Month: May 2020

Indentured to the Bondsman

Post author By abolitionistlc
Post date May 26, 2020

by Autumn Redcross, with Man-E of Bukit Bail Fund

Bail is a contract. Bond is the fulfillment of bail. The agreement of bail is the temporary release of someone who has been accused of and/or charged with a crime. Although it does not have to be, often bail is indicative of a financial exchange. In that sense, bail is the amount of money defendants must post to be released from custody until their trial ¹. But, there is also bail through non-monetary means, such as electronic monitoring and release on own recognizance (ROR). Unsecured bail carries a dollar-amount, but not needed at the time of release.

The purpose of bail is to provide a means out of detainment and is meant to insure a defendant’s appearance at pretrial and trial hearings for which their presence is required. With that in mind, the cost of monetary bail is returned once the accused person shows-up for their trial. However, no-shows mostly results in a forfeiture of bail monies. Moreover, the full amount of an unsecured bond is due from the individual charged fails to attend their hearing.

Not meant as a fine or form of punishment, the 8th amendment to the constitution promises protection from cash bails set too high to meet for anyone accused of a crime. Clearly stated, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”² However, our states fail us by conforming to strict bail requirements for the release of unheard citizens. Bail impositions greatly contribute to the state of mass incarceration: the prison-industrial complex today.

In 2011, critical race theorist Michelle Alexander published The New Jim Crow – a powerful and damning portrait of the impact of the prison-industrial complex on the lives of people of color in the United States. While the U.S. represents about 4.4% of the world’s population, it houses around 22% of the world’s imprisoned people. Not only those confined to prison, but also those on probation, parole, immigration detainment and local jails. Five years after the publication of her book, 2.3 million people were still incarcerated in the United States.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 35% of state prisoners are white, 38% are Black, and 21% are Hispanic/Latino³. Although Black and brown people make up a minority of the US population, “African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons across the country at more than five times the rate of whites, and at least ten times the rate in five states.”⁴ Alexander illuminated the staggering observation that more Black men were behind bars or custodians of the criminal justice system during the time of her writing, than were enslaved in 1850. Bail is the threshold to this phenomenon.

Prior to the onset of coronavirus, it was said that, “on any given day” there are about a half million people sitting in jails of which the majority are there because they cannot afford the bail monies set for their release⁵. Accused – but not found guilty – lawfully innocent people are arrested and detained with gross regularity across the country.

To quote the Prison Policy Initiative, “Six out of 10 people in U.S. jails—nearly a half million individuals on any given day—are awaiting trial. People who have not been found guilty of the charges against them account for 95% of all jail population growth between 2000-2014.”⁶ 63% of those in jail have not been convicted” and sit as pre-trial and unconvicted members of the jail population, despite their innocence.⁷

The presumption of innocence fails in the face of monetary bail. Because cash bail inherently disenfranchises the poor, it is the marginalized populations within our society who are smothered by the stigma of accusation and further impoverished by the price of justice. For the wealthy, bail may be an unexpected inconvenience. For others, bail is debt bondage.

“How much is your freedom worth?” the words of spoken word artists ring out when hearing from the sales pitch of the bondsmen.⁸ The artistic piece produced by Brave New Films features the experienced arrest, detainment and the option for bail. Days of jail time can mean loss of employment, housing property and relationships. The stigmas associated with being in jail runs deep. “Because even a brief period of pretrial detention can have a devastating impact on the person jailed” all of the trauma produced, is caused despite presumed innocence.⁹ Therefore, innocent people in jail and their families are often forced to seek the assistance of a bail bondsman.

Bail bondsmen profit from the criminal justice system. The bondsmen target the poor, as only those who cannot afford cash bail need to use their services. The United States and the Philippines are the only countries that allow for-profit bail companies. Charging only a percentage of the bail cost, bondsman companies post bail that is not refundable to the accused even once they show-up at court. Yet, payments to the bondsman continue until the debt is fulfilled.

Despite the findings that the cost of bail does not determine a person’s appearance in courts. Instead, an exceedingly pragmatic and much cheaper reminder of an upcoming court date is found to be much more effective.¹⁰ Cash bail continues to be demanded by the courts of Pennsylvania, and is thereby a capitalist strategy for perpetual arrests, and continued detainments of Black, brown and poor people in Allegheny County.

Until recently, about 20% of the ACJ population was held as pretrial detainees according to the 2016 Criminal Justice task force report. The Jail Stats Report dated May 15th shows that “22% (285) of people in the jail itself were held pretrial-only, meaning they had no other reason (such as external holds or detainer) keeping them in the jail. Of these people, only 2% were screened as low risk for re-offense based on the Allegheny County locally validated pretrial risk assessment (without consideration of the seriousness of the current offense). The report cites that only 86 individuals (approximately 7% of the jail population) are currently being held in the Allegheny County Jail pretrial-only on monetary bonds. Of these individuals, only 5 screened as low risk for new criminal activity, and all 5 of these individuals were facing charges for violent offenses.”

“Arrest is kidnapping: bail is ransom.” This is the fundamental conviction of Man-E, and the motto of the Bail Bukit Fund which calls for the end to cash bail in Pittsburgh and everywhere else the practice exists. Abolitionists at heart, Bail Bukit Fund believes that no one should be caged. Impassioned by the loss of Frank ”Bukit” Smart, who died when restrained during a seizure at ACJ, the Bail Bukit Fund fights for the abolition of all jails and freedom for those ensnared by it.

Man-E knows its trappings well. He’s been arrested and detained three times, but has never been found guilty of either charge.”The whole system is really unfriendly and biased,” he says.

Man-E was a teen at his first arrest with no prior charges. “I was arrested with a co-defendant, his bail was $5,000 and mine were $25,000. Guidelines of fairness are not adhered to. He was on probation and should have been deemed as a more serious case than I was. But who is to say how the judge was thinking at the time.”

The second arrest led to the same $25,000 cost set for bail. Yet the third was double that amount. Man-E tells the story. “In my case we went to a bail bondsman, they charged us a percentage and my mother put-up her house.” There was no other way to pay the bond set for him. Although he had no prior convictions, Man-E was denied a bail reduction. He explains, ”I had previous charges, but no convictions despite being innocent before proven guilty.”

The $50,000 had to be paid through the bail bondsman. “To stay in jail and essentially get punished without even being tried. I was acquitted 2 years later. And yet, he says, “There is no reconciliation for the time or money spent.” Had he remained in jail for that amount of time, “I would have lost my job and possibly my house. Some lose custody of their children. Some die,” he added.

“Cash bail and really doesn’t serve the intended purpose but serves to make as much money as you can, not only for the courts but the bail bondsman. When the case is resolved,” he continues, “they get the money back plus the percentage. And had I not shown up, they would have got my mom’s house as well.” He says further, the bondsman company did not return their asset as eagerly as they had taken it. “They did not contact us to return the deed, we had to go to him.“

“In all of my cases I was found not guilty, but was treated as if I was simply because I was charged. The system overall is flawed even though it’s been here so long, most cannot imagine it any other way. Cash bail itself shouldn’t have a place in our criminal justice system. If a person is dangerous, the only thing that prevents them is how much money they have.”

“There are a lot of things wrong with the criminal justice system, but most people would agree that pre trial detention is one of the most egregious. It punishes people despite the presumption of innocence.” From his experience and what he has seen, Man-E contends that the trial process in “Allegheny county takes so long, they plead out to get time served, and hope to get out on probation.”

Man-E shares that the conditions at ACJ are often seen as worse than any Pennsylvania State Penitentiary.

“The first time I was there, I was 16. I saw someone get knocked out. The CO saw and didn’t say anything. I’m a vegetarian and they didn’t care. They charge ridiculous amounts of money to speak to your family. They give you just enough to survive. There is no dignity” there, he says.

“A social worker told me that they make it as bad as possible so that you will not want to come back. They don’t treat you like a human there,” he said. But what he wants to share, a message of hope for those confined in jail. ”They weren’t there their entire lives, they won’t be there their entire lives.”

“There are a lot of people who are victims who do not know that people care about them. The whole experience is disheartening and some have a hard time coping even when they are released. Some cannot cope at all and begin to take drastic measures. People are aware, care and are working to make a difference.”

“Bail reform is a civil rights issue. Bail reform is a human rights issue. Bail reform is a national crisis that’s hidden in plain sight” – Wade J Henderson

Whether in need or in want to support the movement to abolish cash bail in Allegheny county and beyond, please visit bukitbailfund.org.

Notes

News and Updates

Allegheny County Jail

Post author By abolitionistlc
Post date May 20, 2020

Mass incarceration and the adverse collateral consequences of criminal prosecutions and convictions are deeply entrenched in Allegheny County, PA.

More than 80% of those held in the Allegheny County Jail (ACJ) are not serving a sentence for a criminal conviction but instead are held pre-trial or on alleged probation violations.

More than half of those held in ACJ are being held pending resolution of probation violations, which are often technical violations that do not involve a new charge.

The County has a higher incarceration rate of Black people than the national average.

While only 13% of the County population is Black, approximately 50% of those held in ACJ are Black.

MAY 20 – SNAPSHOT

Lack of Testing in ACJ Will Fuel the Second Wave

District and common pleas courts feed and maintain the Allegheny County Jail (ACJ) population. People detained there become subject to the care of the county, their health and wellness jeopardized by the negligence of elected and anointed officials. ACJ governance is refusing to adopt a platform for universal COVID-19 testing and is now reporting data as if the jail is coronavirus free.

Here is what’s been recorded:

The ACJ population	1668
Number of individuals tested	65
Number of Negative results	35
Number of Pending result	2
Number of Positive results	38 *1 hospitalized
Number of COVID-19 positive people who have recovered or been released from ACJ	28
Number of COVID-19 positive people remaining at the ACJ	0

MAY 20, 2020 via https://www.alleghenycounty.us/jail/index.aspx

Throughout the nation, jails and prisons are reporting staggering numbers of COVID-19 outbreaks. Philadelphia County Jails were found to have 75% of their population testing positive for coronavirus, and will now integrate universal testing at their jails.

Allegheny County insists on a test-less methodology shown in their failure to pass a motion for universal testing. By Wednesday this week, only 65 out of the 1665 detained individuals have been tested for coronavirus. This constitutes a %.04 testing rate of the people detained at ACJ; less than ½ of 1% of the ACJ population has been tested. 3 new tests have been given this week.

The county jail is not a vacuum, but has workers, staff services, PO’s and CO’s, etc., filing through on a regular basis. Long and short term destined people are vulnerable to unsanitary conditions and contracting the virus. Rather than moving decisively forward with an interest in our public health that aims to overcome the current crisis and divert the threat of a second wave, authorities are failing to protect lives by testing widely.

We support Councilperson Bethany Hallam’s motion for universal testing for county-run facilities and urge the council committee, under the leadership of Councilperson Olivia “Liv” Bennet, to test all people under county care.

Tags COVID-19, Mass Incarceration, Structural Racism

COVID-19

There are children in jail.

Post author By abolitionistlc
Post date May 20, 2020

by Autumn Redcross, with Dolly Prabhu. Introduction and edits by William Lukas.

Popular media journalists and militant abolitionists have framed the importance of releasing “high risk” vulnerable people from prison amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The messaging almost always centers the voices of incarcerated elders and adults with underlying medical conditions. But what about the voices of children and young people locked up behind bars?

As of May 18, there are over four hundred reported incarcerated youth across U.S. juvenile facilities who’ve been diagnosed with COVID-19. There are undoubtedly more cases of incarcerated children with COVID-19, since many young people are held alongside adults in local jails, ICE detention centers, and other facilities (there are over 40,000 youth confined in criminal justice-related facilities in this country). Additionally, reporting on accessible and accurate testing of child and adult prisoners remains unattainable as wardens, policymakers, and even health officials, act aloof during public hearings – falling back on arguments of limited testing kits, austerity measures, or simply “needing to know more about mass testing”, while simultaneously providing thousands of testing kits to family health centers and nursing homes.

In this piece, ALC Court Watch takes us to the darkest corners of children’s jail cells in Allegheny County – and the legislation, courtroom practices, and cultural mythologies that make caging children possible and commonplace. While working as a caseworker for a youth re-entry program in San Francisco, I was always taken aback by the interiors of the city’s youth detention center: the floor tiles, the furniture, the lighting, the prison guard’s panopticon desk which was set up to look like a teacher’s. It was unclear where I was – if I was in a school building classroom or in a prison unit. But this is exactly the purpose of incarcerating children: to normalize the State’s control and punishment. To conflate housing, education, and imprisonment as one. “To get them used to a lifetime in prison” a correctional officer casually said to me after I finished helping a 13-year-old with his homework.

We share this article with you as part of the eighth annual National Week of Action Against Incarcerating Youth and in conjunction with the ongoing fight to #FreeTheVulnerable. We celebrate Cyntoia Brown and all survivors of child imprisonment and the youth we have lost at the hands of the State. We honor youth activists helping us connect the dots between the school-to-prison pipeline and the white supremacists policing of social-distancing: Black and brown youth on the stoops of their homes are brutally beaten by cops, arrested and jailed, while groups of white young professionals picnicking are given facemasks by cops.

As more youth experience lethal toxic shock syndrome brought on by COVID-19, abolitionists are reminded that children are high risk too and that young people’s voices – and futures – must be incorporated in the movement to #FreeTheVulnerable and beyond.

There are children in jail.

As of today, May 19, there are sixteen youth – people ages 18 and under – detained at the Allegheny County Jail (ACJ). The ACJ was built in 1995 with an original occupation capacity of 1,850. However, recent statistics reflect an average daily population of 2,400 over the last three years. Since the state-sanctioned shut-down and subsequent March 16 order to the courts, the jail population has drastically reduced – yet the number of children detained there has largely remained the same. ACJ currently holds 1,686 people.

Children warehoused in adult jails and prisons is commonplace in Pennsylvania. Depending on the nature of the criminal charges, it is possible for minors to be tried as adults given the outcome of waivers and, or exclusions. A waiver occurs when a juvenile court judge transfers the case from juvenile to adult court. Waivers help determine the course of legal proceedings regarding the charges a child in Pennsylvania may face.

Waivers for cases involving teens are sometimes issued where there is a history of offenses, or when the current alleged offenses are particularly egregious. A ‘discretionary waiver’ is provided in the interest of the public. A ‘presumptive waiver’ is issued when there is the use of a deadly weapon and commits a serious offense. In that case, there is a presumption that the public will be better served with the minor facing adult criminal prosecution. Finally, ‘statutory exclusions’ are charges where a minor will always be charged as an adult.

ACT 33 and “THE SUPERPREDATOR” MYTH

In 1995, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed Act 33, determining that teenagers between ages 15 and 17, charged with particular felonies that met certain conditions, be charged in adult court. “Prior to Act 33, criminal homicide was the only charge ranking above infractions like traffic tickets that automatically pulled people younger than 18 into adult court,” as written in the Sentinal.

Despite the fact that state policy does not allow children in the same age group to vote, buy cigarettes, consume alcohol, enlist in the military, the law has determined that children are fit to undergo damning the measures of the court and penal sentencing. In 2010, the Supreme Court Ruling of Graham v. Florida established that young people’s brains “lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility.” Yet, children are still held to the measure of the law put forth, adopted, and implemented for adults. According to the Sentinel, the criminal justice system is “holding them accountable for behavior that doesn’t actually reflect where they are in life.”

Act 33 was passed during the ‘90s culture wars, in which “progressive” and conservative pundits adopted and promoted John DiIulio’s “superpredator” theory. The anti-Black superpredator euphemism defined a generation of Black youth living in cities as the most dangerous than any group of children and teens that had existed before.

“The young thugs across this Commonwealth who have held people hostage in their homes and in their streets and in their neighborhoods will come to an end” stated Sen. Michael Fisher, on the state Senate floor in 1995. “Hopefully, it will be somewhat abated by the passage of this legislation,” he said, introducing the bill that became Act 33. Yet, the peak of youth crime had already occurred four years earlier. It has been falling ever since.

But the legacy of Act 33 continues to haunt our county jails and courts.

“On any given day, dozens of children ages 14-17 are housed in adult jails in counties across Pennsylvania while facing charges in adult court. Most will see their cases dismissed or moved to juvenile proceedings, but not before they spend weeks, months, or even years locked up with adults,” the Sentinel reports.

CHILDREN TRAPPED INSIDE ACJ:

Prison labor, roaches, strip searches and “the hole”

This has been the experience for youth currently in ACJ. Children in Pittsburgh’s downtown jail are separate from the adults. “They have their own pod,” explains Dolly Prabhu, a recent graduate of Pittsburgh Law School and legal intern for the Abolitionist Law Center. Dolly notes, “People assume that everyone who is a kid ends up at Shuman or something.” The Shuman Center is the juvenile detention center in Allegheny County. Dolly’s externship allowed her several hours visiting with the children at the ACJ.What she has seen and heard from her young clients is disturbing.

Jail pods are open floor plans which contain tables, chairs, and the Correction Officer’s (CO’s) bench. The single cells that the children are assigned to are cramped, sterile, and ugly little enclosures. There is the customary cot, a sink, and a steel toilet in each cell. And they are cold. Minors detained at ACJ report needing to clothe themselves in both of their issued uniforms and get under the covers to have some type of warmth.

Yet, they do not have normal blankets, pillows, or bed sheets – only suicide blankets and bedding furnish the room.

Certain children are designated as “cleaners,” on the unit. Although the cleaners may earn advantages, such as extra time in the game room, the teens may also be subjected to harsh discipline. “Cleaners” may be expected to clean excessively to meet the standard of expectation. At times they are addressed by their room numbers rather than their names. They are never paid in their role as a “cleaner.”

“I feel like it’s prison labor, and that they are exploiting the fact that they are children desperate for stimulation and acceptance”, Dolly explains.

Being called by their inmate numbers – and not their names – is another tragic aspect of the children’s time in jail. The food is said to be awful, which is only worsened by the CO’s laughter when serving particularly “gross” meals. Dolly was told that roaches (dead and alive) are sometimes found on their meal trays.

Strip searches and shakedowns are part of safety regulations at jails and prisons. Although these sanctioned searches of cell and property are designed to discover and remove contraband, the teens believe these strip searches and shakedowns are used to humiliate them. There are times when the CO’s have taken legal work from the youth, tossed their property and personal hygiene products around in the room. The CO’s are often crass in demeanor and use profanity and name-calling.

As a means of discipline, children at the ACJ are put into “the hole”, Dolly writes. When placed in solitary confinement, teens cannot be released until they have met with the sergeant within 7-10 business days. The meeting, between the youth and the sergeant, takes place somewhere on the pod. If the teen does not return from solitary within 10 days, “COs take all your stuff and throw it out,” as told by some teens at ACJ.

For adults in prison, solitary confinement imprisons the imprisoned. “Prisoners in [the hole] are locked down at least 23 hours a day in cells as small as 80 square feet – the size of an average home bathroom.” The extreme isolation allows for only one hour out for recreation time in the “gym.

“The hole” is mentally taxing for adults and stands to exacerbate mental illness. Children confined like this, “get depressed, angry, and don’t know how to handle it,” says Dolly. The youth’s visits often do not pan out and they’re deprived of the use of the phone and are not allowed commissary. Dolly notes, “what often causes them to be thrown in ‘the hole’ results from boredom.”

Although there is a gym on the pod with a pull-up/bench press machine, and possibly a basketball hoop, the children are in school for five to six hours a day. But they are not allowed to be in school if they are in the hole, and they cannot play in the gym if they are not in school. Some teens report that they do not have access to their mental health care providers even after asking and many children do not get the medications that they are in need of.

Freeing our youth in the fight to #FreeTheVulnerable

Observations of these conditions occurred pre-COVID-19. Since the shutdown, children like adults in ACJ are not allowed physical visitation of any kind and are no longer attending school. Children are potentially put into solitary confinement – under the guise of “quarantine”. The Allegheny Intermediate Unit sends in schoolwork packets that the children are expected to complete and send back, as reported at the Jail Oversight Committee meeting

How is community trauma perpetuated by the court’s incessant charging of children as adults? By the county jail’s heartless conditions and vicious practices? Can we imagine justice and creative alternatives for care of our young people – alternatives like rehabilitation, therapy, tutoring, community-based programs, wellness and social-emotional learning, arts and sports enrichments, career and college readiness projects – that go beyond carceral optics and hellish tools of confinement?

The words of anti-apartheid revolutionary and political prisoner Nelson Mandela remind us, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” There are children in jail and we fight for their rights in the movement to #FreeTheVulnerable.

COVID-19

Renewal Halfway House: Pittsburgh’s De Facto Private Prison

Post author By abolitionistlc
Post date May 13, 2020

by Sofia Huang

Renewal halfway house has become a de facto private prison in the wake of COVID-19

Renewal, Inc., a private company contracted by the Department of Corrections (DOC), has been keeping individuals in lockdown in cramped quarters that do not conform to social distancing standards, stripping them of basic rights, and denying them medical attention. Individuals in the halfway house are essentially being treated as prisoners despite being reentrants reintegrating into society.

According to the CDC, America’s jails and prisons have become hotspots for coronavirus outbreaks^[1]. However, this issue is not only affecting those incarcerated in county, state, and federal facilities. Individuals released from correctional facilities to halfway houses are also at increased risk. Halfway houses, community-based organizations where individuals can normally expect to be able to enter and leave during the day in order to work jobs to prepare for reintegration into society, have become increasingly dangerous environments for reentrants in the wake of COVID-19.

This is true in our own backyard. Renewal Inc., a private, non-profit “community corrections organization” that houses 627 individuals in two facilities in Pittsburgh^[2], has been subjecting individuals to overcrowded conditions and stripping them of their rights, to the point where they are suffering worse conditions than many incarcerated in prison. According to several individuals currently housed at Renewal, the facility has been on lockdown for about 50 days, with no news of when lockdown will end. With no access to the outside world, stuck in windowless conditions and bunked up 12 people per room with no space for social distancing, some feel like they are losing their minds. Individuals report developing rashes, dry skin, and red splotches due to a lack of sun and fresh air. Furthermore, the fact that people are not being let out for work means many are worried that they will be homeless and jobless upon reentry.

In light of the fact that Renewal is a private company, it makes sense that the abuses of power outrival those in public prisons and jails. As Federal government reports have shown^[3], private companies contracted by the government lack oversight and accountability and, as a result, incur more safety and security incidents such as increased lockdowns, confiscations, inmate discipline, and monitoring and surveillance. These reports of abuse are echoed by Renewal’s current residents in lockdown: being trapped inside has led to a lack of proper medical attention and care, as well as increased surveillance that violates basic rights of the individuals inside.

A major concern, according to several people on the inside, is that many folks needing medical attention are unable to get the care they need. Individuals are allowed to see doctors only on an arbitrary, case-by-case basis. According to those inside, the facility staff are not allowing some who need emergency attention to seek care. If individuals leave for unofficially sanctioned appointments, they are threatened with a 14-day quarantine upon reentry. This stands in contrast to the constant stream of employees and new intakes moving into the building who could be exposing those already inside to heightened risk. Therefore, as one individual inside mentioned, the lockdown is not for their own safety, but instead prioritizes the health of staff. Those residing in Renewal are treated as second class citizens, stripped of health protections and deprived of basic rights to care.

Renewal is also flouting oversight and accountability in stripping individuals of basic rights.

Some report Renewal’s overuse of strip searches, which one reentrant, Mike Henry, reports as “out of control” and “humiliating,” despite the fact that “we’re not inmates in jail.”

Furthermore, individuals inside are required to open all mail in front of facility staff despite the fact that unlike public prisons, as a non-governmental, community corrections organization Renewal does not have the right to monitor individuals’ correspondences ^[4]. If individuals do not comply, they are threatened with having all mail and packages delivered back to the sender. These threats are especially cruel because the facility is not supplying adequate hygiene products. Therefore, the only way individuals currently on lockdown can get basic hygiene products is if their loved ones send items in the mail.

As a private company, Renewal is responsible for setting its own policies and practices in the wake of COVID-19 ^[5]. The DOC is not responsible for enforcing lockdown at privately contracted sites. As such, we need to hold Renewal accountable for its abuse of power and demand justice for those being held in inhumane lockdown conditions in their facilities. In stark contrast their organization’s purported goals of safety, empowerment, and rehabilitation^[6], we need to call the situation what it is:

Renewal has become a de facto private prison.

About the Author: Sofia Huang is a rising second year doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at Duquesne University. She has conducted research related to mental and behavioral health in the juvenile justice system in New York State and is currently researching, writing, and practicing at the intersection of radical mental health, homelessness services, and housing, racial, and economic justice.

Notes

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e1.htm?s_cid=mm6919e1_w

[2] https://renewalinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Dec-13-2018-19-Renewal-Inc-Annual-Report.pdf

[3] https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1606.pdf

[4] https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/prisoners-rights/

[5] https://renewalinc.com/about/overview/

[6] The local director of Pittsburgh Community Corrections confirmed that they don’t have oversight over Renewal. However, efforts to contact the regional director of the bureau of community corrections in PA (Region 3 which includes Allegheny) related to the relationship between DOC oversight and Renewal, failed.

COVID-19

PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE. Parole, Reprieve and Commutation in the Failed State

Post author By abolitionistlc
Post date May 5, 2020

by Autumn Redcross, edited by William Lukas

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
– Audre Lorde, 1984

There are approximately 45,000 people in Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections. While the DOC regularly releases about 20,000 people each year, there is a reluctance to accelerate their time in service to the state and end their prison sentences early. Even in the face of a global public health crisis. As abolitionists, it may feel contradictory to lionize the radical potentials of parole, reprieve, and commutation – some of the “master’s tools” that reinforce compliance with carceral logics. Yet these existing instruments of criminal law have the capacity to save thousands of lives during this pandemic and beyond. In this article, we amplify arguments for parole, reprieve and commutation under COVID-19, not as a blueprint for dismantling the master’s house, but as a strategic call in the fight to #FreeTheVulnerable and protect public health.

PAROLE

Parole is a continued form of sentence outside of prison. On parole, a person is released to the community while under state surveillance. As a privilege, and not a right, parole can be granted for not more than 50% of the maximum time of the sentence(s). Parole is considered by an administrative board once a person meets the minimum of their sentence requirements. The person on parole must operate according to the terms of their release, otherwise they will be at risk of being apprehended and again detained. People can be (and are) sent back to prison for technical parole violations that do not involve the commission of new criminal acts.

According to the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, “Of the offenders discharged in 2018, 74.8 percent, or 78,947 offenders, were successfully discharged and of those, 4,381 offenders had their supervision terminated early.” Over 100,000 people on parole were in circulation over all and about 20,000 are released from the DOC every year.

Mass decarceration occurs on a regular basis: with close to half of the DOC prison population being released yearly, parole enables reentry into society for great numbers of the formerly incarcerated. Parole becomes an alternative to a system of warehousing that promotes punishment and aging, rather than behavioral correction or personal transformation.

REPRIEVE

In matters of high concern or crisis, reprieves can be granted by the governor. A reprieve is a temporary suspension of a criminal sentence. Whereas the Governor of Pennsylvania has the power “to remit fines and forfeitures, to grant reprieves, commutation of sentences and pardons,” only the reprieve power does not require the recommendation of a majority or unanimous votes of the Board of Pardons, as required for pardons and commutations. The ability to temporarily suspend punishment is an exclusive power of the Governor in Pennsylvania. Governor Wolf can – and has – unilaterally suspended the imposition of a sentence, whether to avert an irrevocable sentence of death or to reduce the prison population in order to respond to a pandemic

On April 10, the Governor used his reprieve authority in response to COVID-19, creating a reprieve program to be administered by the DOC. The Governor estimated that 1,500-1,800 candidates from the more than 45,000 people held captive in DOC custody would be eligible for reprieve under the program. However, only a meager 111 have been granted reprieve nearly a month into the program. Both the proposed limited eligibility for reprieve (1,500 and 1,800 prisoners) and the realized practice of reprieve (111 prisoners) flies in the face of public health, logic, and of mercy.

For Wolf, “Vulnerable inmates will include inmates aged 65 or older; anyone with an autoimmune disorder; pregnant inmates; anyone with a serious, chronic medical condition such as heart disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, bone marrow or organ transplantation, severe obesity, kidney disease, liver disease,[and] cancer; or another medical condition that places them at higher risk for complications of coronavirus as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”, as reported on the newsroom page of his website. However, as COVID-19 overtakes prisons at a frightening pace, this is insufficient. We seek more releases and actual justice.

Essentially all sentences are death sentences even pre COVID-19. Governments have refused to take required actions to prevent the deadly outbreaks inside its penal fortresses. And time charged does not excuse the cruel circumstances of being contained during moments of war and disaster.

COMMUTATION

Robert “Saleem” Holbrook, ALC’s Director of Community Organizing and co-founder of the Human Rights Coalition, advocates for the release of our elders and loved ones. Speaking with fierce love and urgency at the #FreeTheVulnerable Virtual Town Hall on April 21, Saleem noted that “Seniors constitute the least threat to public safety.” Age renders them particularly vulnerable to contracting COVID-19 and succumbing to the virus’s complications.

Saleem states, “Right now the DOC houses 700 lifers who are over the age of 65. There are 303 senior offenders who are over the age of 65 and have served half of their minimum sentence.” They should receive parole or expedited reprieve.

“There are over 2,000 people who are within nine to twelve months of the end of their minimum sentence” and also age 65 or older. “There is no way they” shouldn’t be released by parole or reprieve. Right now, 27% of the Department Of Corrections population are seniors.” They should receive parole or expedited reprieve.

During the #FreeTheVulnerable Town Hall, Saleem noted that “three lifers who are over 65 and have not had letters of commutation signed” by the Governor despite being recommended by the Board of Pardons for commutation. These people are our loved ones whom we want to bring home.

Prisons function as incubators of COVID-19. Not only does this impact those subjected to the violences of the courts and criminal justice system, but it also pours over and emanates through sociogenic aspects of our environment and the wellness of its people. The system of criminal injustice obliges the state to turn a blind eye to the humanity of individuals behind prison walls. At the same time, the system perpetually harms our communities. Both ultimately illustrate, with grim clarity, why we must continually push against the walls that imprison.

As Saleem had described, “this is a failed state.” Yet as abolitionists, we challenge the carceral system to utilize its own mechanisms in the interest of public health. Our demand is to #FreeTheVulnerable and at no time do we accept any proposition that situates our loved ones to become martyrs of the state in service to time. Not on our watch.

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