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In the 1970s, communications professor George Gerbner coined the term “mean world syndrome” to describe the effect that depictions of violence can have on the perceptions of those who view them. Gerbner hypothesized that people who viewed violence in media could experience anxiety, fear, pessimism and an increased sense of awareness to perceived threats. In other words, he suggested that people who view lots of violence in media may perceive the world to be more dangerous—or “meaner”—than it actually is.

Violent crime has been steadily decreasing in the United States for decades.

At the time Gerbner coined the term “mean world syndrome,” violent crime was on the rise. His work emerged out of the Cultural Indicators Project (CIP), which began in 1968 and studied the effects of media on people. Over the next decade, murders in the United States reached their highest levels in decades. Property crime also reached its peak in that era by 1980.

Both homicides and property crime rates stayed high during the 1980s. But during the 1990s, both began to decrease steadily for the next three decades. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the overall violent crime rate fell 74% between 1993 and 2019. During that same period, property crime rates fell 71%.

But over that same time, Americans’ perceived levels of crime in the country went up.

The overall decrease in crime that began during the 1990s did not, however, lead to Americans feeling safer. In fact, the opposite happened. Gallup conducted annual polls about perceived levels of crime beginning in 1993. In 20 out of 24 of those polls, at least 60% of adults in the U.S. said that crime was on the rise at the national level from the year before. This increase over time is inversely correlated with actual crime rates.

However, Americans were a little more aligned with crime rates in their own communities. Those same Gallup polls also asked people about their perception of violent crime in their area. In each of those polls, fewer than 50% of respondents said that they thought crime was increasing in their area.

Perceptions of violent crime appear to have some correlation with the portrayals of violent acts and crime in media.

The decades that followed the 1990s would put Gerber’s “mean world syndrome” theory to the test. As crime rose in the 1960s and 1970s, so did the amount of violence depicted in popular media. But when crime rates started to drop in the 1990s, violence on television and in movies didn’t. One Stetson University study from 2015 compared the number of homicides in the U.S. to the rates of homicides in movies. It found that just as murders started their downward trend in the U.S., they spiked in movies. After a short downward trend, the on-film murder rate rose significantly in the 2000s as the real-life murder rate leveled out.

While it is hard to quantify, the advent of cable television and, as a result, 24-hour cable news also increased the presence and availability of real life crime on television news. Prior to 1980, most Americans had access to newspapers, local news and 30 minutes of national network news. After CNN’s debut in 1980, Americans could tune in to the news at any time and be subjected to reporting and images of crimes from around the country. With 168 hours of television to fill each week, cable news networks could turn to violent crimes—sensational in their very nature—to attract viewers and keep them interested.

Perception of violent crime has now reached its highest level since 1993, despite crime rates being low.

Each of these trends has more or less continued through to the present day. In Gallup’s most recent poll in 2020, 78% of respondents said that they thought crime had increased over the prior year. That is the highest percentage since 1993. But at 38%, people polled were also less likely to say that local crime had increased over the last year than at any point since 1993. The result is the greatest disparity between these two data points at any point in the last three decades.

It’s worth noting that overall crime did increase in 2020. One researcher found that murders increased by 36% on the year from 2019 to 2020 across the country. A preliminary report by the FBI gave a more conservative estimate of a 19% rise in the first half of 2020. In either case, the rise in perceived crime did correlate with a rise in actual crime during this one period.

But it is also worth noting the media environment of 2020. Images of protests and violent clashes with police dominated televised, print and digital media for most of the summer. The rise in perceived violence also accompanied a time period in which depictions of violence and crime were omnipresent.

Mean world syndrome could have lasting implications in politics and policy.

It is dangerous to try to establish causation without much, much more data at hand. That’s especially true when working with big, complex topics like crime and public perception of that crime. But the correlation between the presence and accessibility of crime and the perception that crime is getting worse at the national level is strong. Simply put, more people in the U.S. today believe that the crime rate is going up, despite the opposite being true for the most part.

When George Gerbner began his work, Americans had a limited number of broadcast channels to watch at home. He continued his work until his death in 2005, shortly before social media and smartphones became ubiquitous. Today’s media consumers now have social media, streaming services, internet news and other channels available to them. With each of these channels, there is yet another opportunity to take in depictions of violence and crime. With those depictions comes more feelings of anxiety, fear, pessimism and a heightened awareness of perceived threats.

These feelings are not without consequence. Studies have shown that people who feel safe are more likely to accept more progressive social attitudes. People who feel afraid or anxious, on the other hand, were shown to be more likely to align with conservative viewpoints. It’s not difficult to see how these attitudes could correlate with how people vote. Indeed, mean world syndrome could drive real-world politics just as much as real-world politics drive mean world syndrome.

The post Mean World Syndrome: Public Perception of Crime Doesn’t Match Reality appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Across the United States, doctors, nurses and others are issuing more than 1.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines per day. Thus far, more than 45% of Americans are fully vaccinated. These figures put the United States in the top 10 in the world for total percentage of population fully vaccinated, despite being the third most populous country in the world. But when it comes to vaccinations inside American correctional facilities, the numbers aren’t so promising. In many states, vaccination rates are too low to limit the viral spread of COVID-19 within their prisons.

Vaccination rates in U.S. prisons lag far behind the general population.

By May 22, more than 61% of adults in the United States had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccination. As a result, many states have begun repealing COVID-19 restrictions. But inside prisons, the numbers are much lower. Among people incarcerated in the largest state prison systems, only half had received at least one dose. And only 40% of people incarcerated in federal prisons had received one dose. Rates inside immigration detention centers have been significantly lower than even those, with only 20% of those incarcerated have received at least one dose.

Once vaccines became available, the CDC established a priority list for receiving them based on risk. Workers in high-risk environments, the elderly and people with significant comorbidities were eligible first. But people in prisons were not at the top of almost any priority list, despite being more at-risk than the majority of the population. Some elected officials, such as Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), have even pushed to stop vaccinating incarcerated people.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, people in prisons have been three times as likely as the general population to contract COVID-19. At least 2,900 incarcerated people have died in custody—a rate also much higher than the general population.

Vaccination rates vary wildly between states.

That’s not to say that no state has prioritized people in prisons. In Virginia, where Gov. Ralph Northram pushed to include incarcerated people in phase 1b of the state’s rollout, nearly 70% of the prison population received at least one dose by Apr. 1. But incarcerated people are significantly worse off in many other states. As of Apr. 1, less than 15% of the prison population had received a dose in New Hampshire, a state where the vaccination rollout was delayed from the beginning. Still, these figures are much higher than Idaho’s, where just over three percent of the incarcerated population received a dose by Apr. 1.

Idaho may not even have the lowest vaccination rate for its prison population. But that would be impossible to know. That’s because some states are not making their jail and prison vaccination rates public—or even keeping any. Only 16 out of 53 prison systems had publicly available data online.

Current vaccination rates are not enough to stop COVID spread in jails and prisons.

Scientists estimate that around 70% of a population needs to be immune to essentially stop the viral spread of COVID-19. Given the data, it would appear that it will take some time for most systems to reach that level, if they can at all.

Even getting an accurate number to begin with could be difficult, says Emily Wang, a professor at Yale School of Medicine who studies medical care in prisons. She says that’s due to both record-keeping issues and the fact that incarcerated people are often transferred between facilities.

“If the best estimates are 50 percent, I’ll bet it’s lower,” said Dr. Wang to the New York Times. “And we’re not close to the mark. There’s no question in my mind, this hasn’t gone well.”

Throughout the pandemic, transfers have posed a significant problem for prison systems. Many cited transfers as one of the primary spreaders of the disease, with some places relatively free of the disease experiencing outbreaks following transfers. There is very little evidence to suggest that these issues have improved in any way.

Vaccination is one of the only realistic ways of reducing the COVID-19 death toll in jails and prisons.

The arrival of COVID-19 vaccines has severely reduced the spread of the disease in areas with high vaccination rates. But even if vaccination rates remain low in some areas, people outside of prisons have other ways of reducing transmission and the risk of contracting the disease. They can still socially distance themselves, have access to plentiful PPE supplies and practice proper sanitation and hygiene. Inside prisons, however, this is much more difficult.

Prisons face unique challenges when it comes to the spread of disease. Many of them are overcrowded, with large numbers of people often quartered closely together. And while businesses and other places where people gather indoors have found some success in installing new ventilation and air filtration systems, that isn’t likely to be an option for jails and prisons. Some states still refuse to install air conditioning, even as temperatures regularly exceed 100°F.

Vaccines—which people in the United States have been able to get for free thus far—are perhaps the only realistic way to limit the spread of COVID-19 inside prisons.

People in prison are one of the most at-risk populations for COVID, yet states continue to leave them behind.

To be certain, mismanagement and lack of prioritization are not the only contributing factors to the low COVID-19 vaccination rates in many prisons. Many people have refused the vaccines, citing a lack of trust.

But the lack of priority in keeping people in prisons safe from disease is nothing new. Diseases like HIV/AIDS and hepatitis are far more common inside prisons than outside. Unhealthy environmental conditions, lack of access to adequate medical care and basic sanitation issues make jails and prisons dangerous places in terms of health. Throughout the country, people in prisons face significant health risks at every turn.

The health and safety of incarcerated people has seldom been a priority in the United States. However, being placed low or not at all on literal priority lists for life-saving vaccines as one of the highest-risk populations in the country may be the most crystalline example of the country’s lack of concern and consideration for the people it incarcerates to date.

The post Vaccination Rates Are Still Too Low to Stop COVID Spread in Prisons appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

For the friends and families of millions of incarcerated people across the country, staying in touch can be expensive—often prohibitively so. In many cases, people can spend hundreds of dollars each month talking to their loved ones in prison. But that’s about to change in Connecticut, where Governor Ned Lamont just signed a new law that makes all phone calls from prison free.

A new law guarantees free phone calls to people in jails and prisons.

Earlier this year, Reps. Josh Elliot (D-88) and Martin Looney (D-11) introduced SB 972. The bill provides free phone services to people housed by the Connecticut Department of Corrections. It passed the Senate with by a 29-6 vote, then the House by a 94-51 vote. And on June 16, Gov. Lamont signed the bill into law.

Previously, incarcerated people and their loved ones in Connecticut faced some of the highest phone fees in the country. Families in the state paid nearly $5 for a 15-minute phone call. Under the new law, incarcerated people will be allowed up to 90 minutes of phone calls for free each day.

The provisions of the new law will take effect on Oct. 22, 2022 for adult facilities and Oct. 1, 2022 for juvenile facilities. Once they do, they’ll provide substantial relief to the friends and families of the nearly 9,000 people incarcerated in Connecticut.

Rep. Elliot says this is a significant step. “We’re on the right side of history,” said Elliot. “Corporations can no longer be allowed to exploit the love between incarcerated people and their families–not in our state, not on our watch.”

Connecticut’s DOC has been served by Securus Technologies.

The Connecticut DOC, like many, contracted its services through a private vendor. Like many states, it chose to go through Securus Technologies. In fact, Connecticut was just one of 35 states that contracted Securus to manage its prison phone calls.

Securus has grown tremendously since it began in 2001. The company started out by providing a money-sending service for incarcerated people known as JPay. It has since grown and expanded its offerings. Securus now offers digital communications, like phone calls. But it also provides tablets for incarcerated people, complete with movies, email service and video chat—all, of course, at steep fees.

This ever-expanding business model has made Securus incredibly profitable. So much so that it attracted the attention of Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores, whose private equity firm Platinum Equity acquired the company in 2017. According to Incfact, the company reports over $500 million in annual revenue.

However, it’s not entirely clear if the new law will cut into Securus’ profits at all. The law does not say who will supply communications services to the system. Securus also released a statement praising the decision that seems to indicate that they will still be contracted to provide service, only now at the expense of the taxpayer.

States and cities profit from private communications contracts too.

It’s not just Securus that makes money from these services. The systems that use these services also get a cut of the revenue. That can complicate efforts to cut them, as these revenues become a more regular part of state and local budgets.

Securus gives the state of Connecticut a 68% commission on in-state prison calls. That can lead to huge payoffs. The state collected around $7 million from phone call commissions in 2019 alone.

These commissions appear to be part of the company’s marketing push. In 2014, Securus touted its commission program in a press release it published. The release brags that “over the last ten (10) years, it has collected and remitted to jails, prisons, and state, county, and local governments over $1.3 billion in the form of commissions.”

Phone calls and other communications are a major expense for justice-impacted people.

Communication services might be a big boon to both private corporations and prison systems, but they’re also a significant burden on the friends and families of incarcerated people.

In many cases, families lose an entire income stream when someone goes to jail or prison. That, combined with the high cost of communications, can lead people who want to stay in touch with an incarcerated partner or family member to have to make difficult decisions.

One such person is Diane Lewis of Hartford, Connecticut. In an interview with NPR, she described how she dealt with the cost of staying in touch with her son while he was incarcerated. “I made these phone calls priority over everything, before any bill in this house,” she said. “He didn’t know there were times that I talked to him with no lights on in the house ’cause the lights went off. He didn’t ever know that.”

That’s the kind of thing Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises, has been trying to end. She and the organization worked with local advocates to address the cost of phone calls in prison. Many of the people Tylek worked with have been impacted by the justice system themselves. She says that the potential impact of the new law should not be underestimated

“This historic legislation will change lives,” said Tylek. “It will keep food on the table for struggling families, children in contact with their parents, and our communities safer.”

Other states and the federal government could do the same if they wanted to.

Connecticut is the first state to make phone calls from prison free. But several cities have also made the same decision. Phone calls are now free in jails and prisons in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and New York City. That means, if nothing else, it’s not impossible.

And it makes a tremendous difference. Correctional systems repeatedly claim to focus on rehabilitation as their central role. They also often point to staying in touch with families as one of the key factors in reducing recidivism risk. In the case of the Bureau of Prisons, it’s right there on their website.

Yet, by allowing communications to become prohibitively expensive, they discourage following their own advice. And in doing so, they are encouraging recidivism—all while placing yet another burden on the friends and families of incarcerated people.

The post Phone Calls From Prison Will Be Free in Connecticut Under New Law appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Incarceration is an expensive practice. Costs related to the incarceration of a loved one can occupy a significant portion of a family’s budget. Keeping people in jails and prisons also accounts for a significant portion of government budgets at the state and federal levels. Now, some lawmakers in California are addressing the cost of incarceration at each of these levels.

L.A. County is cutting some of the costs of incarceration to individuals and their families.

On June 1, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to approve a motion that controls some of the costs associated with incarceration. The motion bans high markups on commissary items and high-priced collect calls.

In Los Angeles County jails, commissaries charge significant markups on some items. The Sheriff’s Department pays $1.02 for a tube of toothpaste, but charges people $2.16 at the commissary. It charges more than a 100% markup on a 4-ounce bag of Keefe instant coffee, which costs incarcerated people $7.47.

Collect calls are similarly pricey. A phone call from a Los Angeles County jail costs 25 cents per minute. When people spend months in jail, the cost of staying in touch with family can easily reach hundreds of dollars per month. That was especially true during COVID-19 restrictions. When facilities suspended in-person visitation, telephone and digital communications became the sole means of staying in touch.

The author of the motion, Supervisor Hilda Solis, noted that during the pandemic, families and friends of incarcerated people spent more than $20 million on calls from Los Angeles County jails. She said that this has a significant impact on communities of color, as around 85% of people housed in Los Angeles County jails are Black or Latino. That number is 93% for people held in juvenile halls and youth detention camps. 

“Communication with families and friends is not only vital for a person who is incarcerated, but it has been shown that it provides a major connection and a large role in helping in someone’s success upon release and reentry,” Solis said at the virtual supervisors’ meeting. “The idea of profiting off families who may still be struggling is not fair, in my opinion, or equitable — and we need to change that.”

A new bill would require prosecutors in California to disclose the cost of incarcerating the defendant.

The California state government is also considering a bill that addresses the cost of incarceration—albeit from a completely different perspective. Earlier this session, Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D-45) introduced AB 1474, which would require multiple court entities to disclose the costs to taxpayers of sentences at sentencing.

The bill would require prosecutors to state, on public record, the estimated costs of any proposed sentence—whether incarceration or supervision. Under the bill, the court would also be required to publicly state the cost estimate of the defendant’s proposed sentence. The bill would also apply to probation officers. In the event of a pre-sentencing report, the probation office for the county would need to share the projected cost of either incarceration or supervision.

Part of the reason for the bill, according to Gabriel, is transparency. In a press release, the assemblyman pointed out that while prison populations have gone down in recent years, spending by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) went up. The release says that over the last decade, prison populations have gone down by one-quarter and the paroled population by one half. However, CDCR spending has ballooned from a total of $9.7 billion in 2010-2011 to $13.3 billion (estimated) in 2019-2020. California, the release says, now spends more on incarceration than New York and Texas combined.

“Despite recent reforms in our approach to criminal and juvenile justice, California continues to lead the nation in spending on corrections,” he said. “This results in diminished revenues for other public policy priorities, including education, housing, human services, public health, and environmental protection. AB 1474 builds on momentum to promote fiscal accountability and end California’s failed experiment with mass incarceration.”

Members of both parties oppose the bill.

The bill is not without its detractors. Since Gabriel introduced AB 1474 earlier this year, it has faced significant opposition from both sides of the aisle. Opponents of the bill say that it puts the focus on the cost of sentencing, rather than on the crime. One of those opponents is Jack Walker, a former prison guard.

“There are lots of ways to reign in higher costs,” he told the California Globe. “Saying how much it will cost to put someone in jail really won’t matter in the end because you’re saying that right after you announced what their crime was, and to many, the crime matters more than the price, especially to victims.”

The Assembly voted to pass AB 1474 on June 2 by a 53-20 margin. Most Republicans voted against the bill, but several Democrats joined them. That could spell trouble for the bill. It will now head to the Senate, where committees could hear it as early as this month.

Everyone in the country pays for the steep cost of incarceration.

Incarceration is a significant portion of most state budgets. According to Pew Research, in 2017, jail spending alone represented between 0.6% and 3.0% of total state expenditures. At the county level, it’s even more. The same report found that on average, one out of every 17 county dollars was spent on jails. It also found that counties spent, on average, $34,000 for each occupied jail cell. As a comparison, K-12 schools in the U.S. spend just over $12,000 per student annually.

According to a Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) report, the federal government spends just under $81 billion each year on incarceration. That represents around 1.6% of the total annual budget.

But another PPI report combined the cost to the taxpayers with other associated costs of imprisonment. That report found that adding in tangential costs and costs to families of incarcerated people adds more than $100 billion to the government spending number. Their total reached $182 billion annually.

For governments, gaudy numbers like these are simply budget line items. Politicians can argue about whether these numbers are reasonable or not. Regardless, at the end of the day, taxpayers will foot the bill.

But the same can’t be said for families of incarcerated people. These costs represent real challenges, often to people who have lost one of the main sources of income in their household. They don’t have a library or defense budget to move money from.

Keeping people in jails in prisons costs real money. With these changes, lawmakers in California have taken the step of acknowledging the high cost of incarceration, both to governments and to families.

The post California Begins to Reckon With the Cost of Incarceration appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

On Tuesday, June 15, U.S. Representatives Cori Bush (D-MO) and Bonnie Watson-Coleman (D-NJ) introduced the Drug Policy Reform Act (DPRA). The bill would fundamentally change the federal government’s approach to drug policy, ending criminal penalties for drug possession and shifting towards a health-centered approach to drugs in the country. The announcement comes almost 50 years to the day after President Richard Nixon announced “The War on Drugs.”

The bill would end individual penalties at the federal level for drug possession.

If enacted, the DPRA would decriminalize drug possession at the federal level. And not just marijuana or psilocybin, as some states and cities have. The bill would eliminate criminal penalties for possession of all drugs.

But the bill also includes some restorative justice measures at the individual level. It would immediately expunge the criminal records of people convicted of drug possession crimes at the federal level. The bill also addresses some of the issues people arrested for drug crimes face, including access to public benefits, immigration status issues, voting rights, driving privileges, and denial of employment.

Rep. Bush says that this new approach could help address the wrongs of the past.

“[The] punitive approach creates more pain, increases substance use, and leaves millions of people to live in shame and isolation with limited support and healing,” she said. “I’m proud to partner with Congresswoman Watson Coleman on legislation to end criminal penalties for drug possession at the federal level and repair harm in Black and brown communities. It’s time to put wellness and compassion ahead of trauma and punishment.”

The Drug Policy Reform Act would also create other significant changes to U.S. drug policy.

While the headline for the DPRA might be its decriminalization provisions, other aspects of the bill could have a more profound effect on drug policy as a whole.

The bill would move regulatory authority from the office of the Attorney General to the Department of Health and Human Services. This would represent a fundamental shift in philosophy from one focused on criminality and enforcement to one focused on health.

And while the federal government can’t force states to change their laws, it can influence them with funding. That’s exactly what the DPRA does, incentivizing states to align their own drug policy with the federal governments.

According to Watson-Coleman, this change in policy is “essential.”

“The United States has simply failed in how we carried out the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs stands as a stain on our national conscience since its very inception,” she said. “Begun in 1972 as a cynical political tactic of the Nixon Administration, the War on Drugs has destroyed the lives of countless Americans and their families. As we work to solve this issue, it is essential that we change tactics in how we address drug use away from the failed punitive approach and towards a health-based and evidence-based approach.”

Lawmakers in Oregon passed a similar bill last year.

The DPRA would not be the first decriminalization measure in the U.S. Reps. Bush and Watson-Coleman worked together with the non-profit group Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) to craft the bill. The New York City-based group works to “reduce the harms of both drug use and drug prohibition.”

Through it’s lobbying arm, Drug Policy Action, the group was instrumental in the nation’s first all-drug decriminalization act—Measure 110 in Oregon. Voters approved that measure on Nov. 3, 2020 in a ballot initiative. Similar to the DPRA, Measure 110 eliminates criminal penalties for drug possession. It also expands access to evidence-informed drug treatment, housing, and harm reduction services.

A majority of Americans support decriminalization.

Decriminalization might seem like a radical departure from current policy, but the idea has widespread support in the United States.

Earlier in June, the DPA released a national poll conducted by Bully Pulpit Interactive. The poll found that 66% of American voters said they supported removing criminal penalties for drugs. Nearly 65% said they wanted to end The War on Drugs. And 64% said they supported eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related crimes.

The poll reflects Americans’ changing attitudes towards drugs. It comes at a time when support for legalized marijuana is at an all-time high. In a recent Pew Research poll, only 8 percent of people said that marijuana should not be legal in any way for adults. But that represents an enormous shift, as 60% of Americans said it should be illegal in a similar poll in 2005.

The bill may not pass, but introducing it is important.

It’s important to keep in mind that popular support does not mean a bill will pass. Legislators in the United States have shown that they are perfectly willing to ignore the will of their electorate. For example, a 2016 CNN poll found that 90% of Americans supported universal background checks for gun purchases. Yet no such legislation has moved forward.

And despite a similar percentage of Americans favoring some form of marijuana legalization, the plant remains very illegal at the federal level.

But that doesn’t mean Reps. Bush and Watson-Coleman are wasting their time, or anyone else’s. The Drug Policy Reform Act is a bold statement about changing priorities in the world’s largest incarcerator and, perhaps, a glimpse into the future.

That future is something Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance Kassandra Frederique says is within reach. “A different reality—one where we treat people who use drugs with dignity and respect, and one where drugs are no longer an excuse for law enforcement to surveil, harass, assault and even kill Black, Latinx and Indigenous people—is 100% possible,” she said.

The post The Drug Policy Reform Act Would Fundamentally Change US Drug Policy appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

You can forgive North Carolinians for being less than optimistic about the prospect of marijuana legalization in their state. As at least 34 states have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational purposes, North Carolina residents have watched bill after bill enter the North Carolina General Assembly, never to even make it out of committee. But one North Carolinian who has spent years fighting for legalization says she feels confident that this time is different.

Legislators appear to be moving forward on NC S711, the “NC Compassionate Care Act.”

Janis Ramquist, NC NORML’s Governmental Consultant, Pro Bono, spoke with Interrogating Justice in April after legislators filed multiple legalization bills. At the time, she suggested that North Carolina would see a legalization bill “pass in the not-too-distant future.” When IJ reached out for comment about whether lawmakers had any progress on any of the bills, she responded that indeed they had. And that “the not-too-distant future” could actually be this legislative session.

After years of lobbying for NC NORML, Ramquist said she had expected that the bill might have already come to a vote by the time of our interview.

“I was hoping to have good news by now,” she said. “But also the budget disagreement between the house and the Senate complicates movement of other bills. So that is another aspect of things beyond our control.”

The entrance of big cannabis businesses has added additional complications.

Ramquist said that another reason for the delay may be due to the success of NC NORML’s lobbying efforts so far.

“NC NORML was making really good progress towards majority support for medical cannabis,” she said. “So much so that some cannabis companies took notice and hired some lobbyists. So that has complicated our progress. The more people involved in talking to legislators, the message isn’t always the same. And the concerns aren’t the same. Obviously [the cannabis companies] want to suck up so that they can operate in North Carolina.”
But Ramquist said that she and her group approached the issue from an entirely different perspective.

“I haven’t really gotten into the business end of the bill,” she said. “I’m concerned about consumers and patients; labeling, the fact they can get physicians advice as the decider. There’s increased almost weekly I see research on a different medical condition. There is now preliminary research being done regarding Alzheimer’s.”

Ramquist says parties are looking to make several changes to the law as written.

Of the legalization bills introduced during this session, NC S711 is by far the most restrictive. As written, the bill strictly defines a limited number of conditions for which marijuana could be prescribed. Ramquist says these restrictions are something she and others have been working to change.

“Our focus is making sure that the language leaves the decision up to physicians and that we have a less complicated certification for medical cannabis than is in that law right now,” she said. “It’s really physicians that should be making those kinds of decisions. There are new things all the time and I don’t think the legislature will enjoy us coming every year with the new research. So I think there really is open mind about, ‘Let’s let the professionals decide.’”

Ramquist says that another change they are looking to make is introducing labeling laws into the bill.

“The other item that we’re looking to have included is labeling, so that patients know what they’re taking,” she said.

NC S711 has Republican support, something it needs to pass.

Most conservative lawmakers in North Carolina have traditionally been opposed to legalizing marijuana for either medical or adult use purposes. But unlike other legalization bills on the docket this session, NC S711 was sponsored by a Republican—Sen. Bill Rabon (R-8). Ramquist says that side of the aisle is now much more open to the idea this time around.

“Actually the legislators that I’ve spoken with, even if they say they don’t want to vote for medical cannabis, they state that they recognize that there are medical benefits,” she said.

Her perspective on the situation is supported by comments made by Sen. Phil Berger (R-30), Senate President Pro Tempore. After suggesting that there was not sufficient support to pass a legalization bill in early April, Berger reversed course just weeks later.

“I do sense that public opinion is changing on marijuana, both medical and recreational,” he said to reporters. “I don’t know where the members of the General Assembly are at this time in terms of support for the bill, but it’s something we’ll look at and see how things move along.”

In the same interview, Berger also expressed support for Sen. Rabon.

“I know it’s something that Senator Rabon for a long time has looked at the issue of medical marijuana, particularly how some people respond to treatment for cancer, with some of the cancer medications that are out there,” he said.

Passing the NC Compassionate Care Act looks likely, but it’s not inevitable.

Berger’s support doesn’t automatically mean that the NC Compassionate Care Act will pass. But as the NCGA’s highest-ranking Republican and leader of the state Senate, it is unlikely that the bill would pass without it. That fact, among others, has given Ramquist confidence that this session could be the one in which North Carolina lawmakers legalize medical marijuana.

“I think that it will pass,” she said. “We do have a majority support in both houses. But there are other things that impact. I feel comfortable pursuing a vote on the bill with a higher than a close majority.”

But Ramquist was quick to remind that, while confidence is high, the work isn’t done yet. She says that there are a lot of moving parts “that can still affect it.”

“As always, people need to contact their legislators and say ‘I want access to medical cannabis. I want to make the decision with my physician and I want labeling so I know what I’m taking. And that the barriers to obtaining cannabis are not overly burdensome.’”

The post Legal Medical Marijuana is Looking Likely For North Carolina appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Charles Moore is the Director of Operations at the New York-based Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA). But before that, he was a participant in the program.

“I joined RTA in 2004,” said Charles Moore. “And as they say, the rest is history.”

Since 1996, RTA has developed theater and dance programs in correctional facilities within the New York state DOC. Participants in the program work together to put on plays and other performances. These performances provide a rare opportunity for people housed in the New York correctional system to showcase artistic skills and talents to friends and family members on the outside.

But they also provide a much more quantifiable and practical benefit. While national recidivism rates are estimated to be as high as 83% in state prison systems, that rate is less than 5% for RTA alumni.

On the eve of its 25th anniversary and shortly after releasing a short documentary about the program entitled ‘Unlocked,’ available for free online, Moore and RTA Founder Katherine Vockins took the time to talk to Interrogating Justice about the program and its success.

RTA began just as funding for education for people in prison was cut off.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, known more commonly as “the crime bill,” into law. The law did many things. But among those was revoking incarcerated people’s access to Pell Grants, the largest source of federal aid for post-secondary education in the country. This led to a major decline in college and university courses offered to people in prison. One study found that in the early 90s, there were 772 programs operating in 1,287 correctional facilities across the country. By 1997, there were only eight college-in-prison programs left in the United States.

But one of the programs that remained was the New York Theological Seminary. It was an NYTS graduation that Vockins was attending when the idea for RTA struck. She said she was sitting next to a teaching assistant during the ceremony when something motivated her to speak to him.

“I said to him, is there any theater going on in Sing Sing?,” she said. “He said, ‘Not for the last decade.’ And I said, ‘Do you think there would be any interest?’ To this day, I have no idea why I said that.”

It wasn’t long after that conversation that RTA began its work.

“Three weeks later, I’m sitting in a room with eight men who wanted to write a play. And they wanted me to help put it on by convincing Sing Sing and the New York state’s Department of Corrections, that there should be a theater program at Sing Sing.”

Moore also shares a connection to NYTS. After entering Sing Sing at age 34 without a high school diploma, he worked his way to getting his Master’s of Professional Studies from NYTS over the course of his sentence.

RTA works to help participants build practical skills.

“The way we use the arts to transform our folks like skills, is we build areas, where they can be more holistic, in how they return,” said Vockins. “If they don’t have a college degree, then what they have is the ability to manage their time, present who they are on their feet, communicate better than they did before, recognize critical thinking and nonviolent conflict resolution as part of their lifestyle. And therefore, those particular skill sets, prepare them better to return. In improving their communication, they are more apt to return to family, and communities to get a job and maintain a job because they know how to communicate better.”

Vockins says that RTA leans heavily on its skill wheel, which breaks down how different skills learned in dance and theater translate to different areas of life. For example, it lists “visual arts” under the “community” section. The corresponding inner circle cites skills like “cultivate self-expression” and “build visual memory” as ones that participants learn through visual arts.

Moore said that these skills are central to RTA’s education and its mission—and to reducing recidivism rates.

“There’s a number of things [participants learn], like communication skills,” he said. “They learn how to work as a team, they learn how to take directions.”

The program also works to help participants build self-confidence and emotional health.

Moore first heard about the program in 2001 when he attended one of RTA’s plays. But he wasn’t able to join the program until 2004, due to an extensive waiting list. He made his debut in the August Wilson play ‘Jitney.’ The director of the play tapped him to play a telephone which, according to her, was the most important role in the play. That’s something that Moore took seriously.

“My whole presence was off stage. All I had to do was ring the phone when he came. And [the director] explained that the telephone was actually a character. It gave cue lines to other people and everything. I was like, ‘Oh my God! This is great! I’m the most important person in this play!’ I got to go to rehearsal. I got to make sure I was there because people were depending on me. So, it really, really did change my life to make me come out of the little funk that I was in as a result of being incarcerated.”

The recidivism rates of RTA alumni versus national averages has a lot to teach about how and why people rehabilitate.

As it closes in on its 25th anniversary, the organization has established a tremendous record of keeping people from going back to prison. Such low rates of recidivism over such a long time suggests that there is something to what RTA does. Perhaps it’s the practical skills people learn through arts education. Or maybe it’s the self-esteem boost that comes from working together to accomplish goals and embrace one’s vulnerability. But according to Moore, at least some of that success is due to the fact that the program reminds people that they are more than their ID number, or the crime that sent them to prison—an acknowledgment of a person’s humanity.

“It made me think that it wasn’t the worst thing that I ever did in my life,” said Moore. “There is life after and the bottom line is just because you’re incarcerated doesn’t mean that you’re less than a human being. It resolidifies that there is life after incarceration.”

The post Shakespeare in Prison? How RTA Dramatically Lowers Recidivism Rates appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

On May 24, Tennessee governor Bill Lee signed two new justice reform bills into law. Both bills provide mechanisms to reduce jail and prison populations and recidivism. But whether or not these laws actually achieve these reductions is still largely up to the state’s judges and parole and probation boards.

The Alternatives to Incarceration Act provides the means to reduce incarceration in the state.

One of the bills signed into law is HB 0784, also known as the Alternatives to Incarceration Act. The law reduces penalties for some offenses and offers diversion alternatives to jail or prison time. For example, under the new law, judges can sentence eligible defendants to a “day reporting center” instead of incarceration. The law defines these centers as “highly structured, non-residential, and phase-based program[s] that combines supervision, treatment, and reentry services for moderate to high-risk offenders with a substance abuse issue or co-occurring mental health issue.”

The law also makes several key changes to probation and parole. Among those is a provision that prohibits a judge from revoking someone’s probation based on a technical violation. These are mostly non-criminal violations of terms of probation such as failure to pay fines or fees, failing a drug test or missing a curfew. A 2019 report showed that technical violations accounted for nearly 25% of state prison admissions. The study estimated the cost of those incarcerations at $2.8 billion annually. This one provision alone could significantly reduce the number of incarcerated people in the state of Tennessee.

But lawmakers worked some key language into the bill. Many of the provisions in the bill “authorize” judges to consider alternatives to sentencing, or require them to “strongly consider” lighter sentences—stopping just short of requiring across-the-board sentence reform. This effectively gives the Court and parole and probation boards lots of discretion in how they issue sentences.

The Reentry Success Act reforms Tennessee’s parole and probation systems.

Another bill Gov. Lee signed into law, SB 7068 focuses on reforming the state’s parole and probation rules, as well as reducing or removing a number of other barriers to reentry. The bill, also known as the Reentry Success Act of 2021 addresses reentry from several angles.

It “softens” parole somewhat by restricting the types of conditions that can be imposed on someone on supervised release. Formerly, the board could require any condition it saw fit. The new law prohibits the board from issuing a condition or restriction unless the DOC specifically recommends it. It also shortens the maximum amount of time between parole hearings in the case of denials from 10 years to six years.

The new law also gives parole boards more options over how they can respond to parole violations. Previously, judges could sentence people convicted of parole violations to serve the maximum remainder of their sentence in jail or prison. But under the new law, there are limits to how long someone can be incarcerated for violations that aren’t new felonies, Class A misdemeanors, or attempted escapes. Now parole boards are limited to issuing a maximum of 15 days for the first revocation. It limits sentences for second revocations to 30 days, and 90 days for third revocations, or the remainder of a person’s sentence, whichever is shorter. It does, however, make several important exceptions, including ones for people convicted of violent or sexually based offenses.

SB 7068 also makes several important changes to identification and employment issues.

In Oklahoma, another state dominated by conservatives, reentry reform bills introduced new regulations to help formerly incarcerated people find work. Two provisions in particular in SB 7068 look to do the same.

Like in Oklahoma, lawmakers addressed some of the challenges to getting state-issued ID following incarceration. The Reentry Success Act eliminates a $65 fee for reinstating a driver license. This is nowhere close to the comprehensive ID plans in Oklahoma’s legislation. That law requires prison systems to issue a slew of documents to people before they leave prison. But it does remove an important financial barrier, thereby increasing access to state-issued IDs.

But another provision in SB 7068 addresses the employment side of reentry. Under the new law, people can no longer bring a cause of action against an employer or contractor for negligent hiring or supervision based solely on the fact that the employee or contractor has a conviction on their record. The assumption is that employers can now feel safer hiring people with criminal records. Without the fear of lawsuits, the thought goes, they may be more incentivized to do so.

The amount of discretion that judges and parole and probation boards have under the new laws could lead to problems.

There is a pattern here. While conservative-led states have indeed enacted justice reforms over the last year, many of them leave life-altering decisions up to discretion. And in deeply conservative states, that level of discretion could lead to more problems. There is an enormous amount of data that show that, when left up to discretion, marginalized groups consistently receive harsher sentences as a result. Giving parole boards the option to issue lighter sentences is not the same as removing the option of harsher sentences.

Similarly, SB 7068 does address the important issue of the difficulty of finding work after incarceration. But it does so by protecting companies and not people. Lawmakers could have chosen to pass tougher anti-discrimination laws as a way to ensure people in reentry had access to work. Instead, they chose to shield companies from lawsuits, leading to a weird kind of “trickle-down” justice reform.

To be clear, these new laws do represent some degree of progress. But both the Alternatives to Incarceration Act and the Reentry Success Act represent small, slow gains for justice-impacted people. Many of them will still be at the mercy of parole boards and other officials whose prejudices will still be allowed to influence decisions that will impact them and their families for the rest of their lives.

That’s something Tennessee senator Raumesh Akbari (D-29) says is important to keep in mind. “When we’re promoting diversion, that’s a good thing, and really looking at meaningful ways for people to re-enter society, I think that’s perfect,” Sen. Akbari said, “I do think that this is a good first step, but we do have a ways to go.”

The post Tennessee Justice Reform Bills Give Major Discretion to Judges, Boards appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

On May 19, shortly after 6 PM, prison guards walked Quinton Jones to the death chamber at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. There, they strapped the 41-year-old man to a gurney and injected him with pentobarbital at 6:28 PM. He was pronounced dead 12 minutes later.

The state of Texas sentenced Jones to death in Tarrant County in 2001 after he was convicted of beating his 83-year-old great aunt Berthena Bryant to death in 1999. He was 20 years old at the time. It was the first execution in the United States in nearly 30 years without a media presence. Reporters from The Huntsville Item, a local newspaper, and The Associated Press were scheduled to attend as media witnesses. But these reporters were never brought to the prison from an office across the street.

Texas executed Jones despite many, including the victims, asking for clemency.

Jones’ execution was not without controversy. Bryant’s family started a petition that received more than 180,000 people asking Texas governor Jim Abbott to spare Jones’ life. Mattie Long, Bryant’s sister, told an interviewer, “I have forgiven him. I love him very much.” She also said, “I think the governor should spare him, because he has changed and he’s a different person than he used to be.”

She later wrote in an affidavit, “Because I was so close to Bert, her death hurt me a lot. Even so, God is merciful. Quintin can’t bring her back. I can’t bring her back. I am writing this to ask you to please spare Quintin’s life.”

Two weeks before Jones was scheduled to be executed, The New York Times published a four-minute video in which Jones asked Gov. Abbott for clemency.

“I know you don’t know me,” he begins. “I’m writing this letter to ask you if you could find it in your heart to grant me clemency, so I don’t get executed on May 19. I got two weeks to live, starting today.”

He goes on to talk about what he has learned and who he has become during his time on death row.

“How can you say, ‘Well, you killed someone 20 years ago, so you deserve to die.’? I’m nothing like that person. I became a man on death row, so now you killing the man, and not the child.”

Quintin Jones’ case bore striking similarities to another death penalty case in which Gov. Abbot granted clemency—with one very important and sadly predictable difference.

Texas has executed more than 50 people since Abbott took office in 2015. He has granted clemency to just one person on death row—Thomas Whitaker.

Whitaker was sentenced to death for the shooting deaths of his mother and brother in 2003 in Fort Bend County. The gunman also shot his father in the incident, but he survived. Whitaker planned the murders with his roommate who then shot the family members as they arrived home from dinner together. At the time, Whitaker told authorities that the shooter was a Black man.

But Kent Whitaker wrote to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles asking for clemency for his son. And on February 18, 2019, 45 minutes before he was scheduled to be executed, Gov. Abbott commuted his sentence to life imprisonment, sparing his life.

Like Jones, Whitaker killed family members. Also like Jones, family members of the victims asked Gov. Abbott for clemency. But unlike Jones, Whitaker is White. That’s something Jones’ lawyer Michael Mowla argued played a major part in the different responses to the two clemency requests.

“The lack of consistency in the application of grounds for clemency — where clemency was recommended and granted for Whitaker, who is white, and rejected for Mr. Jones, who is black — presents a legally cognizable claim that Mr. Jones’s race played an impermissible role in the Board’s denial of his application for clemency,” said the filing.

Race plays a major role in who gets the death penalty in the United States.

Quintin Jones’ case would certainly not be the first death penalty case in which race played a deciding factor. Despite Black people constituting just 12% of the U.S. population, around 35% of the people executed since 1976 have been Black. According to data from the ACLU, Black defendants are four times more likely than White ones to receive a death sentence.
This is not a new trend. Earlier in the twentieth century, courts still applied death sentences for the crime of rape. During that time, 89% of executions for rape featured Black defendants—and most of the time for the rape of a White woman.

Now, in the modern era of the death penalty, White victimhood is strongly correlated with the issuance of the death penalty. Among death penalty cases involving murder, 75% of them feature White victims. This, despite Black and White people having an equal likelihood of being murder victims.

Race also plays a major role in who gets clemency.

Black people aren’t just more likely to receive the death penalty, they’re also less likely to receive clemency when they do. ProPublica conducted an investigation into the matter at the national level in 2011. In its report, it found that “White criminals seeking presidential pardons over the past decade have been nearly four times as likely to succeed” and “Blacks have had the poorest chance of receiving the president’s ultimate act of mercy…”

But grants of clemency are down across the board. Prior to Ronald Reagan, every president in modern history approved more than 20% of clemency applications. Richard Nixon, for example, granted 36% of clemency applications. By comparison, Barack Obama granted just 5% of the applications that came across his desk. Donald Trump granted just 2% of them. If, like ProPublica wrote, pardons and clemency are an “act of mercy,” it would appear that presidents have become significantly less merciful over the years.

The death penalty is incompatible with the idea of rehabilitation.

On a systemic level, the unequal application of the death penalty is yet another example of the racism inherent to the American justice system—and perhaps to its most severe consequences. But on an individual level, the existence of the death penalty would seem to be oxymoronic within a system that purports to be about rehabilitation. Put quite simply, rehabilitation is impossible once a person’s life ends.

The act Quintin Jones committed when he was 20 years old was, by his own accounts, horrific. But according to many who knew him, he had grown as a person to become a beloved family member and pen pal to many. His plea to Gov. Abbott to spare his life reveals a man who, at the very least, understands the pain he has caused others and who expresses a desire to live a more meaningful, productive life. In other words, Jones grew in exactly the way that prison systems say they want those in custody to grow—and made amends with the family of his victim in the process.

And yet, on May 19, shortly after 6PM, guards at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville marched him down a long corridor into a small room where they strapped him to a gurney and killed him. Before his death, Jones issued his final statement:

“I was so glad to leave this world a better, more positive place. It’s not an easy life with all the negativities. Love all my friends and all the friendships that I have made. They are like the sky. It is all part of life, like a big full plate of food for the soul. I hope I left everyone a plate of food full of happy memories, happiness and no sadness. I’m done, warden.”

The post Quintin Jones and the Violent Racism of the Death Penalty in America appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Three people are currently awaiting the death penalty in South Carolina. After the state passed a new law, those people will be forced to choose how they are executed. In addition to lethal injection and execution, the new law adds firing squads to the list of acceptable methods. While that might seem like a relic of the distant past, it is now very much a reality in 2021 South Carolina.

South Carolina’s governor signed a law that legalizes the use of the firing squad for the death penalty.

On May 14, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster signed S. 200 into law. He announced its signing on Twitter.

“This weekend, I signed legislation into law that will allow the state to carry out a death sentence,” he wrote. “The families and loved ones of victims are owed closure and justice by law. Now, we can provide it.”

Previously, people on death row could choose between electrocution and lethal injection. When lethal injections weren’t available, state law left those people in limbo.

The new bill gives people on death row a choice between lethal injection, electrocution and firing squad for their method of execution. With lethal injection drugs in short supply, that means people are likely to have to choose between the latter two options. If people don’t choose a method, the state will execute them via electric chair.

But it’s the firing squad that has drawn the bulk of the attention around the bill. Although South Carolina joins Utah, Oklahoma and Mississippi in using the method as an option, nobody in the United States has been executed by firing squad since 2010. Only four people have been executed by firing squad since 1960—all of them in Utah.

Some lawmakers in South Carolina have raised objections. One of them is state Rep. Justin Bamberg (D- 90).

“We’re going to force people to get electrocuted and give them the choice of getting shot instead when that wasn’t even the law when they were convicted of their crime,” he said.

A shortage of lethal injection drugs has had states turning to other options.

One of the main reasons why firing squads have come back into play in South Carolina is the lack of lethal injection drugs. In 2011, the UK-based Dream Pharma, one of the main suppliers of lethal injection drugs, stopped exporting the three drugs to the United States. Hospira, the only American-based manufacturer of the same drugs, stopped making them in 2011.

This shortage has led to states trying a number of solutions to continue executing people. Lethal injection as a process was developed as a more humane alternative to electrocutions and firing squads. But the results in some places have been anything but humane.

Officials in Texas turned to a compounding pharmacy to make its lethal injection drugs. People who received those drugs consistently described feeling like their insides were burning as they died. One person writhed and shook as the drugs coursed through their body.

The lack of drugs is part of the reason why South Carolina hasn’t executed someone since 2011. That’s something some lawmakers say they hope changes soon.

“To have the death penalty and then not be allowed to carry it out is committing fraud upon the citizens we represent,” said state senator Greg Hembree (R-28).

The state’s new law comes at a time when the death penalty is disappearing in other parts of the U.S. (with a major recent exception).

Despite South Carolina’s recent law change, executions have been steadily trending downwards in the United States for the last two decades. Executions in the U.S. reached their peak in 1999 when 98 people were executed. In 2020, 17 people were executed across the country.

The federal government had all but phased out executions approaching the latter half of the 2010s. Heading into 2020, the federal government had executed just three people since 1963. But things took a dramatic turn during the waning days of the Trump administration. Since July 2020, the federal government has executed 13 people.

Americans are increasingly opposed to the death penalty.

But this recent shift is at odds with public opinion if, Gallup’s polls are any indication. Support for capital punishment as a sentence for murder has steadily trended downward over the last two decades-plus. American’s support for executions peaked in 1994, when 80% told Gallup they were in favor. By 2014, only 50% of Americans expressed the same opinion.

But the last time Gallup conducted the poll in 2019, things had changed dramatically. In that poll, only 36% of Americans said they supported the death penalty. And more people than at any point in modern history—42%—said they opposed the death penalty.

It’s not just the American public that has expressed a distaste for executions, either. President Joe Biden included abolishing the death penalty at the federal level as part of his campaign. And while no executions have taken his place during his young tenure in office, he has yet to follow through on his promise to bring an end to federal executions.

The reintroduction of firing squads comes at a time of tumult and change in the country’s justice systems.

South Carolina’s new law comes at a time when the U.S. and its states are at a crossroads with their justice systems. A wave of new reform laws has swept through both Democratic and Republican-controlled states. But not all of those laws are moving their respective justice systems in the same direction. As states like New Mexico elect to end qualified immunity, states like Kentucky have gone even further in protecting police. So on some level, it should come as no surprise that as the push to end the death penalty grows stronger, some states like South Carolina would dig in.

Activists have called the new law “appalling, shocking, [and] abhorrent.” But some have suggested that the new law could shed light on the true nature of the death penalty itself. One of those people is Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

“There has been a sense in which lethal injection has provided a patina of civility,” Dunham said. “It makes it appear less brutal. But the bottom line is the intentional killing of an individual against their will is an act of brutality. But that’s what the death penalty is. And so it will force the American public to come to grips with whether this is something they can stomach.”

The post South Carolina Is Bringing Back The Firing Squad For The Death Penalty appeared first on Interrogating Justice.