Blog Jun 22, 2009
Save the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office
Few events better reflect the priorities of elected officials more vividly than a budget crisis. It is during a budget crisis that policy-makers are forced to choose between the interests of powerful or popular constituencies and the needs of the less powerful and most vulnerable citizens. Presently, this drama is being played out in San Francisco where social and legal services to the poor are being slashed while Police and Fire Department budgets are being protected. This Faustian bargain…
Jun 22, 2009
Daniel Macallair writes on the question of budget cuts for the SF Public Defender’s office
Though many wish to see the public defender’s budget cut due to the current economic conditions, Daniel Macallair explains how this would be detrimental to the city in an article published on BeyondChron .
Blog Jun 11, 2009
Prison Industry
I’m sure not too many people noticed but a brief news report from a newspaper in Chattanooga, Tennessee called attention once again to the perils of the privatization of prisons. This story involves the settling of a lawsuit filed against Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the leading private prison company in the world. (Here’s the story , which has a link to the actual lawsuit that you can download). Although the case centered around one prison in Hamilton County, it was a national…
Blog Jun 9, 2009
The Return of the Chain Gang
In my previous blog I referenced a recent book by Douglas Blackmon on the subject of convict leasing. One of the enduring offshoots of this system has been the “chain gang,” popularized by the film “Cool Hand Luke” (with Paul Newman, which carefully tried to make it seem as if it were mostly white) and memorialized in several books (e.g., “I am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang” — also made into a movie, again trying to be race-neutral). Chain gangs began in the South around the turn of…
Blog Jun 8, 2009
Race and the Drug War, Part II
After more than 20 years, even with the heightened awareness of the impact of the drug war on blacks and other minorities, Congress still does nothing. The drug war’s impact has reached directly into minority neighborhoods with devastating results. A recent book by Todd Clear documents the impact of mass incarceration (brought about mostly by the drug war) on these communities. He shows that “get tough on crime” polices in recent years have actually contributed to higher crime rates in these…
Blog Jun 7, 2009
Race and the Drug War, Part I
The “war on drugs” must be seen as a concerted effort (whether this has been intended is irrelevant) to keep the black population in a secondary status. Such an effort can be traced to the days of slavery and even for about 100 years after slavery officially ended, at least in the South (see Douglas Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name ; Anchor Books, 2009). Consider the following data: Overall incarceration rates (2006): White male = 736; Black male = 4,789; lifetime chances of going to prison…
(ISSN 1530 – 3012) From the editor The Myth of a Fair Criminal Justice System The Imprisonment Insights of Female Inmates: Identity & Cognitive Shifts for Exiting a Criminal Lifestyle Predictors of recidivism across major age groups of parolees in Texas Incentives and Obstacles to Drug Court Implementation: Observations of Drug Court Judges and Administrators Criminal Record Policies and Private Employers From the editor By Elizabeth Brown, Ph.D., and Randall G. Shelden,…
May 28, 2009
Just released! Closing California’s Division of Juvenile Facilities: An Analysis of County Institutional Capacity
Just released! Closing California’s Division of Juvenile Facilities: An Analysis of County Institutional Capacity by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice’s Daniel Macallair, MPA, Executive Director Mike Males, PhD, Senior Research Fellow and Catherine McCracken, M.S., Program Director Read the full report at Also check out “More calls for California to shut down its youth prison system ” by Karen de Sá of the Mercury News.
Publications May 1, 2009
Closing California’s Division of Juvenile Facilities: An Analysis of County Institutional Capacity
Closing California’s Division of Juvenile Facilities: An Analysis of County Institutional Capacity
Blog Apr 9, 2009
Fix the Prisons? Part II
I stated in Part I of this blog that the prison system is “functional” in that it benefits some segments of the population. One obvious segment it benefits is all of those who work inside. Indeed, with $68 billion in annual expenditures on the American prison system plus strong unions in many states you have a very strong vested interest in keeping the prison a going concern (the “reforms” would serve mostly to make working conditions and pay and benefits much better). Then too we have all…
Blog Apr 8, 2009
Fix the Prisons? Part I
Senator Jim Webb, an outspoken critic of America’s prison system, has argued that we need to “fix our prisons” (Parade Magazine ), I would like to offer a different perspective and pose the following question: Do we really need to “fix” or “reform” the prison? I ask this question for many different reasons, not the least of which is the obvious fact that despite the overwhelming evidence that prisons have not been a big factor in reducing crime (note that not only does the US have the highest…
Blog Apr 1, 2009
Locking Up Teenage Vandals in Texas
I came across this article in the Corpus Christi paper about two teenage taggers who were arrested for a “vandalism spree.” For these crimes they were placed in a juvenile hall for three weeks and then released on house arrest with electronic monitoring. This presents a good example of why the United States leads the world in youth and adult incarceration. When will be learn that incarcerating children for minor crimes does not make them better citizens. Incarceration is for…