[Street] Please write letters to the editor NOW Re: 3 Strikes
Daniel Mc
danielm at occupyboston.org
Wed Jan 11 10:20:12 EST 2012
Hi All,
Please see below. Mainstream media seems to finally be talking about the incredible shortcomings of the "3 strikes" legislation pending in MA.
Please take a moment to write a letter or note to the editors and let them know what you think. Also, don't forget to contact your legislators office.
I will also be sending the actual legislation so folks can take a look if interested.
From: Jean Trounstine <TROUNSTINEJ at middlesex.mass.edu>
Subject: We Urge You to Write Letters to the Editors NOW
Date: January 8, 2012 5:12:37 PM EST
To: "jean at trounstine.com" <jean at trounstine.com>
Friends,
The Coalition for Effective Public Safety urges us all to write a letter or letters in support of the editorials in The Boston Phoenix and The Globe, an op-ed column in today's Globe and an article which just appeared in the Bay State Banner (see below for all). Even if our letters are not published, it is important that editors of the papers know there are people who are in support of their editorial position. Take a specific part of the editorial for your 200 words and be specific. Mention the title of the editorial and date. You can also read these editorials on line at http://smartoncrimema.org/ where you can also follow links to get additional info http://smartoncrimema.org/the-cost-to-taxpayers/.
-- We realize that you are receiving many requests at this time but we are at a critical time. We are trying to make it easier by putting all of this in one place. Please forward this email and encourage others to write letters NOW.
Boston Globe: letter at globe.com<mailto:letter at globe.com>
Boston Phoenix: letters at phx.comBay<mailto:letters at phx.comBay>
Bay State Banner: mbm at b-banner.com<mailto:mbm at b-banner.com>
Lois Ahrens (lois at realcostofprisons.com<mailto:lois at realcostofprisons.com>) and Jean Trounstine (jean at trounstine.com<mailto:jean at trounstine.com>) for the the Coalition for Effective Public Safety (CEPS) Media Committee
_____________________________________________
"Crime bill in black and white"
By Lawrence Harmon
Globe Columnist / January 8, 2012
"IF VIOLENT crime affects black and Hispanic neighborhoods disproportionately, why did eight of the nine minority members of the Massachusetts House vote against a bill that would eliminate parole eligibility for anyone convicted three times of violent felonies? You could argue that they?re soft on crime. You?d be wrong, though. The better explanation is that they spend a lot of time thinking through these issues instead of reacting emotionally.
On Wednesday morning, leaders in Boston?s black and Hispanic neighborhoods were at their usual spot at the Baker House in Dorchester meeting over coffee with police officers and representatives of local charities. Normally, they devise specific strategies - a balance of aggressive law enforcement and prevention programs - to reduce crime in Boston?s minority neighborhoods. It usually works. Serious crime - including murder, robbery, and assault - dropped 8 percent in Boston last year.
But last week, the group focused solely on the Legislature?s ?three-strikes?? bill, now in conference committee. State representatives Byron Rushing, Russell Holmes, and Carlos Henriquez of Boston worried that the enhanced punishments would fall disproportionately on minority offenders, as is the case in states with similar laws. Benjamin Thompson, who heads the nonprofit Criminal Justice Policy Coalition, feared that the law would increase prison costs at the expense of effective programs that help offenders return to society. Others around the table worried that low-level offenders would get caught in a web meant for the most violent felons. They are all legitimate concerns.
?There?s a smarter way to do it,?? said Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree. ?The Legislature will listen to reasoned argument.??
That?s not certain, though. The Senate was really pumped up when it passed its version of the bill unanimously in November. The House version sailed through by a vote of 142-12.
White and minority legislators look at the ?three-strikes?? bill through different lenses. For white lawmakers, the bill is a chance to slam the prison doors forever on the likes of career criminal Domenic Cinelli, who was on parole in 2010 when he murdered Woburn Police Officer John Maguire during a robbery. Under the provisions of the bill, Cinelli would never have sniffed the breeze outside of prison. That?s a point in the bill?s favor.
For minority legislators, however, the bill evokes a different image. They see the law falling on many offenders capable of redemption for whom crime may have been an instrument of survival, not a sinister obsession. And that?s a belief commonly shared in the black community, which held a rally yesterday at the Dudley library in Roxbury to protest the ?three-strikes?? legislation.
?Black and Latino legislators represent families of victims and perpetrators,?? said Rushing.
The ?perpetrator?? part of that statement won?t resonate with too many white suburban legislators. But the minority leaders at Baker House know they will need to reach a lot of those lawmakers as well as influential white church and civic leaders if they hope to beat back the ?three-strikes?? bill or, at the very least, improve it.
State Representative Will Brownsberger of Belmont, one of just four white lawmakers to oppose the three-strikes bill, felt the need to explain his vote to his constituents - in writing. He makes a lot of sense.
?Prison is an expensive and finite resource,?? he wrote. ?Many prisons are already crowded and if with special rules we force them to hold lesser offenders, we effectively force them to release more violent offenders who don?t happen to fall within those rules.??
Brownsberger gave the hypothetical example of an offender who was twice imprisoned for selling cocaine only to be arrested later for unarmed robbery. Under the bill, that third strike could land him in prison for a life sentence.
The legislation covers almost 60 third-strike felonies, including some that wouldn?t necessarily involve distinguishing violence, such as breaking and entering a building at night and possession of a hoax explosive device.
Few in any community would argue that an offender convicted of three violent crimes, such as rape, home invasion, and armed robbery, deserves consideration of any kind at sentencing. But minority lawmakers - and a few white colleagues who think independently and don?t knuckle under to pressure from legislative leadership - are warning that the strike zone is too wide. And when that happens, the game is no longer on the level."
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2012/01/08/crime_bill_in_black_and_white/
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How 'three strikes' legislation fails
By Boston Phoenix EDITORIAL | January 4, 2012
Despite evidence that "three strikes" mandatory sentencing laws don't work, are punishingly expensive for taxpayers, and make an already unfair criminal-justice system even more irrational and racist, the Massachusetts legislature seems hell-bent on enacting one.
This is an understandably emotional and predictably political response to the shooting murder of Woburn police officer John Maguire last year by a career criminal who was on the street because of the gross negligence of the state parole board.
In the wake of Maguire's tragic slaying, Governor Deval Patrick acted with swift deliberation. Patrick cashiered the incompetents responsible for the decision to parole the gunman, Dominic Cinelli. Cinelli, himself killed in the shootout, was a repeat offender and former parole violator who had been serving three concurrent life sentences.
In addition to a radical personnel change at the parole board, the governor administratively overhauled its policies and practices.
As sweeping as these actions were, they obviously did not stanch the political desire to avenge Maguire's death ? as if that were even possible.
The state of Washington passed the nation's first no-exceptions "three strikes" law in 1993. Since then, 24 states have adopted similar measures that range from much stiffer parole requirements to committing repeat offenders to life in prison.
These laws may be emotionally satisfying to the families of victims, and they allow legislators to pound their chests as if they were doing something meaningful. But reality shows that not only are "three strikes" provisions useless, they often make situations worse.
It's true that as much as 28 percent of career criminals may be dissuaded from further illegal activity by "three strikes." It's also true, however, that the practice emboldens another 20 percent of that cohort to create more serious, more violent crimes.
Can anyone call that progress?
There is a huge body of national evidence that demonstrates these laws fall disproportionately on the poor, on the uneducated, and upon minority communities.
Medical evidence cited by essentially conservative, establishmentarian groups such as the American Bar Association suggests that the human brain does not attain maturity until a person reaches his 20s, thus making many young offenders prone to reckless ? even destructive ? behavior.
Even if one were to table the essential vileness of "three strikes" legislation, Massachusetts cannot afford it.
Already, our prisons are 40 percent over capacity.
It will cost taxpayers somewhere between $75 million and $125 million to shoulder this "get tough and throw away the key" approach.
And Massachusetts is already paying $1 billion annually in prison costs.
Mississippi, a politically red and socially conservative state if ever there was one, has saved $450 million and reduced its prison population by 22 percent by reserving new prison construction for truly violent criminals.
South Carolina and Kentucky have also blazed new trails in less expensive, more effective incarceration by adopting more humane policies: shorter sentences and alternatives to prison for non-violent crimes.
Surely Massachusetts can learn from this record.
The Phoenix urges the House and State Senate to take the time to get up to speed with the latest thinking on criminal-justice and prison reform. Make policy from the brain, not the gut.
If, however, the legislature persists in pursuing this unfair, ineffective, and unaffordable measure, then the governor must vow to veto it. The situation is as simple as that.
http://thePhoenix.com/Boston/news/132157-how-three-strikes-legislation-fails/<http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/132157-how-three-strikes-legislation-fails/>
***ALSO see their major news feature by Chris Farone, called "Calling Out Three Strikes: Is the country's most notoriously failed law coming to Massachusetts?" http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/132118-calling-out-three-strikes/
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Proposed 'three strikes' bill draws community ire
Bay State Banner
January 5, 2012
By Yawu Miller
A group of black activists is working on a statewide campaign to defeat a controversial bill that they say would impose harsh mandatory sentences on nonviolent offenders and increase the state?s prison population.
Backers of Senate Bill 2054 ? known as the three strikes law ? pushed for its passage after the December 2010 slaying of a Woburn Cop by parolled career criminal Dominic Cinelli.
The premise of the proposed law is simple: People convicted of three violent felonies would become ineligible for parole or reductions in sentencing for their third conviction and would receive the longest mandatory sentence for that conviction.
Additionally, anyone convicted of three felonies would be classified as a habitual offender and required to serve two-thirds of their sentence before being eligible for parole.
The details in the legislation are what have many in the black community worried.
For example breaking and entering into a car and other similar crimes are counted as violent felonies under the legislation. And the legislation also calls for post-release supervision of all convicts upon completion of their sentencing.
The net effect of the law would be an increase in the prison population and a substantial increase in the, cost of maintaining Massachusetts? prison and criminal justice systems, according to the Rev. George Walters-Sleyon, director of the Center for Church and Prison.
?This particular three-strikes bill has serious implications for the community and does not provide any mechanism for rehabilitation,? he said.
In addition, Walters-Sleyon says, the bill would cost the Commonwealth at least $125 million per year in salaries for additional probation officers to implement post-release supervision. And that?s on top of the $47,000 a year Massachusetts spends on each inmate in its prison system.
?We only spend $10,000 annually for K-12 education,? he said. ?In Roxbury and Dorchester you have schools being closed and programs being closed. The three strikes law is counter-productive.?
Saturday, Walters-Sleyon and other activists will be meeting at the Dudley Branch of the Boston Public Library at noon to discuss strategies to defeat the legislation, which has already passed in the Senate and House.
In the House vote, only 12 legislators ? including all eight members of the Black and Latino Caucus present ? voted against the bill. Now, Black and Latino Caucus members are reaching out to their colleagues, urging them to withdraw support for the legislation.
?The bill came through the House so fast, no one had time to digest it and find out what it was about,? said 5th Suffolk District Rep. Carlos Henriquez, who represents Dorchester and part of Roxbury in the House.
Henriquez attributes the success of the bill to lobbying by families of murder victims. Political pressure from family members of Woburn cop John McGuire and his fellow officers focused the public?s attention on the state?s Parole Board, which had voted to free Cinelli in 2009.
?The system is run by humans,? Henriquez says of the Parole Board. ?There are going to be problems with the system. But the Parole Board is not known for being lenient.?
The legislative fix ? creating mandatory sentences for violent offenders ? casts too wide a net, argues Cornell Mills, a community activist who is helping plan Saturday?s community meeting.
?It takes the power away from the judge and leaves it up to a statute,? he says. ?Judges are trained to look at each case and decide them on their merits.?
At the meeting Saturday, activists will focus on ways to persuade legislators to withdraw their support for the legislation, which is now in a conference committee.
Black and Latino Caucus members will ask Gov. Deval Patrick to veto the bill when it gets to his desk, but the House can easily override the governor?s veto with a two-thirds vote.
Community activist Jamahrl Crawford notes that the number of votes will have to increase from 12 to 55 to stop the veto override.
?There needs to be a public outcry,? he says. ?This is an election year for state legislators. They want to show they?re tough on crime.?
http://www.baystatebanner.com/local11-2012-01-05
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January 03, 2012
Boston Globe: "Don?t rush ?three strikes? before getting all the facts on crime"
Don't rush three strikes before getting all the facts on crime
To prevent hardened criminals like Cinelli from getting back on the streets, the Legislature is considering a "three-strikes" law that would deny parole or any reduction in time served to felons who have been convicted three times of any of almost 60 serious felonies. It would also bump up the amount of time that habitual offenders, those who have been convicted of any three felonies, would have to serve before being eligible for parole, from half of their maximum sentence to two-thirds.
The bill, at least in the version that has passed the state Senate, also contains reforms intended to balance out the anticipated increase in the prison population. It would shrink drug-free school zones, areas in which harsh mandatory minimum sentences apply, from within 1,000 feet of a school which is virtually everywhere in an urban area like Boston to 500 feet. It would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession, with retroactive effect,
However, the legislation's overall effect on the number of prisoners in Massachusetts is unclear. Prisoners' Legal Services estimates that, if enacted, it would impose up to $125 million a year in extra corrections costs. Further, there are no data to indicate how many of those ensnared by the three-strikes law will be petty offenders as opposed to the hardened criminals the bill targets let alone a statistical measure for how many drug deals happen 499 feet from a school rather than 501.
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Criminal Justice Commission is set to release a sweeping review of statewide criminal justice policies in March. Lawmakers should wait the three months for that panel's recommendations and then examine criminal sentencing in light of all the relevant statistics. There is no need to rush the patchwork adjustments in the current legislation.
But legislators need not sit idly by until the commission issues its report. They should act quickly to pass one section of the bill into law, which mandates that the Parole Board use a computerized risk-assessment tool to help determine which prisoners are likely to reoffend. Had it been in place in 2008, it would have likely prevented Cinelli's release.
Aside from this simple measure, the Legislature should take its time to carefully study and comprehensively overhaul criminal sentencing. Three strikes may be a good pitch to voters, but state legislators need to be sure that the bill is hitting its target.
>From the GLOBE, January 3rd: http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2012/01/03/don-rush-three-strikes-before-getting-all-facts-crime/vWOTndKHGgPKvraM6ArD1H/story.html
***NOTE: Barb Dougan of FAMM wrote a correction to a fact in error here: "[The Senate bill] would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession, with retroactive effect, allowing some prisoners to be freed immediately." The reduced sentences are not retroactive. Instead, drug offenders now in prison would become ELIGIBLE FOR PAROLE after serving same length of time as reduced sentences. Nobody will be "freed" immediately. Instead, some should be able to see the Parole Board right away (while others will wait years for that to happen). Parole Board will then decide who gets paroled.
--
Daniel.
Occupy Boston Outreach Committee
**Use this email for all things occupy**
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