From Smith College to PPI – reflections of a work-study research associate

"I am treated as a fellow colleague, and my experience at PPI has helped me to gain an in-depth understanding of the latest issues affecting the U.S. criminal justice system."

by Yoo Eun Kim, April 24, 2014

I am currently a sophomore at Smith College, pursuing a major in economics and a minor in religion, and I’ve been a work-study Research Associate at PPI since December 2013. Throughout my academic career, public service has allowed me to understand and combat social ills. By working in the White House and Key Club International, I was able to broaden my perspective regarding social advocacy. Interacting with American citizens and service leaders and hearing their concerns about social and economic disparities motivated me to improve the wellbeing of underserved populations. So when my friend talked about Prison Policy Initiative, I became interested in prison gerrymandering and wanted to help the members of socially marginalized groups affected by mass incarceration. I applied to be one of the Prison Policy Initiative’s work-study Research Associates; few weeks after my submission, I received an invitation to work at the organization’s Easthampton office.

As a Research Associate, I have handled multiple projects. One of my first assignments was using Google Earth and Google Maps to crosscheck the data in the Prison Policy Initiative’s Locator database with the information provided by the United States Census. Following fellow intern Catie‘s departure, I have led the state legislator outreach project in order to identify state legislators who have sponsored bills that aligned with PPI’s mission. Other projects have included helping with PPI outreach mailings, conducting research on district school boards, assisting with informational video filming, and of course, recording my experience in PPI!

I highly admire PPI because the organization provides a lot of opportunities for its work-study students and holds high expectations. When I come to work, there is something productive to do. I don’t make coffee or push pencils. I am treated as a fellow colleague, and my experience at PPI has helped me to gain an in-depth understanding of the latest issues affecting the U.S. criminal justice system, such as sentencing enhancement zones. Another memorable experience was learning about the ways that prisons and jails restrict incarcerated people’s communication with their loved ones. Prisons and jails overcharge phone calls to receive higher commission rates, and jails also limit incarcerated people’s access to letters – actions that hinder an incarcerated person’s wellbeing during and even after his or her release.

Learning about the lack of socioeconomic mobility and opportunities for oppressed groups made me realize the significant effects of mass incarceration on both individual and national welfare. At PPI, Peter, Leah, and Aleks encourage interns to read articles, see presentations, and borrow books that focus on mass incarceration. After analyzing graphs and reading books written by prisoners, I became even more aware of how many people, especially those of color, are often marginalized by our society.

My work here helps strengthen my analytical and communication skills to inform the public about current U.S. criminal justice policy. Working in PPI will not only equip me with the resources and knowledge to become a steward of change, but also understand the current strategies for creating lasting and sustainable improvement in the American criminal justice system.

VlogBrothers video on Mass Incarceration

by Peter Wagner, April 5, 2014

We’re thrilled to have helped Hank Green of Vlog Brothers, Kurzgesagt, and Visual.ly produce this amazing under-4-minute video about Mass Incarceration in the United States.

New Report and a Legislative Breakfast on Connecticut’s sentencing enhancement zones

Published a new report on Conn.'s sentencing enhancement zones, presented findings at legislative breakfast.

by Aleks Kajstura, March 28, 2014

This morning I presented our new research on Connecticut’s sentencing enhancement zones at an informational Legislative Breakfast hosted by A Better Way Foundation, Unitarian Universalist Society: East Manchester, and Senator Gary Holder-Winfield.

I discuss Hartford’s zones with Representative Brandon McGee

The report, released today, analyzes Connecticut’s 1,500-foot sentencing enhancement zones, mapping the zones in the state’s cities and towns and demonstrates that the law doesn’t work, it cannot possibly work as written, and that it creates an unfair two-tiered system of justice based on a haphazard distinction between urban and rural areas of the state.

Connecticut’s 1,500-foot sentencing enhancement zones, meant to protect children from drug activity, are some of the largest in the country. I described how the law’s sheer expanse means it fails to actually set apart protected areas and that it arbitrarily increases penalties for urban residents.

Senator Gary Holder-Winfield speaking at the breakfast

SB 259, currently pending before the Judiciary Committee, would decrease that size to a more effective 200 feet. This would allow the law to actually create the specially protected places it was intended to in the first place. Making the zone smaller would come much closer to the law’s original intent, and largely get rid of the urban penalty effect. For more details on the bill, check out my written testimony (with maps).

PPI Research Clearinghouse Reaches 1,800 Entries

Sadie Gold-Shapiro reports back on a big milestone in PPI’s very own Research Clearinghouse.

by Sadie Gold-Shapiro, March 25, 2014

This February marked my one year anniversary of working at Prison Policy Initiative as a work study student from Smith College. While here, I have worked on a variety of projects including cross-checking annotations in 2010 Locator, finding citations for Please Deposit All of Your Money: Kickbacks, Rates and Hidden Fees in the Jail Phone Industry, and sorting through the petition to the FCC that called for federal regulation of exploitive prison telephone rates.

Since September of 2013, one of my main projects has been curating PPI’s very own Research Clearinghouse, home to one of the largest collections of empirical research about prisons on the internet with topics ranging from the Death Penalty to Families to Prison and the Economy. My job is to read through all of the latest reports from myriad organizations and sort them into the Clearinghouse so that they are accessible and easy to locate. This past week, the database reached a large milestone; on Wednesday, we broke 1800 reports!

The Research Clearinghouse is great because of the span and magnitude of the research that it holds. As a history major, I love exploring patterns and trends over time; with articles ranging in publication from 1982-today, the Clearinghouse offers a unique way to understand some of the changes the United States criminal justice system has undergone in the last thirty years. The Clearinghouse is also a great place to look if you are interested in researching a topic, but don’t know where to start. Best of all, the Clearinghouse is free and easy to use; all of the reports have been sorted into categories and there is a search function as well.

Interest piqued? If you want to learn more about the Research Clearinghouse and stay up-to-date on the latest research, you can explore it online or sign up for the Clearinghouse newsletter, delivered right to your email.

Massachusetts Senate unanimously passes anti-shackling legislation!

The Senate unanimously approved a bill to protect Massachusetts moms from being shackled during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period.

by Leah Sakala, March 21, 2014

Yesterday Massachusetts took a huge step towards becoming the 19th state to reject the dangerous and inhumane practice of shackling mothers who are pregnant, in labor, or in the postpartum period while they are incarcerated.

The Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed Bill S.1171, which would ban the routine use of physical restraints on incarcerated pregnant women after the first trimester, including during labor and delivery. The bill also establishes common-sense basic standards for the maternity and childbirth care and information afforded to women who are incarcerated in Massachusetts.

The Prison Policy Initiative is a proud member of the Massachusetts Anti-Shackling Coalition (press release on the bill passage here), and we submitted testimony in support of S.1171 for the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security’s public hearing in December.

Now the bill moves on to the House. Stay tuned!

Alternative Spring Break at the Prison Policy Initiative

Arielle Sharma reports back on her week working on prison gerrymandering research and sentencing enhancement zone messaging development.

by Arielle Sharma, March 19, 2014

I spent the last week here at PPI for an Alternative Spring Break. I am from Connecticut, went to Boston University and am now at University of Connecticut Law School. I was excited to spend my week at PPI because of the excellent work they do to document the effects of mass incarceration with real numbers. I think my interest in prison began at a young age. I am of mixed race, half Indian and half Israeli. I had family who had been put in “prisons” during the Holocaust in Europe, and on my father’s side, I had family put in prison for marching with Gandhi. When I was young, the people I knew who had been in prison were not bad people. Too often, we dismiss incarcerated people because they are or have been deemed ‘criminals’ by society. Whether or not they have broken a law, they are still people who must be treated with respect.

2014 Alternative Spring Break Law Interns Arielle Sharma (right) and Corey Frost (left) at the Connecticut State House.

This week, I was able to work on a project explaining one way in which exploitation of incarcerated people undermines the democratic rights of those of us not in prisons- Prison gerrymandering. Prison gerrymandering lessens the voice we have in our government. When the area each elected official represents is distributed based on population, people in prisons are sometimes used to boost numbers in certain areas even though the prisoners have no vote in government. This means that people who live near a prison get more of a say because the representative they elect is not serving the prison population and so each vote cast by the actual residents of the district is counted more.

This week, I continued the research on how/if this gerrymandering is happening on one of the most local scales: school board elections. (Fun fact I wish my school board had taught me in high school: School boards have A LOT of power. In many places, they have a say in curriculum, extra-curriculars, budgets, and some hiring and firing decisions) Even though school boards may seem too small to matter, the effects of prison gerrymandering actually become greater as the total population gets smaller. In my research, I found a majority of school boards don’t have problems with prison gerrymandering because they have at-large elections, which means everyone gets to vote for every school board member in their area, regardless of where they live. They are all sharing their voting power with each other, so everyone’s vote weighs the same.

I learned Bureaucracy is no joke. We all know the outcome of policy decisions, but few know how we’ve gotten to the system we have. Luckily, 99% of the people talked in the schools and town halls were super nice. Unluckily, these fine folks generally haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about prison gerrymandering. I called school boards in New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, Michigan, Alabama and Colorado. After many questions, many gentle rephrasings and many call transfers, I found two schools districts that allocate voting power based on population:

• The people lines in RE-1 Valley School District in Sterling, CO were super on top of things, and were savvy enough to take out their prison population.
• Despite a lot of help from a lot of people in Hunterdon County, NJ, it is still unclear if prison populations are kept in when North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional board member districts.

Either way, the Supreme Court has supported ending prison gerrymandering and more than 200 local governments have already ended it on their own so hopefully this will soon be moot on every level.

PPI works on a lot of issues, so I had the luck to help on some other problems, too. I went with Aleks who was testifying in Connecticut on a bill trying to at least lessen the enhanced penalty zones (currently a 1500ft radius) for selling or possessing drugs around a school, public housing, or day care. Of course, research shows that kids are far more likely to get drugs from each other than random adults.

But in addition to that, the zones are way too big to make a difference in deterring drug activity away from schools. In Connecticut, school zones are 1500 feet. Do you know how far that is? You could lay the empire state building on its side, and still have a few hundred feet to spare! That’s way too long (Watch this guy free climb 1500ft mountain and then tell me that’s not a crazy distance- the video doesn’t even get all the way to the top!).

When whole cities are turned into enhanced penalty zones, where is the incentive to specifically stay away from schools? Instead, zone policies end up giving extra penalties to people who are often doing things in their own homes (over 90% of some Connecticut cities’ residences are in these zones). Plus, the areas aren’t marked so there is no way to tell if you’re on the bad side of the line (assuming the other side hasn’t put you into another school zone).

Prison gerrymandering and enhanced penalty school zones are just two of the MANY things going on at PPI, make sure to check out the rest of the site for more!

-Arielle

Our new briefing reveals “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie”

Our newest briefing includes the first graphic we’re aware of that aggregates the disparate systems of confinement in this country into one big-picture chart.

March 12, 2014

Ever wonder exactly how many people are locked up in the U.S. and why? Many people, interested citizens and policy wonks alike, find that seemingly simple question to be frustratingly difficult to answer. Until now.

Today, the Prison Policy Initiative releases its newest briefing, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie, that includes the first graphic we’re aware of that aggregates the disparate systems of confinement in this country into one big-picture chart:

As we discuss in our briefing, this broader context pulls back the curtain and reveals answers to questions such as:

• How many people are behind bars for drug offenses?
• Which system holds more people: state prisons, federal prisons, or local jails?
• How many kids are locked up for offenses that most people don’t even think of as crimes?
• Where do we even have to look to find everyone who’s behind bars for immigration-related issues?

At the end of the day, locking up the more than 2.4 million people represented on this pie chart gives the United States the dubious distinction of being the number one incarcerator in the world. Policymakers and the public both have a pressing responsibility to take a good hard look at each slice of this pie and weigh any potential benefit of keeping those people behind bars against the significant social and fiscal cost.

Three weeks with PPI

As an undergraduate sophomore studying comparative politics at Smith College, this nonprofit granted me skills that exceeded my expectations.

by Catherine Cain, February 27, 2014

Over the month of January, I worked full-time with the Prison Policy Initiative for three consecutive weeks. As an undergraduate sophomore studying comparative politics at Smith College, this nonprofit granted me skills that exceeded my expectations and any of my previous experiences with research.

Before working with PPI I had been building a potential passion for prison justice. In my prior work with the legal department at El Sol Neighborhood Resource Center, I became more aware of racial profiling and its effect on immigrant communities. That same summer the Trayvon Martin case sparked protests against Stand Your Ground laws. I delved into documentaries, such as The House I Live In, and flipped through The New Jim Crow as I began to think about these issues within the context of mass incarceration. Although I had become engaged in these issues, I had not yet developed an agenda to act upon this interest.

As soon as I heard about the Prison Policy Initiative, I got in contact with a friend interning with them. I browsed their website and was impressed by their presence on social media pages. I did not have a strong idea what prison gerrymandering was before coming across the Prison Policy Initiative, but I quickly found videos of Executive Director Peter Wagner explaining this and other concepts central to this nonprofit’s mission.

My first project was creating a state legislator outreach database. Our goal was to find state legislators that have passed “progressive” bills relating to PPI’s efforts in order to have them as a contact regarding these issues in the future. Through this project I became more fluent in the bill-making process. While I understood that the War on Drugs and related legislation significantly contribute to the United States’ alarmingly high incarceration rate, I also became familiar with bills addressing mental health of incarcerated people, lowering the size of drug free zones, repealing mandatory minimum sentences, decriminalizing marijuana and other “soft” drugs, and requiring racial impact statements.

By individualizing each letter, the initiative could quickly connect with the legislator. The last thing we wanted was to spam them with generic pages of information because it would simply waste both the legislator’s and our time. I was surprised at how much thought went into the legislator’s response on behalf of Peter and Leah, who guided me through this project. At the end of my time with PPI, we sealed 200 customized letters and sent them to their respective offices.

My second project with the Prison Policy Initiative was crosschecking their internal Locator database against census data to ensure that correctional institution populations match up. Locator files are organized by state, giving the incarcerated population for census blocks and matching these blocks to specific facilities. This is essential to PPI’s work for identifying and addressing circumstances of gerrymandering.

So how do you find prisons? State and Federal facilities are much easier to find online than local facilities (i.e. county jails). Florida’s Department of Corrections actually has great and up-to-date information on their state and local facilities. These were extremely useful when matching up incarcerated populations. Apart from the Locator tool, the Initiative has extensive resources that allow you to look at facilities for each state through Google Earth and Google Maps among other excellent features.

Most of the research I did at PPI used tools to navigate raw data with rather than swimming through secondary sources, as I had been used to within my academic endeavors. Although this intimidated me at first, I received tremendous support from the staff at PPI.

Throughout my time here, I continuously felt like an equal — intellectually and on a personal level. For example, since I am focusing on comparative politics in my studies, I was asked to give feedback on an upcoming project on international incarceration rates. First of all, I thought this was a great idea to publish on the website. But I was really pleased that my opinion was so valued by a strong non-profit like PPI. This sentiment did not fade throughout my time here.

At some point, every staff member at PPI pulled me aside to show me what they’re working on. I read letters from incarcerated people who came across the Prison Policy Initiative, was asked for feedback on an upcoming presentation, and was introduced to Peter Wagner’s favorite books about American criminal justice system. Even on my last day of work, I was encouraged to chime in on conversations about PPI’s next moves.

HuffPo: FCC Bests Prison Telephone Industry Just in Time for Valentine’s Day

Peter and Leah wrote a new Huffington Post piece about the start of the FCC's inter-state prison phone rate regulation on Tuesday.

by Leah Sakala, February 13, 2014

To celebrate the FCC’s inter-state prison phone call charge regulation going into effect on Tuesday (just in time for Valentine’s Day!), Peter and I wrote a new piece for the Huffington Post.

The FCC’s regulation is a huge milestone in the decade-long fight for fair phone charges for the families of incarcerated people, and there’s lots more to be done. As we wrote:

…the fight for fair phone charges is one that the families of the 12 million people cycling through jails each year can’t afford to lose. Interstate rate regulation was a huge step forward that must now be defended in court, and the FCC and state and local governments need to keep going in order to protect all families, regardless of whether their loved ones are incarcerated in the same state or elsewhere. Our movement is strong, and we’re committed to ensuring that all parents, partners, and kids can afford to affirm their love for one another over the phone next Valentine’s Day.

We also spoke with American Public Media’s Marketplace yesterday for a story on the FCC’s prison phone regulation.

For more on what this regulation means for families and friends, check out the Campaign for Prison Phone Justice’s great new FAQ.

Today the FCC dragged the prison telephone industry kicking and screaming into the 21st century

The two largest prison phone companies, mislead correctional facilities and federal regulators by acting like communications technology is stuck in the 1950s.

by Peter Wagner, February 11, 2014

Today is a historic day: the Federal Communications Commission’s new rules take effect that cap the cost for inter-state calls home from prison and jail at a still-expensive but much-improved rate of 21 to 25 cents per minute. The FCC is exploring expanding its regulation to apply to the bulk of calls which are in-state in nature, and other important proposed restrictions have been stayed by the federal courts while prison telephone giants like Securus and its corporate allies sue the federal government for daring to end the industry’s monopolist price gouging.

As we’ve demonstrated in several lengthy reports and filings to the FCC, the high cost of phone calls from prison is driven by a kickback system in which private companies get monopoly contracts in exchange for sharing the majority of the revenue with the same correctional agency that awarded the contract.

So while Securus sues to protect its windfall profits off the backs of families, I’d like to point out just how far out of step rates like $1/minute are in a world of modern electronic communications.

Contrary to what the phone companies would have you believe, important security technology isn’t what’s driving the cost of these calls. In fact, a call home from New York State prisons costs 4.8 cents a minute because that state refuses kickbacks and negotiates the contract on the basis of the lowest cost to the consumer. But the very same company charges close to $1/minute in other states. As we’ve said again and again, it’s all about the profit.

But aside from the contemporary arbitrariness of the charges in this industry, taking a look at the historical perspective sheds some additional light on why the FCC has to drag this industry kicking and screaming into the 21st century. You see, Securus and Global Tel*Link, the two largest prison phone companies, mislead correctional facilities and federal regulators by acting like it’s still the 1950s, when transmitting a long-distance call was a deeply expensive and laborious manual process.

Why do most prison and jail phone contracts assume that a long distance call requires an army of telephone operators like the ones in this photo from 1919?

The phone companies profit by pretending it’s the 1950s. Download (1.5MB, 1:30)

Check out this radio dramatization from Dragnet of a long distance call in 1954. That tedious 1 minute 22 second process wasn’t much better than the very first inter-continental telephone call in 1919, which took 5 operators 23 minutes to connect Alexander Graham Bell with his former assistant Thomas Watson. Fortunately technology has vastly improved since then, and these days prison and jail telephone companies sell digital communications products for which distance is simply not a factor. These companies know, however, that it’s in their best interest to leave sheriffs in the dark about these 21st century technological advances. With the possible exception of some of the smaller companies that are pushing one-size-fits-all “postalized” rates, the phone corporations don’t appear to be lifting a finger to educate the sheriffs about the real cost of the telephone services being contracted.

The industry’s lack of transparency about the actual cost of providing telephone service is quite similar to its practice of hiding fees, which we discussed in detail in our second report. Essentially, the phone industry rakes in additional profit by tacking on extra fees and hiding them from the commission system. As a result, the sheriffs are led to believe that they have negotiated a good deal with the phone company, but the hidden fees preserve far more profit for the industry than it lets on. That’s why our report included an appendix with questions that the sheriffs should ask about fees when negotiating these contracts.

So, at the end of the day, how far out of whack is a $1 a minute phone call? We did some research to figure out the last time a regular U.S. long distance phone call cost $1 per minute. Adjusting for inflation, a call hasn’t cost that much since 1950: