Just a quick note to point people to the student essay in the current issue of Contexts.  My student, Tasha Galardi, wrote about her experience and what she learned in our Inside-Out class this spring 2009.  Her observations about the inside students (inmates) and how they helped her come to a new understanding of sociological concepts and criminological theories is thoughtful and revealing.

Here’s the link:

http://contexts.org/articles/fall-2009/learning-from-the-inside-out/

Hope you can take the time to read it.  Please feel free to comment here – I’ll pass your notes along to Tasha.

Here’s a feel-good story for Halloween: The Oregonian reports on a program out of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office where inmate trustees from the county jail give more than 800 hours a month to the local animal shelter.  The story credits the inmates with saving the lives of countless animals:

“It helps us tremendously,” says Sgt. Barbara Perry of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, the interim shelter manager. “We have been able to reduce the amount of euthanasia dramatically because the inmates come and do a lot of the work we would normally do.

“That allows us to dedicate more time to very important programs such as fostering, second chance programs and rescue groups. Those are vital programs that we should be utilizing rather euthanizing because we don’t have space or time.”

The program seems to be a win-win-win: good for the animals, good for the county, and good for the inmates who are involved.  It may lead to brighter futures for the inmates as well as the rescued dogs and cats.  Duane Parton III (pictured) is taking part in the program while serving more than 200 days for not paying fines on a DUI and misdemeanor charges.

“I love animals,” says Parton, who has learned to give vaccinations and how to detect illness in the rescued canines. He’s recently decided he may take veterinarian classes when he enrolls in community college.

“I am actually glad I am in jail because I get to do this,” says the 26-year-old skateboarder. “How often do you hear that?”

Not often enough.  Sounds like a great program to me.  Thanks to the Oregonian for reporting on it  and offering a hopeful story on second chances.  Happy Halloween, everyone!

News from the White House:  President Obama has announced his intent to nominate James P. Lynch as Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Department of Justice.  Here’s the official bio:

James P. Lynch, Nominee for Director, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Department of Justice

James Lynch is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College, City University of New York.  He was previously a professor in the Department of Justice, Law, and Society at American University from 1986 to 2005 and chair of the Department from 2003 to 2005.  Dr. Lynch is currently serving as the Vice President-elect of the American Society of Criminology (ASC).  He previously served on the Committee on Law and Justice Statistics of the American Statistical Association and as a member of the National Academy of Science panel evaluating the programs of the Bureau of Justice Statistics.  Dr. Lynch has published three books and numerous articles on crime statistics, victimization surveys, victimization risk, and the role of sanctions in social control and is also co-editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.  He received his B.A. degree from Wesleyan University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago.

In my opinion, Jim Lynch is the perfect choice to direct BJS.  Along with John Laub’s nomination to head NIJ, two very smart and distinguished criminologists are suddenly in place to hold key administrative positions.   What great examples of public and policy criminology…I look forward to their leadership.

Good luck, Jim!

After weeks of feeling I had nothing interesting to say/blog about, I suddenly have several stories that I would like to comment on and invite others to respond to.  I’ll start with the one that raises the most questions for me, and I’ll try to get to the others in the near future.

I first read about the Prison Entrepreunership Program in a feature story in Miller-McCune earlier this year.  Here’s how author Vince Beiser described the program and its results in the Miller-McCune article:

So far, the program has put 440 male inmates through four months of classes in which volunteer executives and MBA students from the likes of Harvard and Stanford help them develop business plans. Applicants are carefully screened. They must be within a year of their release, renounce gang affiliations and submit to several tests and interviews. Only about 1 in 7 is accepted. Nearly half are kicked out over the course of the program for infractions ranging from cheating on tests to maintaining gang ties.

PEP also provides crucial support after release. Staff members pick up each graduate at the prison gate and help him find a place to stay. At the organization’s headquarters in a north Houston office park, program grads choose suits from a room full of donated business clothes. Post-release classes and mentoring opportunities are available. Rohr and her husband even take the men out to the beach or the movies sometimes and organize holiday parties for them.

By the organization’s count, almost all of the program’s graduates have found jobs after their release, and 57 have started their own businesses, ranging from landscaping to dog training. Just shy of 9 percent have so far wound up behind bars again — an impressive statistic in a state with a recidivism rate of around 30 percent. “No question, it’s an innovative model with a lot of promise,” says Amy Solomon, a researcher at the Urban Institute specializing in prisoner re-entry issues.

That record is bringing the program major support. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice gave it an award for being the state’s “most innovative” volunteer program in 2007. The group’s budget, donated by individuals and foundations (including a recent $750,000 grant from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation), swelled from nothing in 2004 to $2.5 million last year. PEP now has 26 employees, many of them program graduates.

And now, this disappointing news reported in the Austin American-Statesman:  Catherine Rohr, the PEP program’s founder and driving force, abruptly resigned after she was banned from entering state prisons for having “improper relationships” with four graduates of her program.  The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has banned Rohr from prisons and from working with parolees, with a spokeswoman stating: “Our policies are clear: Volunteers cannot have personal or intimate relationships with current or former offenders.”

There are plenty of ethical and moral issues here, and Rohr made poor decisions that may now threaten her entire program.  She certainly seems to have shattered her own life.  But what bothers me most is the punitive action of the state.  I know other states have similar policies, but it seems to me a rather long reach for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to banish Rohr so completely for having inappropriate relationships with men who are no longer under their supervision.  It just doesn’t seem like it should be the state’s business at that  point.  I know the focus isn’t on the men – it’s on Rohr in her role as a volunteer with the agency – but I think the banishment sends a clear message about the absolute lack of confidence the agency has in the rehabilitation of the men released from its own institutions.

I hate stories like these.  As a female teacher/volunteer in state prisons, I feel like I’m always forced to deal with an extra layer of suspicion that my male counterparts are somehow exempt from (at least in male prisons).  It’s frustrating when stories like this one add fuel to those generalized suspicions.  Even worse, though, I suspect the loss of Rohr will do a tremendous amount of damage to the PEP program.  Hopefully, the program has enough momentum and support to keep it going under new leadership.  It seems to be making a difference for a population that  needs all the hope and skills training it can get.

I was struck by this photo by Bruce Ely in the online version of today’s Oregonian.  The story is about the former state senator who has been appointed by the Governor to chair the parole board; she brings an interesting history and perspective to a high-pressure and largely thankless job.

It’s the photo of an inmate pleading his case in the parole board’s hearing room at the Oregon State Penitentiary, though, that really caught my attention.  Although I’ve spent quite a bit of time teaching in the penitentiary and been on more than a dozen lengthy tours, I’ve never been in the parole board’s hearing room in the prison, and didn’t realize they made inmates face the board and plead their case through an actual cage.

I find this very disturbing.  Surely there are other/better ways to keep the board safe when face-to-face with potentially volatile inmates.  For men fighting for their lives and a chance to return to the community, what’s the message here?  Is it possible for the parole board members to become desensitized to the cage and to be able to offer impartial decisions?

The new chair of the parole board offered this comment:  “Ninety-five percent of offenders return to the community,” she says. “If we as a board don’t believe in redemption, we’re in trouble.”  If the board truly believes in redemption, perhaps they should consider an alternative to the inmate cage in their hearing room.

From President Obama’s address to America’s school children

I get it. I know what it’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us the things that other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and I felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been on school, and I did some things I’m not proud of, and I got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was — I was lucky. I got a lot of second chances, and I had the opportunity to go to college and law school and follow my dreams…

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home — none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future….

(photo for Sara!)

So, Chris scooped me in writing about compensation for exonerees in Texas.  The story was on my radar, too, but I’ve got a somewhat different take on it.  While I agree that clearing one’s name is a vital concern for many of the falsely accused, I do actually think Texas is offering a relatively generous compensation package.  After a 45-day processing period, exonerees can expect to get $80,000 for each year spent behind bars, and lifetime annuity payments that are generally worth between $40,000 and $50,000 per year.

I’ve written about exonerees here before, and it always seemed clear to me that you couldn’t put a price on years stolen from lives by miscarriages of justice.  How would you decide what a decade of your life is worth?  What is the cost of spending your 20’s and/or your 30’s behind bars?  You would miss out on growth, maturity, exploration, and health.   One of the biggest regrets I hear from inmates (generally “rightfully” convicted and harshly sentenced) who have spent much of their young adulthood in prison is their fear that they have missed their chance to have families of their own.  How much worse must it be if you were imprisoned for a crime you did not commit?

These issues are more real and concrete to me than ever as I follow the case of my inside student, Philip Scott Cannon.  Since I first wrote about Philip’s case, his conviction has been overturned.  After serving a decade (of a life sentence without the possibility of parole) in prison, he’ll get a chance to present his case again – complete with new witnesses, a new lawyer, and better science – and perhaps he’ll get a second chance at life in the community.   If that is the case, I think $800,000 and a guaranteed $40,000-$50,000 per year would give him some peace of mind.  His children are his priority, and it would be nice if he could spend time with them without having to immediately worry about getting a job and finding a way to support himself after so many years in prison.

In a letter to the Salem Statesman-Journal, Philip wrote:

Prison sucks, but it can be a place of personal introspection, learning and self-improvement.  It has been for me.  Contrary to popular belief, the majority of men I’ve met here acknowledge their actions, and the underlying reasons for their having pleaded “not guilty” is to dispute over-blown charges and excessive  sentences.  Prison can be very violent and life altering.  Prison is what you make of it.  The true punishment of prison is the separation from your loved ones.  My youngest son was born while I awaited trial.  I only know him from the precious visits we have had over the years.  Our bond is strong, but can it be truly functional under the circumstances?

…When I do regain my freedom, I have no doubt that there will always be some degree of residual suspicion from certain people.  That will be my dark cloud.  Still, I welcome the burden.

I’ve been thinking about the value of a decade in one’s life, too, because of Tom Curtis, another of my former inside students.  Tom was released from the Oregon State Correctional Institution on Friday after serving ten years.   His case may be vaguely familiar – he was featured on “America’s Most Wanted” as a teenager.  The Oregonian explains his history like this:

Back in high school in the mid-90s, Curtis appeared to have everything going for him. He was an Eagle Scout, homecoming king, track star. He had supportive parents and a college scholarship.

Yet Curtis also led a double life as a masked gunman. He was accused in a string of armed robberies, evaded arrest and eventually landed on the television show “America’s Most Wanted.”

Police described Curtis and a handful of friends as college-bound, middle-class kids in search of excitement. They started with car prowls, then progressed to robbing neighborhood stores, mostly in Northeast Portland….

He disappeared for months, then showed up that June at a post-graduation party thrown by his high school buddies in Mazatlan, Mexico. He drank beer and hung out with his friends. No one turned Curtis in to authorities, sparking a heated debate among Portlanders about youth and the moral lessons they were learning.

I didn’t make the connection between adult Tom and the audacious and dangerous teenager in these stories until his release made headline news in Oregon.  I know him as a very bright, motivated student with a quick sense of humor that easily diffused potentially volatile exchanges in the prison classroom.  It’s got to be scary – and exciting – for him to get out of prison at the age of 29.  It will be a real challenge to put his prison experience behind him and find a way to live up to his Eagle Scout, student body president, homecoming king potential.  I hope he gets a chance to continue his education and to make a postive contribution.

How have you spent your last decade?  What might the next one be worth to you?

Here’s a short and, I think, uplifting story about some of the good work coming out of prisons.  Inmates in the Oregon State Penitentiary just donated $1000 to HOME Youth and Resource Center, a day shelter and drop-in center for homeless and at-risk youth in Salem.  That’s $1000 directly from inmates’ personal funds, where an average inmate may make $50 per month working in the prison.

Nearly a year ago, my Inside-Out class at the penitentiary chose to work as a group to sponsor a hygiene drive for HOME, in hopes of helping homeless teens and ultimately keeping them out of prison.  We were all amazed at the generosity of the inmate population as they donated brand new bottles of shampoo, toothbrushes, deodorant, razors, and socks from their own scarce supply.  As I wrote about in an earlier post,  we were able to deliver more than a dozen boxes of hygiene supplies and OSU tee-shirts to the shelter.  It was a great day.

The Statesman-Journal published an editorial that described our project like this:

Inderbitzin also challenged the 31 participants to “develop a small-scale, doable prevention project that we could put into action before the quarter was over…They came through in a big way,” she said. “There are a number of aspects to their project, but their main focus was to help homeless teenagers in the Salem area.”

OSU students updated a resource guide for homeless teens. These “outside” students also collected new hygiene products from inmates, prison staff members and even the OSU football team. The “inside” students collected a dozen boxes of products from the inmates and prison staffers. The “outside” students delivered the items to a Salem outreach program lastweekend.

Reflecting on the project, one “inside” student said: “Our group took this challenge to heart, and although not every individual agreed on the focus, every individual gave it their best effort. I watched the effect it had, within our class and in the prison, and I’m not ashamed to admit I had misty eyes when I saw the amount of donated goods that poured in from the prisoners. With only 700 jobs — and most with a monthly salary of $50 — these men gave a big chunk of their pay to kids they don’t even know.”

I’m glad to see the guys in OSP kept working all year to help the homeless kids in Salem.  It’s nice to be reminded that some good really can come out of prison.

(photo is an actual picture of the HOME center, where youth proclaim in the window that “HOME Rocks”)

i’ve written before about my inside student, philip scott cannon, an inmate at the oregon state penitentiary serving life without parole for murdering three people.  he has spent the last ten years in prison, watching his two sons grow up in the stifling visiting room of the prison, and losing everything he owned to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for his defense.

while he has maintained his innocence and served his prison sentence, the forensic evidence used to convict cannon has been discredited and dismissed as “junk science.”  bimla boyd, the star witness who testified against cannon, has gone on to serve a prison term for committing a different murder on the same property.  and new witnesses have come forward, disputing the timeline of the boyd’s account and placing her at the scene of the murders.

today, big news from the penitentiary: philip scott cannon’s conviction has been overturned.  i happened to be in the prison today to meet with students and i got to hear the news from philip in person.  he is no longer convicted, but he was still indicted on these charges and he will be transferred to the county jail to await a new trial.  i only hope the district attorney doesn’t keep him waiting in county jail – where his youngest son will not be allowed to visit him – for long.

philip’s case reminds me that justice is messy, very human, and sometimes mistaken.  i’m appalled it’s taken more than ten years for his conviction to be overturned, but relieved and glad that he’s getting a second chance to go to trial and have all of the evidence heard.  i do hope justice is ultimately served.

after a lengthy conversation with the dude handing out those nifty contexts guitar picks, i’ll break my blog silence by offering a quick update on how i spent my spring/summer non-vacation.  the basic overview is represented in the title to this post, which i realize sounds something like a bad b-movie.

prisons: i brought the inside-out program to another prison in oregon, teaching the first-ever class in the oregon state correctional institution this spring.  the class went well and the guys in OSCI are eagerly awaiting the next offering.  for the first six weeks of summer, i taught my seventh inside-out class in the oregon state penitentiary.  as part of the summer class, the students created their own blog, which they hope will build and grow as new classes are offered and new students add their own perspectives.

girls: from january through june, i taught a class once  a week for six months in our state’s juvenile correctional facility for young women.  i brought in about eight female OSU students each quarter and we held informal classes and discussions with six incarcerated young women.  one of their main goals/projects was to put on a women’s symposium for the entire institution.  my group of girls/young women planned and ran the events and workshops, raised money to bring in a pizza lunch, created a highly entertaining video of the OSU campus and experience, and brought in oregon state university’s first lady as our keynote speaker.  it was a wonderful event.  in addition, my spring-term delinquency class did a number of service-learning projects at the facility, including book clubs, art projects, and movie screening/discussions.  some of those projects, with kids in the community, were highlighted by our juvenile probation and parole department.

football: lastly, i just finished teaching a 3-week intensive social problems course to 32 freshmen football players in our BEST program, which offers a bridge to the college experience for incoming student-athletes.  while there are several summer sessions covering the majority of sports at OSU, i’ve worked exclusively with football players for the last three years and our numbers are growing like crazy.   they are  a great group of guys and i arranged field trips this year to a male juvenile correctional facility and to oregon state penitentiary, where they got an inside view of a maximum-security prison and then got the chance to meet and talk with some of my former inside-out students.  big impact.   it’s a vivid way for them to start their college careers and to step into the spotlight as athletes in the pac-10.

and now i’m ready for a vacation…hope everyone is enjoying what is left of their summer!