In my last post, I addressed the problems of solitary confinement, violence and corruption in prisons. Initally, when researching these issues, solitary confinement stood out as the most pressing, possibly because of the moving personal account of Kalief Browder. This past Tuesday, Brenden Beck came to visit our class from Milk Not Jails, an organization that advocates for prison reform. He described their approach using the steps of incarceration. This gave me a new perspective on the problems I was analyzing. I thought by focusing on solitary confinement, I could not only tackle the issues in the “prison” part of the process but also in “re-entry”.

According to a report by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) [1], there are currently 4,500 prisoners in solitary confinement in New York, most of which spend 23 hours a day locked alone in their cells. Such extreme isolation has been shown to cause severe emotional and psychological trauma, even for prisoners with no history of mental illness [1]. The New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC), states that those with mental illness are disproportionately likely to be put in isolation [2]. By putting vulnerable inmates in cells the size of elevators, their condition – possibly the reason for their “unruly” behavior- is not being addressed, but ignored. Thus the prospect of recovery and, ultimately, a healthy “re-entry” into society is almost impossible. What these prisoners need is rehabilitation and counseling services.

As Mr. Beck mentioned, Milk Not Jails is currently lobbying for the passage of the SAFE Parole Act, which aims to ease up on parole laws, and ultimately minimize incarceration. In the same manner, I feel that changes in solitary confinment need to start with a legislation that reforms the way extreme isolation is both sentenced and carried out. The two solitary confinement-only facilities in New York cost about $76 million a year to operate [1]. By drafting stricter laws on what sanctions officers to sentence solitary confinement, and therefore downsizing the number of beds needed in these facilities, this money could instead be spent on social workers, therapists and other rehabilitation programs for those prisoners.

As far as this legislation, there are several core issues which I believe it needs to address. Although the UN has declared isolation exceeding 15 days as torturous, New York City has no limit on the rules of isolated confinement [2] In addition, the process of getting into solitary confinement is extremely unfair. It often results from an arbitrary decision from prison guards who have no training in how to handle the mental and emotional conditions of the inmates [2]. I propose a solution in the following; an increased budget for rehabilitation of these prisoners, along with legislation that not only limits the amount of time in solitary, but also looks to extreme isolation as a last resort. In this way, not only are prisons being reformed but the inmates have a much higher chance of a healthy and productive reintegration into society.

Sources:

[1] http://www.nyclu.org/files/publications/nyclu_boxedin_FINAL.pdf

[2] http://nycaic.org/facts/

Out of the problems I addressed in my previous post, I feel that the most pressing, and the one with the most potential for improvement, is police officer training. After the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases, a large protests sparked in an effort to reform police tactics. Slogans like “black lives matter” and “I can’t breathe” were like choruses among the protesters, as the poor handling of the cases led to the careless deaths of Garner and Brown. Some attribute this to racism and police brutality, I however, attribute the unfortunate deaths to a lack of training, and a “heat of the moment” decision that had negative consequences. I highly doubt that Officer Daniel Pantaleo or Officer Darren Wilson intended to kill their suspects, but instead, were undertrained in restraint techniques and had an over-reliance on firearms, respectively. In order to decrease casualties, I believe a police officers should have extensive training in Martial Arts, know the difference between lethal and non-lethal takedowns, and use all the tools at their disposal, like police batons, rather then depend on firearms for every situation.

The Garner case is a fundamental one for explaining the lack of police training. Officer Pantaleo used an illegal chokehold to subdue Garner, and as soon as Garner was on the ground, plenty of officers were on top of him. The use of the chokehold shows that officer Pantaleo lacks martial arts training. For his height, in comparison to Garners, there were several other non-lethal takedowns that the officer oculd have implemented. Wrist locks, shoulder lock control, arm locks, etc. Why did Pantaleo go for Garner’s neck? I obviously cannot speak on his behalf, but I assume it is because that is his go to submission technique; that officer Pantaleo lacks any technical knowledge of non-lethal takedowns, or, that he hasn’t trained nearly enough in such takedowns. This simple concept needs to change. If anyone should be masters of martial arts, it is police officers. We not only expect them to subdue criminals and protect the general public, but be skilled enough to subdue a suspect without causing sufficient harm.

How do we go about giving officers the skill sets that they need however? How can officers be expected to have a mastery in combat? Simple: training, and constant training. I do not mean to criticize Commissioner Bratton’s policies however, police officers will need much more than a one time training session. According to a New York Times article, Bratton explains that “every officer would go through a three-day retraining course, on how to talk to an “uncooperative person” in a way that does not escalate into a physical conflict; how to subdue a suspect if the encounter does escalate or if a suspect resists arrest; and how to be sensitive to cultural differences,” (Goodman 2). The Commissioner and the police force are going about this all wrong. They should not view this as a “re-training” but as a new training altogether. Police officers need a wider range of tools to use at their disposal, and a 3 day course will not give officers the ability to practice, perfect, and use these tools effectively. If you show an officer how to subdue a suspect non-violently only once, there will be no way to commit that to memory. He must have constant training sessions.

Is it with this that I suggest monthly training sessions in the Police Department where officers must learn and practice proper submissions techniques, hand to hand combat scenarios, and weapon scenarios. They should also be graded on their ability as an incentive to continue improving. Allocating funds may be the most difficult agenda, however, instead of squeezing out funds to increase the size of the police force, they could use that money to instigate training programs, possibly at the Police Academy. In fact, Police Academies could host martial arts and training seminars and instruction classes every weekend, where officers would be required to attend at least once a month. These techniques could be taught by licensed martial arts practitioners, and could go under screening until the city finds the techniques suitable Not only does this benefit the community, but the safety of officers as well. Dan Inosanto, a legendary martial artists during the Bruce Lee era (and one of Lee’s closest friends) demonstrated in an instructional video (which I linked below) that a gun is not ideal for every situation, despite the fact it is the officers first instinct to draw it.

In order to improve community relations and keep our streets safer, I believe that police officers need to become expertly trained in their craft, and not only “re-train” but greatly expand their entire martial arts knowledge.

Video:http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_KJ1R2PCMM

other sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/opinion/eric-garner-daniel-pantaleo-and-lethal-police-tactics.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/nyregion/bratton-outlines-overhaul-in-training-for-new-york-city-police-officers.html?_r=0

Policing Solution: Prison Reform

While there are many pressing issues that surround policing, particularly in New York City, perhaps the most complicated issue is that of incarceration in New York State prisons. As we have discussed often in class, inmates face many cruel and inhumane conditions in prison such as solitary confinement and abuse from prison guards and officers. Many convicts are arrested for minor crimes and are unfairly sentenced and sometimes held too long in prisons, while others serve their sentences, but have no help or rehabilitation during their time in jail and cannot manage to assimilate into normal society once released.

As Brenden Beck said in his lecture, there are many points during a prisoner’s sentence where reform and social innovation can help improve or eliminate incarceration. Through his campaign Milk Not Jails, Beck tries to solve incarceration by providing an “economic alternative to the prison industry” (Beck 1). Therefore, instead of relying on prisons as their main source of work, communities in Upstate New York can turn to dairy farming. While this idea is an excellent alternative to prison, it may take a very long time for programs like Milk Not Jails to successfully close down a number of prisons in New York State and around the country, especially with opposition from farmers and prison workers in the surrounding rural communities.

Therefore I would suggest that a faster way of creating social change in the prison system, for the time being, would be by improving the current state of prisons. The best way to do this is by creating programs that offer therapy, rehabilitation and counseling for inmates in prison. This would help prisoners cope with their sentences as well as provide them with the tools necessary to resume ordinary life after prison and successfully find work.

According to the American Psychological Association providing effective prison therapy will not only improve the lives of inmates after leaving jail, but “also helps with prison safety” (APA 1) providing services like “crises interventions” (1) for prisoners who commit or are victims of violence in prison. Many such programs have been found effective throughout the United States. In California for example, The Honor Program was created in 2000 and was founded to teach prisoners “principles of incentivizing positive behavior” allowing them to take advantage of “specific self-improvement and rehabilitative goals and projects which benefit the community” (Rushfan 1). By treating prisoners as humans who have made mistakes, rather than dangerous criminals, The Honor Program proves to be a success, in terms of safety and finance. In its first year alone the Honor Program led to an “88% decrease in incidents involving weapons” and an 85% decrease in violent incidents overall in California state prisons” (1). Furthermore the program saved the state up to $200,000 per year on costs of extra security due to violent outbreaks (2).

Thus, while the prison system ultimately is in need of alternative solutions, I believe the best way to solve the many issues it presents is by transforming it from a place of danger and punishment to a place where one can be rehabilitated and changed for the better.

Sources Cited

http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/2012/02/op-ed-new-york-should-make-milk-not-prisons/

http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug03/helping.aspx

http://listverse.com/2008/08/14/top-10-modern-prison-programs/

The first problem that came to me a week ago was the problem of police discrimination. Of course, discrimination has been around as long as humans and this is a problem that is out of out reach, but can be lessened with the idea of body cameras. The idea of body camera is attaching cameras to the uniforms of police officers as a mean to monitor their behaviors on their patrols. It has been enforced in some cities or states in the United States such as Ferguson where a fatal shooting happened to a young African American boy. Body cameras are a great way to monitor both the behaviors of patrolling officers and the civilians in that patrolled area. According to a research conducted by the Police Foundation Executive Fellow, Chief Tony Farrar, it was evident that the body cameras caused a 50% reduction of excessive force and after the 12 months of experiment, the citizens’ complaints have gone down by 90%. Through this study in California, the usage of body cameras can significantly impact the behaviors of police officers to be more kind and gentle rather than the rough bullies they are depicted to be. Although it may change their behaviors, they are still enforcing the law onto us the same way with less force.

Body cameras can promote fair analysis of “suspicious” targets that are colored minus the discrimination when these targets are going through airports or areas where they do body checks. Some people are critically offended when they are being searched and others will waste a lot of time for the judgment of the officers. With cameras on the police force, prejudice will be reduced and the body searching or luggage searching will solely be on the level of suspicion that the suspect is showing or search every other 5 people coming through.

Another problem that I came up with was police brutality, which also can be helped by the usage of body cameras. Body cameras will monitor the level of force the officers use to prevent future cases of police brutality. According to same research above, there was a huge reduction of police office using excessive force. With police officers monitored by higher ups, they will be more likely to act with less discrimination and a more justified level of force.

In addition to body cameras, streetlights can also have cameras to capture videos of the surrounding areas. I believe video evidences are the most solid evidence there is and can be used to prevent people from committing crimes at specific spots and officers can avoid those spots on their routinely patrols. Some may argue the idea of body cameras and cameras in the streets to be an overwhelming amount of power for the government to have and have eyes on us all the time. The people of the neighborhoods can elect people they trust to work for the government to monitor these cameras to have an involvement in their community, but of course the government will monitor those that were vouched by the communities. The cameras will help us reduce crime rates and police brutality.

http://www.policefoundation.org/content/body-worn-cameras-police-use-force

One of the more serious problems with law enforcement today lies in the way our prison system is structured. With punishment being at the forefront of our concerns, enormous amounts of people are jailed. This in turn puts our country at the top, causing us to have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. There are a few solutions that may work when trying to solve this problem, but the one I am going to focus on is rehabilitation.

There are currently 4,575 operating prisons in the United States, more than four times the number of Russia. With this high number of prisons we also have a large number of prisoners. About 1.57 million inmates are behind bars in federal, state and county prisons or jails. Half of these prisoners that are in federal prisons serving a year or longer sentence are there for drug crimes. This is where rehabilitation comes in. Drug rehabilitation has been shown to work. Some facilities have boasted drug treatment rates of 75%-80%. Although this number is high it is promising. The average treatment rate for drug rehabilitation centers lies somewhere around 50%. With so many criminals behind bars for non-violent drug crimes, I believe that putting these people through rehabilitation programs would be much more effective than sentencing them to time in prison.

Currently it costs on average $31,000 a year to incarcerate an individual in the United States. The average rehab program lasts a month and costs $7500. The numbers speak for themselves. Rehab would cost less and focus more on making a person better, not focus on punishment as our system currently does.

My idea for implementing rehabilitation over incarceration would start with the smallest sentences. Every non-violent drug related crime with a sentence that would normally be under a year should be converted to a sentence to rehabilitation. This would allow for the person to better him or herself and hopefully cause less of a risk of relapse of either using the drug or taking part in criminal activity associated with the drug. Other sentences over a year would be shortened with a rehabilitation sentence appended onto the end of their prison time. Again, this would allow for less of a probability of relapse.

Another way to fix this problem is to lessen the charges for drug related crimes period. Too many time we see people being sentenced to ridiculous sentences for small drug related crimes. Most of our legislation regarding punishment for drug related crimes is extremely outdated, and although drug reform is popular today, it is not popular enough; drug reform must begin to take place on a national level.

In the end, the solution is simple, keep more of our citizens out of prison. We need to start focusing on rehabilitation of people who have committed wrong doings, not focus on punishing them so that they can relapse and “hate the system”. With a combination of reforming legislation and our mindsets on viable punishment options this can take place and hopefully solve some of our incarceration issues.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/17/3568232/the-united-states-had-even-more-prisoners-in-2013/

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/15/us_has_more_prisoners_prisons_than_any_other_country/

http://www.wisegeek.com/does-drug-rehab-work.htm#didyouknowout

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-a-nation-of-incarceration/

http://www.rehabs.com/about/frequently-asked-questions-about-addiction-rehabilitation/

One of the big problems that is present in policing is the prisons. According to crimeinameria.net, two thirds of the prisoners released return back to jail within three years. Within five years, three fourths of those released return to incarceration. This indicates that the problem lies within the way they are being reintegrated back into society. The change from being incarcerated to being released is vast. It takes time for those prisoners to get used to society, but they are not given any. This can cause many issues as we have seen in one of the reading we have done for class.

To fix this, I propose that there be another location that prisoners would have to stay before actually being released. This period of time would ideally be the last year of an inmate’s sentence. This could slowly help rehabilitate inmates to society. It would be a facility that would give each inmate more freedom, but not complete freedom, since his or her sentence has not been fully completed. This would give prisoners a chance to slowly get used to society. According to justicefellowship.org, the violence in prisons is one of the reasons that they are unable to successfully reintegrate in to society. To help eliminate this, prisoners that are excessively violent in the facilities would be returned to regular incarceration. This will remove violence between prisoners. One of the larger sources of the violence is said to be from the prison guards themselves. To reduce this, a series of intensive interview would be required for every guard before hiring. This along with, regular inspections could decrease violence between guards and inmates.

Since the whole point of the facility is to help them reintegrate back into society, it would beneficial to have a decent education system involved. To do this, facilities would be classes that would be mandatory for every inmate. These classes would help teach them valuable skills that they can use in the real world. This would require more of an intensive class unlike the ones that were held in the regular prisons. The class could help those who don’t already have a GRE get one so that they can more easily find a job. For those who already have GRE, there could be classes that teach them skills for various other jobs.

These facilities could replace some of the jails that are currently in place. It would need would also need to hold a quarter of the people in a regular jail. This is viable due to the fact that the program focuses on decreasing the number of people in prison. This program would lead to more jobs in the area near the previous jail due to the extra positions that would be necessary to run it, so citizens would be on board with creating these facilities. Therefore, prison guards would not be opposed to the creation of these facilities. The farmers in the area would not disagree with having less criminals leaving near them. Everyone wins.

Sources:

http://www.crimeinamerica.net/2010/09/29/percent-of-released-prisoners-returning-to-incarceration/

http://www.justicefellowship.org/prison-violence/

The United States has a major problem of incarcerating too many people. The United States is waging a war on drugs (many of which are smuggled across the Mexican border) and is punishing the users of the drugs rather than attacking the problem at its source. Many prisoners we currently have are being sent there for minor drug related offenses. People are being sent to prison only for carrying around drugs with no intention to sell and this is where the problem lies. The government has to realize that it can’t win this war on drugs and follow the examples set by other countries that have already accepted that fact.

One such country that has chosen to decriminalize drugs is Portugal. In 2001, Portugal became the first European country to abolish all criminal penalties for drug possession. Being a historically Catholic conservative nation, there were many skeptics who believed that Portugal would become a drug tourist haven. Eight years later in 2009 a study done showed the exact opposite occurred. HIV infection rates declined as people were no longer sharing needles for heroin use, illegal drug use among teens dropped, and the amount of people checking in for drug use rehabilitation doubled. The money saved in enforcing these drugs laws was put towards drug rehabilitation and overall the nation went from having one of the highest drug use rates in Europe to one of the lowest.

The United States should follow Portugal’s lead as I believe we could find similar success as Portugal. It is human nature to go after that which is not allowed, once the risk disappears, people are less likely to do it. Some states have already taken steps with the recent cannabis legalization movement. As of now Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Colorado, and Washington D.C. have legalized cannabis sales. This solves two problems we are facing. It cuts into the profits of the cartel and statistics show decreasing crime rates. In addition to both of those benefits, there has also been a massive influx of tax money gained from marijuana sales which is spent on education and drug rehabilitation.

My proposed solution is for the United States to drop its hard line stance on drugs and follow in the footsteps of Portugal which decriminalized drugs. The statistics show a decline in crime and drug use while having an increase in tax money and people checking in to drug rehabilitation. For many years  we have waged a costly war on drugs that has in no ways been effective and caused the deaths of many of our citizens. By changing our stance and attacking the problem at its source, we can create a safer environment for future generations where drug use will no longer be a problem they will have to deal with.

Sources:

• http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=107
• http://infocusrevue.com/2014/12/10/monthly-focus-the-war-on-drugs-mass-incarceration-in-the-united-states/
• http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html
• http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html
• http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA_Status_Report_Colorado_Marijuana_Regulation.pdf

In my previous post, I discussed a few notable policing problems that came to mind after reading and analyzing several articles and sets of data. I concluded that three main policing issues that certainly have room for improvement are stop-and-frisk racial profiling, police brutality, and community-police relationships.

From thoroughly examining these problems, I’ve determined that in order to improve the community-police relationships, we must first make better the racial profiling associated with stop-and-frisk along with police brutality. In my opinion, I believe the only way to stop the racial profiling associated with stop-and-frisk is to eradicate stop-and-frisk completely from the system. As long as this practice is in effect, minorities will always be the target. For one reason or another, cops always seem to deem minorities more “suspicious” than Caucasians and it is nearly impossible to alter the mindsets of individual officers. Some may suggest to implement a system where for every minority stopped a white man should also be stopped. With this, the purpose of the system has failed. Cops would no longer be performing these actions to keep the city safe, but rather to please the public eye via illegitimate statistics. This is why I believe the entire stop-and-frisk system must be eliminated. The first step to this was actually initiated by a federal judge in August 2013 who ruled stop-and-frisk unconstitutional. With reforms currently being implemented, I believe doing away with the entire practice is the way to go.

Stop-and-frisk currently occurs roughly 1,900 times per day in New York City. A viable alternative I see is reinstating CompStat, the program used with Mayor Rudy Giuliani in office. CompStat synthesizes analysis of crime and disorder data, and as a result the department is able to identify crime patterns and problems. After issues are identified, officers actively meet and discuss overlying problems and devise a strategy to attack and eliminate these problems. While I don’t want to go too in depth into this strategy as a replacement, the fact that this program focuses in on the “real criminals” who commit “real crimes” is key. I’m not by any means advocating marijuana use, but stop and seizure of marijuana should not be the top priority of the city. Through CompStat, the NYPD would be able to work proactively with the community to eliminate criminals who put the lives and wellbeing of others in danger.

While I believe this is the solution to stop-and-frisk racial profiling, I think police brutality can definitely be reduced and even eliminated through the use of body cameras. In September 2014, it was reported that body cameras would undergo a trial run in NYC with a small number of officers being equipped with them. I think that this is the ultimate solution. When people are on camera, they act differently. It is just a matter of fact. When an officer knows that his/her encounter with a criminal is being documented from start to finish, he/she will hesitate before doing anything that could be potentially harmful. While the police brutality image cannot be changed over night, I think the implementation of body cameras to NYPD officers will slowly but surely have a positive effect on the stereotype associated with cops and police brutality. All in all, if stop-and-frisk racial profiling and police brutality can be successfully addressed in the manners addressed above, we will see the relationship between the community and the police department improve endlessly. If the community starts to see an alteration in these areas, they will start to once again trust the men and women in blue. With trust will come a much improved relationship with those current distrusting members of the community.

References:

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/nyregion/de-blasio-stop-and-frisk.html
2. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/federal-court-ruling-allows-nyc-implement-stop-frisk-reforms/
3. http://www.compstat.umd.edu/what_is_cs.php
4. http://www.policeforum.org/assets/docs/Free_Online_Documents/Compstat/compstat%20-%20its%20origins%20evolution%20and%20future%20in%20law%20enforcement%20agencies%202013.pdf
5. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/nyregion/new-york-police-officers-to-begin-wearing-body-cameras-in-pilot-program.html