COVID and jails: stop the spread

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - As the number of COVID-19 cases in West Virginia jails skyrockets, advocates for incarcerated people are urging Gov. Jim Justice to follow recommendations in a new report to curb the spread.

As of December 1, more than 1,150 people serving time and correctional officers have contracted the virus, according to Lida Shepherd - program director with the American Friends Service Committee.

With regional jails at 35% over capacity, she said state officials should reduce pretrial detention and release anyone close to their parole date who isn't a threat to public safety. Those suggestions are in a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

"An outbreak anywhere reduces our state's overall ability to get this virus under control," said Shepherd. "And so, that's why it's just critical that the governor really take action to prevent them - not just respond to when they happen, but to really prevent them through some of these recommendations."

The state Legislature had passed House Bill 2419 before the pandemic, which aims to reduce the number of people being held pretrial for low-level misdemeanor charges.

But Shepherd said she thinks, even with jails and surrounding communities becoming pandemic hotspots, the new law isn't really being applied.

Not using the new law creates what's known as "churn" in regional jails - where a lot of people are entering for short periods and then exiting, Shepherd said.

"In the midst of a pandemic, that obviously has some pretty dire consequences, as we are now seeing play out in some of our regional jails," said Shepherd. "With the virus being introduced not only necessarily by inmates, people who are coming into the system, but of course, by staff as well."

The report also recommends that people not be reincarcerated for minor, technical parole violations. Shepherd said not only would this help stop the spread of COVID, it could help restore lives and reunite families.

(Note: this news story was published by the WV News Service, a local affiliate of the Public News Service.)

Pandemics and prison overcrowding are a recipe for disaster

 Gov. Jim Justice in a news conference regarding the latest spike in COVID-19 cases, now famously said, “I don’t know what else I can do.”

To give credit where credit is due, starting in March Justice has shown a willingness to listen to public health experts and take proactive measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

However, for the thousands of people who are incarcerated or who work in state correctional facilities — all of whom are at elevated risk of sickness and death from COVID-19 — there are many responses that have not yet been taken by the governor and state officials that would help prevent more outbreaks.

Incarcerated people are infected by COVID-19 at a rate more than five times higher than the nation’s overall rate, due largely to the fact that social distancing necessary to prevent the spread of the virus is virtually impossible in overcrowded facilities.

As of this writing, according to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources COVID-19 website, there are 254 positive cases of COVID-19 in the Stevens Correctional Facility in McDowell County, which means 64% of the prison inmates have contracted the virus. Statewide, there are 58 employees of Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation who are currently positive for COVID-19.

Our state’s regional jails are 35% over capacity, and what’s worse is that nearly half of those incarcerated are pre-trial, meaning they have not been convicted of any crime but, more likely than not, are too poor to come up with the bail money to purchase their freedom as they await trial. This has dire and potentially fatal consequences for these individuals and their families.

To put this problem in perspective, and also as cautionary tale, a recent report by the University of Texas at Austin found that 80% of those who had died from COVID-19 in Texas jails had not been convicted of a crime but were incarcerated pre-trial.

According to public health and safety experts in their October report, “Decarcerating Correctional Facilities During COVID-19,” commissioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, state officials can prevent outbreaks and deaths if they take action to reduce incarceration.

The first recommendation is to reduce “churn” in regional jails by law enforcement officials using their discretion to divert individuals from incarceration through citations in lieu of arrests.

Additionally they recommend judges and prosecutors adhere to “strong presumption against pretrial detention” through issuance of personal recognizance bonds.

Prior to the pandemic in early March, the state Legislature, wanting to reduce county jail bills, passed House Bill 2419, which instructs magistrates to grant personal recognizance bonds for low-level felony and misdemeanor charges “unless for good cause shown.” To date, even with correctional facilities and their surrounding communities becoming COVID-19 hot spots, there is little indication the new law is being applied.

The report also stresses the need to expedite release for people who are nearing the end of their sentence or are medically vulnerable, and who pose no threat to public safety.

According to data from the West Virginia State Parole Board, between March 3 and May 2, 389 people were granted parole, while 438 were either denied or deferred parole, meaning that the majority of people who were parole eligible were not released.

One way to expedite more releases would be the governor empowering the DOCR commissioner to work with staff to identify individuals who are parole eligible or within a year of parole eligibility, who are deemed low risk for reoffending, and see to their release.

The report also recommends that probation and parole policies be revised to “greatly limit revocation for technical violations,” and instead direct that only when a new crime is committed should parole or probation be revoked.

Last but not least, the report underscores the importance of reentry support to ensure people’s safety and well-being after release. Even in non-pandemic times, reentry is tremendously challenging for those who don’t have resources for housing, transportation and food.

Pile on lack of employment opportunities during a global pandemic while saddled with a criminal conviction, and one can imagine how crucial it is we invest in reentry, especially transitional housing.

As inspiration, other states have safely reduced their prison and jail populations. Most recently in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy and the state legislature worked together on legislation that allowed for the release of over 2,000 adults and juveniles with qualifying offenses who had a year or less left on their sentence.

Why not here?

When leaders of our state realize the urgency to reduce incarceration during this pandemic, lives will be saved.

Then beyond this pandemic, if we take bold steps for criminal legal reform and reinvest the $250 million we spend annually on adult and juvenile incarceration, we will see lives restored and families reunited.

And we can look back and know West Virginia was on the right side of history, as we put our country’s failure of mass incarceration behind us once and for all.

(This ran as an op-ed by AFSC's Lida Shepherd in the Sunday Gazette-Mail.)

A time (and place) to test

 One of the populations most at risk of COVID-19 infection are people held in jails, prisons, and juvenile detention centers and those who work there. In such institutions, social distancing is impossible.

In addition to working with allies to reduce the number of West Virginians in confinement, AFSC in WV signed on to a letter to state officials urging that universal testing for the virus be made available to all detainees and workers in the system. This is particularly urgent because a significant percentage of those with the virus show no symptoms--and since outbreaks in one setting can easily spread to the community at large.

Please feel free to share the contents of the letter and to urge state officials to take appropriate action. Here's the letter:

Monday, April 27, 2020 

Dear Governor Justice, Commissioner Jividen, and Secretary Crouch:

As the COVID-19 crisis continues in West Virginia, so does our concern regarding its impact on those behind bars or otherwise detained in congregate settings across the state. Many West Virginians are extremely worried about loved ones of all ages who are incarcerated in jails, prisons, juvenile detention facilities and other out of home placements, where following social distancing guidelines is nearly impossible. The same is true of those who work in these facilities, their families and communities. We, the undersigned, share their concerns.  In fact, we would go even further to stress that what occurs in those settings can impact all West Virginians.  It is clear to all by now that prisons, just like nursing homes, schools, colleges and other locations that you have worked hard to address are at heightened risk, which then can adversely impact the general population.
  
We highly commend state leaders such as yourselves for taking effective measures to stop the spread of the disease. However, the recent news that a correction officer has tested positive raises disturbing possibilities.  Given the very high risk for this population and for the thousands of West Virginians connected to it in one way or another, we are writing to request that the state make universal testing available to all people detained or employed in these facilities as testing supplies become more available. Since studies indicate that many people who have and can spread the virus are asymptomatic, this is the surest way to identify cases of infection and to allow authorities to take appropriate measures in the interest of all West Virginians.

This would be consistent with federal guidance for the use of the CARES Act, which states that funds can be used for "costs of providing COVID-19 testing, including serological testing" as well as "COVID-19-related expenses of maintaining state prisons and county jails, including as relates to sanitation and improvement of social distancing measures, to enable compliance with COVID-19 public health precautions.”

Further, because of the vulnerability of this population, it is imperative that West Virginia provide robust transparency with regards to COVID-19 testing occurring in our corrections system. Other states like Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia publicly
report not only the number of positive cases in correctional facilities, but also the total number of tests performed as well. We’re asking that this information be made publicly accessible.

Ongoing forthrightness about COVID-19 testing and results within the prison system will maintain the public trust in our health and law enforcement officials. Transparency will similarly put incarcerated individuals and their families at greater ease.

Limiting the spread of COVID-19 in high-risk environments like our prison system is imperative for the health of incarcerated individuals, correctional staff, and our communities as a whole. The more incarcerated individuals and correctional staff that need treatment at local hospitals, the greater the strain will be on our health care system’s capacity.

The organizations listed below represent a diverse cross section of West Virginians supporting this request. We thank you and those who work with you for your service in this difficult time and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Americans for Prosperity
American Friends Service Committee
 WV Council of Churches
WV Access to Justice Commission
Catholic Diocese of WV
 American Civil Liberties Union-WV
Our Future WV
WV Center on Budget and Policy
Appalachian Prison Book Project
Mountain State Justice
NAACP – Jefferson County

Time to follow up on criminal justice reform

West Virginia’s legislators have grappled with the human and fiscal costs of mass incarceration and prison overcrowding for the past decade.

These efforts include two major studies of the state’s correctional system and several pieces of legislation to address the issues. While there is much to celebrate, several policy measures could be taken to reduce overcrowding in the state’s regional jails and prisons in ways consistent with public safety.

Since these issues are likely to be considered in the 2020 legislative session, it might be good to look back at some of what did — and didn’t— happen.

In 2010, the West Virginia Law Institute submitted detailed recommendations to the Legislature. It found that, “Although the state itself enjoys a history of some of the lowest reported crime rates, it currently has one of the highest increasing rates of prison growth in the country that is marked by insufficient correctional resources, inadequate imprisonment statistics and minimal alternative sanctions.”

The report made several recommendations, including expanding alternative sanctions, such as: community-based corrections; adopting validated measures of assessing risks and needs of offenders; increasing substance-use and mental-health treatment facilities; creating transitional housing for parolees; presumptive eligibility for parole; sentencing reform; improved data collection; and additional research and public education.

In 2012-13, the Council of State Governments Justice Center made similar recommendations after extensive consultations. They noted that, “Between 2002 and 2012, the number of people in West Virginia’s prisons increased 50 percent, with the prison population projected to grow an additional 24 percent by 2018.” Legislation enacting some of the measures was passed in 2013.

Since those studies, the state has made progress in community corrections, risk/needs assessments, alternative sanctions, drug courts and the capacity for treating substance-use disorder. The following additional measures may be worth considering:

*Sentencing reform: According to the Law Institute report, the state “imposes some of the longest sentences in the country, sends to and keeps in prison a much higher percentage of convicted defendants rather than placing them in alternative programs, and maintains various practices that result in more people incarcerated for longer periods of time.”
It called for a review of sentencing for offenses that include robbery, burglary, forgery and uttering, shoplifting, controlled-substance possession, fraud, etc.

Excessive sentencing increases overcrowding and costs but does little for public safety. In fact, it can have the opposite effect. The longer people are incarcerated, the more difficult it is for them to successfully re-enter the community, and the more likely it is that some will commit another offense.

The institute also recommended ending the practice of charging multiple offenses for the same act and making concurrent, rather than consecutive, sentencing the default practice, unless a judge has reasons to do otherwise.

*Early release to community supervision for nonviolent offenders: The 2013 legislation included a provision for the release of nonviolent offenders to community supervision when they reached 180 days prior to the calculated discharge date.

This measure passed the Senate but was removed in the House of Delegates.

It was estimated then that this would reduce the impact of the legislation by one-third. This is a major reason why the legislation wasn’t as successful as it might have been in reducing overcrowding. The 2020 session would be a good time to revisit that missed opportunity.

*Earned time: An additional measure to consider would be allowing inmates to earn time off their sentences by completing appropriate educational and rehabilitative programs, which would improve the hard and soft skills that promote successful re-entry and post-release employment.

*Bail reform: In the 2019 regular legislative session, the deputy commissioner of the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation told the House Judiciary Committee that, in 2018, counties paid the Regional Jail Authority over $1.9 million to jail individuals unable to post bail of $1,000 or less for misdemeanor charges.

That year, 3,750 people spent an average of 11 days in jail before being released. This amounted to a total of 41,058 days, at a daily cost of $48.25. Decisions regarding the pretrial release of accused offenders should be based on considerations of public safety, rather than poverty.
While technically bail is about jails, rather than prisons, West Virginia’s overcrowding problem is so severe that many people who have been sentenced to prison time are backlogged to even more overcrowded regional jails, which often don’t offer the kinds of programs that make one eligible for parole. This is a dangerous situation for those incarcerated in jails and for those who work in them.

Then there’s this: Keeping people who haven’t been convicted of a crime in jail just because they’re poor separates families, can cause people to lose jobs and fall even further behind economically and makes it harder for them to prepare for their day in court.

*Parole reform: West Virginia should move in the direction of presumptive eligibility for parole, a system in which incarcerated individuals with qualifying offenses are released upon first becoming eligible for parole unless the parole board finds explicit reasons to not release them.

Common-sense reforms like these could go a long way toward addressing crowding problems, saving tax dollars, promoting public safety, easing re-entry and strengthening families and communities.

(This ran as an op-ed in yesterday's Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Needed: a real second chance

One of the biggest victories in the last WV legislative session has the passage of Senate Bill 152, which allows for the expungement of some misdemeanor and felony convictions. Recently, the New York Times reported on a Michigan study of what that can mean to people.

Here's the good news:

"...people who get expungements tend to do very well. We found that within a year, on average, their wages go up by more than 20 percent, after controlling for their employment history and changes in the Michigan economy. This gain is mostly driven by unemployed people finding work and minimally employed people finding steadier positions."

and:

"...contrary to the fears of critics, people with expunged records break the law again at very low rates. Indeed, we found that their crime rates are considerably lower than those of Michigan’s general adult population. That may be in part because expungement reduces recidivism."

The bad news was that only small percentage of eligible people actually got the expungements, as in around 2,500 out of possibly hundreds of thousands. Also, they took a long time to get. Only 6.5 percent got them within five years of becoming eligible.

We've had experiences like that here, where legislative or policy victories don't reach as many people as we'd like. The takeaway is that the process needs to be as simple as possible and that people need to know they are eligible.

That may be where the real work begins.

It's past time for bail reform

On May 15, 2010, Kalief Browder and a friend were walking home from a party in the Bronx when they were stopped by police officers. He was accused of stealing a backpack stuffed with a camera, an iPod Touch, a credit card and $700 in cash.

Browder, a 16-year-old African-American, had no incriminating evidence against him and denied stealing anything. He was arrested and charged with robbery, grand larceny and assault.

Because he was on probation for taking a bakery truck on a joyride, Browder was not released. Instead, he was sent to a juvenile facility on Riker's Island known for "a deep-seated culture of violence."

Bail was set at $3,000, a sum his family could not pay.

He wound up spending three years at Riker's, much of that time in solitary confinement. During this time, he was brutalized by guards and other inmates, some incidents of which were captured on video.

Not surprisingly, he was traumatized by the event. He attempted suicide on more than one occasion in and out of custody. On June 16, 2015, he succeeded.

He was never placed on trial and never convicted of the offense. Charges against him were eventually dropped.

This example of what I can only call bureaucratic murder makes me feel sick every time I think about it. It also makes a travesty of the promise of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, according to which no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

As far as I know, nothing on that scale of awfulness has happened in West Virginia, but we have similar issues with low-income, low-risk nonviolent offenders wasting away in regional jails because they can't afford bail.

It causes untold suffering, clogs up the jail and prison system and costs a lot of money.

Speaking of money, the Gazette-Mail's Phil Kabler recently reported, "Counties paid the Regional Jail Authority more than $1.9 million in 2018 to jail individuals unable to post bond of $1,000 or less for misdemeanor charges."

That year, 3,750 people jailed on misdemeanor charges spent an average of 11 days in jail before they were released or were able to post bail. One person spent 127 days in jail due to lack of money to post a $500 bond.

That added up to 41,058 days that the counties had to pay for, to the tune of $48.25 per person per day. Because that doesn't cover the full cost, they had to kick in an additional $18,750.

In human terms, this can have devastating effects on those incarcerated and their families. Even short of extreme violence and suicide, lots of bad things can happen behind bars, many of which are not conducive to improving civic behavior or promoting public safety in the long run. And overcrowded jails and prisons are unsafe both for those who work there and those who are incarcerated.

There is a further issue here. Our state prisons are already overcrowded. So much so, in fact, that hundreds of people (1,205 in 2016, for example) sentenced to state prisons are still warehoused in regional jails, which are not designed to be long-term facilities. Many cannot access educational and other programs offered in prisons that might make them eligible for treatment, training or parole.

To state the obvious, having hundreds of people doing time in the jails at public expense simply because they are poor only makes things worse all the way around.

Fortunately, there is a growing and bipartisan awareness of this problem at the legislature these days. A (very modest) bail reform bill, HB 2190, passed the House and is up for consideration in the Senate. It allows people charged with certain nonviolent offenses to be released on their own recognizance. It could have been stronger, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Words written by then U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy in 1964 still ring true today: "The rich man and the poor man do not receive equal justice in our courts. And in no area is this more evident than in the matter of bail."

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Huntington Herald-Dispatch.)

Pop some popcorn

In the almost unimaginable case that you haven't seen it, check out the latest edition of Wonk's Work, the AFSC WV Economic Justice Project's irreverent look at the WV legislature. This week: education deform, SNAP, xenophobia, preemption, and a really cute cat picture. Click here to bliss out.

Time to end the SNAP ban

Some things that seem like a good idea at the time really aren’t.

Or, if you want to get biblical about it, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

As is the case with most individuals, I think the U.S. has taken a wrong turn or two over the course of its history. One example that comes to mind is Prohibition, the nationwide ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages that lasted from 1920 to 1933.

It didn’t stop the drinking (there were memories of “bathtub gin” in my family), but it was the best thing that ever happened to organized crime.

The “war on drugs” was another such misstep. While it may have given some politicians a racially tinged road to power, it devastated many communities, destroyed many lives and sucked up untold resources. Without getting rid of drugs.

Fortunately, it looks like more people across the political spectrum are beginning to question the policies of over-incarceration and of criminalizing public health problems.

There seems to be a growing awareness that punishment isn’t the best way to deal with addiction, and of the fact that the vast majority of people who get sucked into the prison-industrial complex are going to come out some day.

There is a growing interest in issues of recovery and re-entry, probably because the opioid crisis has touched so many families.

With both Democratic and Republican legislative majorities, West Virginia has taken some steps in a positive direction:

*In 2013, the Legislature passed the Justice Reinvestment Act, which aimed at reducing incarceration rates while protecting public safety.

*The same year, then-Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, which opened the gates of treatment and recovery for thousands of West Virginians dealing with addiction issues.

*In 2015, the Republican-led Legislature passed reforms in truancy and juvenile justice aimed at reducing the number of children kept in out-of-home confinement.

*In 2016, the Legislature passed a bill aimed at making it easier for people to regain driver’s licenses.

*In 2017, the Legislature passed the Second Chance for Employment Act, which allows people with nonviolent felony convictions to petition the courts to have the offense reduced to a misdemeanor.
Some of these steps could have been strengthened, but the trend shows movement in the right direction.

One big step West Virginia needs to take is to remove the lifetime ban on SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) for people with felony drug convictions.

That arbitrary ban — which doesn’t apply to any other category of offender — is an ill-thought-out legacy of 1990s federal welfare reform legislation.

According to Marc Mauer, of the D.C.-based Sentencing Project, that measure received about two minutes of debate at the time it was passed.

It shows.

Since then, all but three states, including some of the most conservative, have modified or removed the ban.

Guess who’s one of the three? The others are South Carolina and Mississippi.

As Elizabeth Lower-Basch, of the Center for Law and Social Policy, put it: “I think most states have, over time, recognized this isn’t helpful for the goal of reducing drug use.”

According to a report by Molly Born, of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, in 2016, more than 2,100 people with felony drug convictions were denied SNAP benefits after they had served their time. That number doesn’t include people who didn’t bother to apply at all or those who were denied in other years.

An analysis of overdose fatalities in 2016 found that 56 percent of those who died from overdoses had been incarcerated. Further, “Of male decedents that were incarcerated within 12 months of death, 28% died within a month after release, compared to 21% of females. Nearly half, (46%) of individuals with only some high school education died within 30 days of their release.”

To state the obvious, when people have served their time for drug convictions, they often have little or no assets. Jobs are hard to find. Family and community connections may have eroded over time. Relapse is a possibility, especially if there seems to be no hope.

And they still need to eat.

The road to recovery is hard, but we have a lot of people on it. They don’t need another roadblock.

It’s time to end the ban.

Rethinking a lost war

Since President Ronald Reagan’s declaration of the “war on drugs” in the 1980s, the number of drug offenders in prisons and jails has increased 1,100 percent. Today, 5 million formerly incarcerated people are living in the United States and, every year, 600,000 people are released from prison and face the daunting task of building a stable life for themselves and their family.

For most of us, a job is the basic building block to a life where you can, at the very least, provide the basics of food for your family, a place to live, money to pay the bills and put gas in the car. Forget a family vacation.

But, according to a report just released by the Prison Policy Initiative, employment is really hard to come by if you are one of these 5 million people.

Using national data that had never been compiled before, they found that formerly incarcerated people are unemployed at a rate of over 27 percent — a rate higher than the total U.S. unemployment rate during any historical period, including the Great Depression.

Put another way, the unemployment rate for formerly incarcerated people is nearly five times higher than among the general population, creating “a counterproductive system of release and poverty, hurting everyone involved — employers, the taxpayers and, certainly, formerly incarcerated people looking to break the cycle.”

For formerly incarcerated people who are black or Hispanic — especially black or Hispanic women — unemployment rates are even worse, due in part to over-representation in arrests and incarceration in the first place, and then the conscious or unconscious racial bias of employers.

As Devah Pager found in her 2003 landmark study, “The Mark of a Criminal Record,” Black job seekers without criminal records were less likely to receive callbacks from employers than white job seekers with criminal records.

Children are the unseen victims of this counterproductive, discriminatory cycle of poverty and incarceration. In a vexing story published in The Nation about the impact of the opioid crisis on Henry J. Kaiser Elementary School, in Ravenswood, eight teachers reported that they have at least two children in their classrooms with a parent who has been incarcerated on drug charges.

According to the widely cited Adverse Childhood Experience study, having a parent incarcerated is one of the traumatic experiences that significantly impacts a person’s mental and physical well-being later in life.

The story in The Nation also noted that, even though hiring has picked up again in Jackson County, people with felony convictions are not getting hired.

Given bleak employment numbers for the formerly incarcerated, we should be doing everything we can to remove barriers, not only to minimum-wage jobs but good-paying ones.

As one formerly incarcerated man interviewed for the West Virginia Criminal Justice Listening Project said, “I need a career, not a job.”

Unfortunately, there are roughly 114 laws in state code that severely restrict people’s access to professional licenses based on criminal convictions. These laws are written in broad and vague terms like “crimes of moral turpitude,” making it either impossible or risky for a person with a criminal record to pursue a professional license.

Fortunately, there are two policies that the West Virginia Legislature is considering that will help address the interlinked crises of drug addiction, over-criminalization and low employment among formerly incarcerated people.

One would reduce barriers to occupational licenses people with criminal records face, while balancing licensing boards’ need for discretion. Another would establish a sentencing commission to review the sentencing laws on the books.

A meaningful sentencing commission would make recommendations for sentencing laws that are based on evidence and outcomes and less on the paradigm of “lock ‘em up” that has resulted in a staggering incarceration rate and millions of felons, and children, with the deck stacked against them.

Policymakers, employers and all of us need to get serious about investing more in treatment, education and job training than in jails and prisons. Because nobody in America, except maybe pharmaceutical companies and the private prison industry, is winning in the war on drugs.

(This op-ed by AFSC's Lida Shepherd appeared in today's Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Bad week for…. everything

With the impending Supreme Court nomination that is sure to be gut-wrenchingly, mind-numblingly terrible, and the recent torrent of anti-human Supreme Court rulings, like their decisions on racist gerrymandering in Texas, the indefensible upholding of Trump’s travel ban,  and Janus v. AFSCME, New York Times editorial board (fake news!) gives some pithy advice that any hope for man and womankind in America is at the ballot box.

In unrelated news, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will be visiting our fair Capitol city next month to hear testimony about the myriad of collateral consequences facing people when they leave prison.  Topics will include barriers to employment including restrictions on professional licenses, and severely limited access to public benefits like housing assistance and SNAP.  Talk about things (like food, a place to live, steady income) that can easily be taken for granted….

Another even less appreciated problem for people when they leave prison is bad teeth, in part because of limited dental services in prison and also pre-incarceration, a likelihood of being among the 74 million Americans who lack dental coverage.

Dark days for sure, so feel free to just watch this slightly dated video from John Oliver's all-dog supreme court.  

Some good news. No, really

These days I've been trying whenever possible to highlight any good news when it shows up. On bit of that comes from the Census Bureau, which recently released it's data on poverty and health coverage. Turns out that thanks largely to Medicaid expansion, WV is a national leader in health care coverage.

The percentage of uninsured decreased from 14 to 6 percent and the numbers dropped from 255,000 to 108,000. Not universal yet but moving in the right direction. As I've said before Medicaid expansion in WV has been the biggest victory for social justice on my watch and it's one worth going all out to protect.

Then there's this: according to the WV Division of Corrections, Medicaid expansion is saving money while also providing needed care. By providing help with substance abuse and addiction, it could even reduce recidivism. Here's a snippet from the article:

“One of the drivers behind a criminal history, directly or indirectly, is a substance abuse problem,” Jim Rubenstein, commissioner of the state Division of Corrections told the Gazette-Mail in 2014. “[Medicaid coverage] could make a critical difference, by having some kind of coverage that would gain these individuals access to needed treatment or counseling. And while we know that substance abuse is a big issue, to have coverage for basic medical care could also make a difference in their lives as well.” 

Taken all together this is a pretty big deal.

Higher education in WV

Recently the Huntington Herald-Dispatch had a good editorial about the role of higher education in the state's economy. Here's how it started:

Whoever is calling the shots at the Capitol in Charleston next year may want to think twice about continuing the recent trend of reducing state aid for West Virginia's higher education institutions. Curtailing support for those institutions could undermine a key economic component of the state at a time when the Mountain State's struggling economy needs all the help it can get.

The point was underscored last week by a study from West Virginia University's Bureau of Business and Economic Research gauging the economic impact of 21 higher education institutions on their respective local economies. The study, sought by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, concluded that those universities and colleges contributed about $2.7 billion overall to the state's economy in 2014 either directly or indirectly. While by no means the main economic engine of the state, that number equates to about 3.5 percent of the state's total economy - a significant enough portion that warrants careful handling by the state's policy makers. Altogether, that spending supported about 22,000 jobs either at the institutions or by spinoff economic activity, the study found.

Sadly, higher education continues to be cut in the state budget. Why anyone would do that in the state with the lowest educational attainment rate is beyond my understanding. But then, the Republican candidate for governor wants to increase mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenses and build more prisons while others like state senator Craig Blair want to privatize colleges and universities.

I ask again, what could possibly go wrong?

The good, the bad and the anciently weird

Labor supporters in West Virginia got a boost recently when a Kanawha County judge issued an injunction temporarily blocking the implementation of the recently enacted right to work for less law. I hope she takes her good old time in making a decision, although the case is expected to be concluded within 90 days. It's totally OK with me if it goes longer.

On the downside, outgoing senate president and gubernatorial candidate Bill Cole came out for more mandatory minimums and building more prisons in a state that can't even afford to do adequate flood relief. This would undo the fairly recent growth of common sense on the subject that is supported by many Republicans.I'm hoping that's a nonstarter.

Then there's this odd item about ancient South America from the BBC. Enjoy!

This is our concern, Dude

Over 1000 very poor West Virginians are about to lose SNAP food assistance. Many of these may be homeless or living in isolated rural areas or may be dealing with diagnosed mental and physical health issues. I guess the good news is that the number of such people is probably much smaller than it would have been without public pressure and media scrutiny.

SO THIS MUST BE MY WEEK FOR RADIO. The latest Front Porch podcast from WV Public Broadcasting features my friend Pastor Matthew Watts talking about racial disparities in WV's prison system.

The Front Porch podcast/program, by the way, won 2nd place in the Associated Press broadcasting awards for Virginia and West Virginia. The category was editorial or editorial series.

And while we're at it, the multi-state public broadcasting program Inside Appalachia recycled a Front Porch segment in a program on "Appalachianism," Appalachian dialects, prejudices against hillbillies, and the politics of language. I  never said I was not a potty mouth in case you listen.

OFF TOPIC. Some big political news in WV is a planned visit by democratic socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to my home county. You won't find any endorsements here, but a friend sent me this article by writer and WV native Jedidiah Purdy. To be exact, he proposes 11 theses on Sanders.

I have no knowledge of this topic whatsoever, nor would I be disposed to discuss it if in fact I did, but I'm pretty sure the 11 theses is a riff on the same number of theses written about philosopher Ludwig Feuerback by the young Marx.  That's what I heard anyway.

Why warehousing people doesn't work

We've been trying to chip away at mass incarceration in WV for a while now, both for adults and for kids in the juvenile justice system. This NY Times op-ed provides a good summary of why it just doesn't make sense.

One thing that does make sense is substance abuse treatment. WV just launched its first residential treatment program for regional jail inmates. That's kind of a big deal since many inmates aren't eligible for parole without treatment.

Off topic, I really hope the WV legislature doesn't revisit the bogus "religious freedom" license to discriminate bill in the future. Here's what an editor at the Gazette-Mail had to say about that.

Prison nation

On the latest Front Porch program/podcast, we spoke with my friend Pastor Matthew Watts of Grace Bible Church and Hope Community Development on Charleston WV's west side. This is a heavily edited version of a long conversation we had about prisons, race, mass incarceration, social changes and more.

WISDOM BOOKS. Regular readers of this blog know I'm a sucker for ancient Greek and Roman classics. Right now, I've made a decent start at rereading three classics that I plan on going through again and again: Plutarch's Lives, Herodotus' Histories and Thucydides' Peloponnesian War. (I'm about 320 pages through the first and just finished the life of Timoleon, the Corinthian leader who liberated Sicily from the rule of tyrants.) So it's no wonder that this Gazette-Mail op-ed on Thucydides caught my eye.

SAD SIGN OF THE TIMES. It's no secret that WV has a drug overdose problem and that my county of Cabell is ground zero. It was really sad for me to read that school nurses in that county are preparing to administer naxolone for opioid overdoses.

Mandatory minimums: a dead end road

This op-ed in today's Charleston Gazette-Mail was a collaborative effort between my friends Pastor Matthew Watts, Lida Shepherd and myself:

Across the country and the political spectrum, many people have begun to realize we took a wrong turn a while back.

While pursuing legitimate concerns about crime and drugs, Americans set off on a decades-long binge of prison building and mass incarceration. The good we sought never materialized, but the collateral damage was massive.

Unfortunately, two bills that just passed the West Virginia House, HB 4240 and 4578, would put us back on that wrong road by imposing harsh mandatory minimum sentences on nonviolent drug offenders.

These measures would do nothing to make our communities safer, help people recover from addiction, reduce recidivism or help fund education or economic development.

On the other hand, they would lead to another prison population explosion, further bust the state’s budget, destabilize families and communities, deplete West Virginia’s shrinking workforce and make it harder for the state to invest in education, early childhood and economic development. And they would threaten to undo the progress the state has made with Justice Reinvestment legislation.

These bills also go against the grain of the work of many Republican leaders who have advocated a more intelligent approach to these issues. Some who have opposed mandatory minimums include former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, former Texas governor Rick Perry, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.

A little background from the Coalition for Public Safety might help put things in perspective. The coalition is a national effort of unlikely allies and supporters that includes such conservative giants as Koch Industries, Americans for Tax Reform and Freedom Works as well as groups like the ACLU and NAACP.

According to their research:

•  While the U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population, it has 25 percent of its prisoners. We now lead the world with 2.2 million in prisons or jails. Our prison population has gone up by 500 percent over the last 30 years.

•  The federal prison population has increased by nearly 800 percent over the last few decades. Of these, 60 percent are nonviolent offenders.

•  Taxpayers are paying $80 billion per year to pay for this. And the costs are rising.

•  Between 70 million and 100 million Americans — nearly one out of three — has some kind of criminal record, “which carries lifelong barriers that can block successful re-entry and participation in society because of restrictions on employment, housing and voting. Mass incarceration contributes to a cycle of poverty that traps individuals, families and entire communities for generations.”

•  People who have been incarcerated typically earn 40 percent less per year than those who haven’t.

•  While drug abuse and crime occur across ethnic and socio-economic lines, punishments fall hardest on low-income communities and people of color. African-Americans are four times more likely to be imprisoned than white Americans and more than 60 percent of the prison population now come from minority communities.

It’s pretty clear. The blind alley of mass incarceration doesn’t make us safer, but it has destroyed lives and families and sucked up resources urgently needed elsewhere. Millions of Americans now live under the burden of felony convictions, which has been called “social death,” a lifelong loss of rights and privileges, along with poor life chances for work, education, asset building and family life. Meanwhile, the drug epidemic continues unabated.

Rather than repeat the mistakes of the past, we need to move forward based on evidence-based approaches that actually work to promote public safety, such as substance abuse treatment, community corrections for low-risk nonviolent offenders, validated risk and need assessments of offenders, and help with reentry to avoid recidivism.

Going backward is not an option.

Up in smoke

West Virginia has made some strides in the direction of reason in its criminal justice system, but there is still huge room for improvement. The Charleston Gazette recently reported that marijuana arrests accounted for over half of the drug busts in the state.

For the record, El Cabrero is no stoner. I figure if alcohol was good enough for my old man and my hillbillly and Scotch Irish ancestors, it's good enough for me. But still...there's got to be a better way.

THE CRISIS THAT WASN'T. For years, deficit scolds like Paul Ryan have been warning that Medicare costs, like those of Social Security and Medicaid, are growing at an unsustainable rate. That turns out to be BS too, thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act.

ANOTHER CIVILIZED STATE? Could it be that even a state like Tennessee is considering expanding Medicaid?

ANOTHER GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR is in the quality of food.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

More good

In keeping with my occasional theme of talking about things that are going right in West Virginia, a friend sent me the following link about a project of Laotong Yoga in which some mutual friends teach yoga classes to inmates of the WV Division of Corrections. The program is popular with administrators as well as male and female inmates. Click on the link and you'll find some glowing testimonies to the mental, physical and social benefits of the practice on and off the mat.

AND HERE'S AN EARLIER INTERVENTION...The American Academy of  Pediatrics has a simple prescription for kids as young as infants: read aloud to them.

I'm in so much trouble

Over the years,the Spousal Unit and I have had a disagreement or too. No, really. One of these is about guinea hens. I think they're so ugly they're cute. She thinks they are loud, messy and obnoxious.

But last night when a friend emailed saying he had some baby guineas and asked if I wanted any, I replied with a profanity-laced affirmative. I was mostly kidding. He was serious. Before I really thought it through I was on my way to my buddy's farm.

I wound up coming home with 11 babies who are now residing in a box in the house with a heat lamp shining above.

They are kind of cute at this point but they are already LOUD. The only consolation is that one guinea peeping is almost as loud as all of them peeping together so there's really not much difference, really, between having three or four and having eleven. That's my story anyway.

They do seem to quiet down a bit when I sing "Mule Skinner Blues" to them, but that's not something once can do 24/7

So while guineas are in the house, El Cabrero is in the doghouse.

YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS: austerity is a bad idea.

IN THE CROSSHAIRS. House Republicans are targeting food stamps (aka SNAP). Here's the lowdown.

ALSO A TARGET, of course, is the Affordable Care Act. Here's some interesting public opinion research on that topic.

WANT TO REDUCE PRISON ADMISSIONS? Try reducing the dropout rate.

CAT YOGA. You knew they did it. Here are some outstanding examples.

FINANCIAL ADVICE on a 4x6 index card.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED