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NEWS AROUND PRISON AND LAW  /  USA

30 December 2005

Jail for gay or transgender prisoners to close on Rikers Island

[  full article

29. Dezember 2005

eine frau, die seit 3 monaten als vermisst gemeldet war, war die ganze zeit im dekalb county knast/ georgia inhafiert. ihre familie hatte die frau, die schizophrenie hat, gleich nach ihrem verschwinden bei der polizei als vermisst gemeldet und auch mehrfach im knast nachgefragt. die 38 jährige frau war wegen trinkens in der öffentlichkeit festgenommen worden. sie wurde nach ihrer entlassung aus dem knast in ein krankenhaus eingeliefert, da sie monatelang ohne medikamente war. jetzt wird von den behörden ermittelt warum sie die frau nicht gefunden haben, ob sie unter ihrem richtigen namen festgenommen wurde ( was die frau so angeben hat und auch aus den entlassungspapieren hervorgeht) und warum sie drei monate im knast war.

Missing woman found in DeKalb County jail

ATLANTA (AP) — The family of a DeKalb County woman with schizophrenia who was missing for nearly three months said Wednesday she has been in the DeKalb County jail the whole time. Dwelver Kindle, the sister of 38-year-old Felicia Kindle, said her sister had been missing since Oct. 8. ‘‘We filed police reports and have been to DeKalb County jail and Fulton County jail looking for her repeatedly,’’ she said. ‘‘My sister said she gave her name, her date of birth, and her social security number when she got to the jail.’’ Felicia Kindle, a disabled veteran, was released from jail early Wednesday morning, her sister said. She was briefly reunited with her family, who committed her to Georgia Regional Hospital around noon Wednesday for evaluation. Kindle said her sister, who lived with her in Lithonia, is an Army veteran who suffered a nervous breakdown and has been on ‘‘100 percent disability’’ since the early 1990s.

She said her sister has not been taking her prescribed medication. The day Felicia disappeared, she was walking the family dog and did not return home, according to her sister. The family filed a missing person’s report shortly afterward. Dwelver Kindle said her sister told her she was arrested for drinking beer in public. DeKalb police spokesman Herschel Grangent said a jail employee recognized Felicia Kindle’s photo on Tuesday newscasts about her disappearance. The family was notified by a nurse in the jail’s psychiatric ward about 1 a.m. Wednesday. ‘‘We’ve been up all night,’’ said Kindle’s mother, Kathryn Kindle, 65, who lives on the Caribbean island of Anguilla and came to Atlanta this month to look for her daughter. Grangent said DeKalb jail officials are investigating why they were unable to find Kindle, whether she was jailed under the proper name and why she was in the jail for so long. Kindle’s case resembles a similar one from Atlanta in July. Chastity Lewis, a Clark Atlanta University student, was found in the Atlanta city jail nine days after she went missing. Authorities had repeatedly told her mother, Theresa Lewis, that her daughter wasn’t in custody — even though an acquaintance told her he saw her daughter getting arrested.

[  mywebpal.com

28. Dezember 2005

das oberste gericht von massachusetts hat den einzigen beweis gegen einen mann der wegen mord an einem bostoner polizisten angeklagt ist, einen teil eines fingerabdrucks, als nicht beweiskräfig verworfen. zwar seien normalerweise fingerabdrücke schon wichtige beweise, aber nicht als teile die nicht zusammen passen.

MASS. court rejects fingerprint evidence

The Massachusetts Supreme Court has thrown out the only physical evidence linking a man to the slaying of a Boston police detective, a report said Wednesday. Despite the Tuesday ruling, prosecutors said they would proceed with the retrial of Terry Patterson in the September 1993 slaying of John Mulligan, who was shot five times the face while sitting in his Ford Explorer in Roslindale, Mass. Patterson's original murder conviction was overturned on appeal. The ruling removed the only physical evidence against Patterson -- latent fingerprints found on the Explorer, the Boston Globe reported. While the decision upheld most fingerprint evidence as valid, it rejected partial fingerprints when none can be declared a match. University of California criminology expert Simon Cole said it was the second time that a U.S. court has found fingerprint evidence unreliable. U.S. District Court Judge Louis Pollak, who made the first such ruling in 2002, later reversed himself, Cole told the newspaper.

[  sciencedaily.com

26. Dezember 2005

nach einem kürzlich veröffentlichten bericht sind im zeitraum zwischen september 2004 und august 2005 120 gefangene aus dem jefferson county knast die im sog. work- release programm waren, nicht in den knast zurückgekehrt. 25 davon sind immer noch auf der flucht. work releases bedeutet das gefangene ohne aufsicht nach einem job suchen, eine schule besuchen oder arbeiten. es sind grundsätzlich gefangene die wegen nicht- gewalttätiger delikte verurteilt wurden.

120 inmates flee program
Jeffco work-release walkaways highest inspectors have seen

A recently released report says 120 work-release inmates walked away from the Jefferson County Jail over the span of a year from September 2004 to August 2005. The team that assembled the report expressed "major concern with the high rate of walkaways," saying it is "by far the highest number we have ever seen." The team's accreditation report for the American Corrections Association urged review of the county's work-release screening policies. At the same time, it noted that security at the jail itself "was at a high standard and the team was impressed with the professionalism of the security staff."

A review of the program's screening program already is under way, said Jim Shires, sheriff's office spokesman. The work-release program allows inmates to be temporarily released into the community without supervision to look for jobs or to pursue educational opportunities. Eligible inmates are generally nonviolent offenders who have been convicted of offenses that range from failure to pay child support to harassment and third-degree assault. The work-release sentences allow inmates to earn an income, which often goes to pay child support or restitution to victims. Inmates in the program must surrender two hours' pay each day, up to a maximum of $40, to cover administrative costs of the program.

Of the 120 inmates who fled from the program over the period covered by the audit, 95 either returned to jail voluntarily or were apprehended. The other 25 remain at-large, Shires said. The report was issued after a September inspection by a three-member team from the ACA's Commission on Accreditation for Corrections Standards. Inmates participating in the work-release program leave the jail each morning and are expected to return each evening, Shires said. As they return, the inmates are searched and their return is noted and entered into a computer. If an inmate is more than two hours late, the computer system automatically alerts jailers, who begin trying to find the missing inmate, Shires said.

When those efforts fail, an arrest warrant is obtained and the missing offender faces escape charges. About 1,650 inmates have participated in the program this year. The 120 walkaways recorded in the 12 months audited by the ACA team would represent 7.3 percent of the inmates who served work-release sentences in 2005. All felony offenders eligible for the program, as well as some "assaultive" misdemeanor offenders, go through a screening process, said Michael Riede, chief probation officer for the 1st Judicial District, which includes Jefferson County.

"There's a lot of emphasis put on criminal history," Riede said. "Then we look at drug-alcohol (use), mental health, employment. We look at everything. That weighs heavily in our recommendation." The sheriff's office is examining ways to cut the number of inmates who walk away while on work release, including electronic monitoring, said Division Chief David Walcher, who heads the county's Detention Services Division. Most of the work-release inmates who walk away do so in the early weeks of their sentence. "We think if we can have some good monitoring of them right up front, (and) we can get them through 30 or 60 days in the program, the likelihood of them walking away diminishes drastically," Walcher said. Most of those contacted said the jail's location near Golden makes transportation to and from jobs difficult for inmates and probably contributes to the high number of errant inmates.

In 2001, the last year the work release program operated from a building at West 16th Avenue and Kendall Street, only 46 inmates walked away. But in 2002, when the program was moved to the newly expanded county jail, the number of inmates increased significantly and the number of walkaways climbed to 95, Walcher said.

[  rockymountainnews.com

26. Dezember 2005

28.800 menschen in pennsylvania sind unter der aufsicht von bewährungshelfern, 1.714 ( 6%) davon waren ende november auf der flucht, ebenso weitere 50 menschen aus dem allegheny county halfway house ( eine art offener vollzug vor der entlassung) .

Parolees in state often go missing
More than 1,700 former inmates fail to report

Two of the seven men questioned in the slaying of state police Cpl. Joseph Pokorny at a Carnegie hotel parking lot two weeks ago turned out to be parolees who had walked away from halfway houses and had warrants issued for their arrests. They are among more than 1,700 former prison inmates in Pennsylvania who have failed to report to their parole officers, and many have simply disappeared from alternative housing in communities across the state. Another 50 Allegheny County jail inmates are missing from local halfway houses.

State parole agents, who are responsible for an average of more than 70 parolees apiece, are hard-pressed to help track down violators while handling the rest of their cases. The same goes for county probation officers and jail officials. One of the fugitives questioned in the killing of Cpl. Pokorny was Tyrone Bullock, 40, a man with a record of drug offenses who had walked away in August from Renewal Inc., a Downtown facility that contracts with both the state Department of Corrections and Allegheny County. The other was Jack Maurice Woods, 23, who disappeared in September from Ada's House in Stowe, which provides alternative housing for Allegheny County Jail inmates. As it turns out, Mr. Woods was in Ada's by mistake and should have been in jail, according to county officials.

Both fugitives were arrested but neither has been charged in the Pokorny case. Leslie Mollett, 30, has been accused of killing Cpl. Pokorny. He was released last month from the State Correctional Institution Fayette after serving more than a year on drug charges. The union that represents the state's 10,800 correctional officers plans to investigate Mr. Mollett's release as part of an ongoing review of the state's parole policies, said Don McNany, president of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association in Harrisburg.

The association and many of its members contend that the state is trying to ease prison overcrowding by releasing into the community or into halfway houses inmates who are not ready for society. "The inmates do the proper head nodding and answer the right questions and they're out on the street," he said. The corrections department denies the allegation. "We have never released inmates as a way to deal with overcrowding in this state," said Department of Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard in a statement. "Inmates released on pre-release must meet specific criteria and seldom go out much before a few months prior to [the end of] their minimum sentence." Mr. Beard also said that 70 percent of inmates who end up back in prison return there because of technical violations of their parole and not because they have committed a new crime.

A variety of programs

Across Pennsylvania, more than 2,800 convicts live in community alternatives to state prisons. In Allegheny County, another 340 jail inmates are housed in neighborhood settings. The state runs some community facilities and contracts with private programs to operate others. Inmates in both are supervised by the Department of Corrections and the Board of Probation and Parole, sometimes jointly. Only nonviolent inmates can serve sentences at the private facilities, which usually operate as work release centers. Some also contract separately as "halfway back" locations -- an alternative to prison for people who violate parole. Pittsburgh has three state-run community correctional facilities -- in the North Side, Highland Park and Friendship. Inmates in those facilities usually are nearing their release dates.

The private programs, including Renewal and facilities in Braddock and Beaver County operated by Gateway Rehabilitation Center, are accredited by the American Correctional Association and are subject to state audits. Inmates at the contracted facilities may be on work release, undergoing drug and alcohol counseling or taking part in other special programs. Renewal, for example, provides an intensive 90-day program for addicts who violate their probation. Their alternative is going back to prison.

Most of the 2,839 state inmates in community facilities are supervised by the state Board of Probation and Parole, either because they have violated parole or the board decided they were not ready to be put back on the street, said LeAnn Halfast, a board spokeswoman. It's up to the board and its workers to track down inmates who walk away, Ms. Halfast said. At the moment, 7,727 people statewide have failed to report to probation or parole officers, but about 6,000 of them are being held in county jails or other local facilities at the request of the board. The other 1,700-plus include those, like Mr. Bullock and Mr. Woods, who walked away from community sites or otherwise failed to report to parole agents and for whom arrest warrants have been issued.

Tracking down fugitives

All told, nearly 28,800 people are on parole in Pennsylvania, and only 403 agents are assigned to keep track of them. That works out to an average case load of about 70 parolees per agent. The 1,714 people officially listed as absconders at the end of November therefore represent 6 percent of the people under the supervision of the Board of Probation and Parole. Ms. Halfast said the national average is 9 percent. Mr. McNany agreed that Pennsylvania's parole problems are no worse than those in other parts of the country. Penal systems everywhere are under pressure to release inmates to ease prison overcrowding while protecting the community but not spending too much money, he said.

"The whole system's way out of whack," he said. Arrest warrants are issued within 72 hours for anyone who leaves a community site without authorization, and they are posted on state and national databases, Ms. Halfast said. The parole board three years ago established a Fugitive Apprehension Search Team in Philadelphia to round up inmates who escape from community facilities. The program was expanded last year to include a three-person unit in Pittsburgh, and there are plans to set up teams in Erie and Harrisburg, Ms. Halfast said. Those teams and other parole agents work closely with the U.S. Marshals Service to track down parole violators, she said. Inmates who leave state community facilities are charged with escape, the same as an inmate who escapes from prison, corrections spokeswoman Sheila Moore said.

Nonviolent jail inmates in Allegheny County can serve their sentences in one of four community facilities under contract with the county, including Renewal, or seven other private sites. The county pays a daily fee per inmate to the contracted facilities, ranging from $47.50 to $57.50. Inmates must pay their own way at non-contracted facilities, like Ada's House and the ARC House on the North Side. If an inmate walks away, community facilities are required immediately to notify the jail's internal affairs section, the sentencing judge and county police, county jail Warden Ramon Rustin said. Internal affairs officers then obtain an escape warrant and enlist the help of county officers to track down the fugitive, Mr. Rustin said. At any given time, there are about 50 outstanding escape warrants for county inmates who left alternative housing sites, he said.

[  post-gazette.com

23. Dezember 2005

ein jahr und drei monate war ein 69 jähriger mann inhaftiert während er auf seinen prozeß, der immer wieder verschoben wurde, wartete.der mann war die ganze zeit ohne anwalt. erst nachdem ein mitgefangener seinem pflichtanwalt darüber berichtete, und eine weitere pflichtverteidigerin dann einige anrufe machte, wurde der mann am 16. dezember entlassen. wäre er verurteilt worden, wäre die höchststrafe 6 monate knast und eine geldstrafe in höhe von $ 500 gewesen. ein eintrag des gerichtes in der akte des mannes vom 0ktober 2004 hat die haft aufgehoben, aber die polizeiakten haben keinen diesbezüglichen eintrag.

Man Jailed for Over a Year Saw No Lawyer

A man was jailed for more than a year without ever seeing a lawyer as he waited for a repeatedly postponed court hearing, gaining release only after a cellmate told an attorney about the case. Walter Mann Sr., 69, was released Dec. 16 after a year and three months ? more than twice the time he would have served if he had been convicted in his contempt-of-court case. Mann's legal troubles began in 2002, when his 13-year-old son assaulted him and was sent to a juvenile detention center. Mann, who was unemployed and on disability benefits, was ordered to pay $50 a month for the boy's housing but never did, according to court records. Prosecutors sought to have Mann held in contempt of juvenile court, which led to an order that he be brought before a judge.

The judge then incarcerated him in September 2004 for three warrants alleging that Mann wrote bad checks. Then he waited more than a year as his contempt case was postponed again and again. "He wasn't lost in the system," said Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. Don Peritz. "We knew he was here ... we hold them until the judge says to hold him no longer." An October 2004 court docket entry suggests the judge's order was lifted, but Sheriff's Department records do not show it being lifted or Mann's release ordered.

Had he been convicted in the contempt case, he would have served a maximum of six months in jail and faced a $500 fine. His release came after cellmate Jim Brooks, 64, heard from Mann that he had never seen a lawyer. "I said, 'Man, why don't you call your people?' He said, 'Nah, I don't want to bother them with anything,'" Brooks said. Brooks, jailed on minor theft charges, told his public defender, who told another public defender, Shoshana Paige. She made several calls and Mann was released the same day. "I was shocked, and then part of me was shocked that I was shocked because I've read enough other stories about things like this," Paige said. "This one seems to be pretty egregious."

[  yahoo.com

21. Dezember 2005

ein artikel aus dem san francisco bay view über den "begnadigungsablehnungsbrief" von schwarzenegger in dem er begründet warum er stan tookie williams antrag abgelehnt hat. als beweis das williams sich nicht von gewalt abgewandt hat, wird in dem 5 seitigen schreiben u.a. erwähnt, das williams bücher von malcolm x , geronimo pratt ( ein black panther der 28 jahre im knast war für einen mord den er nie beging), george jackson ( der am 21. august 1971 im knast attica von wärtern ermordet wurde , auch black panther), leonard peltier ( ein aim [american indian movement] mitglied der seit dem 6. februar 1976 im knast ist) assata shakur ( black liberation army, der kämpfende teil der black panther. sie wurde 1973 verhaftet, 1979 aus dem knast befreit und lebt seitdem auf kuba), nelson mandela und mumia abu jamal gelesen hat. dies wird in dem artikel als angriff auf die afroamerikanische bevölkerung gesehen. zitat: "als stan williams hingerichtet wurde am Dienstag, dem 13. dez.frühmorgens, haben die vereinigten staaten nicht in der person von george bush sondern von arnold schwarzenegger und das gerichtswesen bis hoch zum u.s. supreme court der afroamerikanischen bevölkerung eine botschaft geschickt. sie sagten so viel wie es sind nicht nur die moslems und die ohne papiere die wir nach katarina gezielt angreifen."

Arnold uses Tookie to attack Black leaders

On that Monday night, I stood within a dense, spirited crowd of several thousand outside the East Gate of San Quentin Prison. When the execution of Stan Tookie Williams was announced, around 12:30 a.m., I stayed put in the hope someone would do something dramatic to exorcize the state’s death dealing demons.

In this case, the governor signed a clemency denial letter that very pointedly denigrated not only Tookie Williams’ new found redemption, his work ethic and contributions to society today, but also a cross section of Black heroes of the last 30 or 40 years. When Stan Williams was put to death early Tuesday morning, Dec. 13, the United States – not in the person of George W. Bush but of Arnold Schwarzenegger – and the court system up to the U.S. Supreme Court sent a message to the African American community. It’s not only the Muslims and the undocumented we’re focused on hitting after Katrina, they as much as said.

Arnold’s five page letter specifically highlighted Tookie’s dedication of a book to Malcolm X, a murder victim and convert to socialism, Geronimo Pratt, the Black Panther exonerated after 28 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, George Jackson, who was never charged with a violent crime in his life despite Arnold’s libeling his memory, Leonard Peltier, a national Indian leader who was framed in the murder of provocateur FBI agents – as the original judge’s call for a new trial makes clear, Assata Shakur, a government opponent whose re-capture has become a maniacal cause in Congress, Nelson Mandela, the most principled and supreme resister of Black oppression in the world, and Mumia Abu Jamal, one of the brilliant analytical minds and mellifluous voices of our times, whose career as a leading journalist was abridged with intent to kill him legally by the Philadelphia power structure as it brought out of retirement the racist hanging judge, Szabo.

Because the anti-clemency attack was not limited to Tookie, we all share a tremendous burden to vindicate Stan Williams, to expose the wanton criminal blood lust of the entire logical system that Arnold’s letter represents and, if possible, to prove Stan’s innocence. Among all the hundreds of media outlets covering the execution across the nation, which newspapers, TV networks or radio stations shouted out the exposé of the blatant racism in Arnold’s labeling so many Black and Indian heroes as criminal elements?

Presenting such internationally renowned political prisoners as Mandela and Peltier as evidence that Williams had not turned away from a life of violence will be Arnold’s legacy. Those key figures used their lives to fight for freedom for others, for us all – whether Black or otherwise colored or ethnified.

No one should forget this attack. It needs repeating as a mantra – today, in the 2006 elections and in the unfolding struggle to defend, expand and preserve democratic rights in the U.S. The system’s ruthlessness has again extended to the level of anti-historical psychological warfare, where its front men and women are prepared to call humanity’s heroes, past and present, “terrorists and criminals,” to all but equate Mandela and George Jackson with Osama Bin Laden.

As the crowd filtered away from the East Gate at San Quentin, a Native American guy on a wall held an American flag painted with a big swastika that he set on fire. It hardly burned. A woman below, for reasons I could not discern, grabbed the flag from him trying to extinguish the pitiful flame. The poor guy fell off the six foot wall he was on – not once but twice. Another Native American hugged the woman and calmed her anger. At the mic a more disciplined and decked out Native American group chanted. I noticed Sean Penn, the actor who played a man executed in “Dead Man Walking,” with a tear in the corner of his eye as he left.

At the end, you don’t want to hear someone on a microphone feed you platitudes about how we need to keep fighting for a just criminal justice system or how Tookie lives in our hearts. You want to know what we are going to do next. You want action to end state violence and the ubiquitous media spin on our reality – both designed to further intimidate and pacify people. You want a real social revolution. No, not a protest, a rally, not even a riot. You want catharsis, peace, a total ongoing social collision against ruthless, raw, deceitful and selfish power, on the peoples’ terms.

Thirty-seven years ago, the state also executed Martin Luther King Jr. but did not then have the audacity to admit to the crime. The book, “An Act of State – The Execution of Martin Luther King,” by King family lawyer William F. Pepper, provides proof that King’s assassination was achieved in a way that the actual assassins didn’t even know they had the backing of the 902nd Military Intelligence Group. This truth was adjudicated by Pepper in a civil court case in Memphis a few years back with the support of the King family. A jury of common Memphis people exonerated James Earl Ray and ruled the U.S. government collaborated in the assassination. What media coverage did that get? If MLK were alive today it is conceivable the government would find a way to label him a terrorist and put him to death legally. This is the state and situation we face.

If the issues were really about violence and “homeland” security rather than political opposition to this system’s ruthlessness and its racism, Arnold’s speech writers would not have lied about George Jackson being a violent gang banger in that letter. They would not have dared to even mention Mandela, whose principled refusal to betray the ANC’s armed wing kept him in prison indefinitely, solidified the ANC’s unity and catapulted him to the presidency of South Africa after Apartheid.

No, the state’s message was loud and clear: “If you resist our violence and terror you will be called the terrorist and we will kill you.” It is not violence per se that the elite and political classes fear. It is resistance and unity amidst the decline and fall of a class system and an empire already in total chaos, coming apart at its seams.

Tookie, like Malcolm X and Martin King Jr., was slowly becoming the kind of leader that terrifies them – a fearless man on a positive mission. Alive or dead, his example will be nurtured by others.

Dr. Marc Sapir, M.D., M.P.H., is executive director of Retro Poll, a citizen based voluntary non-profit which aims to contribute to building a free, open and democratic society in the U.S. The organization works to reveal how the government and corporate media distort information in order to manipulate, confuse and disorganize the public’s will. Visit www.retropoll.org. Email Marc at marcsapir@comcast.net.

[  sfbayview.com

21. Dezember 2005

das berufsgericht des bundesstaates washington hat die inhaftierung von kinder und jugendlichen, die öfters aus staatlichen heimen oder aus pflegefamilien weglaufen ,für 30 - 60 tage als rechtmäßig anerkannt.

Court backs jailing runaway foster kids

The state Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld the use of months-long jail terms as a means to stop foster children from chronically running away from home. The ruling by the Division III court in Spokane validates the controversial approach of a Yakima County Juvenile Court commissioner, who imposed contempt-of-court penalties after finding existing state law was too limited to control chronic runaways.

It also sets a precedent for judges in the state to replicate the commissioner's approach. The type of contempt-of-court power upheld Tuesday, "inherent contempt," allows a judge to hold a child who violates court orders in jail until age 18. But Judge John Schultheis, writing for the unanimous three-judge panel, wrote that the power should be "exercised with caution and within narrow limits" to prevent it from becoming a "systematic response." Bernie Ryan, chief of staff for the Children's Administration in the state Department of Social and Health Services, agreed. As a rule, judges impose inherent contempt only upon request from state social workers, so those requests must be carefully considered, Ryan said. "It's important for us to see this as a last resort," Ryan said. "The kid is going to get very little services while in detention."

Tuesday's ruling arose from contempt-of-court orders issued last year by Yakima County Juvenile Court Commissioner Robert Inouye against three foster children. The teens, all girls, repeatedly violated Inouye's court orders to not run away; one fled to Montana, another to Nebraska, forcing their state social workers to hop aboard airplanes to retrieve them. One of the three got pregnant, at 15, while on the run. State law allows judges to impose seven-day sentences for violations of court orders, with an opportunity to get out early by writing an essay.

But Inouye grew alarmed at the girls' behavior and frustrated with the seven-day limit. Instead, he resorted to a rarely used inherent contempt order, giving the girls 30- and 60-day jail terms and ordering them to comply with court-ordered mental-health and drug treatment. He said Tuesday that the ruling would help protect children from themselves. "We really need to have this type of tool available for the most extreme cases because without it we cannot safeguard the kids," Inouye said. While upholding Inouye's reasoning, the appellate court tossed out two of his orders for procedural faults. In one case, Schultheis wrote that a preprinted form used to justify a 60-day sentence was inadequate. That "suggests that this remedy is at least commonly -if not systematically - considered for runaways" in Yakima, Schultheis wrote. National research suggests that nearly one in five adolescent foster children run away while in care.

A recent survey in Washington found that 1,040 of the state's foster children - 7 percent of all children in care - had run away at least once since they entered care and that the problem was growing. Greg Link, an attorney for the girls, said the ruling was disappointing and increases the chances that inherent contempt will be used far more. "These are broader policy issues that should not be left for an individual judge to resolve," he said. "They should be put to the people's representatives in the Legislature."

[  seattletimes.nwsource.com

20. Dezember 2005

gerichtsurteil gegen die transit worker union. darin wird gedroht das die gewerkschaft für jeden tag ihres streiks $ 1 millionen strafe bezahlen muß. der streik begann am 20. dezember und endete am 23. dezember.

MTA BUS CO. V. TRANSIT WORKERS UNION

The judge presiding over the New York City transit strike case holds the Transit Workers Union in criminal contempt for failing to obey his December 13, 2005 preliminary injunction ordering them not to strike, and fines the union $1 million per day starting December 20, 2005.

[  MTA BUS CO. V. TRANSIT WORKERS UNION

14. dezember 2005

nach der flucht von zwei männern aus dem iowa state knast in fort madison war der knast eine woche unter lockdown

Prison Lockdown Nearing End

A lockdown at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison may be nearing an end. The new warden is also looking at letting some inmates work in the kitchen and let others eat in the mess hall as early as this week. He says the problem that allowed Martin Moon and Joseph Legendre to escape has been fixed. During the lockdown, inmates have been allowed out of their cells only to shower. Some of the best-behaved inmates were allowed out last weekend for some recreation time.

[  

9. Dezember 2005

25 jahre lang hat ein wegen entführung und vergewaltigung verurteilter mann versucht zu beweisen das er nicht schuldig ist. jetzt hat ein dna test dies bestätigt und der mann wurde entlassen.

DNA Tests Free Man in Prison 25 Years

ATLANTA - A judge Thursday freed an inmate whose claims of innocence in a kidnapping and rape went unheeded for nearly a quarter of a century, until DNA evidence proved him right. At the end of the 15-minute hearing where Robert Clark was finally granted his freedom, his attorney Peter Neufeld patted him on the back and said, "You're free to go, fella." A smiling Clark hugged and kissed family members, repeatedly saying, "I told you. I told you." Clark's mother died and his children grew up and had families of their own while he sat in prison for a 1981 attack on an Atlanta woman. His lawyers said DNA from another man matches not only that rape, but two others that were committed later. "This is a truly horrific case," said Vanessa Potkin, an attorney for the Innocence Project, a legal clinic co-directed by Neufeld. "While Robert Clark was wrongfully convicted, it appears the true perpetrator of this crime was out there harming women and children."

Clark, 45, was convicted and sentenced to life plus 20 years after a woman identified him as the man who carjacked her at gunpoint from outside an Atlanta Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and raped her repeatedly. But recent DNA tests showed that Clark -who had no prior adult felony convictions - did not commit the crime. Tests against state and federal DNA databases of convicts matched samples from the rape to Clark's friend Floyd Antonio "Tony" Arnold. Cobb County prosecutors, who originally convicted Clark, are looking into whether to seek charges against Arnold, spokeswoman Kathy Watkins said. Arnold had convictions for sodomy and illegal gun possession when the rape took place. He is in prison for cruelty to children and is scheduled to be released Jan. 31. A search by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation revealed that Arnold's DNA matched two other unsolved Atlanta area rape cases in 2003, Potkin said. Arnold has not been charged with either crime. Clark became the 164th person in the nation and the fifth in Georgia to be freed through post-conviction DNA testing, according to Potkin.

Neufeld said an Atlanta law firm has volunteered to look into financial compensation for Clark. Earlier this year, the Georgia Legislature approved $1 million for Clarence Harrison, who spent nearly 18 years in prison before DNA evidence cleared him of rape. Clark's son, Rodrickus, said he and other family members looked forward to celebrating his father's freedom. "He always told me he was innocent. I believed in what he said," he said. "We can't make up for lost time. I guess we've just got to go on. We want to go fishing together, take a nice fishing trip." Clark said he is not sure what his long-term plans are, but he is looking forward to his first family Christmas in years. "I won't be able to give them any gifts or anything, but I don't think they're worried about that," he said. "They just want to have me home."

On the Net:
[  The Innocence Project

[  blackplanet.com

9. Dezember 2005

ein polizeibeamter, der vor 2 jahren einen unbewaffneten immgranten aus burkina faso mit 4 schüssen ermordet hat, wurde zu 500 stunden gemeinnütziger arbeit und 5 jahre bewährung verurteilt.

No jail for NY cop who killed unarmed immigrant

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York City police officer was sentenced on Friday to 500 hours of community service and five years probation for shooting an unarmed African immigrant while working undercover two years ago. Bryan Conroy, found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in October for killing Ousmane Zongo, could have received up to four years in prison.

The sentence came from Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Robert Straus who presided over the case without a jury and had acquitted Conroy, 27, of more serious manslaughter charges. Conroy's first trial in March ended in a deadlocked jury. After lengthy remarks reviewing the case, Straus said, "Jail is not appropriate in this case." Straus said both Conroy and the victim were "good decent people" and that "the case is a real tragedy." Disguised in a postal worker's uniform, Conroy was guarding a storage warehouse locker filled with counterfeit CDs when he encountered Zongo, 42, in the corridor.

According to testimony during the trial, Conroy pulled out his gun, a struggle ensued and Zongo was shot four times. He died in a hospital hours later. Zongo, an immigrant from the West African nation of Burkina Faso, was not involved in the counterfeiting ring. He used a storage room on the same floor that the counterfeit CDs were stored to repair African artifacts. "The court tempered justice with mercy," Conroy's lawyer Stuart London told reporters outside the courthouse. Zongo's widow, Salimata Sanfo, who attended the trial but was not in court for the sentencing, said in a statement read to the judge on her behalf that she wanted justice in America.

"Every time I look at Mr. Conroy, I see a killer. Every time I watch him walk freely about this courtroom and outside this courtroom, I feel sad. Why is he a free man and my husband a dead man?" she wrote. After the sentencing Zongo family lawyer Sanford Rubenstein blasted the New York Police Department for the way Conroy was supervised and trained. The family has filed a $150 million wrongful death suit against the city. Conroy was the first New York police officer to go on trial since four officers were acquitted for the 1999 racially charged case involving West African Amadou Diallo who was shot 41 times after he reached for his wallet, which officers believed was a gun.

[  reuters.com

8. December 2005

US terror watchlist 80,000 names long

A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources. The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported. Airlines must check each passenger flying to a US destination against the list, and contact the US Department of Homeland Security for further investigation if there is a matching name. The list contains a strict "no fly" section, which requires airline staff to contact police, and a "selectee" section, which requires passengers to undergo further security checks. Some 2,000 passengers checking in at Stockholm's Arlanda airport have had to be cleared with the US authorities because of name matches on the "selectee" list this year, although none was prevented from boarding, Svenska Dagbladet said.

[  yahoo.com

7. December 2005

USA: 30.000 Fluggäste gerieten fälschlicherweise auf Listen für Terrorverdächtige
Löschung aus den Datenbanken nahezu unmöglich

Fast 30.000 Fluggäste wurden im vergangenen Jahr in den USA nachweislich falsch bei der Flugsicherheit in Listen für Terrorverdächtige eingetragen. Das teilte Jim Kennedy, Direktor der Behörde für Transportsicherheit TSA, gestern auf einer Konferenz des US-Heimatschutzministeriums in Washington, D.C., mit. Die Zahlen lagen damit deutlich höher, als bisherige Schätzungen der Bürgerrechtsorganisation Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Die Betroffenen müssen bei Flugreisen mit Behinderungen bei der Abfertigung rechnen.

Passagiere können aus verschiedensten Gründen entsprechend eingestuft werden, hieß es. Man gerät unter Verdacht, wenn bestimmte Merkmale einer Rasterfahndung erfüllt werden, lediglich ein Hinflug gebucht wird oder ein Computersystem eine relativ zufällige Auswahl trifft, so Kennedy.

Eine Löschung aus den Datenbanken sei bedingt möglich, wenn der Betroffene einen entsprechenden Antrag in Verbindung mit drei notariell beglaubigten Identitätsnachweisen einreicht. 45 bis 60 Tage dauert es dann, bis das Gesuch geprüft wurde. Der Name wird anschließend jedoch nicht aus den Datenbanken getilgt, sondern kommt auf die so genannte "Clearance List". Das Einchecken über Computerterminals ist damit noch immer nicht möglich.

Nach Angaben Kennedys wurde jedoch bisher keinem der 30.000 Verdächtigen verwehrt, ein Flugzeug zu besteigen. Die Daten dienen demnach lediglich als Grundlage für stichprobenartige, tiefer gehende Überprüfungen. Erst wenn sich hierbei der Verdacht erhärtet, folgt die Aufnahme in eine Flugverbotsliste. Nach Angaben des TSA-Direktors sollen die zusätzlichen Tests zu sehr sicheren Erkenntnissen führen.

Wie viele der täglich 1,8 Millionen Fluggäste bisher insgesamt in die verschiedenen Datenbanken aufgenommen wurden, wollte die TSA nicht bekannt geben. Kennedy kündigte jedoch an, das Sicherheitsprogramm einer Prüfung zu unterziehen. Zukünftig soll außerdem eine größere Transparenz gegenüber der Öffentlichkeit und den Fluggesellschaften gewährleistet werden. (ck)

[  internet.com

7. Dezember 2005

bei razzien hat das fbi und das homelandsecurity office mehre landesweit büros und wohnungen von anarchisten und tierrechts- und umweltaktivistinnen durchsucht, infomaterialien beschlagnahmt und mehrere menschen festgenommen.

Feds target Earth/Animal Activists across county

The FBI and Homeland Security agents have stepped up their campaign against anarchists and animal rights and environmental activists. Raids in Arizona, NYC, arrests in NYC, AZ, grand jury subpeonas in OR. U.S - The FBI and Homeland Security agents have stepped up their campaign against anarchists and animal rights and environmental activists. On Wednesday, in New York City, a 30 year old member of the Friends of Jeffrey Luers prisoner support group was arrested while at school. His apartment was also raided and computer and person affects seized. His arrest may be in connection with a May 2001 Earth Liberation Front arson at Jefferson Poplar Farms near Portland Oregon. The arraignment will be at 11:00 am Thursday morning on the second floor of the Federal Court Building, which is located at at 225 Cadman Plaza East in Brooklyn.

Portland activists, Frank Winbigler and Shannon (Nonny) Urick were approached in a cafe by three FBI agents, one agent from Homeland Security, and an Oregon Sheriff. They were served with papers ordering them to be witnesses in a federal Grand Jury investigation, and were also advised that they are both targets of the same investigation. The Grand Jury is scheduled for March 16th of next year in Eugene, Oregon. Later in the day more than a dozen FBI agents, along with Joint Terrorism Task Force and local police officers raided The Catalyst Infoshop in Prescott, Arizona. Environmental publications were seized and one of the groups founding members was arrested. The arraignment is scheduled for 10:00 am Thursday morning in Flagstaff where the federal courthouse is. Police in Arizona consider anarchists to be a terrorist threat. A second person has been reported arrested in Flagstaff according to www.arizona.indymedia.org

Earlier in the week federal agents were asking around Boston for Daniel Andreas San Diego, who they allege is responsible for placing an explosive pipe bomb at Chiron Corp in Emeryville, California on August 28, 2003. The Chiron Corp, a biotechnology company, was a target of the animal rights campaign to shut down Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company that performs cruel experiments on animals. This most recent attack on the earth and animal liberation movements was obviously well coordinated and planned far in advance. Activists across the country have been doing what they can to protect themselves by sharing information about how to avoid dealing with authorities a developing a better security culture. At least 2 additional people served with subpoenas.

[  portland.indymedia.org

6. Dezember 2005

khaled el'masri hat über seinen anwalt gemeinsam mit der aclu eine klage wegen seiner entführung durch das cia eingereicht. mashri selbst wurde die einreise in die usa verweigert.

German Sues Over Abduction Said to Be at Hands of C.I.A.

A German citizen who says he was abducted, beaten and taken to Afghanistan by American agents in an apparent case of mistaken identity in 2003 filed suit in federal court today against George J. Tenet, the former C.I.A. director, and three companies said to have been involved in secret flight operations. The suit came three days after Khaled el-Masri, a 42-year-old Lebanese-born former car salesman, was refused entrance to the United States after arriving Saturday in Atlanta on a flight from Germany with the intention of appearing at a news conference today in Washington. He spoke instead by video satellite link, describing somberly how he was beaten, photographed nude and injected with drugs during five months in detention in Macedonia and Afghanistan. "I want to know why they did this to me," Mr. Masri said, speaking in German. He said that he had been reunited with his wife and children and was seeking work in Germany but that he had not fully recovered from the trauma of his experience. "I don't think I'm the human being I used to be," he told reporters through an interpreter.

In a separate interview in Germany, Mr. Masri said his weekend encounter with federal immigration officers in Atlanta made him briefly fear that the ordeal might be repeated or that he might be taken to the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. "My heart was beating very fast," he said. "I have remembered that time, what has happened to me, when they kidnapped me to Afghanistan. I have remembered and was afraid." The lawsuit, filed by lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union in Alexandria, Va., came on a day of talks between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who said Ms. Rice had admitted that Mr. Masri's detention had been a mistake.

Since it was first reported in January, the Masri case has become an oft-cited example of tough American counterterrorism policies gone awry.

His lawsuit is the latest development in a series of challenges by human rights groups on the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine operations to transport, detain and interrogate suspected terrorists since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Under particular scrutiny are secret detention centers, including some reported to be in Eastern Europe; the use of harsh interrogation methods by American intelligence officers; and the delivery of more than 100 suspects to other countries, including some where torture has been routine, in a practice known as rendition. The lawsuit appears to be the first to target a web of companies that own and operate a fleet of aircraft used by the C.I.A., including many based at the rural Johnston County Airport in Smithfield, N.C. The companies named in the suit were Aero Contractors Ltd., a Smithfield company that provides crews and maintenance; Premier Executive Transport Services of Dedham, Mass., which previously owned the Boeing business jet used to take Mr. Masri from Macedonia to Afghanistan; and Keeler and Tate Management L.L.C., of Reno, Nev., which owns the jet today.

The lawsuit could force the C.I.A. to acknowledge its secret relationship with the companies, said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the A.C.L.U. "That's what's novel here," he said. "What we learn of these three companies will be as interesting as the outcome of the case."

A spokesman for Mr. Tenet, who served as C.I.A. director from 1997 to 2004, said he had no comment, as did a spokesman for the C.I.A. Initial attempts to reach executives of the three air companies named in the lawsuit were unsuccessful. Mr. Romero of the A.C.L.U. said the lawsuit was an attempt to counter the "culture of impunity" in the Bush administration for human rights violations and to force the C.I.A. to abandon practices in conflict with American values. The organization has obtained 77,000 pages of government documents on detention and interrogation under the Freedom of Information Act that have been the basis for thousands of news reports. Mr. Romero took issue with a statement Ms. Rice made on Monday before leaving for Germany denying accusations of human rights violations and declaring that "the United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture." "Unfortunately, as our lawsuit shows today, those statements are patently false," Mr. Romero said. Souad Mekhennet contributed reporting from Germany for this article.

[  nytimes.com

4. Dezember 2005

ein längerer artikel über den umgang der medien mit fällen von vermissten kindern und jugendlichen.

Missing and The Media

For a missing child to attract widespread publicity and improve the odds of being found, it helps if the child is white, wealthy, cute and under 12. Experts agree that whites account for only half of the nation's missing children. But white children were the subjects of more than two-thirds of the dispatches appearing on the Associated Press' national wire during the last five years and for three-quarters of missing-children coverage on CNN, according to a first-of-its-kind study by Scripps Howard News Service.

"I don't think this results from conscious or subconscious racism," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "But there's no question that if a case resonates, if it touches the heartstrings, if it makes people think 'that could be my child,' then it's likely to pass the test to be considered newsworthy. Does that skew in favor of white kids? Yes, it probably does." That race and class affect news coverage is a fact that's not lost on the families of missing minority children. "But the thing about it, the ghetto mamas love their babies just like the rich people do. And they need to recognize that," Mattie Mitchell said of news executives.

Mitchell is the great-grandmother of missing 4-year-old Jaquilla Scales. Jaquilla, who is black and has never been found, drew only slight national coverage in 2001 when she was snatched from her bedroom in Wichita, Kan. But the bedroom kidnappings of Danielle van Dam, Polly Klaas, Jessica Lunsford and Elizabeth Smart, all white girls, erupted in a barrage of publicity. "They could have done more," Jaquilla's mother, Eureka Scales, said of national news organizations. "They could have put more out there so people could know." Media coverage of missing children has an even stronger age bias. Children less than 12 represented only a sixth of all cases reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the last five years. But they accounted for more than two-thirds of national news stories in the study.

"It hasn't been proven, but there's a cuteness factor, I think," said Mitch Oldham of the National Runaway Switchboard. "Why do people like pandas more than condors? They're more cuddly. I won't say it's a callousness towards older children. But younger children are perceived to be more vulnerable." Scripps Howard studied 162 missing-children cases reported by the Associated Press from Jan. 1, 2000, through Dec. 31, 2004. Forty-three CNN reports were also studied. Scripps Howard determined the race of the child in each case by checking records maintained by missing-children organizations or by contacting police investigators. White children accounted for 67 percent of AP's missing-children coverage and for 76 percent of CNN's. But they represented only 53 percent of the 37,665 cases reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children during the same period and only 54 percent of the cases found in a 2002 study of missing children sponsored by the U.S. Justice Department.

Black children accounted for 17 percent of the AP stories, 13 percent of CNN's, 19 percent in the Justice Department's study and 23 percent of cases reported to the National Center. The discrepancies for Hispanic children were greater, accounting for just 11 percent of AP's reporting and 9 percent of CNN's stories, yet 18 percent of children reported to the National Center and 21 percent in the Justice Department study. "I think there are explanations other than that black kids and Hispanic kids are not objects of concern or compassion," said sociologist David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and author of the Justice Department's 2002 study. "Middle-class white families have good social networks and are able to mobilize people better, making it a matter of communitywide attention. But minority parents may not see the media as a likely source of help," he said. Executives at CNN headquarters in Atlanta refused to comment on the study.

Associated Press Managing Editor Mike Silverman, however, said his staff "has certainly talked and thought a lot about what kinds of cases are getting media attention." He said racial and age disparities in missing-children reporting may be smaller when looking at community news covered by an individual newspaper or television station. "The issue of age has a fairly simple explanation," Silverman said. "Teenage runaways simply are not national news in the same way as are abductions, particularly abductions by strangers. More people in more places are going to be interested when a smaller child is at peril." Parents of missing minority children and several national advocacy groups complain that missing teenagers face a presumption that they've run away. "Minority families probably have a harder time overcoming this runaway hypothesis," Finkelhor said.

A good example is the 2002 abduction of Laura Ayala, 13, who disappeared after walking a block from her Houston home to buy a newspaper for her mother. Police found only the newspaper and the Hispanic teenager's shoes in a nearby parking lot. "The police said that maybe she left with her boyfriend," said Laura's mother, Angelica Rebollar. "I felt desperate. I knew something was wrong. I knew she didn't have a boyfriend." Allen and other staff workers at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tried to persuade Texas newspapers and radio and television stations to cover the disappearance in hopes that an alert public might help locate the teen.

"I made dozens of phone calls," Allen said. "But we were told, 'Oh, she probably just ran away.' My response was: 'Without her shoes?' The presumption by media in cases of a 12- or 13-year-old is that this is a runaway. End of story." Laura was never located. But Houston police made a full investigation and now believe she was abducted and killed by a man on Texas' death row for another crime. Her story, after considerable prompting, was picked up by CNN and the regional AP wire and was featured prominently on the Univision national Hispanic cable TV network. But Rebollar said she believes her daughter would have been located if police and the press had acted more quickly. "I felt I was treated differently because I'm Hispanic, without a lot of money," she said.

Missing-children advocates say publicity can save lives. Amber Alerts on local radio and television broadcasts, for example, have helped recover hundreds of children in the last seven years. National media attention can be even more powerful, especially in cases where police fear a kidnapper has crossed state lines with a child. "We hope that news directors, editors and media decision-makers will begin to view this from the perspective of public service," Allen said. "The reality is that media works. When we can bring attention, we can mobilize the eyes and ears of the American public, we dramatically increase the likelihood that the child is going to be found safely." News executives have long considered how minorities, especially disadvantaged minorities, are treated, Silverman said. "My hunch is that socioeconomics has a lot to do with this. Affluent parents have the wherewithal to use the system better," he said.

Ivan Roman, executive director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, agreed. "This is a class problem, a sign of how the media value the concerns of white, middle-class people," Roman said. "We used to have the so-called 'good address' syndrome. When a crime occurred in a middle-class neighborhood, it got coverage. That same mentality continues to play out."

But there can be other, more subtle factors at work. Allen said it is much harder to gain media attention for missing children in major urban areas where much of America's minority population lives. "A few years ago in New York City, we had two beautiful 2-year-old African-American boys who disappeared within a few months of each other from the same playground across the street from the same apartment house where they both lived," Allen said. "Media coverage could really have helped here. But we were told by media executives: 'It's New York. These kind of things happen in big cities.' " Media attention is easier to obtain in smaller communities, which tend to have predominately white populations, Allen said. "Missing children get the most attention in rural areas and small towns, places where people think these kinds of things don't happen," he said.

Scripps Howard examined media reports on AP and CNN from 2000 through 2004, a period selected so that comparisons could be made to data provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children during these same years. The Associated Press is the largest producer of print news in the United States, providing more national stories than any other source. CNN was selected because it was the largest provider of national television reporting during this period. Experts warn that patterns found in this study are indicative of reporting practices throughout the nation's news media. "This certainly crosses the entire media spectrum and is not unique to just CNN or the AP," Allen said. This study also examined missing-children stories carried by Scripps Howard News Service. Using the same methods employed to study the Associated Press, only four missing-children cases were carried from 2000 to 2004. Two of these were white children, one was black and one was biracial.

[  gainesville.com

2. Dezember 2005

zwei männer wurden als angebliche anführer eines riots im lee correctional knast / south carolina bei dem am 29. oktober 2003 zwei wärter 5 stunden als geiseln festgehalten wurden, zu lebenslanger haft verurteilt. die männer waren bereits zu 20 bzw. 30 jahren knast verurteilt.

Inmates get life in prison for inciting 2003 prison riot

Two Columbia men will spend the rest of their lives behind bars without the possibility of parole for their involvement in a 2003 prison uprising. Jurors convicted Tyrone Singletary, 25, and Jacob Lynch, 24, Thursday on two counts each of rioting, inciting a riot, assault on a correctional officer and concealing a weapon. The decision came after two hours of deliberation. Circuit Judge Thomas Cooper gave both men life in prison for taking a hostage. Each also received a consecutive10-year sentence for rioting and concealing a weapon, a consecutive 5-year sentence for assault, and a concurrent sentence for inciting a riot.

Defense attorneys Bryan Doby and Clifford Scott said their clients intend to appeal. The charges stem from a five-hour standoff Oct. 29, 2003, at the Lee Correctional Institution, where both men were being held. Singletary had served five years of a 30-year sentence for murder in Florence County, and Lynch was two years into a 20-year robbery sentence from Horry County.

Witnesses said Lynch and Singletary took over a unit with homemade knives and held officers Kenneth Dozier and Marcus Cotton hostage. Several inmates testified Cotton was singled out because he had abused prisoners. Cotton testified both inmates stabbed him during the struggle. Dozier said other inmates helped him get inside a cell, away from Singletary and Lynch. After the verdict, Dozier said inmates used security lapses to their advantage. At the time of the uprising, Dozier said, there were not enough radios for each officer, and the surveillance cameras did not always work. "The inmates knew all of this," he said.

[  thestate.com

18. November 2005

RFID-Telefone gehen ins Gefängnis
Extra-Handschellen für die Häftlinge

In Gefängnissen der USA soll in Zukunft ganz modern und reibungslos telefoniert werden. Das wünscht sich zumindest das Unternehmen AGM für den Absatz seiner Produkte. Neu ist dabei vor allem ein RFID-basiertes Telefonabrechnungssystem, das sogar besonders fälschungssicher sein soll. Es besteht aus einem RFID-Chip, der in ein Plastikarmband integriert ist. Die speziellen Telefone von AGM sollen den Nutzer und sein Abrechnungskonto über den Telefonhörer erkennen. Die Minutenpreise sollen dann automatisch beim Auflegen vom Konto des Häftlings abgebucht werden. Und damit es keine fruchtlosen Rangeleien um die Kontobewegungen gibt, wird das Armband unbrauchbar, sobald es durchschnitten oder irgendwie durchtrennt wird. AGM führt derzeit Gespräche mit Gefängnissen in den US-Bundesstaaten Idaho, Oklahoma und Texas. Es gebe bereits erste Interessenten, so die Firma in der US-Presse. Da die Abrechnung aber im Prepaid-Verfahren und auch als direkte Abbuchung funktioniere, sei auch an den Einsatz außerhalb der Gefängnismauern gedacht.

[  silicon.de

5. November 2005

2004 waren in den us knästen 2,267,787 menschen inhaftiert, 1.4 millionen in bundes- und staatsknästen und 700.000 in regionalen knästen. Einer von 109 männlichen us- bürger war im knast, ein anstieg von 32% seit 1995. Die zahl der frauen in den knästen stieg um 4 %. die jährliche steigerungsrate bei frauen liegt bei durchschnittlich 4.8% im vergangenen jahrzehnt, bei den männern liegt diese bei 3.1%. härtere strafen für drogen sind ein hauptgrund für diesen anstieg. Die höchste steigerung gab es bei den verstößen gegen das immgrationsgesetz. Diese stiegen um 394% seit 1995. 2003 waren 16. 903 menschen wegen immgrationsdelikten im knast, 1995 waren es 3. 420.

Record numbers in US prisons
Women, children and immigrants top incarceration increases

The number of people in US prisons and jails rose again last year to 2,267,787 people, continuing a trend of increasing incarceration rates that has gone on unabated for more than two decades. According to a report released in October by the US Department of Justice, by the end of 2004 there were 1.4 million prisoners in federal and state facilities and 700,000 in local jails.

One out every 109 US males was incarcerated in a state or federal prison in 2004, reflecting a 32 percent increase in the number of male prisoners since 1995. In 1980 the number in prison or jail in the US totaled 503,000. By 1990 this had doubled to over a million and by mid-year 2002 it doubled again, to surpass the 2 million mark.

The historical increase in the US prison population has been out of proportion to the general rise in population. In 2004 the US incarceration rate hit 486 sentenced inmates (those with sentences exceeding one year) per 100,000 residents, up 18 percent from 411 per 100,000 a decade ago, according to the government report.

Though US crime rates have actually fallen in recent years, a law-and-order atmosphere and more jail time and longer sentences under mandatory minimums and three-strikes laws are keeping the prisons filled. The prison system is a key component of political repression, designed to keep a lid on growing social tensions resulting from unprecedented levels of social inequality in the US.

The US has the highest prison population in the world, both in percentage of its population and in sheer numbers of people kept behind bars. Only China, with a population more than four times that of the US, even comes close, with 1.5 million prisoners. The overall US incarceration rate—724 per 100,000—is 25 percent higher than that of any other nation in the world, according to the Sentencing Project, a prisoner advocacy group.

Women and immigrants have highest increases

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report noted that the number of female prisoners rose 4 percent from 2003 to 2004, more than twice the rate of increase among men over the same time period. The annual rate of increase in women has averaged 4.8 percent for the past decade compared to an average of 3.1 percent for men. Harsher drug sentencing laws are a big part of the increase. Women now account for one in four arrests in the US, though they currently comprise only 7 percent of prison inmates. This is up from 5.7 percent in 1990.

The highest historical increase in incarceration rates has been in the area of immigration offenses, which has risen by 394 percent since 1995. In 2003 there were 16,903 people in prison for immigration offenses, up from 3,420 in 1995.

The number of persons jailed in federal prison for immigration offenses (such as attempting to enter the country within five years of being deported) doubled from 1,593 in 1985 to 3,420 in 1995. After the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act was implemented in 1996 the number skyrocketed to 16,903 in 2003. Immigration lawyers have documented that 57 percent of immigration violations cases referred for prosecution by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the year 2000 involved citizens of Mexico, with nearly all of these cases being investigations of unlawful entry.

Sentenced inmates in federal prisons increased from 88,658 in 1995 to 158,426 in 2003, according to the BJS report. The largest increase was for drug offenses, just under half of the total growth. Those sentenced for drug offenses made up 55 percent of federal inmates in 2003. Public-order offenses, including weapons charges and the above mentioned immigration violations, made up nearly 40 percent.

The federal prison system has been the sole source of the growth of privately operated prisons in the past four years, according to the BJS report. Close to 25,000 federal prisoners were housed in private facilities in 2004 compared to 15,500 in 2000. The use of private prisons in the states and US territories declined over the same period. Nevertheless, states and territories held over 74,000 people in private jails.

Juveniles in adult prison

There are just over 100,000 prisoners in juvenile facilities. When juvenile justice statistics are examined in detail, the repressive conditions in US society are dramatically on display.

Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court ruled that juvenile offenders are too young and immature to be put to death. These rulings rested on the concept that children do not have the same mental capacity and thus are not as culpable as adults. But this has done little to stop the systematic dismantling of the 100-year-old juvenile justice system.

Though the number of youth convicted of murder was cut in half between 1990 and 2000, the rate of children sentenced as adults went up substantially. In 1990 there were 2,234 youth convicted of murder in the United States, 2.9 percent sentenced to life without parole. Ten years later, in 2000, the number of youth murderers had dropped to 1,006, but 9.1 percent were sentenced to life without parole.

More than one in four of the youth convicted of murder—the majority of cases remanded to adult court—were convicted of felony murder in which the teen participated in a robbery or burglary during which a co-participant committed murder, without the knowledge or intent of the teen.

In any event, experts have pointed out that the increase in the number of children sentenced as adults comes from cases that would not have been subject to the death penalty. They are young people who were accessories to crimes or who were sentenced to life (without parole) for property crimes and other nonviolent infractions.

In a recent world survey of juvenile offenders, Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International found only four countries that imprisoned children with sentences of life without parole. Out of 154 countries outside the US, the authors of The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States found only 12 prisoners in just three countries who were serving sentences of life without parole for crimes committed while they were children. In the US, the fourth country, there were 2,200 people serving life without parole for crimes they committed before turning 18.

The US, along with only Somalia, has never ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It stands in violation of the international human rights standards contained in that charter that prohibit the incarceration of children with adults. According to the report, one third of the youth offenders now serving life without parole in the US entered adult prison while they were still children.

“In eleven out of the seventeen years between 1985 and 2001, youth convicted of murder in the United States were more likely to enter prison with a life without parole sentence than adult murder offenders,” the report says.

A few US states led the increase in harsh adult sentences for children. Virginia, Louisiana and Michigan had life without parole sentences for children rates that were three to seven-and-a-half times higher than the national average of 1.77 per 100,000 children.

According to the BJS, the states with the highest incarceration rates are found in the South. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is 816 prisoners per 100,000 state residents, approaching twice the national average and substantially higher than even its closest rival, Texas, which reported 694 per 100,000.

When Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco announced her shoot-to-kill orders for New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina she was only crafting the logical extension of decades of increased police repression in the US that has accompanied the corporate and government assault on social conditions.

The response of the media was to largely ignore the semi-annual report from the BJS and the social implications of decades of increases in the imprisonment rates. Bringing up social ills in the US is rare, and discussing them in relation to crime and punishment is virtually taboo. There was only a brief outburst of protest a month ago when William Bennett, the former US Education Secretary and right-wing commentator, made his now infamous assertion that crime in the US would fall if all black babies were aborted.

Stagnant and falling wages and incomes for the poor, growing household indebtedness, cuts in social services and countless blows to the social safety net are a feature of everyday life in the US. Following the virtual elimination of any form of public assistance for the long-term unemployed and the dismantling of mental health facilities in the states, states have treated prisons as a dumping ground for the individuals ground down by society, a practice acceptable in official circles.

The Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International report found marked racial disparities among juveniles sentenced to life without parole. Nationwide, the estimated rate at which black youth receive life without parole sentences (6.6 per 10,000) is 10 times greater than the rate for white youth (0.6 per 10,000).

The BJS report finds the same racial disparities in adult prisons. In 2004 more than 40 percent of sentenced inmates were black. Of black males aged 25 to 29, 8.4 percent are sentenced inmates, compared to 2.5 percent of Hispanic males and 1.2 percent of white males in that age group. Even among middle-aged blacks, aged 45 to 54, the rate of incarceration is higher than the national average, at 3.3 percent.

Bennett, as “drug czar” under the first President Bush, was responsible for the direction of US policy in the area of drug offenses. The so-called war on drugs eschewed rehabilitation and caught up hundreds of thousands of black men in its net, even though drug use itself is no higher among racial minorities than among the population as a whole.

[  wsws.org

2. November 2005

der u.s. court of appeals , ein bundesgericht für berufungen / widersprüche, hat die im august von einem gericht aufgehoben urteile gegen die als cuban 5 bekannten männer wieder eingesetzt.

Verdict to stand for five Cuban spies

Miami's Cuban spy case has taken another turn in the U.S. Court of Appeals, with a ruling reinstating the original convictions. A final ruling may take months.

A federal appeals court jolted Miami with another electrifying ruling in the case of five Cuban men accused of spying for Fidel Castro ? reinstating their original convictions in the 2001 trial. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Monday threw out a ruling in August by a three-judge appellate panel that had overturned those convictions.

The decision pleased relatives of four Miami exile pilots who were fatally shot down over international waters in 1996 by the Cuban Air Force in an alleged plot linked to the espionage case. Now the appeals process starts all over again. The Atlanta appellate court must decide whether the five Cuban defendants -- convicted of infiltrating Miami's exile community and trying to pass U.S. military secrets to Havana -- received a fair trial in a community that despises Castro. This time, a majority of the 12-member appellate court has agreed to rehear the so-called Cuban Five's appeal, which leaves the case in limbo for several more months.

Maggie Alejandre Khuly, whose brother, Armando Alejandre Jr., was one of four Brothers to the Rescue pilots killed on Feb. 24, 1996, hopes the court upholds the convictions. ''We said throughout the trial we believed in the U.S. justice system,'' she said. ``We certainly hope this court agrees this was a just verdict.''

The other Brothers to the Rescue victims were Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales. The exile organization conducted humanitarian missions over the Florida Straits and leafleted Cuba. Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office said they were ''gratified'' with the full court's decision to rehear the appeal, which came in a brief response to their challenge in September.

PRETRIAL PUBLICITY

In August, the 11th Circuit's three-judge panel found that pretrial publicity -- from the community's anti-Castro views and the heavy media coverage to the hangover from the Elián González custody battle -- made it impossible for the defendants to receive a fair jury trial in Miami. Its 93-page decision meant the retrial would have to be conducted in a city outside of Miami. But in a petition, Acting U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta asked all 12 members of the appellate court to review the ruling.

Such requests are rarely granted, according to legal experts. They said the appellate panel cited so much overwhelming evidence -- including a court-approved, pretrial survey showing widespread community prejudice toward the five Cuban defendants -- that there was nothing factually for prosecutors to challenge. But Acosta disagreed, saying the panel's ruling ran contrary to legal precedents in that court and the Supreme Court.

Former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, whose office prosecuted the spy case during his tenure, said the panel's opinion was flawed because not a single Cuban American was picked as a juror. ''Any suggestion that a jury can't sit in [Miami], especially under the extraordinary oversight that occurred with Judge Lenard, is wrong,'' Lewis said. Lewis said the 11th Circuit's decision to rehear the appeal as a full court bodes well for the prosecution. ''Why would the court inject itself into something so volatile if there wasn't going to be a change at the end of the day?'' he asked. ``My experience is, courts of appeals are very, very reluctant to throw out jury verdicts absent extraordinary circumstances.''

In July 2000, U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard, who presided over the trial, denied the motion by the five defendants to move their espionage trial outside Miami. The judge said she believed that an impartial, 12-person jury could be selected from the community. Her ruling followed the federal government's decision to send 6-year-old rafter Elián González back to Cuba to live with his father, raising a furor in Miami's Cuban-American community.

The six-month spy trial ended with the five defendants' convictions in June 2001. Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero all received life sentences from Lenard. Hernández was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for his alleged role in the 1996 shooting by Cuban fighters of two Brothers to the Rescue planes.

René González, a pilot accused of faking his defection to insinuate himself into Brothers to the Rescue, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Fernando González, no relation, was sentenced to 19 years for trying to infiltrate the offices of Cuban-American politicians and shadowing prominent exiles.

`DISAPPOINTMENT'

Attorney Paul McKenna, who represented Hernández, said the latest court opinion was a ''disappointment,'' but not an indication of how the entire court might rule on the Cuban Five's appeal. ''The issue is not were these jurors on this [Miami] panel fair,'' he said. ``The issue is whether this jury was tainted because of the community's sentiment toward Castro and the Cuban government.''

José Basulto, founder of Brothers to the Rescue, praised the 11th Circuit's decision to rehear the appeal, saying exile politics did not poison Miami jurors. ''The Cuban-American population is open-minded enough not to exert any type of pressure on jurors,'' he said.

[  ledger-enquirer.com

November 2005

[   Incarceration and Crime: A Complex Relationship PDF Sentencing Project. 11/2005

[  Broken Justice: The Death Penalty in Alabama PDF ACLU. 10/2005
   At least 30 current death row prisoners have no lawyer.
   Alabama's death row occupants are overwhelmingly poor 95 percent are indigent and minority.

[  No Turning Back:
   Promising Approaches to Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities Affecting Youth of Color in the Justice System
   Building Blocks for Youth. 10/2005

[  Probation and Parole in the United States, 2004
   Bureau of Justice Statistics. 11/2005

[  Capital Punishment, 2004
   Bureau of Justice Statistics. 11/2005

[  Hate Crimes Reported by Victims and Police
   Bureau of Justice Statistics. 11/2005

[  Source:prisonsucks.com

31. Oktober 2005

in den zwei neuen knästen im maricopa county / arizona sind besuche nur über video möglich. Sheriff joe arpaio sagte dazu u.a. daß das neue system die wartezeit von mehreren stunden auf wenige minuten verringert hätte da die insassen nicht zum besucherraum gebracht werden müssten. Außerdem könnten dadurch weder sachen eingeschmuggelt noch die wärter nicht angegriffen werden.

Video jail visits becoming common at Phoenix jail

At Maricopa County's two newest jails, video is the only way to visit. While some call it impersonal, officials say the virtual visits with handsets and video screens make visits safer and allow more frequent ones.

"It's a good, good morale booster on both sides of the fence," Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said. "You shouldn't penalize the family who want to visit." Arpaio said the new system has reduced wait time for visits from several hours to mere minutes, as inmates no longer have to be escorted by detention officers to visiting areas with limited seating. Because inmates hook up in their housing units, it cuts down on movement, reduces the number of assaults and eliminates opportunities for contraband to be smuggled into jails.

Even though touching and hand-holding was never allowed, somes families bemoan the loss of personal contact . To Beverly Kelley of Glendale, who visited her son, Kurt, at the jail, it wasn't the same. During their 30-minute visit, Kelley had to keep asking Kurt to look up so she could see his eyes. "I would have rather seen him in person," Kelley said, but "it's better than nothing." Still, she was relieved to see he "looked good2 after six months in jail, that he "doesn't look beat up. I worry about that."

There are 126 booths for visitors, spread over the three facilities, and 280 for inmates. Each station costs up to $4,000 and is paid for from a one-fifth cent sales tax voters approved for jails in 1998 and extended for 20 more years in 2002.

With more than 10,700 jail inmates in Maricopa County and an average of 12,000 visitors monthly, Arpaio said he'd like to see home-based visitation within the next year. The technology is slowly spreading in Maricopa County, with public defenders, probation officers and even some criminal attorneys getting access in their offices over the next six months. And what's happening here could become the norm across the country in coming years as jails and prisons increasingly embrace video visitation as a smart management policy. Such video encounters eventually could take place from the comfort of home, virtually revolutionizing visitation as we know it. All that would be needed in the home is a Web cam, a microphone and a computer with a broadband Internet connection. If it happens, it would be the first program of its kind in the country to hook up private homes and jails, Arpaio said.

"It's the right thing to do," Arpaio said. "The kids can get on and talk to their father. Arpaio said he is also considering regional visitation centers and Pinal County officials also are looking toward satellite visitation centers.

The Arizona Department of Corrections uses video hookups at its Tucson and Alhambra prisons to connect visitors to inmates housed at facilities in other states. And Pinal County expects to have the technology in its current jail by the end of the year. It will allow inmates to have 30 minutes of visitation daily instead of 20 to 30 minutes a week, said Terry Altman, chief deputy for detention at the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, said currently, more than 700 inmates use eight in-person visiting booths. "Maintaining contact with the outside world is critically important while they're in here," Altman said. "It allows them to feel they have some influence and some connection with their families."

[  tucsoncitizen.com

21. Oktober 2005

34 insassen des mendocino county knast haben einen petiton auf zulassung eines "writ of habeas corpus" gestellt, und klagen wegen überbelegung und daraus resultierenden unsicheren und gefährlichen zustände im knast.

Writ of habeas corpus ist ein erlass nach der eine person in gewahrsam,im knast, psychiatrie, aber auch im krankenhaus oder altersheim, eine anhörung vor einem richter oder gericht fordert. Laut der petition müssen 50 menschen in einem als modul bezeichneten trakt leben die für 20 personen gebaut sind. Die gefangenen schlafen auf dem boden, einige neben den oft nicht richtig funktionierenden toiletten. Die duschenköpfe sind meist unbrauchbar, die belüftung wurde seit 1986 nicht mehr gereinigt und ist voller schmutz, weshalb einige gefangene bereits an asthma erkrankt sind.

Inmates take legal actions over jail conditions

Thirty-four Mendocino County jail inmates have filed a petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, alleging unsafe and hazardous jail conditions because of overcrowding, malfunctioning cell doors, and non-functioning showers and sinks.

A Writ of Habeas Corpus is an order that requires a person in custody to be brought before a judge or court; in this case, for inmates to challenge conditions of their confinement. The court has reviewed the petition and determined a response from Sheriff Tony Craver and the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors is necessary. The County Counsel's Office will be preparing the response, County Counsel Jeanine Nadel said, though she would not comment on the case because it's in litigation.

"Today 50 people are housed in the B module. Many are sleeping on the floor. One shower works and some sinks barely work. Cells designed for one have five with one on the floor. The effects of severe overcrowding are heightened by the cell living arrangements which prevail. There is no walking space between bunks. Inmates sleep on the floor next to the urinal. All living quarters are inadequately ventilated. We do not have proper sanitation," inmate Randy Lee Sherwood wrote in the petition.

David Valley, also an inmate, echoed Sherwood, stating 50 inmates are housed in a module that was designed for 20. Shower nozzles are nonfunctional and vents are "plagued with filth" and have not been cleaned since 1986, he said.

"I suffer chronic allergies from the said vents and must also take an anti-anxiety (medication) due to the mental damages of overcrowding. In addition, there exists greater amounts of tension and hostility as a result (of these issues). I often witness extremely bloody fist fights that go undetected by jail staff. I witnessed a brutal rape ... that would have been prevented had there been a correct amount of jailers to inmate ratio," Valley wrote.

Valley also complained about the jail being understaffed which, among other things, "lowers the performance of employees," he said. Telephones in the jail are too old, and "medical and dental services are comparable to a third world service. ... The dental service is worse than the medical in that only teeth are extracted and no partial or false teeth are provided," he said, noting one inmate had nine teeth pulled in nine months and was not provided any type of prosthetic device and instead was fed a soft diet. Sheriff Tony Craver, on Thursday, also reserved comment regarding specifics of the case -- also due to litigation -- but he did agree with the inmates on the poor condition of the jail facility.

"We've been telling the Board of Supervisors for many years that it's only a question of time before we are faced with a significant lawsuit over jail conditions, and essentially we desperately need to make some improvements there."There has to be a realization within the county that a necessary element of the criminal justice system is the incarceration of people. As the county population and social elements continue to develop you will find more and more people being incarcerated, which, of course, necessitates the expansion of the jail."Unfortunately a jail, like any other building, does deteriorate in time. We have 300 people over there who don't want to be there and they are going to make it their life mission to see that it deteriorates as rapidly as possible; they aren't going to treat the building with tender loving care," the sheriff said.

[  ukiahdailyjournal.com

12. Oktober 2005

ein gemeinsamer bericht von human rights watch und amnesty international über jugendliche die zu lebenslänglich ohne aussicht auf bewährung ( lwop -life without parole) verurteilt wurden. " The rest of their lives: life without parole for child offender in the united states( Zur zeit sind 2.225 menschen in den us ) knästen die zur zeit ihrer verurteilung unter 18 waren. " während viele der jugendtäter jetzt erwachsene sind, sind 16 % zwischen 13 und 15 gewesen als sie ihre taten verübten."

Etwa 59% wurden als ersttäter zu lwop verurteilt. 42 bundesstaaten haben derzeit gesetze die es ermöglichen jugendliche zu verurteilen. Während die zahl der jugendlichen gewalttäter sinkt, steigt die zahl derer die zu lwop verurteilt werden. 1990 wurden 2.234 jugendliche wegen mord verurteilt, 2,9% davon zu lwop. Bis zum jahr 2000 fiel die zahl der verurteilten um 55% ( 1.006 ) während die prozentzahl der jugendlichen die zu lwop verurteilt wurden um 216 % stieg und dann bei 9% lag. Landesweit ist die zahl der afroamerikanischen jugendlichen die zu lwop verurteilt wurden 10mal höher als die der weißen ( in kalifornien 22.5mal). In pennsylvania werden hisspanics 10 mal mehr verurteilt als weiße ( 13.2 zu 1.3).

Thousands of Children Sentenced to Life without Parole

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International

There are at least 2,225 child offenders serving life without parole (LWOP) sentences in US prisons for crimes committed before they were age 18, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said in a new joint report published today.

While many of the child offenders are now adults, 16 percent were between 13 and 15 years old at the time they committed their crimes. An estimated 59 percent were sentenced to life without parole for their first-ever criminal conviction. Forty-two states currently have laws allowing children to receive life without parole sentences.

The 157-page report, The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States, is the first national study examining the practice of trying children as adults and sentencing them to life in adult prisons without the possibility of parole. The report is based on two years of research and on an analysis of previously uncollected federal and state corrections data. The data allowed the organizations to track state and national trends in LWOP sentencing through mid-2004 and to analyze the race, history and crimes of young offenders.

"Kids who commit serious crimes shouldn't go scot-free," said Alison Parker, senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, who authored the report for both organizations. "But if they are too young to vote or buy cigarettes, they are too young to spend the rest of their lives behind bars." Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are releasing The Rest of Their Lives at a critical time: while fewer youth are committing serious crimes such as murder, states are increasingly sentencing them to life without parole. In 1990, for example, 2,234 children were convicted of murder and 2.9 percent sentenced to life without parole. By 2000, the conviction rate had dropped by nearly 55 percent (1,006), yet the percentage of children receiving LWOP sentences rose by 216 percent (to nine percent).

"Untie the hands of state and federal judges and prosecutors," said Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). "Give them options other than turning the courts into assembly lines that mass produce mandatory life without parole sentences for children, that ignore their enormous potential for change and rob them of all hopes for redemption."

In 26 states, the sentence of life without parole is mandatory for anyone who is found guilty of committing first-degree murder, regardless of age. According to the report, 93 percent of youth offenders serving life without parole were convicted of murder. But Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International found that an estimated 26 percent were convicted of "felony murder," which holds that anyone involved in the commission of a serious crime during which someone is killed is also guilty of murder, even if he or she did not personally or directly cause the death.

For example, 15-year-old Peter A. was sentenced to life without parole for felony murder. Peter had joined two acquaintances of his older brother to commit a robbery. He was waiting outside in a van when one of the acquaintances botched the robbery and murdered two victims. Peter said, "Although I was present at the scene, I never shot or killed anyone." Nevertheless, Peter was held accountable for the double murder because it was established during the trial that he had stolen the van used to drive to the victims' house.

The human rights organizations also said that widespread and unfounded fears of adolescent "super-predators" - violent teenagers with long criminal histories who prey on society - prompted states to increasingly try children as adults. Ten states set no minimum age for sentencing children to life without parole, and there are at least six children currently serving the sentence who were age 13 when they committed their crimes. Once convicted, these children are sent to adult prisons and must live among adult gangs, sexual predators and in harsh conditions. For more state-by-state statistics please see the State-by-State Summary (available online at: http://hrw.org/us/us100605.pdf).

According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, there is no correlation between the use of the LWOP sentence and youth crime rates. There is no evidence it deters youth crime or is otherwise helpful in reducing juvenile crime rates. For example, Georgia rarely sentences children to life without parole but it has youth crime rates lower than Missouri, which imposes the sentence on child offenders far more frequently. "Public safety can be protected without subjecting youth to the harshest prison sentence possible," said Parker.

Nationwide, black youth receive life without parole sentences at a rate estimated to be ten times greater than that of white youth (6.6 versus 0.6). In some states the ratio is far greater: in California, for example, black youth are 22.5 times more likely to receive a life without parole sentence than white youth. In Pennsylvania, Hispanic youth are ten times more likely to receive the sentence than whites (13.2 versus 1.3).

The United States is one of only a few countries in the world that permit children to be sentenced to LWOP. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every country in the world except the United States and Somalia, forbids this practice, and at least 132 countries have rejected the sentence altogether. Thirteen other countries have laws permitting the child LWOP sentence, but, outside of the United States, there are only about 12 young offenders currently serving life sentences with no possibility of parole. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also challenged the presumption that the youth offenders are irredeemable, which is implicit in the sentence they have received.

"Children who commit serious crimes still have the ability to change their lives for the better," said David Berger, attorney with the law firm of O'Melveny & Myers and Amnesty International's researcher for this report. "It is now time for state and federal officials to take positive steps by enacting policies that seek to redeem children, instead of throwing them in prison for the rest of their lives." The organizations called on the United States to end the practice of sentencing child offenders to life without parole. For those already serving life sentences, immediate efforts should be made to grant them access to parole procedures.

[  truthout.org

[  The Rest of Their Lives
   Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States.pdf

2. Oktober 2005

für immer mehr gefangene bedeutet ein urteil zu lebenslang das sie im knast sterben. das phänomen sei u.a. auch ein produkt der todesstrafe. Gegner der todesstrafe haben für lebenslänglich als alternative geworben. Und da die begeisterung im land für die todesstrafe durch eine flut von entlassungen von unschuldigen aus den todestrakten sowie durch einschränkende urteile des supreme court schwindet, würden mehr bundesstaaten lebenslange verurteilungen anwenden an.

Dadurch sind immer mehr menschen in den knästen die dort auch sterben werden. z.b. sind im knast angola von den 5.100 gefangenen 3.000 zu lebenslang ohne aussicht auf bewährung verurteilt und die meisten anderen haben so hohe strafen das sie ebenfalls im knast sterben werden. 150 gefangene sind dort in den letzten 5 jahren gestorben und die knastleitung hat gerade einen zweiten friedhof angelegt. permannente inhaftierung sei vielleicht die passende bestrafung eines mörders. Nur wenige hätten eine träne für gary l. ridgeway verloren, der green river killer, der zu 48 aufeinanderfolgende lebenslangen strafen verurteilt wurde, für jede frau die er seinem geständnis nach tötete, eine.

Aber einige kritiker der lebenslangen strafe sagen nun sie würde übermäßig angewandt und verweisen dabei auf menschen wie jerald sanders, der in alabama lebenslang inhaftiert ist. Er war ein kleiner einbrecher und war nie wegen einer gewalttat verurteilt. nach dem "gewohnheitstätergesetz" des staates wurde er wegen dem diebstahls eines $60 - fahrrades lebenslang inhatiert. weniger als 2/3 der 70.000 menschen die zwischen 1988 und 2001 zu lebenslang verurteilt wurden sind wegen mord verurteilt. 16 % der lebenslänglichen sind wegen drogenschmuggel / handel verurtelt.

To More Inmates, Life Term Means Dying Behind Bars

In the winter woods near Gaines, Pa., on the day before New Year's Eve in 1969, four 15-year-olds were hunting rabbits when Charlotte Goodwin told Jackie Lee Thompson a lie. They had been having sex for about a month, and she said she was pregnant.

That angered Jackie, and he shot Charlotte three times and then drowned her in the icy waters of Pine Creek. A few months later, Judge Charles G. Webb sentenced him to life in prison. But the judge told him: "You will always have hope in a thing of this kind. We have found that, in the past, quite frequently, if you behave yourself, there is a good chance that you will learn a trade and you will be paroled after a few years." Mr. Thompson did behave himself, learned quite a few trades in his 35 years in prison - he is an accomplished carpenter, bricklayer, electrician, plumber, welder and mechanic - and earned a high school diploma and an associate's degree in business. So exemplary is his prison record that when Mr. Thompson, now 50, asked the state pardons board to release him, the victim's father begged for his release, and a retired prison official offered Mr. Thompson a place to stay and a job.

"We can forgive him," said Duane Goodwin, Charlotte's father. "Why can't you?" The board turned Mr. Thompson down. Tom Corbett, the state attorney general, cast the decisive vote. "He shot her with a pump-action shotgun, three times," Mr. Corbett said. "This was a cold-blooded killing." Just a few decades ago, a life sentence was often a misnomer, a way to suggest harsh punishment but deliver only 10 to 20 years.

But now, driven by tougher laws and political pressure on governors and parole boards, thousands of lifers are going into prisons each year, and in many states only a few are ever coming out, even in cases where judges and prosecutors did not intend to put them away forever. Indeed, in just the last 30 years, the United States has created something never before seen in its history and unheard of around the globe: a booming population of prisoners whose only way out of prison is likely to be inside a coffin.

A survey by The New York Times found that about 132,000 of the nation's prisoners, or almost 1 in 10, are serving life sentences. The number of lifers has almost doubled in the last decade, far outpacing the overall growth in the prison population. Of those lifers sentenced between 1988 and 2001, about a third are serving time for sentences other than murder, including burglary and drug crimes. Growth has been especially sharp among lifers with the words "without parole" appended to their sentences. In 1993, the Times survey found, about 20 percent of all lifers had no chance of parole. Last year, the number rose to 28 percent.

The phenomenon is in some ways an artifact of the death penalty. Opponents of capital punishment have promoted life sentences as an alternative to execution. And as the nation's enthusiasm for the death penalty wanes amid restrictive Supreme Court rulings and a spate of death row exonerations, more states are turning to life sentences. Defendants facing a potential death sentence often plead to life; those who go to trial and are convicted are sentenced to life about half the time by juries that are sometimes swayed by the lingering possibility of innocence.

As a result the United States is now housing a large and permanent population of prisoners who will die of old age behind bars. At the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, for instance, more than 3,000 of the 5,100 prisoners are serving life without parole, and most of the rest are serving sentences so long that they cannot be completed in a typical lifetime. About 150 inmates have died there in the last five years, and the prison recently opened a second cemetery, where simple white crosses are adorned with only the inmate's name and prisoner ID number.

A Growing Reliance on Life Terms

American enthusiasm for life sentences reflects an uneasy societal consensus. Such sentences are undeniably tough, pleasing politicians and prosecutors, but they also satisfy opponents of capital punishment. "If you are punishing a heinous criminal who has committed a violent murder, it is appropriate to use severe sanctions," said Julian H. Wright Jr., a lawyer in North Carolina and the author of a study on life without parole. "It has the advantage of achieving a harsh penalty and keeping a violent offender off the streets. And you don't take a human life in the process. Indeed, if you mess up and do it wrong, you haven't taken someone's life."

But the prison wardens, criminologists and groups that study sentencing say the growing reliance on life terms also raises a host of questions. Permanent incarceration may be the fitting punishment for murder. Few shed tears for Gary L. Ridgway, the Green River killer, who was sentenced to 48 consecutive life terms in Washington State, one for each of the women he admitted to killing.

But some critics of life sentences say they are overused, pointing to people like Jerald Sanders, who is serving a life sentence in Alabama. He was a small-time burglar and had never been convicted of a violent crime. Under the state's habitual offender law, he was sent away after stealing a $60 bicycle. Fewer than two-thirds of the 70,000 people sentenced to life from 1988 to 2001 are in for murder, the Times analysis found. Other lifers - more than 25,000 of them - were convicted of crimes like rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, assault, extortion, burglary and arson. People convicted of drug trafficking account for 16 percent of all lifers.

Life sentences certainly keep criminals off the streets. But, as decades pass and prisoners grow more mature and less violent, does the cost of keeping them locked up justify what may be a diminishing benefit in public safety? By a conservative estimate, it costs $3 billion a year to house America's lifers. And as prisoners age, their medical care can become very expensive. At the same time, studies show, most prisoners become markedly less violent as they grow older. "Committing crime, particularly violent crime, is an activity of the young," said Richard Kern, the director of the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission.

Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group that issued a report on life sentences last year, said that about a fifth of released lifers were arrested again, compared with two-thirds of all released prisoners.

"Many lifers," Mr. Mauer said, "are kept in prison long after they represent a public safety threat." In much of the rest of the world, sentences of natural life are all but unknown. "Western Europeans regard 10 or 12 years as an extremely long term, even for offenders sentenced in theory to life," said James Q. Whitman, a law professor at Yale and the author of "Harsh Justice," which compares criminal punishment in the United States and Europe.

Michael H. Tonry, a professor of law and public policy at the University of Minnesota and an expert on comparative punishment, said life without parole was a legal impossibility in much of the world. Mexico will not extradite defendants who face sentences of life without parole. And when Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981, was pardoned in 2000, an Italian judge remarked, "No one stays 20 years in prison."

Some developing and Islamic nations mete out brutal sanctions, including corporal punishment and mutilation. But if the discussion is limited to very long prison sentences, Professor Tonry said, "we are vastly more punitive than anybody else." The reasons for this gap are hard to pinpoint. Professor Whitman detects an American appetite for harsh retribution. Professor Tonry locates that appetite in a Calvinist tradition. "It's the same reason we're not a socialist welfare state," he said. "You deserve what you get, both good and bad."

That sort of talk struck M. L. Ebert Jr., a former president of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association and the district attorney of Cumberland County, Pa., as a little fancy. "Is it too much to ask that people don't kill people?" he said. "I can't tell you the devastation it causes families, who never forget. If you kill somebody, life means life without parole."

The Crime and the Victim

"My anger broke loose, and I shot her," Mr. Thompson said recently, recalling for the millionth time the day he killed Charlotte Goodwin. He was afraid, he said, that her pregnancy would get him kicked out of his foster home, his fourth in five years and the first one that he liked.

Mr. Thompson is a slight, almost elfin man, with receding, wispy, unkempt salt-and-pepper hair, a casual mustache, breath that smells of cigarettes and moody brown eyes in a heavily creased face. He is serving his time at the Rockview Correctional Institution near Bellefonte, just up the road from Pennsylvania State University. It is a soaring and forbidding mass of granite, a piece of Gotham City plunked down in the rolling hills of rural Pennsylvania.

He used his friend Dennis Ellis's pump-action shotgun, Mr. Thompson said, and he shot Charlotte at close range three times. He tried to explain the repeated shots. "You have to pump each time," he said. "It is true. Dennis and I, we always had a habit of going out in the woods with a gun and see how fast we could empty a gun. That's where the second and third shots come from." Charlotte's wounds were not immediately fatal. The youths had the idea, Mr. Thompson said, of putting her in a nearby creek. But she bobbed to the surface. So the three teenagers slid her body under the ice that covered a part of the creek, drowning her.

"You should have seen how stupid we was," Mr. Thompson said. "I wish I could change that." Mr. Thompson grew up as a slow and confused child, with a slight speech impediment. He had 13 brothers and sisters, "and that's not counting the half ones," he said. "Three or four of them have died so far," he said. His mother died when he was 10, he added, "I'm told of cancer."

Mr. Thompson recalled his younger self. "That 15-year-old kid was so scared. He was a special-ed kid. Special-ed kids get teased a lot. I was small. I kept running away. Here was a kid who was always scared to death, picked on, possibly beat up." "Looking back," he said, "I wish someone would have grabbed hold of me and kicked my butt. I wasn't a bad kid." He met Charlotte Goodwin at the foster home.

"I didn't get to know her that well," Mr. Thompson said. "At that age, boys are after one thing. A girl can talk all she wants and you ain't listening to her. You're thinking of only one thing." Duane Goodwin, Charlotte's father, remembered a cheerful child.

"She was just happy-go-lucky," Mr. Goodwin said of her. "If there was any kind of music on, she'd move to it." Jackie confessed to killing Charlotte, and Judge Webb sentenced him to life. At that time, 1970, in Pennsylvania, a life sentence usually meant fewer than 20 years. Dorothy D. Quimby was the clerk of the Orphans Court of Tioga County at the time and she knew him as "a gentle, good boy who had suffered a lot of hurt."

"I also knew Judge Webb very well," she wrote to the pardons board, "and know that his intentions were not to have Jackie incarcerated for any great length of time." A few months ago, Mr. Goodwin, 78, traveled 100 miles to speak up for his daughter's killer before the pardons board, which meets in an ornate courtroom of the State Supreme Court here, under a stained-glass cupola and a dozen frescoes attesting to the majesty of the law. Mr. Goodwin, a retired glass factory worker with a gray goatee and a hearing aid, is a small man with erect posture, alert eyes and quick laugh, but he gets a little overwhelmed by public speaking. He spoke softly and haltingly.

"He was just a scared little kid," Mr. Goodwin said of Jackie. "If he ever gets out, he's got a good education, and I think he'll use it." Kenneth Chubb, a retired facilities manager at the prison in Camp Hill, told the board that he had a proposal. "My wife and I would both like to offer, if needed, a place for him to stay," Mr. Chubb said, his voice choking with emotion. "Plus, my son, who has a plumbing business, will offer him a job." That drew a low whistle of surprise from a former prison official in the audience. "For a corrections person to embrace an inmate is just incredible," the official, W. Scott Thornsley, said.

A few days before the hearing, Mr. Corbett, the state attorney general, met with Mr. Thompson. "I walked out of the room thinking and feeling that he was going to say yes," Mr. Thompson later said. "He was not coldhearted. He wasn't drilling me. He gets to the point. He's a decent man." But in the end, that visit, Mr. Goodwin's pleas and Mr. Chubb's offer were not enough to sway Mr. Corbett, the one dissenting vote on the five-member parole board. "I am not prepared," Mr. Corbett said, "at this time to vote in the affirmative." John F. Cowley, the district attorney in Tioga County, where the killing took place, agreed that Mr. Thompson should never be free.

"At the end of the day, in Pennsylvania life means life," Mr. Cowley said. "I come down on the side - not firmly - but I come down on the side that there should be no pardon. It's a tough case. The only reason is the age at the time of the crime. Everything else is way beyond ugly." In lawsuits around the country, lifers are complaining that the rules were changed after sentencing. In some cases, they have the support of the judges who sentenced them.

A survey of 95 current and retired judges by the Michigan state bar released in 2002 found that, on average, the judges had expected prisoners sentenced to life with the possibility of parole to become eligible for parole in 12 years and to be released in 16 years. In July, a Michigan appeals court echoed that, saying that many lawyers there used to assume that a life sentence meant 12 to 20 years. "This belief seems to have been somewhat supported by parole data," the court said in rejecting a claim from a prisoner who claimed that recent changes in the parole system had worked to his disadvantage. "For example, between 1941 and 1974, 416 parole-eligible lifers were paroled, averaging 12 per year." In the last 24 years, by contrast, a New York Times analysis found that while the number of lifers shot up, the number of lifers who were paroled declined to about seven per year - even using the most liberal of definitions.

In 2002, for instance, a Michigan judge tried to reopen the case of John Alexander, whom he had sentenced to life with the possibility of parole for a seemingly unprovoked street shooting in 1981. The judge, Michael F. Sapala, said he had not anticipated the extent to which the parole board "wouldn't simply change policies but, in fact, would ignore the law" in denying parole to Mr. Alexander. "If I wanted to make sure he stayed in prison for the rest of his life, I would have imposed" a sentence "like 80 to 150 years," the judge said.

An appeals court ruled that the judge no longer had jurisdiction over the case. Executive Clemency Wanes In Louisiana, which, like Michigan and Pennsylvania, has a large number of lifers, "it was common knowledge that life imprisonment generally means 10 years and 6 months" in the 1970's, the state's Supreme Court said in 1982.

Since 1979, all life sentences there have come without the possibility of parole, and the governor rarely intervenes. "The use of executive clemency has withered, as it has all over the country, especially with lifers," said Burk Foster, a recently retired professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The federal appeals court in California is considering whether the parole board there may deny parole to lifers based on the nature of the original crime, which, prisoners say, is a form of double jeopardy. The plaintiff in the case, Carl Merton Irons II, shot and stabbed a housemate, John Nicholson, in 1984 after hearing that Mr. Nicholson was stealing from their landlord. Mr. Irons was sentenced to 17 years to life for second-degree murder.

The parole board refused for a fifth time to release him in 2001, saying that the killing was "especially cruel and callous." The prosecutor who sent Mr. Irons away spoke up for him at a hearing the next year, to no avail. "If life would have it that Carl Irons was my next-door neighbor or I heard he was going to move next door to me," the prosecutor, Stephen M. Wagstaffe said, "my view to you would be that I'm going to have a good neighbor." Mr. Irons filed a lawsuit challenging the board's decision. A federal district judge agreed, ordering him paroled. The federal appeals court is expected to rule soon.

The state has 30,000 lifers, of whom 27,000 will eventually become eligible for parole. As a practical matter, parole for lifers is a two-step process: the parole board must recommend it, and the governor must approve it. Neither step is easy. In a 28-month period ending in 2001, according to the California Supreme Court, the board considered 4,800 cases and granted parole in 48. Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, reversed 47 of the decisions.

Governor Davis had run on a tough-on-crime platform. In five years as governor, he paroled five lifers, all murderers.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who succeeded Mr. Davis in late 2003, has been more receptive to parole. He has paroled 103 lifers, 89 of them murderers. "Even though he is letting out more than Davis, it is still just a trickle," said Don Spector, executive director of the Prison Law Office, a legal group concerned with inmate rights and prison reform. "The victims' rights groups are used to seeing nothing, so to them, it seems like there's been a flood of releases." Reginald McFadden is the reason lifers no longer get pardons in Pennsylvania.

Mr. McFadden had served 24 years of a life sentence for suffocating Sonia Rosenbaum, 60, during a burglary of her home when a divided Board of Pardons voted to release him in 1992. After Gov. Robert P. Casey signed the commutation papers tw