Thursday, April 17, 2014

Did a Couple of Tech Entrepreneurs Just Fix Society's Crime Problem?

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have founded a program that teaches convicts tech skills for the real world.

The 'Last Mile' program at California's San Quentin prison puts convicts behind computers instead of bars. (Photo: 'The Last Mile')
 
Liana Aghajanian is TakePart's weekend editor. Her work has appeared in ForeignPolicy.com, BBC.com, Los Angeles Times, and TheAtlantic.com.
Eddie Griffin went to state prison in the '90s, after his cocaine addiction led him to three possession convictions—qualifying him for a penalty of 25 years to life under a now-defunct section of California's three-strikes law. He was sentenced to 27 to life. Such lengthy sentences are enough to stunt a convict's professional future and make for a difficult socialization into the world beyond the bars of San Quentin State Prison.
That alienation often results in ex-cons failing at gainful employment, leading to the high rates of ex-convicts returning to crime and beyond that, to a perpetually unsafe society and budgets crippled by judicial and prison costs. The situation needs a smart solution. Tech entrepreneurs Chris Redlitz and Beverly Parenti had people like Griffin in mind when they developed "The Last Mile," a program that introduces inmates to tech start-ups and instills confidence by teaching basic tech skills. 
Along with Kenyatta Leal, who spent 19 years in prison, Redlitz and Parenti created "The Last Mile," which teaches San Quentin prisoners business and entrepreneurial skills and places them in a paid internship program with Bay Area technology companies.
The program is named for the difficult transition from prison to successful livelihoods outside those walls. Nor is it just about fixing the criminal justice system: The program aims to improve the number of African American, Latino, and Native American participants in technology fields, where they are deeply underrepresented. 
While new federal guidelines to combat the school-to-prison pipeline aim to prevent the rise in incarceration rates, "The Last Mile" attempts to restore the social and vocational skills that have been lost as a result of long-term imprisonment. Among the startling facts the program encountered early on was that many inmates were incarcerated before the Internet existed.  
Participants go through a six-month program, meeting with the start-ups twice a week to learn about taking their tech-business ideas from paper to potential investors. Tech notables such as Guy Kawasaki and Half.com founder Josh Kopelman have been program mentors. 
Because social media is inescapable, inmates also learn how to build their brand and online presence. Volunteers then upload their messages for them, because inmates do not have full-time Internet access. 
The program concludes with an event called “Demo Day,” in which each participant pitches a business idea to an audience that includes potential investors. That's where Griffin, a 2013 graduate of the program, pitched his "At the Club" app, which offers live-streaming jazz performances.  
After Proposition 36 changed three-strikes laws to only apply to violent felons or those convicted of serious crime, Griffin wasresentenced and released in July 2013. He now works as a junior developer at Mindjet.
To ensure the model can be replicated elsewhere, Redlitz and Parenti recently tried the "Last Mile” program at the Los Angeles County Jail, where they will have a Demo Day next month, Forbes reported. 
The two plan to take their program nationwide.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Two state laws ruled unconstitutional

Published: Sunday, Mar. 2, 2014 - 12:00 am


A federal court judge has found two California laws that resulted from ballot initiatives – including the so-called “Victims’ Bill of Rights” – to be unconstitutional.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton of Sacramento said the state’s implementation of the laws improperly changed the punishment for crimes committed before the laws were enacted.
Proposition 9, a ballot initiative passed by the voters in 2008, and Proposition 89, passed by the voters in 1988, “retrospectively increased punishments, in violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause of the U.S. Constitution,” Karlton declared Friday in a 58-page order.
Karlton said that, for purposes of the case before him, “an ‘ex post facto’ law is one ‘that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime when committed.’ ”
Proposition 9, the so-called “Victims’ Bill of Rights” or “Marsy’s Law,” mandated longer periods of time between parole hearings, which Karlton said results in a risk of longer sentences for prisoners than they faced when their crimes were committed.
Proposition 89 granted the governor the right to review and reverse paroles already approved by the Board of Parole Hearings in murder cases. Karlton said every governor since passage of the measure has abused that power by blocking a large majority of the paroles they reviewed.
The judge issued an injunction blocking state enforcement of the two laws.
He ordered the board to revert to the law governing spacing of parole hearings prior to Proposition 9, which guaranteed thousands of prisoners an annual suitability hearing after a minimum term prescribed by law.
The judge ordered the governor to quit reversing already-approved paroles while applying the same factors the board considered.
The lawsuit before Karlton, Gilman v. Brown, is certified as a class action on behalf of all California state prisoners who have been sentenced to a life term, but with the possibility of parole, for an offense that occurred before passage of Proposition 9 on Nov. 4, 2008. The separate class challenging Proposition 89 consists of all prisoners doing life with the possibility of parole for an offense predating Nov. 8, 1988.
Proposition 9 eliminated the board’s discretion to set hearings a year apart, even when the board has made a finding of strong evidence a prisoner will be ready for parole in a year.
The initiative imposes a mandatory three years before the first parole hearing. Additionally, under the old law, the sentences of a significant number of prisoners were to continue beyond a minimum term only as long as the board found them unsuitable for parole. Under Proposition 9, those same sentences continue indefinitely unless the board finds “clear and convincing evidence” that the prisoner is suitable for parole in five, seven, or 10 years.
Karlton thus decided the 2008 law “creates a significant risk” of longer incarceration than was the case when the crimes were committed. He said he based the conclusion on evidence presented at a non-jury trial before him last summer and accounts of terms actually lengthened by the law that were submitted by prisoners’ attorneys.
This is the second time within the context of the same lawsuit that Karlton has expressed his dim view of Proposition 9.
In February 2010 the judge barred enforcement of parts of the measure, ruling that the Ex Post Facto Clause would likely allow life-term prisoners to prevail on the merits of their attack on reduced availability and frequency of parole hearings.
But, 10 months later, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the injunction, ruling that the proposition “does not create a significant risk of prolonging … incarceration.” The opinion rests on the part of the initiative enabling the board to advance a hearing to an earlier date when a prisoner can show “a reasonable likelihood” that they are suitable for release.
However, several examples of prisoner petitions for an advanced hearing show that the process “can be rendered meaningless or illusory,” Karlton said in Friday’s order. First, he said, the board has erected a hurdle regarding “change in circumstances or new information,” that a prisoner must clear before the board will even take an earlier look at the question of suitability. Second, the judge said, “when this requirement is spun off from the suitability requirement, it imposes an additional, substantive burden …”
As to Proposition 89, Karlton stated it is clearly not a “ ‘neutral’ transfer of final decision-making authority” from the board to the governor. “In practice,” he said, “the governors have used it to tip the scales against parole. Thus, while the governors could use the law to review parole decisions to ensure that they are accurate and fair, they appear to have no such concern about decisions that deny parole.”
The voters wanted to correct their perceived “weakness” in the existing law, “namely too many murderers being paroled too soon,” Karlton observed. “The governors have carried out the people’s will by putting their fingers on the scale and reversing 70 percent of parole grants for these class members.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/01/6200721/two-state-laws-ruled-unconstitutional.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/01/6200721/two-state-laws-ruled-unconstitutional.html#storylink=cpy