NEWSPAROLE & PROBATION

In the tough-on-crime days of the 1990s, Virginia took a pretty drastic step. Through a series of rule changes and quiet policy shifts, the state essentially eliminated parole. Now a coalition of grassroots activists is working to bring back a path to freedom for prisoners who have shown improvement and potential.

In 1989, The Washington Post reports, 42 percent of prisoners reviewed for parole in Virginia received it. After the reforms in the mid-1990s, that number dropped to just 2 percent. There is now very little incentive for an individual to work hard while in prison to improve him or herself -- there's simply no way to hasten one's return back to the free world. A bill before the state legislature aims to change that.

SB796 would provide avenues for Virginia prisoners to earn sentence credits ("good time") for participating in education and treatment programs. Prisoners could earn up to 4.5 days off their sentence for each month they serve -- so a prisoner could shave a year and a half off their sentence over 10 years. It's not exactly swinging the prison doors open or embracing alternatives to incarceration, but it's a huge step in the right direction, especially in a state without parole.

A coalition of activists organized by the group Thousand Kites has been working hard to raise awareness and support for the bill across the state -- join them by signing their petition urging Virginia lawmakers to enact this important reform. And watch video from a recent rally after the jump.

(Update: New Orleans has long been the incarceration capital of the U.S., imprisoning more people per capita than anywhere else in the country. But in a vote on February 3, the city council approved a new 1,400 bed jail that is less than half the size of the decaying facility it will be replacing, rejecting a proposal from the sheriff to build an even bigger jail after dozens of Change.org members and other activists urged them to consider alternatives to incarceration.)

New Orleans continues to make great strides toward a more focused -- and more efficient -- criminal justice system.

Last month, the city council voted to allow police officers to issue tickets -- rather than make arrests -- for low-level, non-violent crimes. This is a major shift for a city that has long lived a sort of double-life between the anything-goes vibe of the French Quarter to the quick arrests and tough sentences for crimes both minor and major.

As a report from the city's Metropolitan Crime Commission found in December, New Orleans police in recent years have arrested thousands of people over things like traffic tickets, minor warrants from other jurisdictions and other offenses not likely to ever make it to court. And while law enforcement and court resources are expended on the paperwork of these minor offenses, attention is distracted from major crime investigations. Although violent crime dropped in New Orleans in 2010, it could fall much further -- and these reforms will help make that happen.

Elizabeth and I have both written about these reforms, and more than 140 Change.org members have sent New Orleans' leaders a petition urging them to reconsider plans to expand the parish prison. Avoiding one-day jail stays for minor offenses could free up money from the jail expansion and from the red tape that follows every arrest. Those funds could instead be spent on crime prevention, alternatives to incarceration and law enforcement work on the cases that really matter. Add your name to the petition here.

Betsie Gallardo has gallbladder cancer and likely won't make it to see her 25th birthday. But proving that concerned citizens can in fact make a difference, she will now be allowed to spend her final days surrounded by loved ones, rather than dying alone in a Florida prison cell.

Betsie's case was brought to light by Bilerico Project founder and gay rights activist Bill Browning, who reported last month that the HIV-positive Haitian-American was wasting away behind bars, denied access to her family, after receiving a five year prison sentence in 2009 for spitting at a cop; the state of Florida considered her saliva to be a “deadly weapon." Soon after going to prison, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

“I asked for a Christmas miracle for Betsie -- that she be released to die in peace,” Browning writes in an update on the case. And while she wasn't set free prior to December 25, he notes she will be in time for Orthodox Christmas, January 7, after the Florida Parole Board this morning approved her release in a 2 to 1 vote during an emergency meeting on her case.

“Betsie is being released to a Miami hospice to live out her final weeks of life surrounded by her family,” Browning reports. “She is currently on house arrest and will only be allowed out of the facility for medical appointments and church services.”

You did it.

Jamie and Gladys Scott, sisters who had spent 16 years in Mississippi prisons for a robbery where no one was hurt, will be set free any moment now. And it took the voices of people from across Mississippi and around the world -- including more than 10,000 Change.org members who signed a petition posted by the Action Committee for Women in Prison -- to make it happen. The Scott sisters were severely oversentenced and they were suffering in prison (Jamie undergoes daily dialysis and needs a kidney transplant -- Gladys plans to donate her kidney, more on this below). They weren't eligible for parole until 2014. But Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour heard the groundswell and took (clumsy) action, suspending the women's sentences last night.

The Scott sisters were convicted in 1994 of allegedly playing a secondary role in an armed robbery of two men. The women claim innocence, but even if they committed the crime the sentence was too severe. They allegedly led two men into an ambush by other armed men, who stole $11 from the victims. No one was hurt.  The armed men aren't in prison. But the Scott sisters got double-life sentences for being (alleged) accomplices.

Indiana is on the brink of making some major progressive changes to their criminal sentencing practices. Governor Mitch Daniels announced his support last week for sweeping reforms that could ultimately save over a billion dollars in the next seven years. Not just fiscally responsible, these changes would also serve to halt the progression of the incarceration monster, a beast that caused Indiana’s inmate population to skyrocket 41 percent from 2000 to 2008.

In a report commissioned by the state, the Pew Center on the States and the Council of State Governments Justice Center revealed that Indiana had the fastest growing prison population in the nation; more than 55 percent of new incarcerations were for drug offenses and nonviolent thefts.

These two organizations made a series of recommendations to stop the prison growth and save the state an estimated $1.2 billion between now and 2017. Though all of these recommendations haven’t been released to the public yet, the governor is pushing lawmakers to get busy on drafting legislation to make them a reality. Some sources say legislators have already begun preparing prison-reform bills they hope to pass in the upcoming legislative session. And they could use your support.

More than 210,000 people are sitting behind bars in a federal prison right now, roughly half for non-violent drug offenses -- and not one of them has the chance of getting parole.

Aiming to look tough on crime, the Democrat-controlled Congress of the 1980s took away the possibility of parole for federal prisoners, at the same time imposing new, draconian mandatory minimum sentences for minor drug offenses, with five grams of crack cocaine triggering a mandatory five year sentence. As a result, no one -- not even the model, rehabilitated prisoner -- has a chance of getting out of a federal prison before they complete 85 percent of their sentence, one reason why federal prisons are operating well over their stated capacity.

But efforts are afoot to change things, albeit modestly, for the better. A proposal from Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) would increase federal prisoners' ability to shave off their sentence through good behavior. With the support of the non-profit FedCURE, the proposal was voted one of Change.org's top 10 "Ideas for Change" this year. It has also been endorsed by Families Against Mandatory Minimums, which says it would "substantially revive the good time system" that existed before Congress gutted it in the '80s.

A new report digs into the towering pile of paperwork and bureaucracy in the British criminal justice system and tallies a whopping 1,107 procedural steps for police and courts between the investigation of a crime and a successful prosecution. This is why cops are always complaining about paperwork.

The report comes from Dru Sharpling, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary (that last phrase can't be said out loud without an accent, I dare you to try it), and argues that these layers of red tape have slowed the country's justice system to a crawl, putting public safety in danger. The country could save millions of pounds by streamlining the police and court processes and removing duplicate duties that have grown out of control over the years. It does, however, tread on some dangerous territory when it goes on to recommend closer cooperation between police and prosecutors.

Tenaciously chasing efficiency is admirable, and systems around the world could benefit from a shift in the direction of cooperation and collaboration between agencies. But the recommendation that we empower police to act as prosecutors on minor charges is extremely dangerous. I'm no expert in the British justice system, but these agencies are already too close in the U.S. and they have a natural affinity to cooperate, sometimes at the expense of a defendant. Efficiency shouldn't come at the cost of justice.

Cause marketing is everywhere these days, and criminal justice reformers have been a bit slow to engage with socially conscious corporations. It’s time to change that.

One way to start is by voting for a few promising initiatives currently competing for votes in Pepsi’s Refresh Project. The company is giving $1.3 million each month to help individuals and organizations launch projects aimed at transforming communities. The winners are chosen by popular vote, and there are a few great criminal justice proposals worth a look.

One group worthy of a vote is Cultivating Dreams, a prison garden partnership between students at Claremont College and prisoners at the California Institute for Women.  The students and prisoners tend a thriving organic garden inside prison walls and supply fresh organic produce for the prison. In the process, the two groups can learn advanced garderning and farming techniques while also having an opportunity to get to know each other, crossing cultural boundaries and building relationships that could change lives on both sides of the fence.

Cultivating Dreams is seeking $25,000 from Pepsi to expand the size of the garden, buy tools and supplies, build a community center and offer trainings for students and prisoners. Vote for Cultivating Dreams here -- you can vote once per day throughout November.

This month, while the State Fair of Texas was drawing huge crowds and stretching police staff, the small Dallas Police office charged with registering sex offenders was swamped. Lines of people seeking to register snaked around the block, and some were turned away after waiting for hours.

Officials say they’re working on the problem in Dallas, but the incident underscores a wider problem with sex offender registries (and with the criminal justice system in general): the constant delays and long waits that defendants and their families face in trying to conduct the most routine business.

Tough on crime legislation is often an unfunded mandate for the agencies it impacts. Longer sentences, registration and parole requirements and postponed hearings require government resources -- from police, courts and other departments. And the effect of this drain on resources is exactly the opposite of perceived intent of the legislation: by ensnaring our poorest citizens in an endless bureaucracy, we've denied them time with family and countless work days and job opportunities, placed hurdles in the path of a functioning life and possibly even contributed to more crime.