New Prison Reform Advocates?

An interesting article in the latest issue of Washington Monthly explains how and why political conservatives have recently taken up the cause of prison reform.  David Dagan and Steven M. Teles point out that "[t]he 2012 Republican platform declares, 'Prisons should do more than punish; they should attempt to rehabilitate and institute proven prisoner reentry systems to reduce recidivism and future victimization.'”  Also, a "rogue’s gallery of conservative crime warriors" now apparently support Newt Gingrich's view that "[t]here is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential.”  Rehabilitation?  Lost human potential?  Hmmm......    

Children of the Incarcerated

The Sentencing Project has just released a new report entitled Video Visits for Children Whose Parents Are Incarcerated: In Whose Best Interest?  Written by research analyst Susan D. Phillips, the report looks at those situations in which video visits would be a positive addition to visitation procedures, especially in light of the fact that a majority of parent-prisoners are incarcerated more than 100 miles from their children.  However, she also looks at those instances when such visits would undermine personal relationships and concludes that "Children may benefit from video visitation if it increases opportunities for them to communicate with their parents [b]ut video visitation is not a substitute for in-person contact visits, particularly for infants and young children." Some of the technical and practical aspects of video visitation are also discussed.  Another, more technical report on video visitation from the Vermont Legislative Research Service was released in May 2011.  Prison Video Conferencing, prepared for Vermont Representative Peg Andrews, also discusses the use of this technology in a number of other states.

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Georgia State University Prison Initiative

An interesting project has been posted on Kickstarter (a funding platform for independent projects): One Nation, Behind Bars: Ed Solutions for Mass Incarceration. A Georgia State film student is looking to raise another $1200 by midnight tomorrow to fund his senior thesis project, described as a

quality student produced, directed, and edited 45-minute to 1-hour documentary film [that] will investigate and discuss the societal advantages and ever-growing need for education programs in the U.S. Prison System ... by focusing on The Georgia State University Prison Initiative, a service-learning project that brings together 15 GSU students ... and 15 volunteer inmates at Philips State Prison just outside of Atlanta in order to study literature, discuss contemporary societal issues, and increase inmate and student literary and social competency.

Just like PBS, there are rewards for contributing so, if you're interested and have a few bucks to share .... 

Juvenile offenders and life without parole

Available on SSRN: "The Paradox of Graham v. Florida and the Juvenile Justice System" by federal district court law clerk (C.D. Cal.) Aaron Sussman, forthcoming in the Vermont Law Review. The author analyzes a series of Supreme Court decisions on sentences for juveniles that foreclose any possibility of parole, including Graham v. Florida (2010) as well as the recent Miller v. Alabama/Jackson v. Hobbs decision.  He finds "a sharp disjuncture emerges between the Supreme Court’s language and the realities of the criminal justice system, a disjuncture that, in the context of Graham and its progeny, helps preserve the perception of legitimacy but may inhibit even small steps toward improving the conditions and rehabilitative potential of the juvenile justice system."