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.

without opposing testimony

The South Dakota Senate has been hard at work:

Bills to toughen the punishment for attempted human trafficking of minors and repeatedly failing to register as a sex offender continue to make their way through the legislature. 

Senate Bill 61 would increase the penalty for sex offenders who fail more than once to register after moving to a new address. Currently law penalizes second offenses the same as first offenses, a class 6 felony. Under the bill, a second offense and any subsequent offense would be a class 5 felony.  

South Dakota has about 4,600 people on its sex offender registry, said Attorney General Marty Jackley. The state has about a 98.5 percent compliance rate, where offenders re-register and follow the restrictions that come with being a sex offender. This bill is for the 1.5 percent who don't comply, he said. 

Why more punishment for something that the South Dakota Attorney General admits rarely happens...and for something that is not even another sex offense?

Because a lazy, unthinking Senator wants to propose a bill that will pass.

Because no one stands up for those on the registry.

Both bills passed unanimously and without opposing testimony. They will move to the house floor. [My emphasis.]

Because they can.

Follow what is happening in your state legislature and also at the national level and if you find a lazy legislator writing bills on the backs of registrants and their families, speak up. Protest.

Talk to your legislators and remind them that people on the registry are also their constituents.

Ask why they are willing to make life more difficult for their constituents.

Ask why they aren't protecting their constituents, their neighbors, their community.

It is hard to stand up the first time, to walk into a Senator's office and say that you are a registrant or a family member of a registrant. Do it once, though, and you might be surprised. With over 861,000 people listed on sex offender registries, it only follows that millions of people, some of whom work in legislative offices, know a registrant.

Make an appointment to speak to your legislator and tell stories about how the registry affects you and your family. That is the best way for legislators to see people and not imagine monsters.

Send letters to your legislator and remind him that you and your family are out there. Remind him or her that your family votes. If you are able to vote, make sure to say so. That is the best way for legislators to see votes.

Stand up, speak up.

Is it scary to do that? You bet it is. Do it once, though, and you might be surprised at the people who hear you and respond with their own stories about someone they know on the registry.

Find out how to testify in front of the legislature or a legislative committee. Google and Bing and Duck Duck Go and your community librarian are excellent tools. There are no stupid questions when you want to know badly enough.

You will not need to start from scratch because organizations all over the country are dedicated to changing sex offender laws--if not dedicated to abolishing the registry. Contact those organizations and ask how to prepare and deliver testimony.

• National Association for Rational Sex Offense Laws
• Women Against Registry
• Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws

Their very purpose is to work with you and help you make a difference in your state. Perhaps your state has its own organization and you will be able to meet other registry-affected families near you.

The registry is so obviously wrong that it is possible to change the stance of good people. Arm yourself with data showing that the registry protects no one.

Show them a scrapbook with all the news stories about sex offenses committed by someone not on the registry...and the stories about new sex offenses committed by registrants, if you can find any.

Be seen, be heard.

Do everything you can to make sure the next article about legislation to increase difficulties for those on the registry does not conclude with the sad, infuriating words, without opposing testimony.

will Nebraska legislature upend justice?

The Omaha World-Herald reports that the Nebraska Legislature is looking at policies and procedures for sexual assault reports from within the legislature and its staff. The #metoo movement has all kinds of people and institutions wondering if they will be the next in the sexual harassment/assault spotlight.

The World-Herald tells the story of a state senator who crossed the line:

The female legislative staffer said it started with sexual innuendo and remarks like “Do you want a back rub?” and progressed to suggestions from her boss, a male state senator, that she accompany him, alone, to social events. 

Then one night, at midnight, came a telephone call: “Can I come over to your house?” 

That’s when the staffer, now retired from the Nebraska Legislature, put her foot down. 

“There were things that you kind of toss off, but when he did that, I said ‘This has to stop,’ ” said the staffer, who spoke on the condition that she not be named. 

These kinds of stories, relayed in more than two dozen interviews with current and past legislative staffers, state senators and lobbyists, suggest the State Legislature is not immune to the type of sexual harassment that has spawned the #metoo movement across the country.

The Legislature almost certainly has people among its history who have done things they shouldn't have, who have committed crimes that weren't reported or were reported and ignored.

Also, its history almost certainly includes people who look at past experiences with clear eyes and recognize unacknowledged truths of harassment and assault, and people who look at past experiences and wonder uncertainly if they could say #metoo.

If the #metoo movement makes it easier for victims to report assaults, it will have accomplished a great deal.

At the same time the senators are learning to recognize and acknowledge, they are considering LB 988, a bill that would make affirmative consent, also known as "yes means yes", the law in Nebraska.

Sex without consent is already considered a crime and that is not changing but this bill would change where the burden of proof lies.

Currently, the burden of proof is on the prosecution, requiring that the prosecution must prove--beyond a reasonable doubt--the truth of the accusation. The defendant isn't required to prove anything.

The beauty and good sense of this? When a person's freedom is at stake, we must be certain he is guilty. Blackstone's formulation is at the base:  “For the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.”

American law has always been formulated that way: innocent until proven guilty. Even when it seems the whole world is sure the defendant is guilty, the law must presume he is innocent and treat him that way until he is proven guilty. 

A good example is the OJ Simpson: The jury did not find OJ innocent; they found him not guilty. The jury decided that the prosecution failed to prove guilt. 

Could the jury have been wrong? Of course, but the slightest possibility that the jury could send an innocent man to prison is so abhorrent that it is worth letting a guilty man go free.

If passed, LB 988 would mean that the accused would have the burden of proof. This turns justice on its head.

The defendant would have to prove that he deserves his freedom and the prosecution would have simply to make the accusation.

When we remember that an estimated 97% of federal and 94% of state criminal cases are resolved with a plea agreement instead of a trial, we can see that justice has already been knocked askew. A plea agreement means the prosecution no longer has to prove guilt to a jury.

It has only to convince the defendant that it is better to take the plea than to risk more severe charges and a harsher sentence if found guilty in a trial.

The prosecution can already convict defendants without the need to prove guilt to a jury. Why pass legislation that would remove the burden of proof from the prosecution altogether?

Freedom is too important to risk convicting the innocent.

Perhaps the possibility that legislators someday might need to defend themselves against accusations--false or not-- will make them move more cautiously.

Iowa legislator wants to move the goal posts

Iowa state representative Dean Fisher wants to solve an imaginary problem.

Tier IV Sex Offender Registry – House File 163. This is a bill that I introduced during the 2017 session which I am continuing to work on. This bill addresses the problem of sex offenders that “time out” of the registry after a set number of years (usually 10 years) and then move to a new area of the state or move into Iowa from another state.

Is it a problem when someone successfully serves the sentence handed down by the court? Is it a problem when legislated timelines run out with no further sex offenses?

If a sex offender has timed out, law enforcement has no way of knowing this person is in their community.

What does law enforcement need to know about any law-abiding person?

This bill establishes a new requirement for any person that has ever had to register as a sex offender in Iowa or any other jurisdiction to register with the county sheriff when they move into or around the state. This classification of sex offenders would not be required to re-register quarterly or annually like other classes of sex offenders. [My emphasis.]

New requirement! The bill makes no provision for educating people of the new requirement when their previously-mandated registry time expires. How would a new resident of the state know about the requirement that he or she must register again, after celebrating the end of previous registry time, perhaps years ago?

Laws like this set up citizens for failure.

This bill is nothing more than an attempt to punish those on the registry for ten more years.

Previous Iowa Supreme Court cases (such as Iowa vs. Pickens, 1997) have determined that such registry requirements are constitutional because they do not constitute ex post facto punishment, they are merely regulation. This requirement will give law enforcement greater insight into who is living in our communities. This bill passed subcommittee on Thursday of this week and now goes to the full committee.

As anyone listed on the registry can attest, legislators like Fisher can pretend the registry is not punishment only because they are not listed there.

Fisher has no evidence showing that people on the registry need to be watched by law enforcement. The number of cases where law enforcement used the registry to solve a sex crime must be exceedingly small because the vast majority of sex offenses are committed by first-time offenders.

Fisher especially has no evidence that the registry would help law enforcement after a registrant has completed 10, 15, or 25 years on the registry. Study after study show that criminals in general age out of crime and more studies show that those convicted of sex offenses are unlikely to reoffend at any stage after conviction.

Fisher's bill piles additional requirements on the registrants who are most unlikely to commit further crimes.

State representative Fisher is not alone in this. HF 163 passed out of subcommittee, which means other state reps voted to do that.

The people that Fisher and his colleagues would punish further with no reason, those people are tax-paying citizens of Iowa. Fisher and his colleagues are doing this to their friends and neighbors, their fellow Iowans. Instead of protecting their constituents, instead of encouraging those who left criminal activities behind, they are making life more difficult for those families.

These are not legislators to trust or to vote for. These are legislators who need to be defeated at the earliest opportunity.

Raptor Systems boasts about protecting students from school visitors

Ah. Another school district wasting money to protect students from people on the sex offender registry.

When a visitor tries to gain access to a school, they are now prompted to utilize the computer check-in system, which requires you to scan your photo ID. Within seconds, that scan searches sex offender databases to ensure the person isn’t on there. 

“This system allows us to have those identities identified and therefore we know when those people are on our campuses,” said Jeff Hudson, Pitt County School’s security specialist.

These people. 

How many school employees have committed sex offenses against students? These people might come from within the school.

How many people on the registry have committed sex crimes against students while visiting the school? If it has happened, let's stack up those few stories against the multitude of stories about school staff members who offend against students.

Stopping registrants at the school door protects no one. What it does do is humiliate parents and students, and for no reason.

As I wrote in an October 2015 post:

What does the hysteria about registered sex offenders teach children?  

It teaches children that people on a list are the ones to fear. When over ninety percent of sex offense arrests are of people not on the list, we are directing children to be wary of the wrong people. 

It teaches children that they are wrong to love and admire a grandparent who has come through a difficult time and has lived a law-abiding life since. 

It teaches the community that it is acceptable to single out and embarrass children who love sex offenders. 

Raptor stopped a man from having lunch with his grandson and the principal crows about the great success, without a single thought about the effect on the grandson. 

Not a single thought that the boy might be hurt or confused by this turn of events. Not a single thought that exposing the grandfather as a registered sex offender may also expose the child to details of a crime he is too young to understand. 

Instead of encouraging pointless hysteria, we ought to be upset about school boards deciding to throw away taxpayer funds on wrongheaded nonsense. 

We ought to be upset about thoughtless principals who think it is acceptable to treat the children and grandchildren of registered citizens as if they do not matter.

Raptor Systems claims 18,000 campuses use its services. It boasts that it has screened 11.4 million visitors, had 41,754 alerts, and protected 57 million children.

How much money has Raptor pulled in from this game?

When Raptor can predict which school employee will be the next addition to the sex offender registry, they might be worth a look.