inmates and books; federal inmates and very expensive books

Books in prison can change lives; books in prison can save lives.

Because they believe in the power of books, the Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP) distributes books for free to inmates in the Appalachian region. Maggie Montague writes about what she learned during her time as an intern with APBP:

One book can change the course of a person’s life. Letter after letter describes the impact of books. Books are solace. Books are freedom to explore beyond the incarcerated space. Books bring joy and knowledge. Books make time move a little faster.

 Book lovers everywhere know this. Even people who aren't avid readers can see this.

Incarcerated letter writers are eager to learn how to defend themselves legally, how to create with their hands, how to build a sustainable life after, how to read, how to speak another language, and how to understand the people around them.

People interested in preparing prison inmates for success on the outside know that it cannot be done without reading. Books are essential.

Montague points out a growing problem for those who want to put books in the hands of inmates:

The barriers between books and incarcerated people grow each day. Publisher only. Vendor Only. Only white envelopes only. (Yes, they used two “only”s.)

In Justice Today, a national criminal justice news outlet, reports that the Bureau of Prisons is slowly and quietly erecting one of those barriers between books and federal inmates:

[A new policy] bans all books from being sent into federal facilities from outside sources including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. These retailers are usually the only means by which prisoners can receive books because most facilities reject reading material sent from individuals or small bookstores due to regulations aimed at eliminating contraband.

To be fair to the BOP, they are not banning books.

No, they are simply making it far more expensive for inmates to have books. Books must be ordered through the prison and the prison applies a 30% tax to the purchase price. Shipping fees will be added, too.

How is that 30% fee going to be used? Presumably, it goes to the Inmate Trust Fund along with commissary profits but who audits the Inmate Trust Fund and its profits? 

Is the Fund activity made public to inmates, since they are the ones contributing to and benefiting from the profits? The answer is No at the institutions with which I am familiar.

We have already seen that phone service providers like Securus  and City TeleCoin gouge inmates and their families with excessive fees while giving kickbacks to prisons. Is that what is happening with book orders?

Friends and families will no longer be able to take advantage of free shipping opportunities. Friends and families will no longer be able to send gifts of books to loved ones in prison.

People working to reduce boredom in prison, to keep inmates engaged in the outside world, and to help inmates prepare for employment...those people will be frustrated by this short-sighted policy. 

In Justice Today says:

The BOP’s new policy is likely to be harmful because books are a critical part of the rehabilitation process, allowing prisoners to learn and develop new skills. A 2013 RAND study found that prisoners who received education in prison had 43 percent lower odds of recidivating than those who did not. 

If the number of books in prison makes sanitation and housekeeping difficult (reasons for the policy change provided in the memo circulated at Coleman Federal Correctional Complex), it is time for prisons to learn from libraries. Solve the sanitation and housekeeping problems; keep the books.

Prison staff already examines incoming packages so if contraband commonly enters prisons in books (does it?), prison staff should up their game to find and eliminate the contraband to ensure that books can reach the recipient, free of contraband. 

When an inmate orders a book, will the prison simply order it from Amazon and receive it with free shipping? 

Contact the BOP Director and your Congressman to protest this policy change.

Director Mark S. Inch

Federal Bureau of Prisons 

320 First St., NW 

Washington, DC 20534

Update May 5, 2018: BOP backs down on the restrictive book policy

Missouri's awful choice

This is a terrible story about terrible legislation in Missouri, terrible legislation that offers hope to some.

Almost all sex offenders in Missouri are on a state registry for a lifetime, whether they made a one-time mistake, or made repeated or extreme offenses.

Rep. Kurt Bahr, R-St. Charles, wants to make it possible for certain people to petition to remove their name from the list and for the registry to be more transparent for the public. 

A Senate committee heard a bill that already has passed the House which would do three things:

• Require stricter background checks for those wishing to work in a childcare facility.
• Impose a mandatory life sentence without eligibility for parole for a person convicted of a predatory sexual offense.
• Create a tiered system to allow sex offenders to petition to be removed from the sex offender registry.

 Notice that only one of the three offers hope to registrants.

Bahr’s bill, HB 2042, would create a tiered system, similar to what the federal government uses, to make it possible for people who have committed an offense that falls into the first two tiers to petition to have their name removed from the registry.

Those whose offenses fall into tier one would be able to petition after 10 years of good standing, and those in tier two could petition after 25 years. Sex offenders who fall into tier three, who have committed repeated and more serious crimes, would be on the registry for a lifetime.

Moving from all-lifetime to 10-25-lifetime tiers might be an improvement for some but that isn't what Bahr's bill would do. It would make it possible to petition for removal from the registry after 10 years for tier 1, and after 25 years for tier 2.

Removal after 10 and 25 years is not guaranteed.

Ryan Glidwell, who spoke in support of the bill, is a registered sex offender who testified that he made a “10-second mistake” almost 15 years ago when he flashed a minor over an internet webcam. Though he’s completed his probation, he will be on the sex offender registry for the rest of his life unless Bahr’s bill becomes law.

And maybe not even then.

“This bill recognizes that there is a need to define the predatory and persistent (offenses), that treating a group of individuals with a one-size-fits-all approach might not be the best way, and this bill takes into consideration that, over time, some people do, by the grace of God, change,” Glidwell said.

Courtrooms already recognize that one size does not fit all. That's why some get long prison sentences and some get probation.

“With the list right now, you don’t know what the offender is. Is the guy down the street — is he a rapist or did he flash somebody on Skype? This bill would state the nature of the charge, as well as the tier,” Bahr said, “so it gives the public more information to make a better decision as to what threat is this person.”

No. The information provided on the registry cannot predict whether a registrant is a threat or not, and it cannot tell how much of a threat a registrant is.

The information on the registry can frighten people when they read about a conviction, no matter how long ago the offense happened and no matter how long the registrant has been offense-free. Frightening people is not useful, except to those who benefit from the sex offender industry.

Bahr said with the tiered system and clarification of sexual offenses in the bill, every sex offender will not be punished the same way.

Every person on the registry is punished in the same way: they are listed on the registry. It is nice, though, to see that Bahr recognizes the registry as punishment.

“The problem with the status quo is that you have people who have committed significant crimes who are punished at the same level of those who have committed crimes that are much less significant,” Bahr said.

Read that again and see that Bahr seems to think the current harsh sentences are a good start but some should be even harsher. His bill would cover that by imposing a mandatory sentence of life without parole for those convicted of a predatory sex offense.

The bill defines predatory offenses to include statutory rape and statutory sodomy. If we remember that statutory rape and sodomy often refers to consensual sex between partners only a few years apart in age, mandatory life without parole is clearly draconian.

How long before a legislator introduces a bill to add more crimes to the predator category? The registry is a constant threat that it could be worse.

This bill promises to sentence scary predators to life without parole while it dangles the carrot of the possibility of getting off the registry for others. The bill offers hope to more people than it would condemn to LWOP so anti-registry people find themselves supporting this monstrosity of a bill--a kind of Sophie's choice.

Forcing a choice between sacrificing predators to LWOP and saving some of the "better" offenders--those who made a 10-second mistake, for example--is evil.

Abolish the registry.

is the registry "cruel and unusual" or not?

In 2017, a Colorado judge called the registry cruel and unusual punishment and now attorneys general in the Tenth Circuit are appealing the Colorado decision. 

The court ruling is correct, of course, as anyone acquainted with the registry and its effects can tell you. Other criminals, with minor exceptions, are not subject to legislated shunning and legislated discrimination and legislated cruelty the way those who commit sex offenses are.

In August, when U.S. District Senior Judge Richard Matsch decided in favor of the three Colorado plaintiffs, he was quoted by Alan Prendergast in Westword,

"A convicted offender is knowingly placed in peril of additional punishment, beyond that to which he has been sentenced pursuant to legal proceedings and due process, at the random whim and caprice of unknowable and unpredictable members of the public.

Knowingly placed in peril. Legislators know what they have done. They know what happens to those on the registry. They know that jobs are hard to find, that housing is hard to find, that families suffer.

How do we know they know? Because the legislators are the ones who write the laws, the ones who vote for the laws, the ones who ignore all evidence of the damage done by registries, the ones who hear stories from registrant families and do nothing.

It is true that those on the registry are at the random whim and caprice of unknowable and unpredictable members of the public, but they are also at the random whim of completely knowable legislators. When legislators want to introduce a bill easy to pass, creating additional hurdles for registrants has been almost a sure thing.

Those additional hurdles are imposed on registrants without benefit of due process, a right guaranteed to all citizens in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Being turned down for an apartment or for a job is predictable for those on the registry. What is unknowable and unpredictable are the laws that can be passed long after a person has been convicted and sentenced for his or her crime, laws that change the time on the registry from fifteen years to lifetime, laws that suddenly make it illegal to live in one's own home, laws that too often lead to homelessness and despair.

Judge Matsch continued,

"This risk continues for the entire time a sex offender is on the registry, and perhaps even beyond that if he is fortunate enough to eventually deregister." [My emphasis throughout.]

Getting removed from the registry is a good thing but even past registry status can be discovered with an internet search. Unscrupulous websites that post registry listings do not keep their sites in sync with the official registry sites. Old information remains online.

Getting off the registry is not the same as being free of the registry.

Oklahoma News at KFOR reports on the reasons behind the appeal:

Now, several attorneys general are urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit to reverse the decision.

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said although the ruling involves only one Colorado case, it has wide-ranging implications for access to sex offender registries nationwide if upheld.

 AG Hunter is correct: this ruling does have life-changing implications for registrants all over the country. That is not what he's thinking about, though.

“This ruling undermines the rights of victims and survivors of sex crimes, who must forever endure the trauma caused by horrific acts,” Attorney General Hunter said.

If the victims and survivors must forever endure the trauma even with rapists and assailants and trench-coated lurkers and middle-school sexters on the registry, what does Hunter claim the registry does for the victims and survivors?

“It also obstructs citizen access to public information on sex offenders in their communities and threatens public safety.

There is no good evidence that shows the registry having any positive effect on public safety. AG Hunter continues talking through his hat:

"Registry systems are one of the most cost-effective ways to protect the public while reintroducing sex offenders into society.

Cost-effective? Tracking the location of law-abiding citizens who are unlikely to commit another crime is in no way cost-effective.

His claim that registries reintroduce registrants back into society is ridiculous. The registry keeps people from rejoining society. He surely knows this, though perhaps without the kind of heartbreaking understanding that registrants have because their families are broken up or driven into poverty.

With 874,000 on the registry in the U.S., Hunter should be careful spouting untruths.  The number of people who understand the realities of life on the registry continues to grow.

AG Hunter falls back on an emotional appeal:

"Parents and victims have the right to know.

Parents and victims do not have more rights than other citizens. Common courtesy and loving kindness require--at the very least--that we do not make things worse for people who are victims and survivors but there are no extra rights for those who endured something awful.

He continues:

"My attorneys general colleagues in the 10th circuit and I believe the court was wrong to second-guess this policy and the judgement should be reversed.”

There is no way that the attorneys general are completely unaware of the damage done to those on the registry. So what could be behind this lawsuit and Hunter's foolish talk?

Hunter says undoing the registry in one state compromises the integrity of the uniform registry system, and jeopardizes the ability of states to obtain federal funding.

What was that, AG Hunter? Are you talking about money? Federal funding might dry up if the registries are taken down?

Oh, that is sad. Sad, indeed.

Here's a thought for those attorneys general who worry about losing funding: Getting rid of the registries will save money.

Without sex offender registries, those law enforcement officers who have been knocking on the doors of law-abiding registrants to tell them they cannot have a jack-o-lantern on the porch...

...those officers can now concentrate on people who commit crimes.