson when Michael Brown was shot and killed there by a police officer. During the ensuing turmoil, Thompson moved the family to Green Bay, Wisconsin. White felt out of place. He was looked down on for his sagging pants, called the N-word when riding his bike. After six months, he moved back to St. Louis County on his own to live with three of his siblings and stepsiblings in a gray house with vinyl siding.
When White got home on the night of his release, he was so overwhelmed to see his family again that he forgot about the letter. He spent the next few days hanging out with his siblings, his mother, who had returned to Missouri earlier that year, and his girlfriend, Demetria, who was seven months pregnant. He didn’t report to EMASS.
What he didn’t realize was that he had failed to meet a deadline. Typically, defendants assigned to monitors must pay EMASS in person and have the device installed within 24 hours of their release from jail. Otherwise, they have to return to court to explain why they’ve violated the judge’s orders. White, however, wasn’t called back for a hearing. Instead, a week after he left the Workhouse, Colbert-Botchway issued a warrant for his arrest.
Three days later, a large group of police officers knocked on Thompson’s door, looking for information about an unrelated case, a robbery. White and his brother had been making dinner with their mother, and the officers asked them for identification. White’s name matched the warrant issued by Colbert-Botchway. “They didn’t tell me what the warrant was for,” he said. “Just that it was for a violation of my release.” He was taken downtown and held for transfer back to the Workhouse. “I kept saying to myself, ’Why am I locked up?’” he recalled.
The next morning, Thompson called the courthouse to find the answer. She learned that her son had been jailed over his failure to acquire and pay for his GPS monitor. To get him out, she needed to pay EMASS on his behalf.
This seemed absurd to her. When Daehaun was 13, she had worn an ankle monitor after violating probation for a minor theft, but the state hadn’t required her to cover the cost of her own supervision. “This is a 19-year-old coming out of the Workhouse,” she told me recently. “There’s no way he has $300 saved.” Thompson felt that the court was forcing her to choose between getting White out of jail and supporting the rest of her family.
Over the past half-century, the number of people behind bars in the United States jumped by more than 500%, to 2.2 million. This extraordinary rise, often attributed to decades of “tough on crime” policies and harsh sentencing laws, has ensured that even as crime rates have dropped since the 1990s, the number of people locked up and the average length of their stay have increased. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the cost of keeping people in jails and prisons soared to $87 billion in 2015 from $19 billion in 1980, in current dollars.
In recent years, politicians on both sides of the aisle have joined criminal-justice reformers in recognizing mass incarceration as both a moral outrage and a fiscal sinkhole. As ankle bracelets have become compact and cost-effective, legislators have embraced them as an enlightened alternative. More than 125,000 people in the criminal-justice system were supervised with monitors in 2015, compared with just 53,000 people in 2005, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Although no current national tally is available, data from several cities — Austin, Texas; Indianapolis; Chicago; and San Francisco — show that this number continues to rise. Last December, the First Step Act, which includes provisions for home detention, was signed into law by President Donald Trump with support from the private prison giants GEO Group and CoreCivic. These corporations dominate the so-called community-corrections market — services such as day-reporting and electronic monitoring — that represents one of the fastest-growing revenue sectors of their industry.
By far the most decisive factor promoting the expansion of monitors is the financial one. The United States government pays for monitors for some of those in the federal criminal-justice system and for tens of thousands of immigrants supervised by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But states and cities, which incur around 90% of the expenditures for jails and prisons, are increasingly passing the financial burden of the devices onto those who wear them. It costs St. Louis roughly $90 a day to detain a person awaiting trial in the Workhouse, where in 2017 the average stay was 291 days. When individuals pay EMASS $10 a day for their own supervision, it costs the city nothing. A 2014 study by NPR and the Brennan Center found that, with the exception of Hawaii, every state required people to pay at least part of the costs associated with GPS monitoring. Some probation offices and sheriffs run their own monitoring programs — renting the equipment from manufacturers, hiring staff and collecting fees directly from participants. Others have outsourced the supervision of defendants, parolees and probationers to private companies.
“There are a lot of judges who reflexively put people on monitors, without making much of a pretense of seriously weighing it at all,” said Chris Albin-Lackey, a senior legal adviser with Human Rights Watch who has researched private-supervision companies. “The limiting factor is the cost it might impose on the public, but when that expense is sourced out, even that minimal brake on judicial discretion goes out the window.”
Nowhere is the pressure to adopt monitors more pronounced than in places like St. Louis: cash-strapped municipalities with large populations of people awaiting trial. Nationwide on any given day, half a million people sit in crowded and expensive jails because, like Daehaun White, they cannot purchase their freedom.
As the movement to overhaul cash bail has challenged the constitutionality of jailing these defendants, judges and sheriffs have turned to monitors as an appealing substitute. In San Francisco, the number of people released from jail onto electronic monitors tripled after a 2018 ruling forced courts to release more defendants without bail. In Marion County, Indiana, where jail overcrowding is routine, roughly 5,000 defendants were put on monitors last year. “You would be hard-pressed to find bail-reform legislation in any state that does not include the possibility of electronic monitoring,” said Robin Steinberg, the chief executive of the Bail Project.
Help Us Investigate
Have You Worn an Electronic Monitoring Device or Supervised Someone Wearing One? We Want to Hear About It.
Yet like the system of wealth-based detention they are meant to help reform, ankle monitors often place poor people in special jeopardy. Across the country, defendants who have not been convicted of a crime are put on “offender funded” payment plans for monitors that sometimes cost more than their bail. And unlike bail, they don’t get the payment back, even if they’re found innocent. Although a federal survey shows that nearly 40% of Americans would have trouble finding $400 to cover an emergency, companies and courts routinely threaten to lock up defendants if they fall behind on payment. In Greenville, South Carolina, pretrial defendants can be sent back to jail when they fall three weeks behind on fees. (An officer for the Greenville County Detention Center defended this practice on the grounds that participants agree to the costs in advance.) In Mohave County, Arizona, pretrial defendants charged with sex offenses have faced rearrest if they fail to pay for their monitors, even if they prove that they can’t afford them. “We risk replacing an unjust cash-bail system,” Steinberg said, “with one just as unfair, inhumane and unnecessary.”
Many local judges, including in St. Louis, do not conduct hearings on a defendant’s ability to pay for private supervision before assigning them to it; those who do often overestimate poor people’s financial means. Without judicial oversight, defendants are vulnerable to private-supervision companies that set their own rates and charge interest when someone can’t pay up front. Some companies even give their employees bonuses for hitting collection targets.
It’s not only debt that can send defendants back to jail. People who may not otherwise be candidates for incarceration can be punished for breaking the lifestyle rules that come with the devices. A survey in California found that juveniles awaiting trial or on probation face especially difficult rules; in one county, juveniles on monitors were asked to follow more than 50 restrictions, including not participating “in any social activity.” For this reason, many advocates describe electronic monitoring as a “net-widener”: Far from serving as an alternative to incarceration, it ends up sweeping more people into the system.
The St. Louis area has made national headlines for its “offender funded” model of policing and punishment. Stricken by postindustrial decline and the 2008 financial crisis, its municipalities turned to their police departments and courts to make up for shortfalls in revenue. In 2015, the Ferguson Report by the United States Department of Justice put hard numbers to what black residents had long suspected: The police were targeting them with disproportionate arrests, traffic tickets and excessive fines. EMASS may have saved the city some money, but it also created an extraordinary and arbitrary-seeming new expense for poor defendants. When cities cover the cost of monitoring, they often pay private contractors $2 to $3 a day for the same equipment and services for which EMASS charges defendants $10 a day. To come up with the money, EMASS clients told me, they had to find second jobs, take their children out of day care and cut into disability checks. Others hurried to plead guilty for no better reason than that being on probation was cheaper than paying for a monitor.
The St. Louis office of EMASS, which charges defendants $300 up front to get the monitor attached. (Zora J Murff for The New York Times)
White assumed that GPS supervision would prove a minor annoyance. Instead, it was a constant burden. The box was bulky and the size of a fist, so he couldn’t hide it under his jeans. Whenever he left the house, people stared. There were snide comments (“nice bracelet”) and cutting jokes. His brothers teased him about having a babysitter. “I’m nobody to watch,” he insisted.
The biggest problem was finding work. Confident and outgoing, White had never struggled to land jobs; after dropping out of high school in his junior year, he flipped burgers at McDonald’s and Steak ’n Shake. To pay for the monitor, he applied to be a custodian at Julia Davis Library, a cashier at Home Depot, a clerk at Menards. The conversation at Home Depot had gone especially well, White thought, until the interviewer casually asked what was on his leg.
Perpetual surveillance also takes a mental toll. Nearly everyone I spoke to who wore a monitor described feeling trapped, as though they were serving a sentence before they had even gone to trial. White was never really sure about what he could or couldn’t do under supervision. In January, when his girlfriend had their daughter, Rylan, White left the hospital shortly after the birth, under the impression that he had a midnight curfew. Later that night, he let his monitor die so that he could sneak back before sunrise to see the baby again.
EMASS makes its money from defendants. But it gets its power over them from judges. It was in 2012 that the judges of the St. Louis court started to use the company’s services — which previously involved people on probation for misdemeanors — for defendants awaiting trial. Last year, the company supervised 239 defendants in the city of St. Louis on GPS monitors, according to numbers provided by EMASS to the court. The alliance with the courts gives the company not just a steady stream of business but a reliable means of recouping debts: Unlike, say, a credit-card company, which must file a civil suit to collect from overdue customers, EMASS can initiate criminal-court proceedings, threatening defendants with another stay in the Workhouse.
The contract with EMASS allows the court to assign indigent defendants to the company to oversee “at no cost.” Yet neither Burlison nor any of the other current or former judges I spoke with recalled waiving fees when ordering someone to wear an ankle monitor. When I asked Burlison why he didn’t, he said that he was concerned that if he started to make exceptions on the basis of income, the company might stop providing ankle-monitoring services in St. Louis.
Judges are anxious about what people released without posting bail might do once they get out. Several told me that monitors may ensure that the defendants return to court. Not unlike doctors who order a battery of tests for a mildly ill patient to avoid a potential malpractice suit, judges seem to view monitors as a precaution against their faces appearing on the front page of the newspaper. “Every judge’s fear is to let somebody out on recognizance and he commits murder, and then everyone asks, ’How in the hell was this person let out?’” said Robert Dierker, who served as a judge in St. Louis from 1986 to 2017 and now represents the city in the bail lawsuit. “But with GPS, you can say, ’Well, I have him on GPS, what else can I do?’”
Critics of monitors contend that their public-safety appeal is illusory: If defendants are intent on harming someone or skipping town, the bracelet, which can be easily removed with a pair of scissors, would not stop them. Studies showing that people tracked by GPS appear in court more reliably are scarce, and research about its effectiveness as a deterrent is inconclusive.
“The fundamental question is, What purpose is electronic monitoring serving?” said Blake Strode, the executive director of ArchCity Defenders, a nonprofit civil rights law firm in St. Louis that is one of several firms representing the plaintiffs in the bail lawsuit. “If the only purpose it’s serving is to make judges feel better because they don’t want to be on the hook if something goes wrong, then that’s not a sensible approach. We should not simply be monitoring for monitoring’s sake.”
Electronic monitoring was first conceived in the early 1960s by Ralph and Robert Gable, identical twins studying at Harvard under the psychologists Timothy Leary and B.F. Skinner, respectively. Influenced in part by Skinner’s theories of positive reinforcement, the Gables rigged up some surplus missile-tracking equipment to monitor teenagers on probation; those who showed up at the right places at the right times were rewarded with movie tickets, limo rides and other prizes.
The reality of electronic monitoring today is that Big Brother is watching some groups more than others. No national statistics are available on the racial breakdown of Americans wearing ankle monitors, but all indications suggest that mass supervision, like mass incarceration, disproportionately affects black people. In Cook County, Illinois, for instance, black people make up 24% of the population, and 67% of those on monitors. The sociologist Simone Browne has connected contemporary surveillance technologies like GPS monitors to America’s long history of controlling where black people live, move and work. In her 2015 book, “Dark Matters,” she traces the ways in which “surveillance is nothing new to black folks,” from the branding of enslaved people and the shackling of convict laborers to Jim Crow segregation and the home visits of welfare agencies. These historical inequities, Browne notes, influence where and on whom new tools like ankle monitors are imposed.
For some black families, including White’s, monitoring stretches across generations. Annette Taylor, the director of Ripple Effect, an advocacy group for prisoners and their families based in Champaign, Illinois, has seen her ex-husband, brother, son, nephew and sister’s husband wear ankle monitors over the years. She had to wear one herself, about a decade ago, she said, for driving with a suspended license. “You’re making people a prisoner of their home,” she told me. When her son was paroled and placed on house arrest, he couldn’t live with her, because he was forbidden to associate with people convicted of felonies, including his stepfather, who was also on house arrest.
Michelle Alexander, a legal scholar and columnist for The Times, has argued that monitoring engenders a new form of oppression under the guise of progress. In her 2010 book, “The New Jim Crow,” she wrote that the term “mass incarceration” should refer to the “system that locks people not only behind actual bars in actual prisons, but also behind virtual bars and virtual walls — walls that are invisible to the naked eye but function nearly as effectively as Jim Crow laws once did at locking people of color into a permanent second-class citizenship.”
As the cost of monitoring continues to fall, those who are required to submit to it may worry less about the expense and more about the intrusive surveillance. The devices, some of which are equipped with two-way microphones, can give corrections officials unprecedented access to the private lives not just of those monitored but also of their families and friends. GPS location data appeals to the police, who can use it to investigate crimes. Already the goal is both to track what individuals are doing and to anticipate what they might do next. BI Incorporated, an electronic-monitoring subsidiary of GEO Group, has the ability to assign risk scores to the behavioral patterns of those monitored, so that law enforcement can “address potential problems before they happen.” Judges leery of recidivism have begun to embrace risk-assessment tools. As a result, defendants who have yet to be convicted of an offense in court may be categorized by their future chances of reoffending.
The combination of GPS location data with other tracking technologies such as automatic license-plate readers represents an uncharted frontier for finer-grained surveillance. In some cities, police have concentrated these tools in neighborhoods of color. A CityLab investigation found that Baltimore police were more likely to deploy the Stingray — the controversial and secretive cellphone tracking technology — where African Americans lived. In the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death in 2015, the police spied on Black Lives Matter protesters with face recognition technology. Given this pattern, the term “electronic monitoring” may soon refer not just to a specific piece of equipment but to an all-encompassing strategy.
If the evolution of the criminal-justice system is any guide, it is very likely that the ankle bracelet will go out of fashion. Some GPS monitoring vendors have already started to offer smartphone applications that verify someone’s location through voice and face recognition. These apps, with names like Smart-LINK and Shadowtrack, promise to be cheaper and more convenient than a boxy bracelet. They’re also less visible, mitigating the stigma and normalizing surveillance. While reducing the number of people in physical prison, these seductive applications could, paradoxically, increase its reach. For the nearly 4.5 million Americans on probation or parole, it is not difficult to imagine a virtual prison system as ubiquitous — and invasive — as Instagram or Facebook.
Buss calculated the money White owed going back to November: $755, plus 10% annual interest. Over the next nine months, EMASS expected him to make monthly payments that would add up to $850 — more than the court had required for his bond. White looked at the receipt and shook his head. “I get in trouble for living,” he said as he walked out of the office. “For being me.”
Canada pension fund quietly divests from US migrant detention firms – Good! – kra
This is good news because, as I so often have pointed out, such “detention centers” are the worst prisons in America. Below I am seen speaking on this very topic about 4 years ago, in a presentation which was an eye-opener for the assembled crowd and the reporters.
Excerpts from the Article:
One of Canada’s biggest pension funds has quietly divested from two private prison operators responsible for the detention of thousands of migrants along the US-Mexico border. Late last year, the Guardian reported that the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) held nearly US$8m in stock in Geo Group and CoreCivic, which between them hold the lion’s share of contracts to manage Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention facilities in the US.
The CPPIB, which manages C$392bn (US$299bn) in pension funds on behalf of 20 million Canadians, did not make a public statement when it dropped the two companies from its list of foreign public equity holdings, but the change was spotted this week by the federal MP Charlie Angus, a member of the opposition New Democratic party.
On Friday, he called on the CPPIB to publicly acknowledge the divestment and take a position on ethical investing.
“Ethical investments are essential to maintaining public confidence in what the Canadian Pension Plan does, and the investments in Geo Group and CoreCivic were deeply offensive to Canadian values,” he told the Guardian.
“It’s a crock to say the market should be blind and we’ll go where we can make the easiest money. I mean, there’s all kinds of places to make easy money.”
The NDP has tabled a bill, C-431, asking that the pension board abide by greater ethical standards.
Angus believes public pressure convinced the CPPIB to drop its holdings.
After the US migrant crisis began, advocacy groups SumOfUs and LeadNow collected more than 55,000 signatures on petitions calling for the CPPIB to drop Geo Group and CoreCivic from its investment portfolio. Activists also attended public CPPIB meetings to demand divestment.
“It’s an amazing testament to [our] members and the power of people to come together and make real change and say, ‘We don’t want our pensions funding Trump’s anti-immigration policies,’” said Amelia Meister, senior campaigner at SumOfUs.
The CPPIB declined to comment.
Lawsuit Filed Against Connections, Inc. and Individual Defendants re Death of Luis Cabrera
Click below to see the entire lawsuit filed today by my friend and great lawyer, Stephen Hampton, Esq. (one of few lawyers with the skill and the guts to sue state officials! 🙂 ) concerning the death of inmate Luis Cabrera, who died an agonizing death lying on the prison floor at the feet of medical staff, due to their wilful neglect.
As you peruse the Complaint, or even just these excerpts, you see the attention to detail (preparation!) which makes a great attorney like Steve.
See Also DOC contractor, commissioner sued for ‘criminally negligent homicide’
However, this is the only real solution: How to avoid the deaths of prison guards and inmates … or do you want to join the countless officials who refuse to acknowledge this huge problem called prison abuse?
Too many heads still are in the sand regarding this sort of prison abuse!
Excerpt from the Complaint:
1. On November 8, 2018, one day after his birthday Luis Cabrera died in agony at the feet of the medial staff employed by Connections Community Support Programs, Inc to provide medical care for serious medical conditions of men held at Howard R. Young Correctional Institution. Luis was maliciously denied necessary medical care for over two (2) days despite his
screams and cries for help. Ultimately, he died from a perforated duodenal ulcer, a treatable condition if timely proper care is given. Under Delaware law, denying proper care to a man suffu•ing from an obviously serious medical condition, could be seen as criminally negligent homicide. 11 Del. C. 631.
And See:
Count I
43. Plaintiff, Stephanie Cabrera hereby incorporates all of the allegations contained in the above paragraphs as if those allegations are set forth in this Count.
44. As a result of the negligent, intentional, wanton, willful, and malicious actions of
CCSP and the DOC defendants, Luis Cabrera suffered the following injuries:
a. Excruciating physical, mental and emotional pain as a result of his untreated perforated duodenal ulcer.
b. The deprivation of his usual activities and enjoyments as he lie dying in the HRYCI infirmary.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff Stephanie Cabrera, as Administratrix of the Estate of Luis
Cabrera, demands judgment against CCSP and the DOC defendants, such special damages as she can prove, general compensatory damages punitive damages, attorneys fee pursuant to 42 U.S. C.
1988, costs of the action, and such other relief as the Court deems appropriate.
Count 11
45. Plaintiff, Stephanie Cabrera hereby incorporates all of the allegations contained in the above paragraphs as if those allegations are set forth in this Count.
46. As a result of the negligent, intentional, wanton, willful, and malicious actions of the CCSP and DOC defendants Luis Cabrera suffered a premature, preventable, painful death.
47. Stephanie Cabrera, the surviving wife of Luis Cabrera, has suffered the following injuries as a result of his premature, preventable painful death:
a. Past, present, and future emotional and mental anguish and grief,
b. Past, present and future physical and emotional upheaval, and
c. Funeral expenses.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff Stephanie Cabrera demands judgment against CCSP and the DOC defendants, such special damages as she can prove, general compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1988, costs of the action, and such other relief as the Court deems appropriate.
Count 111
48. Plaintiff, Ashley Cabrera hereby incorporates all of the allegations contained in the above paragraphs as if those allegations are set forth in this Count.
49. As a result of the negligent, intentional, wanton, willful, and malicious actions of the CCSP and DOC defendants, Luis Cabrera suffered a premature, preventable, painful death.
50. Ashley Cabrera adult daughter of Luis Cabrera, has suffered the following injuries as a result of his premature, preventable, painful death:
a. Past, present and future emotional and mental anguish and grief
b. Past, present and future physical and emotional upheaval, and
c. Funeral expenses.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff Ashley Cabrera demands judgment against CCSP and the DOC defendants, such special damages as she can prove, general compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 51988, costs of the action, and such other relief as the Court deems appropriate.
GRADY & HAMPTON, LLC
(s/ Stephen A._l lampton
Stephen A. Hampton, Esq. (# 2451)
Anthony V. Panicola, Esq. 5787)
6 N. Bradford Street
Dover, DE 19904
302- 678- 1265
James J. Woods, Jr. (# 2035)
745 Stratford Drive
Encinitas, CA 92024
302- 893-7585
Attorneys for Plaintiffs
Date: July 8, 2019
In similar cases, criminal charges have been filed. We need to see them filed here!
GREETING TO NEW INTERNET CONNECTIONS! Information everyone should know! – kra
This is what I send to most (I don’t have time to get it to all of them) new internet connections, on MeWe, LinkedIn, etc.
Greetings:
Thanks for connecting. You may want to subscribe to our weekly eNewsletter. Check out our website, loaded with useful (Enter “Practical Tip” in search bar!) and important information you will not see elsewhere!
Should you or any of your connections ever have any questions about any of these articles or about any problem with the criminal justice system, or about civil rights, don’t hesitate to call me. 302-423-4067. I work every day from 3 or 4 am until 10 pm. I get calls from all over the country about everything from grad students looking for guidance with their classes to freeing the innocent and others from prisons, calls about saving lives… etc., …and glad to answer them all. If I don’t know an answer, I’ll say “I don’t know, but let’s find out!”
Everybody is affected by our dysfunctional criminal justice system. Read these Articles to learn some solutions to the problems!
Porn star or not, read this! Practical Tip # 89 – Accusers face risks in breaking nondisclosure agreements – Don’t Sign a Nondisclosure! – kra With Letter to the Editor = http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/practical-tip-89-accusers-face-risks-breaking-nondisclosure-agreements-dont-sign-nondisclosure-kra/
This is a MUST READ if you have not read it! Probation and Parole – a short Essay by Ken Abraham – With Letter to the Editor or Editorial Submission – Widely PUBLISHED = http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/probation-and-parole-an-essay-by-ken-abraham-with-letter-to-the-editor/
Practical Tip on Pardons, Expungements, Commutations/Clemency – With fee agreement = http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/practical-tip-pardons-expungments-commtations/
Report Bad Lawyers – Do it! – http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/report-bad-lawyers-they-dont-just-screw-up-the-casethey-ruin-lives-every-day/
Prison Abuse – Why Massive Indifference is a Massive Mistake – kra = http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/prison-abuse-massive-indifference-massive-mistake/
READ Crime Prevention Bill = http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/crime-bill/
Know Anyone Associated With an Innocence Project Team? Practical Tip: Tell them “Get them out First” kra – http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/practical-tip-pardons-expungments-commtations/
http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/prosecution-imprisonment-will-stop-prison-abuse-demand-avoid-deaths-prison-guards/ = How to avoid the deaths of prison guards and inmates … or do you want to join the countless officials who refuse to acknowledge this huge problem called prison abuse?
http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/the-power-of-advertising-win-the-war-on-dr = The Answer to the Drug Problem … or do you want to continue to waste about a hundred billion dollars a year, and get nowhere?
Letter to the Editor – Criminal justice system policies are changing for the better – by Ken Abraham – PUBLISHED – http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/criminal-justice-system-policies-changing-better-ken-abraham-published/
Florida shooting: NRA sues as Florida enacts gun-control law – with Letter to the Editor – kra – http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/florida-shooting-nra-sues-as-florida-enacts-gun-control-law-with-letter-to-the-editor-kra/ I just about fell out of my chair when a Pulitzer Prize winning author called me a minute ago and said: “Great letter, Mr. Abraham!” He now calls me Ken.
Letter from a concerned citizen, Pam Rehmer, about racism in the criminal justice system. Although polls show that 74% of Americans don’t think the system is racist, many, many studies show that it is. http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/letter-from-a-concerned-citizen-about-racism-in-the-system/
http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/how-the-war-on-drugs-has-destroyed-justice/ = I remember when the system worked well; justice nearly always was the result. Today it is a total train wreck – perhaps the most vivid manifestation is that we are imprisoning hundreds of innocent people every year. This is WHY it is a train wreck!
More Band-Aids won’t solve wave of drug violence! – http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/band-aids-wont-solve-wave-drug-violence/
Politics – Politics is what destroyed our criminal justice system! – http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/politics-politics-destroyed-criminal-justice-system/
Abolish the “Sex Offender” Registry! Learn the FACTS instead of all the “Sex Offender Hysteria” kra = http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/abolish-the-sex-offender-registry-kra/
Got a Problem with the Criminal Justice System? CALL this Guy!
Got a Problem with the Criminal Justice System? CALL this Guy!
Practical Tip – Get Empowered! How YOU Can Create a Powerful, Effective Force for Reform of our Criminal Justice System -http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/practical-tip-how-you-can-create-a-powerful-effective-force-for-reform-of-our-criminal-justice-system/
Please take a moment to join our Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE group on MeWe, the fast – growing social media platform positioning itself as an alternative to FB!
Yes, he was funny as hell, but also wise:
Feel free to reproduce anything I have written anywhere at any time, with or without attribution. The important thing is to share the information, educate the public, most of whom are clueless about what a disaster the criminal justice system is!
Want to debate any of this? Call any time; I work from 3 or 4 a m until I drop every day. Better yet, please invite me to a public forum to debate any of these issues!
Make A Difference
So many say “why bother, there’s nothing I can do!”
Well, I sure hope one of those is not you!
For you can be far, far more influential than you think,
All you need do is share some well-thought-out-ink!
kra 3/11/18
READ http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/practical-tip-how-you-can-become-a-prison-reform-advocate-here-is-how-do-it/PracticalTip: How YOU can become a “prison reform advocate” – or any ADVOCATE! Here is how! EASY as 1, 2 ,3 ! DO IT!
Why Am I Up in The Middle of The Night?
Why Am I Up in The Middle of The Night?
Because there is so much injustice in the justice system, it’s just not right,
So I rest when I can, but, largely, I fight, fight, fight,
I remember when the system did in fact work quit well,
But since our “war on drugs”, it’s gone straight to hell!
Kra 3/22/18
Learn neat stuff: The BBC series “Planet Earth – Dynasties”! Have you seen shrimps attack a starfish? Did you know that there are fish with jaws so powerful that they can bite through rock? Have you seen the astonishing transformations which cuttlefish use to disguise themselves? Did you know there is a predator which eats great white sharks? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC3hGfTI3ew
MAKE it a great day! Ken Abraham
Founder, Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, (CCJ)
www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net
430 Kings Hwy., Suite 414, Dover, DE 19901
Founder, “Adopt a Prisoner” Church Reentry Program,
And founder of no more organizations this decade! 🙂
302-423-4067
Contact Us
Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE
430 Kings Hwy
Ste 414
Dover DE 19901
302.423.4067
