Prison Populations Are Expected To Boom Now That The Economy Is Recovering

As the U.S. economy improves, people are going back to work, investing in their homes, and preparing to make new purchases.

They’re also going to spend a lot more time in prison.

Walter Hickey of Business Insider Australia offers this report. Read more here.

Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow

Listen to Michelle Alexander and Ross Reynolds discuss mass incarceration and "The New Jim Crow" on The Conversation. Click on the buttons below Ross Reynolds' picture to listen to the broadcast.

Blacks Are Singled Out for Marijuana Arrests, Federal Data Suggests

By IAN URBINA
Published: June 3, 2013

WASHINGTON — Black Americans were nearly four times as likely as whites to be arrested on charges of marijuana possession in 2010, even though the two groups used the drug at similar rates, according to new federal data.

Read more at The New York Times

 

Telling the IRP-6 Story

Today's post is written by Dr. Alan Bean, of the non-profit organization, Friends of Justice. The acronym IRP, used throughout the article, stands for Investigative Resource Planning.
Quick shameless plug: Are you an expert in the area of race and incarceration? Do you have a story to tell? Advice to offer? Do you have an example from your own experience? We’d love to have you as the next Contributor Spotlight! Contact us at: 6and44@gmail.com.

Telling the IRP-6 Story

This is a story about how prosecutorial tunnel vision created a tragic communication failure.  The criminal justice system exists to give everyone a chance to tell their story.  Juries decide who brings the best story to the table.  Bad things happen when the system amplifies one story while silencing the other.

The IRP-6 case is characterized by an unusually deep divide between the government’s story and the defendants’ story.  Such a wide gap is rare, 95% of federal cases are resolved short of trial because few defendants ultimately maintain their innocence.  If a federal case proceeds to trial it is either because the government isn’t offering much of a plea deal or because the defendants actually believe in their own innocence.

There are two ways of approaching the issue and everything depends on where you start.  It has been said that where we place our focus determines what we miss.

Are the IRP-6 defendants innocent or guilty?  If they are guilty, why do they claim to be innocent and why are their friends, family and church so convinced that they are?  If they are innocent, why is the government, represented by Assistant US Attorney Kirsch, convinced of their guilt, and why did a jury agree?

This is primarily a story about motivation and intention.  Why did the IRP-6 choose to engage with staffing companies, and why did these companies choose to engage with IRP?

The government began with the second question and that made it difficult to take the first question seriously.  The defendants and their supporters, naturally, begin with the first question and answer the second question accordingly.

Let’s address the motivation and intention issue from the perspective of the defendants.  At every stage of the process IRP executives were convinced that they were on the verge of closing business with a major governmental agency and the company’s negotiations with the NYPD and DHS appeared to be particularly promising. 

On the other hand, IRP had no money and, because the company was repeatedly asked to make significant tweaks to its software, it became necessary to hire a wide range of personnel.  The alternative was to give up their dream, lay off all their employees, declare bankruptcy and leave a steadily growing list of creditors unpaid.  Since they were perennially convinced that a government contract was just around the corner they persevered. 

IRP engaged the services of staffing companies because, for a small, black-owned IT company doing business shortly after the dot.com meltdown, conventional sources of start-up income simply weren’t available.  IRP made a good faith attempt to obtain funding from banks, angel investors and other sources of investment capital, but repeatedly came up empty.  They used staffing companies to bridge the gap between the present and a successful future because that was the only way of staving off catastrophic consequences.

Now we address the issue of motivation and intent from the perspective of the staffing companies.  Why did they choose to engage with IRP?  The government’s answer is the narrative the jury heard at trial.  The staffing companies chose to do business with IRP because they were told that IRP had a contract with the government, or was on the verge of closing a contract.  They believed this story, and the story proved to be false.  Because IRP was never close to closing a contract with a government agency, the prosecution argued, they misrepresented their business position to the staffing companies and this suggests that they never had a viable product and they knew it.  Their only motivation for using staffing companies, therefore, was to get free labor.  No one ever asked why IRP would want to get free labor to work on a bogus product but it was hinted that the goal was to provide work for their friends.

The government turned a deaf ear to the defendants’ story because they had already committed to the staffing company’s narrative.  It is important to note, however, that the staffing company’s narrative was largely shaped by the government itself.  FBI agents approached these companies and said, in effect, “Do you know that you are the victim of fraud?” 

In theory, the decision to prosecute follows on the heels of an investigation.  In the Department of Justice, the FBI investigates and the US Attorney’s Office prosecutes.  But the IRP case began in the US Attorney’s Office and wasn’t handed to the FBI until the Assistant US Attorney had already developed a theory of the case and a prosecutorial strategy.  The prosecution began when a former AUSA was approached by a friend who happened to be the principal of a staffing company that had engaged in business with IRP.  Asked to assist, and knowing that failure to satisfy his friend’s request might impact his own career trajectory, the ex-prosecutor wrote a letter to AUSA Kirsch explaining his theory of the case and suggesting how the case could be prosecuted. 

This relates to Harvey Silverglate’s famous assertion that the vagueness of federal law makes it relatively easy for a federal prosecutor to successfully prosecute any business person or public official, especially those in financial embarrassment.  The fact that the first grand jury to hear the government’s case refused to indict (a rare occurrence) suggests that the government’s initial theory of the case and its prosecutorial strategy were seriously flawed.  In other words, it is likely that both AUSA Kirsch and the defendants genuinely believed their very different narratives.

Why did the staffing companies decide to engage with IRP?  Part of the reason was, as the government suggests, that they realized that if IRP did sign a contract with an agency like the NYPD or the DHS, a staffing relationship with IRP could prove very lucrative in the long term. 

But there is another side to this story—the side the jury never heard.  Trial testimony suggests that a staffing company run a Dun and Bradstreet credit check on prospective clients that is largely related to a company’s payment history.  Since, in the beginning, IRP had no payment history to speak of, and since, as the story developed, their payment history became progressively worse, none of the staffing companies could justify a decision to provide staffing to IRP.  Or, if services were provided, it was only in the belief that, although IRP was a clear credit risk, the staffing company would win big if IRP’s cash flow reversed in a dramatic way.

In other words, IRP executives shared their genuine belief that they were poised to do major business with law enforcement agencies and the staffing companies decided to roll the dice.

Unfortunately, the jury never heard this explanation because the presiding judge barred the testimony of the only witnesses who could have explained how staffing companies evaluate potential clients and make business decisions.  Andrew Albarelle, a veteran of the staffing industry with a wide-ranging knowledge of the IT field, was prepared to testify that IRP’s outreach to staffing companies was reasonable and legal and that a quick review of the Dun and Bradstreet credit check would have revealed that IRP might have trouble paying invoices in the short term.  If these companies decided to do business with IRP anyway, Albarelle believes, it was because they were motivated by the potential for windfall profits.  In this view, the staffing companies entered into business with eyes wide open.

Because this testimony was disallowed, the government’s story was amplified, the defendants’ story was effectively silenced, and the jury responded accordingly. 

This story could be told by interviewing Mr. Albarelle, Mr. Silverglate, the defendants (or their attorney), AUSA Kirsch (if he is agreeable), former IRP employees, church members and friends of the defendants, staffing company representatives and FBI special agents Moen and Smith.   The story would be about the growing potential for prosecutorial tunnel vision and wrongful conviction created by the vagueness of federal fraud law.

 

HB1338

The House Bill concerning juveniles sentenced to long terms has a number! HB1338 ...

 

Here is the bill ... THIS IS THE BILL THAT WE NEED TO SUPPORT! Please share this with everyone you know.

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1338&year=2013

There are 14 co-sponsors on this bill which is very encouraging considering that the senate bill (SB 5064) only has 2 ... I will update on hearing dates, location and times as they become available !!!

For Lesser Crimes, Rethinking Life Behind Bars

By JOHN TIERNEY

Published: December 11, 2012   

 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Stephanie George and Judge Roger Vinson had quite different opinions about the lockbox seized by the police from her home in Pensacola. She insisted she had no idea that a former boyfriend had hidden it in her attic. Judge Vinson considered the lockbox, containing a half-kilogram of cocaine, to be evidence of her guilt.

 

Read the article here.

ACLU's Page on The War on Drugs

The ACLU has created a great page on their blog dedicated to information related to the War on Drugs. If you don't already know, the War on Drugs, declared by President Nixon, was actually started for political reasons. Over the past 40 years, the War on Drugs has had devastating affects on the African-American community and has been the largest contributing factor to the explosion in the U.S. prison population. As a result of War on Drugs laws, African Americans are incarcerated at rates 10 times greater than whites, even though whites commit more drug offenses.

Check out the ACLU War on Drugs page, and get to work helping to change the laws that contribute to this injustice.

Image here.

A Day in the Life of the Death Penalty



Warren Hill

It saddens me that I'm not even shocked to see that both of these men, set to be executed, are black, and that they will be put to death in the Southern states of Georgia and Texas.  I don't know how "ya'll" do things in the South, but putting mentally handicapped men to death doesn't sound like justice to me.  It sounds like murder.

Check out the full article in The Atlantic here.

Yokamon Hearn

Warren Hill's photo is here with more on his case.

Yokomon Hearn's photo can be found here along with a petition through Amnesty International.

Institutional racism in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating

Institutional racism in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating

Prison in America

This powerful eight-part series on how Louisiana became the prison capital of the world, published by the Times-Picayune, is some of the best journalism I have seen about mass incarceration in America.  Go take a look.

You can watch the first video here.