The journalist who's facing gaol for talking to a prisoner

BRISBANE: Journalist and documentary-maker Anne Delaney would probably rather be working on her latest project than sitting in the Inala magistrate's court, facing a possible two year stretch in a Queensland gaol.

But next week the film-maker will defend herself against a charge of illegally 'interviewing' a prisoner in the Wacol women's prison.

Delaney has been charged under Section 100 of the Queensland Corrective Services Act, which makes it an offence to "interview" a prisoner either inside or outside a Queensland gaol.

Ms Delaney spoke to prisoner Louise McPhee, but did not record the interview or even take any notes of the conversation. McPhee is in prison for the manslaughter of her child but Delaney thinks there may have been a miscarriage of justice in the case.

After spending a short time with the prisoner, Delaney was confronted by two police officers and arrested inside the Wacol facility.

The journalists' union, the MEAA, has called on the Queensland DPP and the Director-General of the prison system to drop the charges. Federal Secretary of the MEAA, Chris Warren, describes the actions of the Queensland Corrective Services department as a "death sentence" for democracy if journalists can't investigate or reveal information that is clearly in the public interest.

"Queensland's recent history highlights that responsible journalism is a vital weapon against corruption. The Fitzgerald Inquiry proved that," said Warren.

So far the Queensland media seems to be ignoring this story, but the global clearing house for press freedom, the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, has put the case on its alert list.

A fundraiser in Sydney last weekend raised over $5000 towards Delaney's court costs. SMH journalist David Marr spoke at the gathering, and he told Crikey that the Corrective Services media policy is designed to censor and control media access to prisoners. "The policy allows access only if it does not embarrass the Queensland Government."

Anne's case is listed in the Inala magistrate's court for hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. The MEAA is concerned that Section 100 of the Queensland Corrective Services legislation may be unconstitutional, given several high-profile cases which ruled there is an implied right of comment on political matters in the Australian Constitution.

Anne Delaney has worked for the ABC and SBS and has produced and directed several films. Now her lawyers have taken the unusual step of notifying all the state and territory Attorneys General that a possible constitutional issue it to be raised in the Inala local court, which is more used to hearing cases of drunk and disorderly.

By Martin Hirst posted 17 November 05

Related Media Links:

Abu Ghraib one day, Queensland the next

In Queensland the prisons are protected from unwanted media attention by legislation that forbids media access to prisons under threat of legal sanction.

In 1996 former Courier Mail journalist, Ms Ella Riggert, was fined $1050 for conducting an interview with Tracey Wiggington, Queensland's alleged 'vampire killer', at Brisbane Womens Prison. Two other Queensland journalists, Ms Lou Robson and Channel Nine ACA reporter, Margueritte Rossi, also suffered the same fate when they conducted 'unauthorised' telephone interviews with prisoners from the Woodford and Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centres. Both journalists were fined $300 but no conviction was recorded.

Riggert, Robson and Rossi were constricted by law to accept the sanctions of Section 104 (10) of The Queensland Corrective Services Act 1988 No.89 which carried a maximum penalty of $3000 or two years imprisonment for anyone who; (f) without the authority of the Commission, interviews a prisoner (within the meaning of section 10) or obtains a written or recorded statement from such a prisoner, whether within or outside of a prison commits an offense against this Act. The Queensland Corrective Services Act 2000 reinforced the previous Draconian sanctions with harsher penalties for those who tried to penetrate the veil of secrecy that surrounds the Queensland prison system.

USA Prisons: Free-speech lockdown

With the heavy hand of corrections firmly around our collective throats, ending the media prohibition is the only way to change society's misguided perception about prisons and prisoners.

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Sir David Longland Correctional Centre

The exercise yards in all units in B Block are now closed in with extra cladding to all external surfaces. No direct sunlight ever comes into the exercise yards at any time of the day. Block walling surround more than three-quarters of the yard. A portion of one wall is covered in with compressed steel mesh with small holes, plus another mesh fence being the original fence. No fresh air comes into these yards because of the mesh and the fact that there is no cross ventilation for air to pass through the yard. The roofing of all unit exercise yards in B Block have been covered in stopping any sunlight. In the summer months, heat generated from the tin roofing over the exercise yards makes the yard so hot, normal use is avoided.

SIR DAVID LONGLAND CORRECTIONAL CENTRE QLD - CELLS IN B BLOCK

The cells in B Block are like no other in any Queensland prison. After Mr. Cooper was severally embarrassed by the Abbott and Co escape on 4th November 1997, he visited B Block and the surrounding grounds. It was that visit, by Cooper, that set in motion a plan (up the ante) to make sure security in B Block would never embarrass him again. It was like closing the gate after the horse has bolted.

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Adler punished for being in prison
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Department of Corrective Services fails to rehabilitate offenders
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Parole Board Membership
NSW: The Law Society is aware that two former long standing police officers Mr Robert Inkster, an Mr Peter Walsh, were appointed to the Parole Board as Community Members for a period of three years from 17 January 2005 until 16 January 2008.

Corrected or Corrupted
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Tasmanian prison support visit
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Association for the Prevention of Torture
The Optional Protocol requires 20 ratifications to enter into force. All States Parties to the UN Convention against Torture should seriously consider ratifying the OPCAT as soon as possible. National Institutions and others promoting the human rights of people deprived of their liberty need to be informed of their potential role as national preventive mechanisms under the OPCAT.

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ICOPA XI International Conference on Penal Abolition
We are excited to announce that ICOPA X1, the eleventh International Conference on Penal Abolition will happen in Tasmania, Australia from February 9 - 11,2006. Please pass this onto all networks.

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No Safe Place
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Crime and Punishment
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Prison guards test positive for drugs
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NSW prison visitors banned from using the toilet
The New South Wales Government has introduced several initiatives to stop contraband getting into prisons they said last Friday. But under the guise of "stricter rules" the department had also introduced banning all visitors including children from using the toilet unless they terminate their visit at any NSW prison after using the toilet.

Watchdogs slaughtered in NSW
On Tuesday the Carr Government reduced transparency and accountability yet again and New South Wales is in danger of becoming entrenched with cronyism and intimidations with the Carr Labor Government that continues to slaughter the watchdogs.

Sir David Longland Correctional Centre
The exercise yards in all units in B Block are now closed in with extra cladding to all external surfaces. No direct sunlight ever comes into the exercise yards at any time of the day. Block walling surround more than three-quarters of the yard. A portion of one wall is covered in with compressed steel mesh with small holes, plus another mesh fence being the original fence. No fresh air comes into these yards because of the mesh and the fact that there is no cross ventilation for air to pass through the yard. The roofing of all unit exercise yards in B Block have been covered in stopping any sunlight. In the summer months, heat generated from the tin roofing over the exercise yards makes the yard so hot, normal use is avoided.

SIR DAVID LONGLAND CORRECTIONAL CENTRE QLD - CELLS IN B BLOCK The cells in B Block are like no other in any Queensland prison. After Mr. Cooper was severally embarrassed by the Abbott and Co escape on 4th November 1997, he visited B Block and the surrounding grounds. It was that visit, by Cooper, that set in motion a plan (up the ante) to make sure security in B Block would never embarrass him again. It was like closing the gate after the horse has bolted.

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The Government is likely to abolish the Inspector General of Corrective Services position The Mulawa inspection report recommendations below strictly illustrate how important he is.

ICOPA XI International Conference on Penal Abolition

We are excited to announce that ICOPA X1, the eleventh International Conference on Penal Abolition will happen in Tasmania, Australia from February 9 - 11,2006. Please pass this onto all networks.

Previous conferences have happened in 1983 Toronto Canada, 1985 Amsterdam Netherlands, 1987 Montreal Canada, 1989 Poland, 1991 Indiana USA, 1993 Costa Rica, 1995 Spain, 1997 Auckland NZ, 2000 Toronto Canada, and 2002 Lagos, Nigeria.

Justice Action has accepted the responsibility to coordinate this conference, and will be working with others around the world to ensure that it is an historic, inclusive and accessible event. We want prisoner and exprisoner involvement to be a feature. Let those most affected be heard and let us share their future!

Each ICOPA asks these questions:

What is wrong?
What are we doing?
What can we do?

The agenda and the form of the conference is now open. Please email us proposals and pass to others this notice. Some suggestions for strands are:

* The Politics of Imprisonment

Northern Ireland, Palestine and the Middle East, (Post) Colonial Justice Nigeria and West Africa, South Africa: ANC, Brazil, USA, Canada.

* Contemporary Forms of Penal Custom

Human Rights & Imprisonment: a Global Perspective, International trends, Imprisonment of Women, Marginalisation and Political Dissent in the USA,
Refugee and Immigration Prisons, Prisons under Occupation.

* Post Carceral Resettlement

Organising Inside: Prisoners' resistance and the Outside Community, Writing and Art as Resistance, Barriers to Reintegration, Surveillance, Organising in the Community - Exprisoners' Organisations, Convict Criminology.

* Action Now

Proposals for the future.

We will be linking with the ANZSOC criminology conference happening from 7-9th of February 2006 in Tasmania. They haven't finalised the program yet, but do plan to have four plenary sessions around the theme of Human Rights:

'Prisoners and Human Rights'
'Refugees and Human Rights'
'State Crime and Human Rights'
'Terrorism, Racism and Human Rights'

Tasmania is an ideal place to discuss punishment. It used to be called Van Dieman's Land, and was the place where most of the original convicts were sent from England from 1788 until the 1850's. It was the ultimate as a penal colony, was almost entirely a prison, and changed its name to avoid the historic shame. It had penal settlements where convicts were tortured - all well documented. And the convict responses are very special learning experiences, still valid today.

Robert Hughes book "The Fatal Shore" ISBN 0 099 45915 9 is well worth the read.

From the Internet:

Transport cost from Sydney/Tasmania return Aus$220 USA/Syd ret Aus$1600

SEE YOU IN VAN DIEMAN'S LAND 2006!!

Justice Action
65 Bellevue St, Glebe, NSW 2037, Australia
P.O. Box 386, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia
ja@justiceaction.org.au
voice: 612-9660 9111 fax: 612-9660 9100

Please log into the Justice Action Web site, designed and sponsored by Breakout Design & Print, exercising good corporate citizenship:

PREVIOUS ICOPAs

1983 - ICOPA 1, the First International Conference on Prison Abolition took place in Toronto, Canada. It was organized by grassroots prison rights activists, prison abolitionist academics, ex-prisoners, Quakers and interested community members. A resolution was passed to make ICOPA a bi-annual event.

1985 - ICOPA 11 was held in Amsterdam and was organized by mainly academics and European scholars.

1987 - ICOPA III was organized by a prison abolitionist group in Montreal, Canada. This conference marked a huge change in the abolitionist movement. Participants and conference organizers decided that a goal to abolish the prison was not sufficient. The real problem was the penal mindset which allowed the prison to exist; thus, to abolish the prison without abolishing the penal mentality and penal structure would only open us up to more oppression. As a result of this realization, the International Conference on Prison Abolition transformed to become the International Conference on Penal Abolition.

1989 - ICOPA IV was held in Poland during a time of political upheaval (iron curtain had not fallen yet) and great oppression. This conference was small but very successful in its showing of bravery and true human commitment to this movement.

1991 - ICOPA V was held in Indiana, USA. This conference focused on Native/Aboriginal Justice and racism in the American Justice System.

1993 - ICOPA VI was held in Costa Rica. This is considered to be among the most successful conferences because it included many scholars, activists, ex-prisoners and government officials who were taking the movement and its ideas seriously.

1995 - ICOPA VII was held in Spain. This conference was not very focused on abolition and thus received many complaints and criticisms from its participants

1997 - ICOPA VIII was held in Auckland, New Zealand. This conference was a good opportunity to learn about Maori Justice and Alternative Justice models based on Maori traditions.

2000 - ICOPA IX was held in Toronto, Canada. Returning to the city it was born in, this conference focused on Transformative Justice and the Corporate Agenda's role in Criminal Justice.

2002 - ICOPA X in Lagos, Nigeria. It was the first one in Africa. The theme: Transformative Justice and Practical Alternative to the Penal System..

ICOPA History

The Movement to Abolish Prisons is as old as prisons themselves. In the 19th century, voices like Thomas Buxton of the British Parliament and Victor Hugo of France condemned the prison system and retributive justice. In 1976 Gilbert Cantor, a former editor of the Philadelphia Bar magazine, wrote in that prestigious magazine: "If our entire criminal justice apparentus were simply closed down...there would probably be a decrease in the amount of behaviour now labeled 'criminal'. The time has come to abolish the game of crime and punishment, and to substitute a paradigm of resitutition and responsibility. The goal is the civilization of our treatment of offenders."

Justice Action - ICOPA

Justice Action is a community-based organisation of criminal justice activists. We are prisoners, academics, victims of crime, ex-prisoners.

Updated 11 April 2009

ICOPA X1: Listen! You Tube

The documentary addresses penal abolition as a concept and issues surrounding that policy. It presents the 11th International Conference on Penal Abolition held in Tasmania, Australia over the 9-11th February 2006.

By Justice Action 28 April 05

Related:

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Hamlet: Denmark's a prison.
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Hamlet: A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons.[1]

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Decade after inspector left in disgust, report tells of filth
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Overhaul Department of Justice: Reform Group
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Breakthrough in prison revolt
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Control order flaws exposed
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FAMILIES OF PRISONERS FORUM
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Craig Annesley: Miscarriage of Justice
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Noble Cause Torture?
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Most women 'should not be jailed'
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Detention Centres, Solitary Confinement
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Youth 'murdered for officers' pleasure'
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Abu Ghraib, USA
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On Solitary Confinement
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THE POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK:
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US death row numbers don't change policy?
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How Denying the Vote to Ex-Offenders Undermines Democracy
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DNA Evidence of Bipartisanship
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Our Two Priority Bills sent to White House
US: The 8th National CURE Convention last June lobbied on Capitol Hill the Innocence Protection Act in the Senate and the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 in the House. On Sunday, October 10th, Congress passed both bills and sent them to the President to be signed.

THE LAW IS AN ASS:
US: A Californian man who beheaded a german shepherd dog he had named after his girlfriend, has been sentenced to 25 years to life under California's three-strikes law.

SAVE THE LIFE OF NGUYEN TUONG VAN:A PLEA TO SINGAPORE PRESIDENT On behalf of the Australian Coalition Against Death Penalty (ACADP) and in the spirit of respect for human life, I make a heartfelt plea for clemency, compassion and mercy, to spare and save the young life of Nguyen Tuong Van, currently under sentence of death at Changi Prison in Singapore. Nguyen Tuong Van, is a 23-year-old Australian man of Vietnamese origin. Nguyen was arrested at Changi Airport in December 2002, whilst in transit from Cambodia to Australia. He was later charged and convicted of drug-trafficking. In March 2004 he was sentenced to death for his crime.

EXTRADITION ACT FLUSHED DOWN THE TOILET
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BIRTHDAY PROTEST BACKS INNOCENT MAN ON DEATH ROW:
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THE LAND OF BIBLES, GUNS, PATRIOTS AND THE 'WORLD ROLE MODEL' FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: The state of Alabama, USA, executed James Barney Hubbard. So what? ... you might say ... America executes prisoners almost every week!

Appealing a Death Sentence Based on Future Danger USA-HOUSTON, June 9 - Texas juries in capital cases must make a prediction. They may impose a death sentence only if they find that the defendant will probably commit more violent acts.

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The Two Million Signature Campaign
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Critical Resistance - Sydney
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Zimbardo on US Soldiers and Iraqi prisoners

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

My former colleague in the Psychology Department at Pace University in Pleasantville, NY forwarded this letter to me. It was distributed via the Social Psychology e-network. I think you will find it enlightening, and possibly disturbing, but I believe it is important information for us to be aware of.

Zimbardo was one of two professors at Stanford University who did an experiment with Stanford Students, now close to 30 years ago. They pre-tested students for normalcy of personality, so all the students who participated were "normal" college students at Stamford.

They divided the students into two groups -- "prisoners" and "guards" -- to study the effect of this kind of labeling on their behaviors. They had to terminate the study early, because the behavior of the "guards"(NORMAL college students) had become increasingly violent. This is actually the first time I read of the actual behaviors that the students engaged in that caused them to terminate the study.

Zimbardo wrote a lengthy article in the American Psychologist for the 25 year anniversary of the study, noting that he had hoped that the amazing results of their study would serve to awaken the American people to the dangers of the kinds of incarceration we have in our prison system.

He was, however, increasingly alarmed at how increasingly punitive our prison system has become, and more and more abuses are being tolerated in the name of "just" punishment -- including lenthy stays in isolation boxes, etc.

So it should come as little surprise to us that the kinds of abuses perpetrated in Iraq occurred. It is a function of the kind of dehumanization that occurs with the kinds of labelling of people as "enemy" "terrorist", and simply "prisoner" -- objectifying them.

We wonder how Hitler managed to convince a whole nation that Jews were exterminable. A similar labelling process occurred to make this possible.

I hope your reading of this article will help to inform your thinking on these matters, and our national war on "terrorists" and "terrorism."

[The Coalition of the Killing's Resource War's in the Middle East.]

Message From: Phil Zimbardo Position/Title: Professor of Psychology
School/Organization: Stanford University Subject: Abuse of Iraqi prisoners and the SPE parallels

May 1, 2004

Dear Colleagues,

Just a quick note before heading off to a meeting of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) where Psych is the only social science among 62 societies represented, and I am its chair elect.

Recent horrors being displayed of sexual degradation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military army reservists elicit direct and sad parallels between similar behavior of the "guards" in the Stanford Prison Experiment against their "prisoners." As the guards on the night shift became ever more bored with their long 8 hour shift, they began to use the prisoners as play things for their amusement, believing that their actions were not under surviellance during the night (they were secretly videotaped for subsequent viewing).

I then discovered they would get them to simulate sodomy and other homophobic behaviors. They also stripped prisoners naked for various offenses, took away their sheets and mattresses, put them in solitary for excessive periods -- all of which are mirrored in the behavior of military police in the Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. It is one reason we ended the study a week early because the guards were abusing the power in their roles, and were becoming uncontrollable by our staff.

See also the recent New Yorker Magazine reports by Seymour Hersh (who also helped expose the My Lai massacre), for details of the etxent of the torture, abuse of all kinds, murder of inmates, [prisoners], coverups by senior officers and details. In the current situation, we must not allow the politicians and pentagon to dismiss the seriousness of what happened with the usual dispositional analysis of 'a few bad apples in a good barrel'. Bush said it should not reflect on the good nature of all Americans or our military.

Wrong. The situational analysis says the barrel of war is filled with vinegar that will transform good cucumbers into sour pickles and will always do it to make the majority of good people, men and women, into perpetrators of evil, where there is: anonymity-deindividuation, dehumanization, secrecy, diffusion of responsibility, social modeling, big power differentials, frustration, feelings of revenge, obedience to authority, lack of supervision that conveys a sense of permissiveness.

Remember the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, other 'good' boy-soldiers murdered, raped, scalped and burned to death hundreds of innocent Vietnamese civilians, and only one was tried ... and Lt. Calley was soon released to become a hero of the right wing.

I studied torturers and death squad executioners in Brazil -- there, civil and military police committed the most atrocious horrors against fellow citizens once they were labelled the "enemy" -- socialists and communists -- and the ideology of "National Security" made them a threat to the fascist military junta running the country -- with the support of our government.

Again we show in our recent book that basic social psychology principles were operating to morph ordinary Brazilian police into brutal torturers and heartless mass murderers (see Violence Workers, UC Berkeley press, 2003, Huggins, Haritos-Fatouros, Zimbardo).

The ubiquitous causal force in all this is the Evil of War, and the cover story of "National Security," and now the exaggerated fears of terrorism that have been induced by ten "credible" terror alarms is transforming our nation into a culture of victims and our soldiers into brutal abusers of other human beings.

This one incident of wanton, repeated, dehumanized abuse of innocent Iraqi civilian detainees, [prisoners], will haunt the objectives of the Bush administration of bringing any semblance of US-style democracy to the Middle East -- it will now not happen.

[Err..The objectives of the war criminal Bush administration are Resource Wars and not US-style democracy.]

It is not Americans at our worst, it is human nature succumbing to the power of evil situational forces. The horror is that our soldiers, [militants], should never have been put in harm's way to be killed, maimed, and now to have to function in situations that enabled them to behave in ways that are a perversion of the perfection of our humanity. The rush to this pre-emptive war was based on lies, false assumptions and political and economic objectives that had nothing to do with WMD, terrorism, or enhancing our national security.

War is indeed hell, and this aggressive, needless war is hell on earth that will have long-lasting negative consequences at home and abroad. One slim hope is some improvement after the November elections ... IF the current war-mongering administration is defeated. But the current national inertia is amazing to me, especially among our passive, unconcerned students.

By Frances Delahanty posted 18 May 04

Phil Zimbardo Sent courtesy of Social Psychology Network
Prisonexp.org

USA: An ugly prison record

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From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib Doesn't It Ring a (Prison) Bell

If the president wasn't so forthright about his disinterest in the world, it would have been hard to believe him Wednesday when he said the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison "doesn't represent the America I know." But being stripped, hooded and urinated on while your friend is forced to masturbate next to you? The only member of the Bush clan who knows about that kind of thing is Jenna.

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Hicks's lawyer welcomes prison decision
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Hicks trial won't be fair: US lawyer
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Habib's wife to join Greens Protest during Bush Visit
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Red Cross Criticizes Indefinite Detention in Guantanamo Bay
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Australia: Crean backs war criminals
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Australia: Justice for Hicks & Habib
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Pilger said White House knew Saddam was no threat
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Civil Liabilities: Howard's diversity? I had a dream?
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Terry Hicks Odyssey for Justice for his Imprisoned Son
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Study Warns of Rising Tide of Released Prisoners

Washington: More than 625,000 former prisoners will be coming back into U.S. society this year, part of a record flow of prisoners who will face crushing obstacles in finding work and housing and repairing long-fractured family ties, according to a newly released study.

The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based nonprofit agency, found that returning prisoners often face so many restrictions after long stretches of incarceration that the conditions amount to more years of "invisible punishment." The study warned that their chances of staying out of prison and remaining crime-free are greatly diminished by laws that were promoted as being tough on crime.

Denial of welfare benefits for even minor drug-related offenses, rejection of former inmates for accommodations in public housing, a lack of drug-treatment programs, restrictions on employment and a dearth of transitional housing are some of the factors that make it difficult for former inmates to reenter society, the study's authors say.

"There's always been an American belief that once you pay your debt, you are free to rejoin the community, but these policies now form a sort of permanent second-class citizenship," said Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project and co-editor of the report.

For years, the Sentencing Project has championed alternatives to incarceration and called for criminal justice reforms.

The study, released this week, was presented in 16 essays and reports that were collected in a 355-page book, "Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Incarceration."

Last year, more than 25,000 former prisoners returned to communities in the District, Maryland and Virginia, a volume projected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Advocates are not the only ones concerned that the former prisoners could fall back into crime. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said that 43 percent of the city's homicide victims this year were released from the D.C. jail or from federal prison within the last two years. Not all were convicted felons, he said; some had served time for misdemeanors or had been in jail awaiting trial.

Each year, more than 2,000 former inmates [prisoners] return from prison to District streets, and Ramsey said that many return without job prospects. He said some are killed while trying to reclaim their positions in the drug trade and neighborhood crews. "Some of it's drugs. . . . Some of it is old scores being settled," Ramsey said. "I think many of them, if given an opportunity and given a job, would not fall prey to this," Ramsey said in an interview.

About 9,000 prisoners were released from state prisons in Virginia in fiscal 2002, and 14,000 in Maryland.

U.S. prison and jail populations have mushroomed from 501,000 to 2 million people during the past two decades, by far the most among industrialized nations.

The aftershocks of that wave of incarcerations are beginning to be felt, analysts and law enforcement officials say. The number of prisoners being released has more than doubled since 1994, when it was 272,000, and there is no agreement about how best to deal with the return of so many to their old neighborhoods.

Justice Department statistics show that more than 60 percent of former prisoners are rearrested within three years of release. Some laws have destroyed the "safety net" for returning prisoners, according to the Sentencing Project and other experts.

The Higher Education Act of 1998, for example, bars people convicted of drug-related offenses from receiving student loans. In one recent school year, more than 9,000 people were deemed ineligible for the help.

Amy Hirsch, an attorney with Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, has studied a 1996 federal law that imposes a lifetime ban on people convicted of drug offenses from receiving family welfare benefits and food stamps. She found that the law had a devastating effect on women released from prison.

More than 80 percent of the women in Hirsch's study said that they began using drugs in their early teens after suffering some form of sexual abuse and that they did not receive drug treatment until they entered the prison system.

"They come out of jail hopeful, clean and sober, and then come out and run into this brick wall," Hirsch said. "All the things they need to get their life started back is off limits, and there's nothing they can do about it. They wind up homeless, back on street . . . that law has a terrible effect on their ability to refrain from relapsing into addiction."

A number of states have opted out of the federal law, she said, as lawmakers have come to realize the unanticipated effects of the legislation.

Toni, a 46-year-old D.C. woman who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used, has spent 18 years in prison for three armed robberies. She was released from prison last September and is slowly building a new life, turning a community-service assignment from her parole into a full-time job as a receptionist with a women's support group.

She attends seven Narcotics Anonymous meetings a week and last week moved out of transitional housing. "I've stayed connected with people who are positive and who showed me I could get where I wanted to be," she said. "I've had a lot of help, and I stay very close to those people. I wanted to do better for myself finally, to stop living in the past."

Some lawmakers are working to rescind some of the restrictions cited in the Sentencing Project's study. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has introduced legislation to make former drug offenders eligible for the student loan program. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) has worked on a bill that would allow released felons to vote in federal elections.

Yesterday, Reps. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) and Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.) announced that they were introducing legislation to provide tax credits to encourage the construction of transitional housing for former inmates who emerge from prison without a place to live or immediate job prospects.

Drawing support from a number of nationwide advocacy organizations, including the Legal Action Center and the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Davis and Souder called for better ways of helping inmates [prisoners] return to society.

The Sentencing Project's study noted that incarceration rates and the problems of returning prisoners carry distinct racial overtones.

One contributor to the report, Donald Braman, spent three years studying the impact of high incarceration on D.C. families. Braman cited an earlier study that found that half of the black male population ages 18 to 35 in the District is under some form of correctional supervision, and he estimated that 7 percent of the adult black male population returns from prison to city neighborhoods each year.

Margaret Love, a former Justice Department attorney who recently chaired a city commission that researched sites for new halfway houses, said the stigma of incarceration is difficult to overcome.

"People are scared to death of [ex] criminals and don't see them as members of our community," she said.

By Neely Tucker posted 29 May 03

Related:

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Second International Conference on Human Rights & Prison Reform
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