NAACP National Report - Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate

NAACP National Report - Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate

The National NAACP Director Benjamin Jealous recently released the National Report
Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate

Since its release it has been discussed in major media. Here is the Report in its entirety.

CLICK HERE FOR REPORT

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Jury finds former guard, superintendent violated female prisoner's rights

Jury finds former guard, superintendent violated female prisoner's rights

Posted by Milton Valencia April 6, 2011 05:36 PM
By Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff

A federal jury today found a former state correction officer violated a former inmate's civil rights by using his position of power to have sex with the woman while she was incarcerated at the South Middlesex Correctional Center in Framingham.

Kelly A. Ryan, the superintendent of the facility, was also found liable for a violation of the woman’s civil rights.

The jury of 10 women awarded the former inmate, Christina Chao, 31, a total of $73,700 in damages.

FULL STORY HERE
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/04/jury_finds_form.html?p1=News_links

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Parole Board halts releases

Parole Board halts releases

By Laurel J. Sweet and Hillary Chabot  |   Friday, January 7, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Politics

The embattled Parole Board will not release any more convicts with life sentences until a review of its notorious decision to release a triple-lifer is complete, the board said yesterday, even as a firestorm of criticism over the tragic ruling continued to erupt.

Woburn officer John “Jack” Maguire was shot to death Dec. 26 as he tried to stop parolee Dominic Cinelli from fleeing an alleged department store diamond heist.

“We certainly understand the anger and concern that many people are stressing,” said Executive Office of Public Safety Undersecretary John Grossman. “We share their concern and shock at the events of 10 days ago. We are engaged in a comprehensive review around Cinelli’s hearing and his supervision. At the end of that review, we’ll report to the governor and the governor will take the appropriate action.”

Grossman said Parole Board members can’t legally halt parole hearings, but are canceling their executive hearings, in which decisions about releases of convicts with life sentences are made. Those hearings will not resume until the review is complete.

Not good enough, cops said yesterday.

As far as the board is concerned, “they want them all gone,” Woburn police Chief Philip Mahoney said, flanked by 75 of his fellow Bay State top cops outside Woburn police headquarters, where black bunting grimly marks last month’s line-of-duty death.

“I am so upset with them,” Mahoney said of the board’s unanimous 2008 vote to set 57-year-old Cinelli free, despite a nine-page criminal record of armed robberies, the attempted murder of a security guard and two prison escapes spanning four decades. Cinelli was serving three concurrent life sentences.

“I know a life sentence in Massachusetts is not a life sentence, believe me,” Mahoney said.

However, Mahoney said he believes state officials will do a fair probe of the board’s release.

Cinelli, who Mahoney said appeared to have been in compliance with the conditions of his parole, died from Maguire’s return fire.

“He wasn’t prepared to die,” said the hero cop’s tearful big brother, Charles “Chuck” Maguire, 63. “He was one of those guys who wanted to work.”

Police also pushed yesterday for the Legislature’s swift passage of a bill to abolish parole eligibility for habitual violent offenders.

Mark K. Leahy, president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, said all the red flags that Cinelli was not a good risk for parole were plain as day in his criminal history. “Any clear-thinking person realizes if it’s predictable, it’s preventable,” he said.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1307910

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Profs. Study Rising Incarceration Rates

Profs. Study Rising Incarceration Rates

By Omer Awan, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The United States has seen a historic increase in incarceration rates, exceeding that of any industrialized nation, according to a recent study co-authored by Harvard Sociology Professor Bruce Western and University of Washington Associate Professor Becky Pettit.
From 1980 to 2008, the incarceration rate in the U.S. has climbed from 221 to 780 per 100,000 people, with a total of 2.3 million individuals currently imprisoned or jailed, according to the study. The study also highlighted racial imbalances exacerbated by incarceration: more than 35 percent of all African-American high school dropouts between the ages of 20 to 34 have served some form of criminal sentence, but under 13 percent of white high school dropouts in the same age range have been incarcerated.

“The main goal of our research is getting this issue [of incarceration] on the radar screen,” Pettit said.
According to Pettit, changes to both sentencing and prosecution policies have contributed to the rise in incarceration rates. By definition, the current 5.9 percent unemployment rate excludes the 2.3 million who are incarcerated, Pettit said. But 90 percent of the U.S. prison population is composed of men, a majority of whom could otherwise contribute to the workforce.
When asked about policies that should be instituted to address these increasing numbers, Pettit said that states and local governments are currently most interested in the fiscal implications of incarceration, but that there also needs to be a focus on addressing broader social inequalities associated with incarceration.

She cited a solution offered by Nobel Laureate in Economics James J. Heckman, which suggests that the best way to decrease incarceration rates is to ensure that people obtain high quality education in their early years.
Pettit and Western’s study corroborates the importance of education and the close link between incarceration and social inequality, saying that “the prison boom is embedded in the structure of American social inequality.”
“Ameliorating these inequalities will be necessary to set us on a path away from mass incarceration and toward a robust, socially integrative public safety,” the study added.

“We need to acknowledge this issue and consider it as an extremely important concern,” Pettit said.

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