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In 2001, JPay launched as a quick alternative for sending money to incarcerated people. People who used the service exchanged high fees for speed and convenience. Then, in 2004, the company launched its e-messaging service. At the time, it promoted this service as a way of connecting incarcerated people with people in the outside world.

Today, JPay’s business model has expanded greatly. The company now produces tablets made specifically for incarcerated people. These tablets offer limited internet access and communications—including payment and e-messaging options. People in jails and prisons can also use these tablets to make phone calls, send and receive video messages and emails. The tablets allow people to listen to mp3s and rent movies. Incarcerated people can also use them to access eBooks and educational materials.

The company now has a presence in more than 35 states, according to its website.

The company has generated huge revenues for itself and for cities and states.

All of these services have generated massive profits for JPay and its parent company Securus. In 2014, people sent more than 14.2 million messages over the service. That same year, the company brought in approximately $405 million in revenue.

But it’s not just Securus that’s profiting off of JPay’s fees. In roughly half of its contracts, prisons receive commissions from the fees that JPay collects. Many prisons receive a 5-cent commission on each message sent through the system.

One study showed that in Michigan, users send around 800,000 to one million messages through the service every month. Across an entire year, that could result in more than $600,000 in revenue for the state just from e-messaging alone. The company also offers commission on its other products like tablets and downloadables.

The high cost of communications has placed a burden on the families of incarcerated people.

From its inception, JPay’s business model has been to charge high fees to people in prisons for more convenient services. But in many jails and prisons, residents don’t have other options.

Money orders used to be the standard for sending money to incarcerated people. People can purchase money orders for less than a dollar at many places. Mailing or transmitting the payment electronically also usually costs less than a dollar, bringing the total cost of sending money to less than $2 in many cases. But some states have transferred payment management to JPay, which charges as much as 45% in fees to transfer money. In Virginia, people pay $4.76 to transfer as little as $20.01.

Communications can be a huge financial burden as well. In 2015, the FCC placed a limit of $0.22 per minute on most calls to and from prisons. But before that, companies like JPay were charging as much as $14 per minute. For many families who have lost one income source already, even the post-2015 rates can present real challenges.

Brian Nelson, a formerly incarcerated person who spent 28 years in prison in Illinois, laid out the reality of the situation for poor families.
“It’s a wife that has three children at home, and her husband is in jail, so now she has a choice,” he said. “Do I send money to him so he can afford to stay in touch with the kids, or do I feed the kids?”

The company pushed prisons into cancelling in-person visitation.

One of the basic elements of JPay’s business model is that it has a captive customer base with no meaningful alternatives. As the company has grown bigger and more profitable, it has increasingly used its power and profitability to leverage effective monopolies in correctional facilities.

This has allowed the company to influence prison policy, even beyond digital communications and payments. At one point, Securus began including language in its contracts that required customers to ban in-person visitation. In 2015, the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) issued a report on the matter. Bernadette Rabuy, a Senior Policy Analyst with the PPI, was one of the authors of the report.

“There is clear language banning in-person visits in 70% of the Securus contracts we examined for our report, Screening Out Family Time: The for-profit video visitation industry in prisons and jails,” she said. “The contracts plainly read: “For non-professional visitors, Customer will eliminate all face to face visitation through glass or otherwise at the Facility.”

Securus changed this policy in 2015. But it did so by “allowing” facilities to set their own rules about visitations. According to data from PPI, among the correctional facilities that implemented video calling, 74% of them reduced or eliminated in-person visits.

Privatization of incarceration is more than just private prisons.

The privatization of American incarceration has gained traction as an issue in recent years. This year, President Joe Biden signed an executive order terminating all DOJ contracts with private prisons. But private prisons are only one component of privatization. Private service providers like JPay also add a revenue incentive to incarceration, both for states and the companies themselves.

While harder to quantify, the human cost of this form of privatization is difficult to ignore. There is the dollars and cents side of the issue—that families have to find a way to fit increasing costs of communication into their already strained budgets.

But there is also a more emotional element. Most people on Earth experienced interacting with the outside world primarily through digital communications during 2020. Some research shows that this experience left people feeling lonely and exhausted.

As psychiatrist Gianpiero Petriglieri put it, “Every time you connect to a Zoom call, you are having two experiences at the same time: the experience of reaching, and the experience of what you’ve lost.”

So while JPay’s services have made it easier for people in prison to connect with their friends and family on the outside, it has come at several costs. Some of those costs are financial. Others—like the decline in in-person visitation—are less quantifiable.

But all of them have translated to massive profits for companies like JPay and revenue boosts for many of the prison systems that contract their services. It’s a stark reminder of a justice system that purports to emphasize rehabilitation but continues to treat the people it is supposed to rehabilitate as revenue sources.

The post JPay Reveals Another Facet Of The Privatization of American Prisons appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

When someone is convicted of a criminal charge, the costs start to add up immediately. States and court systems charge fees for dozens of items, ranging from facilities fees to fees that feed into law enforcement retirement pools. This system of fees can trap justice-impacted people in cycles of poverty. It also increases the likelihood that these people end up back in local or state custody.

Criminal convictions come with numerous fees that add up.

A chart of criminal court charges in North Carolina lists 62 separate fees that defendants may need to pay. Those fees range from a $0.95 contribution to the Legal Aid Fund to $600 for various lab fees.

Other costs are recurring. In the U.S., 48 states can require people on probation and parole to pay for their supervision. This can cost anywhere from $10 to $150 each month. People on supervised release will also encounter other fees to cover court-ordered provisions like electronic monitoring, drug testing and counseling services.

These costs continue to rise in most places. Since 2010, criminal and civil court fees have gone up in 48 states.

Legal fees are one of the leading contributors to recidivism.

In a 1983 ruling in Bearden v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court said that it is unconstitutional to imprison people for an inability to pay fines or fees. However, if a judge rules that a defendant is unwilling—rather than unable—to pay, they can order that they be incarcerated. This requires judges to make a mens rea determination in probation and parole hearings.

Failure to pay is one of the leading reasons why people end up in jail. NPR looked at data from a four-month period in Benton County, Washington. Data showed that on a given day, around 25% of the people in jail for misdemeanor charges were there due to failure to pay.

That data aligns with data from a 2015 study by President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors. The study claims that “approximately 20 percent of all jail inmates were incarcerated for failure to pay criminal justice debts.”

The same study addresses the issue of courts determining a defendant’s willingness versus their ability to pay.

“In jurisdictions throughout the United States, monetary payments for infractions, misdemeanors or felonies typically do not consider a defendant’s ability to pay, and instead are determined based on offense type, either statutorily or through judicial discretion.”

These fees are inefficient at best at raising funds for governments.

The prevalence of these fees might suggest that they are a reliable revenue stream for states and other locales. But data suggests that that isn’t the case.

A study by the Brennan Center looked into the cost of collecting these fees and fines. It found that the jurisdictions in the study were woefully inefficient at the task.

The report found that on average, the Texas and New Mexico counties in the study spent more than $0.41 for every dollar they collected. That number is 121 times what the IRS spends per dollar collecting taxes. One county in the study spent at least $1.17 per dollar collected. That means that the county lost money collecting fees and fines.

“Justice fees” exacerbate existing income disparities.

The onslaught of fees that come with a criminal conviction can cause financial hardship for people. Justice-impacted people already face sizeable economic hurdles. Another study by the Brennan Center estimates that a misdemeanor charge can result in a 16% decrease in earnings. Formerly-incarcerated people lose, on average, 52% of their annual earnings, resulting in an average loss of $484,000 over their lifetime.

Another study by Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) revealed dramatic income disparities of people on probation. The study showed that across the country, 66% of people on probation made $20,000 or less. As income goes up in the study, the number of people on probation in that income group goes down. Only nine percent of people on probation made more than $50,000 per year.

According to the PPI study, many people on probation live in poverty. Nearly 38% of people on probation make less than $10,000. Even if each of these people were single, they would still fall nearly 25% below the federal poverty line.

What this shows is that courts most often issue fines and fees to the people who can least afford them. This can lead to what the Harvard Law School Criminal Justice Policy Program calls “poverty traps.” The state assesses fines and fees that people are unable to pay. This results in courts adding additional fees and interest to these fines, which people are even less able to pay. Even if the failure to pay doesn’t land them back in jail, it can still saddle them with lifelong debt.

It isn’t clear who actually benefits from the system of justice fees.

Moral issues aside, “justice fees” don’t appear to offer much benefit to any involved party.

Courts spend valuable time and resources assessing fees that many are unable to pay. Law enforcement agencies spend time and resources chasing down people who won’t or can’t pay. And when people are incarcerated at nearly seven times the cost of supervision, it’s taxpayers who foot the bill.

And that’s to say nothing of the actual human beings who get caught in these “poverty traps” and their families who end up as collateral damage. People reentering society already face tremendous challenges. They have a much harder time finding work. And when they do, they typically earn much less than people without criminal records. They don’t have access to many of the benefits that help people establish some degree of economic security.

People convicted of drug-related offenses or sex offenses are often barred from receiving housing assistance, SNAP benefits and TANF benefits, among others. Adding the heavy financial burden of justice fees can make a difficult situation nearly impossible.

The post How “Justice Fees” Maintain Cycles of Poverty and Increase Recidivism appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

The right to have confidential conversations with an attorney in the English-based legal system dates back to at least 1577. In 1973’s United States v. Rosner, the U.S. Supreme Court maintained that government interfering in attorney-client communications is a violation of a person’s Sixth Amendment rights. Even in prison, the attorney-client privilege is supposed to be a bedrock principle of the American justice system. But in 2021, attorneys and activists are concerned that that right is being threatened in prison systems around the country.

Prison email and messaging services bake privilege-destroying agreements into their terms and conditions.

While there are some exceptions, attorney-client privilege generally applies to all communications between those two parties. That includes digital communications such as email or instant messaging. But when it comes to people in prison and their legal counsel, that isn’t always the case.

The BOP uses a system called TRULINCS that gives people in prison limited access to email. It is the only possible way for BOP residents to send or receive emails. Yet users must agree to allow the company and the prison to monitor their emails as part of TRULINCS’ terms and conditions of use.

State Departments of Corrections contract their email and messaging services through JPay. Content monitoring is also a part of JPay’s terms and conditions. These terms even have a specific warning not to use the system for legal communications. It says, “The Service should not be used by attorneys to communicate with incarcerated individuals as the content of your email will not be treated as privileged and confidential.”

Phone calls are also supposed to be confidential, but are often not.

Prison systems in the United States have also violated attorney-client privilege in phone calls between incarcerated people and their attorneys. Those actions are the subjects of multiple lawsuits.

In 2018, a federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit against CoreCivic, a private operator of the BOP facility Leavenworth Detention Center and Securus Technologies, Inc., the facility’s communications provider. Two attorneys with the Kansas Federal Public Defenders (KFPD) filed the suit. They discovered that the companies secretly recorded at least 1,338 calls between attorneys and clients between 2011 and 2013. The companies also shared some of these calls with federal prosecutors.

In 2020, CoreCivic agreed to pay $3.7 million to settle the suit. It did not, however, admit to any wrongdoing.

Another lawsuit filed against the Orange County Sheriff’s Department alleges similar violations. Both Sheriff Sandra Hutchens and GTL, the agency’s communications provider, have admitted wrongdoing. They acknowledged recording 1,079 calls to attorneys from Jan. 2015 through July 2018. According to the suit, officers accessed 58 of those calls on 87 occasions. However, the attorney who filed the suit believes the number of calls recorded may actually be “in the hundreds of thousands.”

David C. Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said that “the law has been clear for decades” about attorney-client phone privilege, yet violations still occur.

“This kind of unlawful eavesdropping occurs with alarming frequency,” he said. “Whether it’s inadvertent or intentional, prisons and jails need to have robust protections in place to ensure that this kind of snooping doesn’t happen.”

In-person meetings are often difficult. Sometimes they’re impossible.

Without the ability to communicate confidentially over phone or email, attorneys and their clients are left with the option of in-person consultations. But by design, prisons are often in rural areas.

The First Step Act did require the BOP to locate incarcerated people closer to their homes. But that provision only requires the bureau to house people within 500 driving miles of their home base. That means if someone in prison wanted to use a lawyer from their community, that attorney could end up driving eight to ten hours one way for a meeting. This presents serious logistical challenges both for attorneys and for the people who have to pay for their time.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person visitations have gone from difficult to impossible. Prison systems across the country suspended in-person visits in 2020. This left people in prison with no other way of contacting their attorneys other than phone, email or mail—which prisons also monitor.

A new bill in Congress could help address the issue.

Some lawmakers have attempted to make headway on the issue. In 2020, Rep. Hakeem Jefferies (D-NY), introduced H.B. 5546, also known as the “Effective Assistance of Counsel in the Digital Era Act.” The bill would require the BOP to obtain a warrant to read emails between attorneys and their incarcerated clients. While it passed the House, it never made it to the Republican-led Senate floor.

But Jeffries re-introduced the bill in February of 2021. Now labeled H.R. 546, the “Effective Assistance of Counsel in the Digital Era Act” has once again passed the House by a 414-11 margin. It will soon head to the Senate, where the Democratic party holds a slight majority.

Speaking about the bill earlier this year, Jeffries alluded to both the importance and the urgency of passing the bill.

“The time has arrived for us to address this egregious practice, lift up the presumption of innocence, facilitate due process and allow fundamental fairness to permeate all aspects of our judicial system,” he said.

Laws around attorney-client privilege have failed to keep up with technology, and that has allowed prisons to violate the Sixth Amendment Rights.

The introduction of electronic communications into prisons has certainly had its benefits. Systems like TRULINCS and JPay allow families and friends to communicate more easily with an incarcerated loved one. But they have also allowed state and federal governments to bend and break the Sixth Amendment rights of the people they house.

If enacted, H.R. 546 could provide meaningful legal protection to privileged communications. But, as multiple lawsuits have shown, the illegality of doing so has not stopped government agencies from interfering in these communications to this point.

The post How Attorney-Client Privilege Breaks Down When The Client Is In Prison appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Over the last decade, opioid use, abuse and overdoses have become a major point of discussion among politicians, medical professionals and the media alike. One study found that between fiscal years 2017 and 2018, the federal government spent nearly $11 billion on the issue. Media coverage of the issue has exploded. Before 2006, hardly any articles covered opioid use. But by 2017, opioid use was covered in more than 300 articles per year. While coverage focused on the plight of addicted suburban families, nowhere was the opioid crisis more severe than within the American justice system.

The rise in opioid use disorder correlated with the increase in incarceration in the United States.

The United States began a trend towards mass incarceration in the 1970s with the beginning of the War on Drugs. By the 1990s, jail and prison populations were skyrocketing. That trend mirrored another trend that took off in the 1990s — a dramatic increase in opioid use and overdoses.

Over the last four decades, the United States prison population has grown by 500%. And between 2000 and 2014, the country experienced a 200% increase in opioid-related overdose deaths. The rise in these numbers correlates with the introduction of harsh sentencing for drug offenses. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the United States tightened its drug laws and introduced longer sentences. A study by the National Institute of Health put it candidly when it said that “the problems of mass incarceration and opioid overdose are clearly interrelated.”

In recent years, the trend in prison populations in the U.S. has flattened and even reversed. But unlike prison populations, the number of opioid-related overdose deaths in the country continues to grow. In 2015, 33,091 people lost their lives to an opioid-related overdose. By 2019, that number had climbed to 49,860 — an increase of more than 12% annually. But the crisis hit a new point of emergency in 2020, when the CDC reported 81,000 opioid-related overdose deaths in the 12-month period leading to May 2020.

OUD affects justice-impacted people at a much higher rate than the general population.

In 2018, five percent of U.S. adults said that they have been addicted to or abused some form of opioids. This figure earned the label of “national crisis.” But that number pales in comparison to the figures among incarcerated people. One study found that as much as 20% of incarcerated people in the U.S. fulfill the criteria for opioid use disorder (OUD).

Similarly, the rate of experience with the justice system is high among people with opioid use disorder. Another study found that 20% of people who met the criteria for OUD had some experience with the criminal justice system within the previous year.

Opioid use disorder often goes undertreated or untreated among people impacted by the justice system.

One of the most common ways doctors treat OUD is with opioid agonist therapy (OAT). This is the use of drugs such as methadone and buprenorphine, also known by its brand name Suboxone, which “fill” the brain’s opioid receptors to eliminate cravings and render opioids ineffective. There is a strong consensus in the scientific community about the effectiveness of OAT. In an editorial in The American Journal of Medicine, Dr. Sarah Wakeman, a leading researcher on OUD, spoke to that consensus. “There is no debate about the efficacy and safety of maintenance treatment with opioid agonist therapy,” she wrote.

Outside of the correctional system, 40.9% of people seeking treatment for OUD received a referral to OAT. But inside the justice system in 2014, only 4.6% of people seeking treatment for OUD received such a referral. It’s not that prison systems do not have access to OAT medications. One survey found that 55% of prison systems do offer methadone treatment. However, half of those systems said that they offer it exclusively to pregnant women and people needing pain management. Only 14% of systems offered buprenorphine.

The reason for this lack of medical treatment for people suffering from OUD appears to be choice. In the survey, the most common reason prison officials gave for not offering OAT was that they “prefer drug-free detoxification over providing methadone or buprenorphine.”

People released from jail or prison are especially at risk.

The effects of OUD among justice-impacted populations can be devastating. Internationally, drug overdose is the leading cause of death among people recently released from jail or prison. There are indeed myriad factors that contribute to OUD. The disorder crosses all cultural, gender, economic and political boundaries. However, interaction with the justice system appears to be a major determinant.

One study was particularly revealing. The study looked at people who were released from prison in Washington state. After controlling for for demographic factors, researchers found that people who were released from prison were 129 times more likely to overdose within two weeks of release than the general population at a given time. Most of the overdoses in the study involved opioids.

According to researchers, the elevated risk among justice-impacted people is not limited to the U.S.. International populations across a broad spectrum of demographic groups experience a similar increase in risk. That remains true in both short-term jail and long-term prison stays.

Opioid use disorder within the justice system is a deadly, yet invisible issue.

The opioid crisis in the U.S. has been a rallying topic for politicians over the last decade. Both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden launched initiatives to address the issue. Yet neither of them included any plan to address the specific needs of the country’s justice-impacted population.

Like so many other issues — HIV, mental health, abuse and assault, to name a few — justice-impacted people bear the brunt of the opioid crisis. And, also like many other issues, that crisis as it relates to that population remains practically invisible. Until that changes, the deadly upward trend of the last three decades is likely to continue.

The post Opioid Use Disorder in the Justice System: A Crisis Within the Crisis appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

In 2020, city after city appeared in the news for officer-involved shootings. But Newark, NJ, appeared in the news for a different shooting-related reason: there were none. In fact, according to police records, police officers in Newark didn’t fire a single shot the entire year. This marks a distinct turn for a city that, just a decade ago, faced a DOJ investigation for its heavy-handed policing tactics.

Newark has high rates of violent crime and a history of excessive force by police.

One of the reasons the statistic is extraordinary is that Newark could seem like a unlikely candidate for it. As New Jersey’s most populated city, it historically has one of its highest rates of violent crime. The city’s violent crime rate is more than one and a half times the national median and more than three times the rate of the rest of the state.

It also has a sordid history of police corruption and excessive force. The situation was such that the DOJ began an investigation into the Newark Police Department in 2011. At the conclusion of the investigation in 2014, former U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said that the department “engaged in a pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing in a broad range of areas.” Fishman also said he found evidence that excessive force was both pervasive and underreported.

“We also found reason to believe the NPD has engaged in a pattern or practice of the use of excessive force,” he said. Over a six-year period, the NPD sustained only a single complaint that a police officer had used unreasonable force.  While there is no “correct” rate at which a police department must or should sustain these kinds of complaints, that statistic is stunningly low for a police department of the size of NPD.”

The DOJ stepped in to monitor the NPD in 2014.

On Fishman’s recommendation, the DOJ worked to reach an agreement with the City of Newark in 2014. This agreement implemented a number of reforms. One was forming a “consent decree.” This was a legally binding agreement in lieu of admission of guilt between two government entities. Another was appointing an independent monitor to oversee the decree. As part of the decree, the NPD underwent training in de-escalation, traffic stops, searches and bias-free policing.

Notably, the decree set forth strict regulations on the department’s use of force. It also added new reporting mandates, including heightened standards for firearm use. According to the decree, officers are required to document any time they even unholster their firearm or point it at someone. It also mandates that a firearm be drawn “only when objectively and reasonably necessary to accomplish a lawful police objective.”

Newark’s progress since the consent decree has been “nothing short of remarkable.”

To say that Newark has made progress since the DOJ concluded its investigation would be an understatement. Over the last five years, violent crime has dropped by more than 40%.

The DOJ has had an ally in Newark Mayor Ras Baraka since his election in 2014. Mayor Baraka introduced a civilian review board in 2015 that was one of the nation’s strongest before the state Supreme Court limited its powers. The board had the authority to subpoena records and individual officers. It could also audit departments and issue disciplinary actions. Mayor Baraka and Newark have appealed the ruling.

In a Twitter post, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbin Grewal said that Newark’s progress “has been nothing short of remarkable.”

Attorney General Grewal himself has also implemented a number of changes in state policy since he came into office in 2018. In 2019, he moved investigations of police shootings from local agencies to the Attorney General’s office. Now, when someone is shot by police in a city like Newark, the state undertakes the investigation.

Another notable example of meaningful reform is the New Jersey Resiliency Program for Law Enforcement (“NJRP-LE’). The program is the country’s first mental health support network for police officers. It helps train officers in resiliency and offers crisis intervention and other support.
“It is our hope that this first-in-the-nation program will serve as a first line of communication allowing officers to unburden job stresses and provide them with the support they deserve. We can no longer allow them to suffer in silence,” said Attorney General Grewal at the program’s introductory press conference.

State reforms in New Jersey have focused both on police accountability and supporting police officers.

The conversation around police reform has broken down into two diametrically opposed camps. There are those who support the police and those who support police reform, says the popular narrative. However, the coalition of people enforcing the consent decree have attempted to do both. Police reforms in New Jersey have introduced new accountability measures, but they’ve also created programs to assist officers. And, small sample size aside, it seems to be working.

In that sense, Attorney General Grewal and others have not treated the larger issues around policing as a political football. They have not approached it as a partisan dogfight. Instead, they have approached it as a problem that affects people in their state. Through that approach and federal oversight, they have created a nuanced set of solutions. Officials and authorities at the local, state and federal levels have worked together to implement them. The results of those solutions have not been perfect. But they have been, to quote the attorney general, “remarkable.”

In a nation split in two over the issues surrounding policing and police violence, that model might be worth paying attention to. But even this model, which has been celebrated by groups such as the ACLU, is not without its problems.

While police in Newark did not fire a single shot in 2020, they did in the first few minutes of 2021. On Jan. 1, just after midnight, Detective Rod Simpkins of the NPD shot Carl Dorsey III during a confrontation. Dorsey died from his wounds. Attorney Grewal’s office is investigating the incident.

The post Police In Newark Didn’t Fire a Single Shot in 2020 — Here’s How appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

The idea that victims of violent crimes deserve more protections under the law is not a new one. Beginning in the 1980s, a push for victims rights led to the creation and adoption of Marsy’s Law. The law, which now exists in 10 states, creates new protections for victims. But many of those protections interfere with the rights of those accused or convicted of those crimes. But in late April, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in Michigan introduced a series of new bills that could change that relationship. The bills in the “Safer Michigan Act” challenge the notion that protections for crime victims and legal protections for those convicted of crimes must come at the expense of one another.

Previous “victim’s rights” bills like Marsy’s Law have resulted in fewer rights for the accused and longer prison sentences.

One of the central components of Marsy’s Law is that it gives victims and their families more of a say in how they participate in investigations and trials. Under the law, victims and their families can speak to a prosecutor before the accused enters a plea. They are also allowed to be present at other stages of the process, including sentence, parole hearings and release. Some critics have argued that this provision interferes with the due process rights of the accused.

Marsy’s Law also runs into issues with other constitutional rights of the accused. Under U.S. law, victims are required to share any and all evidence during the discovery process, as are the accused. But in the 10 states which have enacted some form of Marsy’s Law, victims do not have to share evidence with prosecutors. That’s true even if said evidence is exculpatory. This means that the victim of a crime could potentially have evidence that would exonerate the accused but would not be compelled to share it with the court.

In California, access to parole has gone down significantly since the state enacted Marsy’s Law in 2008. In 1990, 8% of the state’s prison population was serving a life sentence. By 2010 that number had increased to 20%.

At its heart, Marsy’s Law pits the rights of people who commit crimes against the people who have been impacted by those crimes. It sets up a zero-sum dichotomy in which protections for victims come at the expense of the accused.

Image courtesy of fizkes via iStockphoto.com.

The “Safer Michigan Act” would help incarcerated people shorten their sentences through program participation.

With their new bill, the “Safer Michigan Act,” lawmakers in Michigan are attempting to change that equation. The package of seven bills originating in the State House (HB 4670-4677) creates and expands programs that help both victims and people convicted of crimes.

One of the bills, HB 4670, increases access to parole. It does so by allowing incarcerated people to shorten their sentences by participating in educational, vocational and rehabilitative programs. The sentence reductions are not insignificant. For example, people who complete a high school diploma, high school equivalency certificate or higher education degree can knock 120 days off of their sentence. People in prison can reduce their sentence by up to 20 days for each month they participate in approved programs. Overall, the bill would allow people to reduce their sentences by up to 20%. Another bill, HB 4671, adds language reflecting these new provisions into the parole process.

The new bills in Michigan also greatly expand compensation for crime victims.

When it comes to victims, HB 4674 creates the most sweeping changes. The bill calls for the creation of a new agency that manages victims’ services. It also speeds up the compensation process and increases financial consideration. The bill ups the total award limit from $25,000 to $45,000. It also greatly increases the number and variety of issues for which victims can seek financial compensation.

Under HB 4674, victims would be able to be compensated for a much wider range of expenses. Items like the cost of moving, replacement services for domestic tasks, counseling and medical care would be included. It also doubles the weekly compensation for missed work and adds the cost of funerals and even small expenses such as memorial items and flowers to the compensated expense list. In essence, it takes into account a bigger picture of what people lose when they or their loved ones are the victims of violent crimes—a more nuanced and empathetic approach.

Victims would also gain important protections from HB 4675 and HB 4676. The former extends the deadline for filing victim compensation claims from one year to five years. It also allows people to file their claims electronically, rather than just in person or by mail. Under HB 4676, landlords would be prohibited from evicting tenants who were victims of violent crimes. They would also be forced to release tenants in those situations from their leases. In either case, victims would be required to provide multiple forms of evidence. Another bill, HB 4677, guarantees medical leave for victims of crimes.

Image courtesy of Markus Spiske via Unsplash.

The measure enjoys bipartisan support and could serve as a useful test case going forward.

Unlike Marsy’s Law, the “Safer Michigan Act” bills do not pit the rights of victims against the rights of the accused. In fact, it treats the two as inextricably linked. The traditional system of justice via punishment often leaves people convicted of crimes with few options when they leave prison. That, in turn, can lead to socioeconomic situations in which people are likely to re-offend, sometimes at the expense of other people. Michigan lawmakers are betting on the idea that by making it easier and more attractive for incarcerated people to create a better situation for themselves, they can reduce the likelihood that those people victimize other people.

And when it comes to victims, the “Safer Michigan Act” focuses more on the impact of violent crime. It looks to account for all the very human ways in which being the victim of violent crime can affect the life of that person and the people around them. Rather than provide gratification in the form of punishment, it provides practical assistance to help people move on with their lives.

It’s a different perspective on what justice is and what it looks like. If the bet pays off, the “Safer Michigan Act” bills could provide us with a model for a justice system that comes closer to respecting the human cost paid by both victims and the incarcerated.

The post Michigan Bills Would Support Both Crime Victims And Incarcerated People appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Maryland was the first state to have a “Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights.” Now it’s the first state to repeal one.
In April, lawmakers in Maryland voted to repeal the state’s Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, along with enacting several other police reforms. The move comes at a time when many states are moving in opposite directions on police and justice reform. It also follows new initiatives in Baltimore, the state’s largest city, that make significant changes to the role and function of the police.

Maryland was the first state to have a “Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights.”

In Mar. 1973, Maryland lawmakers were debating a new bill called the “Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights.” As they deliberated, a group of 50 officers in uniform entered the Maryland State Capitol building in Annapolis. There, they regaled lawmakers with tales of unfair treatment from supervisors. They complained of low morale in their departments. And, according to the Washington Post, they threatened lawmakers who didn’t agree to the legislation.

Those lawmakers did sign the bill, and the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEBOR) became the law of the land in Maryland. It was the first set of protections of its kind in the country.

Under the bill, police were offered workplace protections unique to their positions. The law established that misconduct could only be investigated by fellow officers. It also set a mandatory waiting period before officers could be compelled to cooperate in those investigations. In addition, the law cleared officers’ complaint records after a certain period of time.

It wasn’t long before other states joined in. LEBOR laws began appearing around the country almost immediately. As of 2015, 15 different states had LEBOR laws on their books.

Lawmakers have voted to repeal LEBOR.

On Apr. 10, state lawmakers voted to approve HB 670, also known as the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021. The bill officially repealed LEBOR, making it the first state to do so. However, the passage of the law did not come without a fight.

After passing both houses of the state legislature, the bill made its way to Governor Larry Hogan (R), where he vetoed it on Apr. 9. In a written statement, Hogan said that the bill, along with others, would “result in great damage to police recruitment and retention, posing significant risks to public safety throughout our state.”
But Democrats hold enough seats in the legislature to override Hogan’s veto. And, one day after the governor vetoed the bill, that’s exactly what they did.

Image courtesy of Kevin Galens via Wikimedia Commons.

The Maryland legislature also approved other police reform bills.

Repealing the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights wasn’t the only police reform passed in Maryland on Apr. 10. Nor was it the only police reform bill Gov. Hogan vetoed. He rejected two other bills, SB 71 and SB 178. But as they did with HB 670, the legislature voted to override Hogan’s vetoes and pass both of the other bills.

SB 71 focuses primarily on police body cameras. It requires all law enforcement agencies in the state to implement bodycams by July 1, 2023. Each officer that interacts with the public on a regular basis will be required to wear them. It also mandates that cameras record and save 60 seconds or more of video footage before an officer activates the recording.

In addition, the law requires each agency to set up a system for identifying officers who may be likely to use excessive force. It also requires agencies to reduce risks and respond appropriately to claims of excessive force.

SB 178, on the other hand, places new restrictions on the use of no-knock warrants. The law requires written approval of no-knock search warrants from both a police supervisor and a state’s attorney. It would also curtail the use of early morning and late-night raids. Under the bill, all no-knock raids must occur between 8:00 am and 7:00 p.m. absent “exigent circumstances.”

The law also prohibits the use of flashbangs and other military-style distraction devices when executing a search warrant. This is, of course, again absent “exigent circumstances.”

Another bill would make it easier to punish police police for misconduct.

While the three police reform bills have already become law, another looks to be on the way. The legislature has engrossed SB 626, meaning it is ready for a vote.

With SB 626, lawmakers are attempting to make it easier to investigate and prosecute the use of excessive force. The bill outright prohibits the intentional use of excessive force. It defines this is as force that any reasonable law enforcement officer would understand is excessive and unnecessary. The bill also holds other officers at the scene accountable. It requires them to intervene to prevent or stop another officer from using excessive force.

In addition, the bill prohibits officers from refusing to provide first aid or treatment to someone injured by an officer’s use of excessive force. If an officer witnesses another officer using excessive force, the bill would require them to report it to a superior immediately. To assist with this requirement, the bill provides whistleblower protections for officers who raise complaints.

Image courtesy of Adam Bezer via Unsplash.

Maryland is taking bold steps towards police reform.

The news of these bills comes on the heels of a landmark announcement by Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby. In March, Mosby announced that the city would no longer prosecute low-level crimes like prostitution and drug possession.

The city also implemented a popular idea from the Defund the Police movement. Mosby also announced that the city would work with Baltimore Crisis Response Inc. to provide a treatment-centered response to people suffering mental health crises and drug addiction.

Combined with the new police reform bills at the state level, it is clear that some in the state are taking a bold approach towards reform. The new laws and policies reflect a desire among some to scale up police accountability and scale back legal protection for misconduct.

The Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights has shielded officers from legal consequences for decades. Now, many of those protections are gone. For police in Maryland, the regular old Bill of Rights that the rest of its citizens rely on will have to do.

The post Maryland Repeals Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, A First appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Despite their differences, lawmakers in Texas can agree on at least one thing: that now is the time for bail reform. But that’s about where the similarities end. Two bills, one from each major party, take radically different approaches to reforming bail practices in the Lone Star State.

Senate Bill 21 expands the cash bail system.

On April 14, the Texas Senate passed SB 21 on a 23-8 vote. The bill would make it more difficult for people accused or previous convicted of felonies to get released from jail before trial.

The bill tightens restrictions over who is eligible for a personal recognizance bond. These bonds do not require defendants to post bail to secure pre-trial release. Under the bill, people who had been recently convicted of a felony or a Class A or B misdemeanor would not be eligible for such a bond. Driving with an invalid license and marijuana possession would fall into these categories.

In addition, the bill would deny personal bonds to people who committed multiple offenses. It would also deny them to people who committed crimes while released on bail.

Sen. Joan Huffman (R-17) sponsored the bill. She defended it by saying that it addresses “the appalling uptick in violent crimes by defendants out on multiple personal bonds.”

The bill would also require court officers to look over a defendant’s citizenship status before setting bail.

The bill would also place restrictions on “charitable bail organizations.”

SB 21 would also set restrictions on when and how charitable bail organizations can post money bail for people. Donations to these organizations exploded in 2020. One organization, the Minnesota Freedom Fund, collected over $20 million in donations. In Texas itself, the Texas Organizing Project posted bail for hundreds of people in 2020.

Under SB 21, charitable organizations would not be able to post bail for anyone who was either accused or previously convicted of a violent crime. It would also require organizations to submit a monthly report detailing which people it had bailed out. The bill also gives sherriffs the authority to suspend an organization’s bail activity if the sherriff determines that they have violated these rules.

Nick Hudson of the ACLU of Texas criticized the bill. He said that it could widen racial disparities already in the bail system. Across the country, Latino men receive bail amounts 19% higher than white men. That amount is 35% when it comes to Black men. Hudson said that reducing access to personal bonds could make this problem more severe.

“Requiring more Texans to pay to stay out of jail before trial is unfair, unsafe, and wastes tax dollars,” he said. “This bill doubles down on our broken money bail system and further criminalizes poverty.”

House Bill 2077 would reform the bail process in Texas by introducing pre-trial risk assessment tools.

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers in the Texas House are working in the other direction on bail reform. Earlier this year, representatives filed HB 2077, which would introduce pre-trial risk assessment tools into the bail process.

The bill calls for a system to be designed and put in place that would determine a defendant’s risk of not showing up for court or reoffending. It declares that the system must be objective, standardized and based on empirical data. This system would also be “designed to reduce the likelihood of bail decisions being affected by bias based on sex, race, or other protected classifications.”

The tool would divide people into three categories based on their perceived risk level:

released on personal bond without conditions,
released on personal bond or monetary bail bond with conditions and
denied bail.

In addition, HB 2077 would also require the system to make all of this data “transparent and available for review by the public.” The bill is currently pending in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee.

It is not clear that these tools are effective yet.

While HB 2077 has support from justice reform advocates, it is not without its own potential issues.

These tools work by analyzing historical data to make predictions. It uses previously established patterns of behavior and history that correlate with a successful outcome. That outcome is defined as someone appearing for court and not getting arrested while on pre-trial release. The system inputs variables about a defendant, including their criminal history, income, education and other factors. Then, it analyzes these variables to predict how much of a risk someone is.

However, early data has shown that these systems can under-predict successful outcomes. Software used in Kentucky applied a label of “new violent criminal activity” to people. But only between 8.6% and 11% of those people labeled as such were arrested again for a violent offense within six months of release.

In Kentucky’s case, that means the pre-trial risk assessment tools were wrong nearly 90% of the time. These tools are designed to reduce the number of people held in jail because they can’t pay bail. But if they over-predict that defendants are a risk to their community, they can continue or even exacerbate those problems.

The legislative struggle shows the distance between reform movements.

These two bills exist almost on opposite ends of the bail-reform spectrum. The Republican-backed SB 21 aims to make it more difficult for people to be released on bail without paying money. On the other end, the Democrat-backed HB 2077 makes it easier. The difference in philosophy could not be more distinct.

It’s indicative of how disparate the responses to demands for change have been in the United States. Lawmakers in some states and cities have been busy passing historic justice reforms. Those have included ending qualified immunity and restricting the use of force. Meanwhile, lawmakers in other areas have gone the other direction. They’ve passed bills restricting protest activities and protecting police budgets.

Like the rest of the country, partisan lines more or less define the two approaches to bail reform in Texas. Given Republican advantages in both the House and Senate, it’s likely only one of those approaches will become law.

The post A Tale of Two Bills: Lawmakers Move On Bail Reform in Texas appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

UPDATE 4/28: A judge refused to release bodycam footage to the public.

Early Wednesday afternoon on April 28, North Carolina Superior Court Judge Jeff Foster rejected a request to release bodycam footage from Andrew Brown Jr.’s killing. He did, however, allow for the family to view the footage moving forward. Foster said that releasing the video could generate mass attention from news media. That attention, he said, could affect any potential trial that comes as a result of the incident in which sheriff’s deputies opened fire on Brown, shooting and killing him.

“The release at this time would create a serious threat to the fair, impartial and orderly administration of justice,” ruled Foster. “Confidentiality is necessary to protect either an active internal or criminal investigation or a potential internal or criminal investigation.”

In a statement released Tuesday, the civil rights attorneys handling the case condemned the decision not to release the footage up to that point.

“The longer law enforcement waits to release the body camera footage to the Brown family and the public, the more our suspicions are raised,” it said. “This leaked footage hints as to why.”

The FBI is opening an investigation into the killing.

On Tuesday, April 27, the FBI’s Public Information Officers announced that the bureau opened a federal civil rights investigation into Brown’s killing. The officer said that agents from the FBI Charlotte Field Office will work with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina along with the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ to undertake the investigation. He said that the agency was unable to comment any further due to it now being an ongoing investigation.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper weighed in on Tuesday as well, saying he recommends that a special prosecutor handle the case.

“In the interest of justice and confidence in the judicial system, I believe a special prosecutor should handle all matters regarding the shooting in Pasquotank County,” he said.

In a joint statement, civil rights attorneys Ben Crump, Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, Bakari Sellers and Harry Daniels expressed support for the investigation.

“We have just been informed that the FBI will launch its own federal investigation into the murder of Andrew Brown Jr.,” said the statement. “We have great faith that this caliber of an investigation will prevent any obscuring of the facts released to the Brown family and public, and will overcome any local bias that may prevent justice from being served.”

Andrew Brown Jr. died after being shot by Pasquotank Sheriff’s deputies on April 21.

Andrew Brown Jr. was shot to death by at least one sheriff’s deputy in Elizabeth City, North Carolina just one day after Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter. In the days that followed, protests have emerged in Elizabeth City and in Raleigh, the state’s capital. On April 26, authorities declared a State of Emergency in Elizabeth City. The decision came as officials deliberated on whether or not to release the body camera footage from the shooting.

Information about the incident itself has been limited. But details are starting to emerge as the response to the incident begins to take shape in North Carolina.

Early reports suggest Andrew Brown Jr. was shot in the back during the incident in Elizabeth City.

The Pasquotank Sheriff’s Department obtained a warrant to search Brown’s residence and vehicle on April 20. They conducted a search at or near the residence on the 400 block of Perry St. During the search, one of the officers shot Brown. He died as a result of his wounds.

Officials have not released much information about the killing, but they have posted a copy of the warrant online. They have not said how many gunshots Brown suffered, or whether they found any contraband or evidence as a result of their search warrant. But recordings from EMS dispatch tell some of the story.

The Associated Press reported that on an archive of the dispatch call, one person can be heard said “we do have a subject who was hit.” Later, a responder says, “Be advised EMS has one male, 42 years of age, gunshot to the back.” Another person described multiple wounds.

Witnesses told news outlet WAVY that the person who had been shot, presumably Brown, got into his car to drive away. Then, a deputy opened fire. Witnesses in the area described hearing six to eight gunshots in total.

There has already been turnover and administrative steps at the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Department.

The Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Department has seen a major shakeup following the incident. Following the shooting, the department placed seven deputies on administrative leave. Two other deputies resigned. Another retired.
Sheriff Tommy Wooten II told CNN that not every deputy that the department placed on leave discharged their firearm. However, all of them took part in the operation.

Brown’s family and their attorney are demanding that the department release body cam footage of the incident.

Officers on the scene wore body cameras during the incident. However, North Carolina law prohibits law enforcement agencies from releasing such footage to the public without a court approval. Wooten says that his office would seek that approval on Monday, April 26.

Brown’s family and his family’s attorneys were set to view the footage at 11:30 on that date, but the department postponed the viewing. Pasquotank County Attorney R. Michael Cox said that the video needed to edits to obscure people’s identity, causing the delay. He claims that his office established a viewing appointment immediately following a request.

“The law also allows us to blur some faces on the video and that process takes time,” he said.

Late in the afternoon on April 26, the department allowed Brown’s family and attorneys to view the footage. Jason Marks, a reporter from WAVY, reported what heard from the attorneys about the contents of the video.

“Family watched video 10-20 times. Attorneys now describe the 20 second video: Brown was in the driveway. Sheriff truck blocked driveway. His hands were on the steering wheel. Deputies ran up to car shooting. He finally tries to get away. He was trying to drive away from being shot. Brown avoids officers with his car. Deputies were still shooting at him. Used a AR rifle and several assault rifles. They were still shooting after he crashed in a tree. They were shooting at him before he drove out of the driveway”

The story is still developing.

Details continue to emerge around this story. As of 5 PM on April 26, reports have said that the county will go to court on April 28 to release more footage. Meanwhile, residents and officials in Elizabeth City are bracing for the response for continuing developments in the Andrew Brown Jr. case. Make sure to check back here for more updates as more information comes in.

The post 4/28: What We Know About the Andrew Brown Jr. Case and Elizabeth City appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

As more and more states around the country adopt justice reform measures, a trio of such bills in Nevada has passed through the state senate. Two of these bills are in line with reform measures from other states. One requires the state to keep hate crime records and another limits the use of force by police. But a third bill takes aim at an issue that, as of yet, has not gotten significant national attention—the cost of phone calls in prison.

SB148 would require Nevada to keep a record of hate crimes in the state.

Nevada already has strong hate crime laws on its books. The law provides for sentence enhancements for a number of crimes committed out of discrimination. Serious misdemeanors and felonies can carry an additional sentence of up to 20 years if the court finds they were committed as hate crimes.

Now lawmakers in the state are pushing for better records of those crimes. Under SB148, all local and state law enforcement agencies would be required to keep records of all hate crimes. They would be required to send these records monthly to the state.

This data would be public if SB148 becomes law. It would include sentencing and prosecution data in addition to hate crime statistics.
On April 14, the Senate voted 18-3 to pass the bill. All three objectors belong to the Republican party.

SB212 would put limits on the use of force by police.

The Nevada senate votes on justice reform coincided with the Derek Chauvin trial. Appropriately, use of force was one of the issues that came up in those senate votes in the form of SB212.

The bill would overhaul use of force in the state. It mandates that police follow an escalation process during interactions. They would be required to first use de-escalation techniques before escalating to higher degrees of force. Police would only be able to use lethal force if a person posed a serious threat of bodily harm to other people.

However, as worded, the bill does allow for some leeway. It allows officers to use deadly force after giving a warning in some cases. The bill prohibits that action in the case of people who are both unarmed and either under 13, over 70, mentally or physically disabled, “physically frail, pregnant or suffering from a mental or physical medical emergency.

Originally, SB212 banned the use of restraint chairs outright. It was later amended to allow law enforcement to use them in the case of people who are actively violent. The bill also requires officers to get authorization from their superiors to use them in those cases. Unless they get special authorization, officers could not use restraint chairs for more than two hours. It prohibits their use on pregnant people completely.

Image courtesy of Koshu Kunii via Unsplash.

The bill also limits how police can control protest crowds.

Another feature of SB212 is how it would limit what police can do during demonstrations. Officers would no longer be able to fire into a crowd “indiscriminately.” Nor would they be allowed to intentionally fire projectiles at people’s “head, pelvis or spine or any other vital area of the body.”

Police would also be required to issue dispersal orders three times before firing chemical weapons like pepper balls into crowds. In addition, they would be required to offer a clear path for dispersal. The law does make exceptions for cases in which there is an “immediate threat of physical harm or death to a person or of immediate harm to property.”

State senators voted 12-9 along party lines to pass the bill on to the assembly.

SB387 would limit how much people pay for phone calls in prison.

Both SB148 and SB212 take on fairly popular issues. Reforms to hate crime reporting have taken place at the national level. Use of force reform has taken place in multiple states. But SB387 would tackle the high cost of phone calls in prisons.

Currently, it costs between $1.65 and $2.10 to make a 15-minute phone call to or from a Nevada prison. Under the bill, Nevada’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) would be in charge of regulating businesses that provide phone services for people in jails and prisons. They would also have the authority to set rate caps.

If SB387 passes, any company that wished to provide phone services would have to file their rates with the PUC. They would also have to publish their rates along with the terms and conditions publicly.

The Senate passed the bill unanimously on April 14.

Image courtesy of Steve Gale via Unsplash.

A new facet to justice reform appears in Nevada.

The personal economics of incarceration doesn’t seem to garner the attention that issues like the use of force and hate crimes do. But the high cost of communication affects nearly every justice-impacted family. That’s reason enough for justice reform advocates in Nevada and elsewhere to make it part of their efforts.

Lawmakers recently introduced a measure to pay people in prison minimum wage for jobs. However, prisoners in the state currently make anywhere from $1 per hour to $4.50 per hour. That means that in some cases, a person in prison would need to work two hours just to pay for one 15-minute phone call.
Families also pay the price of incarceration. If one parent goes to jail or prison, it removes one source of income from the family. Family members are left behind to pick up the slack. Phone calls may not be a budget priority for people without access to much expendable income.

Over the last year, when in-person visitation was severely reduced or eliminated, phone calls and emails played an even more important role in keeping families connected. Reducing that cost makes it easier, and in some cases possible at all, for people to stay in touch.

Nevada Democrats hold a sizeable lead in the assembly, as they do in the senate. Barring any surprises, these bills are likely to go to Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak’s desk, where he would be likely to sign them. Relief for families separated by incarceration could be on the way, along with timely restraints on the use of force and new guidelines for reporting hate crimes.

The post Nevada Adds Limiting Cost of Phone Calls to Justice Reform Package appeared first on Interrogating Justice.