Handcuffing a prisoner to a hitching post for seven hours, denying him water, and then taunting him about his thirst as the summer sun beat down upon him
was a “a cost-effective, safe and relatively pain-free way to impel
inmates to work,” according to the Alabama Department of Corrections,
and a brief filed by former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor (R)
in 2002 called upon the Supreme Court to defer to this determination.
Thanks to President George W. Bush, Pryor is now a federal appellate
judge. And, if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gets his
way, he will soon have even more control over what kinds of punishments
are doled out to federal defendants.
The powerful United States Sentencing Commission sets the federal sentencing guidelines which form the basis of most criminal sentencing handed down by federal judges. Although there are some constitutional limits
on the extent to which the Commission can increase federal sentences by
altering the Guidelines, they remain one of the most potent vehicles
for shaping federal sentences. Because no more than four of the Commission’s seven voting members
may belong to the same party, the President traditionally names three
members selected by leaders of his opposition party. According to the
White House, McConnell selected Pryor to hold one of the Republican Party’s three seats.
Read on...
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Michael Glawogger's "Whores' Glory"
Michael Glawogger does for documentary film what Ryszard Kapuściński did for journalism: He reinvents it as something immersive, meditative, and poetic. His films
condense themes of staggering complexity—economics, labor, sex—into
meticulous vignettes of everyday life. Although he has occasionally been
derided for aestheticizing poverty, there's little doubt that his
audacious style is compelling. Nobody who has seen Megacities,
his 1998 film about globalization, can forget those feverish New York
City scenes of a hustler shooting dope and robbing his john at
knifepoint, just as nobody who has watched Workingman's Death (2005), his portrait of contemporary physical labor, can shake its images of a Nigerian slaughterhouse awash in blood.Still too many prisoners in California
Gov. Jerry Brown is fighting the courts, but he should be trying harder to curb inmate overcrowding.
Federal judges rejected Gov.
Brown's request that they return control of California's
still-overcrowded prison system to the state. Above: Inmates are seen at
California State Prison-Lancaster in 2010.
(Los Angeles Times / June 10, 20)
Brown is vowing to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and more power to him. He argues that medical and mental health care provided in California's prisons, recently so abysmal as to be deemed cruel and unusual punishment, is now the nation's best, and perhaps he is right. But even so, the courts can be expected to retain jurisdiction until the target inmate population is reached, and until the justices are assured that new standards of care in the prisons are a permanent part of the institutional
culture and not merely a short break after decades of unconscionable inmate treatment.
Read on....
This is from an LA Times editorial. Tom
New Research Confirms Gun Rampages Are Rising—and Armed Civilians Don't Stop Them
By the time the nation confronted the unthinkable school massacre in Connecticut last December, Mother Jones' groundbreaking investigation of mass shootings,
launched the prior summer, had shown that mass gun violence in America
was on the rise. The trend appeared to be no coincidence in light of the proliferation of guns and looser gun laws nationwide. One leading criminologist took issue with our criteria,
arguing that mass shootings had not become more common. But now,
research from an expert on criminal justice at Texas State University
further shows that gun rampages in the United States have escalated.The research, to be published in a book in July, further confirms that:
- Public shooting rampages have spiked in particular over the last few years
- Many of the attackers were heavily armed
- None of the shootings was stopped by an ordinary citizen using a gun
Read on...
At Least 4 People Were Accidentally Shot By Toddlers Since Last Weekend
All week, official Washington is fixated on the question of whether the 14 senators who’ve promised to filibuster any gun safety legislation
will succeed in their efforts to maintain the status quo. Meanwhile,
gun violence continues unabated in the rest of the nation. In a
particularly tragic chapter in our nation’s struggle with such violence,
at least four people — including two children — were seriously injured
or killed since last weekend in accidental shootings where toddlers
obtained loaded weapons:
- A Tennessee woman was shot in the stomach by her 2-year-old child on Sunday. Rekia Kid was sleeping with the toddler and her three-week-old baby when the toddler discovered a Glock 9 mm stored underneath her pillow and discharged the weapon. Kid managed to get out of the house and crawl to a neighbor’s porch where she was found by the neighbor, who told local news “[s]he just kept screaming that she didn’t think she was going to make it, she didn’t think she was going to make it and to please please take care of my children.”
Top Enron Fraudster Will Spend Less Time In Prison Than A Father Who Sold His Own Pain Pills
John Horner had no record of drug-dealing when he was sentenced to a 25-year mandatory minimum prison term for selling some of his own pain pills
to an undercover informant who befriended him and told him he could not
afford both his rent and his prescription medication. Horner, a
fast-food restaurant worker and a father, had been prescribed the pain
medication because of an injury in which he lost an eye, according to a
BBC report.
If, as expected, he serves all 25 years, Horner will be 72 when he is released, and he will have spent more time in prison than the former Enron CEO who was convicted in one of the largest corporate fraud schemes in modern history. Last week, the Department of Justice said it is considering a deal to shorten Jeffrey Skilling’s sentence. But even if he serves every year, Skilling will still have fared better than Horner with a sentence of 24 years.
Read on...
If, as expected, he serves all 25 years, Horner will be 72 when he is released, and he will have spent more time in prison than the former Enron CEO who was convicted in one of the largest corporate fraud schemes in modern history. Last week, the Department of Justice said it is considering a deal to shorten Jeffrey Skilling’s sentence. But even if he serves every year, Skilling will still have fared better than Horner with a sentence of 24 years.
Read on...
Still searching for G20 answers
Almost three years later, we still don’t know.
Who gave the ridiculous order that Sunday morning of the infamous G20 weekend to arrest anyone wearing a bandana? Smarting from the embarrassing disaster of the previous day’s Black Bloc riot, did someone in “upper command” actually instruct officers that it was now open season on innocent Toronto residents daring to wear a scarf downtown?
Did this come from an angry and frustrated Chief Bill Blair? Or from some other senior police officer from another agency? And why would the agency tasked to review such police matters refuse to investigate further?
Read on...
Who gave the ridiculous order that Sunday morning of the infamous G20 weekend to arrest anyone wearing a bandana? Smarting from the embarrassing disaster of the previous day’s Black Bloc riot, did someone in “upper command” actually instruct officers that it was now open season on innocent Toronto residents daring to wear a scarf downtown?
Did this come from an angry and frustrated Chief Bill Blair? Or from some other senior police officer from another agency? And why would the agency tasked to review such police matters refuse to investigate further?
Read on...
White House Budget Would Fund Drug Punishment Over Treatment
The Obama administration budget released Wednesday emphasizes drug
abuse punishment and interdiction over treatment and prevention, despite
recent rhetoric from the Office of National Drug Control Policy on a "21st century" approach.
The White House budget proposal for fiscal 2014 devotes 58 percent of drug-control spending to punishment and interdiction, compared with 42 percent to treatment and prevention. The drug control spending ratio in this year's budget is even more lopsided, 62 percent to 38 percent.
"The administration deserves some credit for moving this ratio slightly in the right direction over the years, but a drug control budget that increases funding for the DEA and the Bureau of Prisons is simply not the kind of strategy we need in the 21st century," said Marijuana Majority spokesman Tom Angell. "At a time when a majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana, and states are moving to end prohibition, this president should be spending less of our money paying narcs to send people to prison, not more. If, as administration officials say, 'We can't arrest our way out of the drug problem,' then why are they continuing to devote so many resources to arresting people for drug problems?"
Read on...
The White House budget proposal for fiscal 2014 devotes 58 percent of drug-control spending to punishment and interdiction, compared with 42 percent to treatment and prevention. The drug control spending ratio in this year's budget is even more lopsided, 62 percent to 38 percent.
"The administration deserves some credit for moving this ratio slightly in the right direction over the years, but a drug control budget that increases funding for the DEA and the Bureau of Prisons is simply not the kind of strategy we need in the 21st century," said Marijuana Majority spokesman Tom Angell. "At a time when a majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana, and states are moving to end prohibition, this president should be spending less of our money paying narcs to send people to prison, not more. If, as administration officials say, 'We can't arrest our way out of the drug problem,' then why are they continuing to devote so many resources to arresting people for drug problems?"
Read on...
Sexual Abuse of Children with Disabilities: A National Snapshot
Executive Summary
Children with disabilities are three times more likely than children without them to be victims of sexual abuse, and the likelihood is even higher for children with certain types of disabilities, such as intellectual or mental health disabilities.
1
However, sexual abuse of children with disabilities has not garnered the attention of policymakers, practitioners, advocates, or community members.These children are also less likely to receive victim services and supports that are more readily available to other victims because of a variety of factors including barriers to reporting and a lack of responses tailored to meet their unique needs. Without receiving support, these children suffer serious long-term aftereffects, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression, as well as an increased risk of victimization in adulthood
This is from the Vera Institute. Tom
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