It’s time for Massachusetts to stop shackling incarcerated women who are giving birth

We submitted testimony in support of S.1171, a bill that would ban the routine use of physical restraints on incarcerated pregnant women in Massachusetts.

by Leah Sakala, December 12, 2013

The list of states that reject the dangerous and inhumane practice of shackling incarcerated women in labor and delivery is growing. But Massachusetts isn’t on it. Yet.

A bill has been introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature to 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 prenatal, childbirth, and postpartum care afforded to incarcerated women in Massachusetts.

This bill is up for a hearing before the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security this morning, and we submitted written testimony:

This bill presents Massachusetts with the opportunity to ban the dangerous, inhumane, and degrading practice of shackling incarcerated women who give birth while in correctional custody. Current Massachusetts policy fails to protect incarcerated women from being subject to such harmful and degrading restraints. S.1171 is consistent with the national trend to abolish the practice of shackling incarcerated pregnant women: 18 other states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons have already prohibited the routine use of shackles on incarcerated women who are giving birth, and it is time for Massachusetts to follow suit.

Using physical restraints during labor and childbirth is unsafe for the mother and her infant. For example, the practice prevents healthy, natural labor movement, increases the chances that a laboring woman will fall, impedes medical providers’ ability to provide care during labor and childbirth, delays emergency care when necessary, and obstructs maternal-infant bonding. The practice of shackling incarcerated pregnant women has been widely condemned by the medical community including the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Furthermore, the routine use of physical restraints during labor and delivery serves no legitimate public safety purpose. An August 2013 report found that “[a]mong states that have restricted the shackling of pregnant women, none have reported any subsequent instances of women in labor escaping or causing harm to themselves, the public, security guards, or medical staff.”

The Committee should act quickly to pass the bill so that incarcerated women in Massachusetts are permitted to give birth safely and with dignity.

Support PPI this Thursday on 12/12, Valley Gives Day!

Your gift will go twice as far, and maybe even further!

by Leah Sakala, December 9, 2013

This year we're thrilled to participate in Valley Gives, a 24-hour celebration of generosity in the Massachusetts Pioneer Valley on December 12th.

Please consider supporting our work this Thursday on 12/12/13, when your gift will be doubled by a matching grant and could be selected to win a prize that would make it go even further.

Schedule your gift today!

Honoring Nelson Mandela

Mandela was an inspiration to people fighting for freedom around the world, and one of the main inspirations for my own prison activism.

by Peter Wagner, December 5, 2013

Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) was a South African freedom fighter and one of the longest held political prisoners in the world. He led the fight to abolish Apartheid and was elected President in the first multi-racial election in 1994. This photo was taken that same year when he revisited his prison cell at the infamous Robben Island (Photo: Getty Images).

Nelson Mandela has died at the age of 95. He was recently hospitalized battling a recurring lung infection no doubt related to the tuberculosis he contracted in a dank prison cell decades before. He was an anti-Apartheid freedom fighter, one of the longest-held political prisoners in the world, and the first Black South African to be elected President of that country. Mandela was an inspiration to people fighting for freedom around the world, and one of the main inspirations for my own prison activism.

In high school in the late 1980s, I was a peace and anti-apartheid activist. Although South Africa’s history is largely forgotten here in the U.S., in the late 1940s the white minority government of South Africa put in place a political system of strict racial segregation and oppression called Apartheid. Opposition parties and dissent were banned. The majority-Black population of South African resisted through the African National Congress and other organizations. In August of 1962, a tip from the CIA led to Nelson Mandela’s arrest. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his activities as a leader of the African National Congress.

The international community responded to the totalitarian racism of Apartheid by nearly unanimously shunning South Africa for decades. I came of political age in the mid 1980s, when the divestment movement was continuing to pick up steam despite the strong opposition of President Ronald Reagan, and an international campaign demanding the release of Nelson Mandela was underway. At that time, South African teams that did not allow Blacks to participate where excluded from most international competitions, including the Olympics. Celebrities responded to pressure from fans to boycott South Africa. Governments and shareholders urged companies to refuse to do business with the South African regime.

To jump forward in the story, by the late 1980s the internal resistance and international pressure finally forced the white-minority South African government to negotiate. On February 2, 1990, after 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela was freed unconditionally, and the banned political parties were legalized. After further negotiations to reestablish a democratic government, Nelson Mandela was elected president in the first multi-racial election in South Africa’s history.

Apartheid was ending as I was preparing to graduate from high school. Nelson Mandela went on a brief global tour to organize support for continuing the international pressure on South Africa to continue reforms. I saw Mandela speak in Boston at the Hatchshell about the need to retain “sanctions until democracy”.

Nelson Mandela addresses the crowd at the Boston Hatch Shell, June 23, 1990 (Photo: Paul W. Locke).

A few months later, when I was in college, I came to the frightening realization that there was something quite like Apartheid in this country: the prison system.

I was shocked to learn that the U.S. locks up African-Americans at a rate 6 times higher than Whites, and in fact locks up a higher portion of its Black population than South Africa ever did. I came to see that criminal justice reform is integral to the struggle for racial justice here in the United States.

Nelson Mandela was a leader of his people before prison, for 27 years within prison, and then as president of his country. And in his autobiography he set forth a challenge to other world leaders to consider their own prison practices:

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”

It is time for the United States to take up Mandela’s challenge.

2013 has been our best year yet! Can you support us for 2014?

From ending prison gerrymandering to protecting families from exploitative prison phone companies, 2013 has been a watershed year for the Prison Policy Initiative.

by Peter Wagner, November 27, 2013

As we head into Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends, here at the Prison Policy Initiative we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate how much we’ve achieved in the past year and express our enormous gratitude to our colleagues and supporters who make it all possible. As our new annual report shows, this year we’ve accomplished more than ever on a growing number of campaigns. Here are some highlights:

• Our work to end prison gerrymandering sparked legislation in eight states and passed in two, more than 200 local governments have solved the problem on their own, and the issue got news coverage in hundreds of articles and editorials including a New York Times editorial. And the Census Bureau, which encourages states to engage in prison gerrymandering by counting incarcerated people at correctional facilities, is finally signaling that it is open to changing the practice.
• This year we took on the exploitative prison phone industry, releasing two reports and a video, and co-coordinating a petition that changed the pace of the movement for fair phone charges for the families of incarcerated people. In August, after ten years of inaction, the Federal Communications Commission finally voted to regulate the industry so that families will no longer have to pay $1/minute to stay in touch with incarcerated loved ones.
• We also stepped up to the plate to bring an end to the latest harmful fad in local jails: banning letters from home. Our groundbreaking report on why banning families from writing to loved ones in jail is harmful and counterproductive was called “required reading” by the National Institute of Corrections, and helped a grassroots campaign in Santa Clara California halt the local sheriff’s letter ban proposal.
• Our work to reduce the harm of over-broad geography-based sentencing policies helped win some important victories this year, including a legal victory for improved sentencing practice in Massachusetts, and overturning a counterproductive banishment ordinance in a Colorado city.
• Our Research Clearinghouse of empirical criminal justice research is larger than ever, and our Legal resource list for incarcerated people continues to offer up-to-date information to those who need it.

As you can see, we’ve been busier than ever this year to expose and ameliorate the broader harm of mass incarceration. But none of this would be possible without the support of a core group of individual donors and a handful of committed foundations. Can you make a tax-deductible donation to support our work so that we can take full advantage of this incredible momentum in 2014? Every gift we receive before the end of the year will be matched by a generous group of donors, so your gift will go twice as far.

And finally, please stay in touch with us this year! You can drop us a line at any time, we’ve added two new e-newsletters you can use to keep track of what we’re up to (sign up for one or all at at http://www.prisonpolicy.org), and you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well.

Thank you for your partnership in this movement!

FCC denies phone companies’ pleas to delay fair rates

The FCC denies prison phone companies’ petitions to delay implementing fair rates, reiterating the need for regulation.

by Aleks Kajstura, November 26, 2013

Before the FCC’s new regulations lowering the price of calls home from prison even hit the Federal Register, the two largest prison phone companies (Securus and GTL) filed petitions to delay implementation of the new rules while they fight the regulations in court.

But the FCC isn’t backing down. The FCC denied the companies’ petitions, reiterating the need for regulation. Here are the highlights:

As the Commission stated in the Inmate Calling Report and Order and FNPRM, current interstate ICS rates are, in most cases, greatly above costs, and as such, “place an unreasonable burden on some of the most economically disadvantaged people in our nation.” The Commission noted that excessively high ICS rates “discourage communication between inmates and their families and larger support networks.” (¶ 48)

Section 201 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (Act) requires that all carriers’ interstate rates be just and reasonable. To be just and reasonable, rates must be related to the cost of providing service. Section 276 additionally requires that payphone rates be fair. Yet for many years, interstate ICS rates have been unreasonably high, unfair, and far in excess of the cost of providing service. Excessive rates have been driven largely by substantial commission payments ICS providers have agreed to make to prison authorities. The Commission relies in the first instance on competition when it can do so to ensure just and reasonable rates. In the Inmate Calling Report and Order and FNPRM the Commission found that “competition for ICS contracts may actually tend to increase the rate levels in ICS contract bids where site commission size is a factor in evaluating bids.” As such, the Commission found that the market forces in the interstate ICS market actually fail to constrain ICS rates. In fact, because the benefits of any “competition” in the ICS market ran to the facility rather than the inmate or their family (i.e., the party who actually paid for the service), rates in many cases were being driven higher. (¶ 3)

The Order also makes clear that regulating ancillary fees “was a necessary aspect of our cost-based reforms, as otherwise providers could simply increase their ancillary charges to offset lower rates subject to our caps.” (¶ 15)

Securus argues that it will suffer significant lost revenues under the new ICS rate regime. The new rules may reduce Securus’ revenue compared to pre-reform levels. But, to the extent that is true, it is because its current revenues are the product of unlawfully high rates. (¶ 35, emphasis added)

And on a technical note, the FCC points out Securus’ hypocrisy:

While Securus faults the Order for ignoring record evidence that the cost of serving some of its facilities is higher than the interim rate caps, Securus’ own cost study underscores the fact that averaged pricing is commonplace among ICS providers, as it is among communications providers generally. The Siwek Report shows that the rates Securus charges for the highest cost institutions fail to recover its self-identified costs of serving those institutions. It indicates that the average cost for “Low 10” group of institutions it serves is $1.71 per minute but that on average Securus charges only $1.10 per minute for calls from these same institutions. Securus does not contend that it is not profitable as a whole or that because its current rates do not cover the cost of serving its Low 10 facilities, it will be obliged to cease serving these locations. (¶ 27)

Alabama should implement proposed prison phone reform

PPI submits letter to Alabama Public Service Commission supporting proposed regulations to reign in exorbitant costs jails and prison phone calls.

by Aleks Kajstura, November 14, 2013

The Alabama Public Service Commission is still seeking comments on a recent order proposing to cap all prison and jail call rates and place strict limits on fees and other charges (summarized here).

Yesterday, we submitted the following letter in support of the Commission’s proposed regulations:

November 13, 2013

Walter L. Thomas, Jr., Secretary
Alabama Public Service Commission
P.O. Box 304260
Montgomery, AL 36130

Dear Commissioners:

We are writing in support of your Order Proposing Revised Inmate Phone Service Rules (Oct. 7, 2013, Docket 15957).[1] As the Executive Director and Legal Director of the Prison Policy Initiative, we have investigated the high cost of calls from correctional facilities and would first like to thank you for addressing the issue of fees in your proposal.

We believe that regulating fees is an integral part of comprehensive regulation of prison and jail phone companies, and we commend Alabama for being the first state to, in our knowledge, directly address this major but hidden part of the industry.

Our research found that fees make up 38% of the $1 billion customers spend on prison and jail phone calls each year.[2] Your action to address fees is essential because simply capping rates would, as our report argues, be ineffective at protecting consumers if the industry was still free to continue to create additional fees out of thin air.

We agree with your conclusion that commissions paid to correctional facilities are ultimately to blame for both the high rates and fees charged by prison and jail phone companies. For that reason, the Prison Policy Initiative supports the proposed rules that would reign in both the exorbitant rates and fees now charged to Alabama consumers.

Sincerely,

Peter Wagner, Executive Director
Aleks Kajstura, Legal Director

[1]Our legal director, Aleks Kajstura, reviewed your proposal in light of our own findings on the high costs of prison and jail phone calls in “Alabama seeks to curb high cost of prison and jail phone calls” available at http://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2013/10/09/alabama-proposes/.

[2] Please Deposit All of Your Money: Kickbacks, Rates, and Hidden Fees in the Jail Phone Industry, by Drew Kukorowski, Peter Wagner, and Leah Sakala (May 8, 2013), available at http://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/pleasedeposit.html and attached.

The deadline for submitting comments is December 6, 2013.

FCC prison phone regulation ruling published in Federal Register, to take effect Feb 11.

Companies and correctional facilities can no longer collude to profit off of keeping families apart.

by Peter Wagner, November 13, 2013

The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) historic order reining in the exploitative prison and jail telephone industry has finally been published in the Federal Register, making it official. (The footnoted version of the order is still available on the FCC’s website.) Starting February 11, a single call home from prison or jail will no longer cost a family as much as $17 and new rules will improve how this market operates. The FCC Commissioners are also requesting public comments, due December 13, on a series of questions related to expanding the scope and operation of their order.

Here’s a breakdown of the details of the FCC’s order:

Prison phone company to expand most costly service?

Prison phone company that recently raised their exorbitant fees even higher, recently took steps to bolster their still unregulated single call program.

by Aleks Kajstura, November 8, 2013

Securus, the same prison phone company that recently raised their exorbitant fees even higher, recently took steps [“Securus Technologies Buys ‘America’s Most Promising Company'”] to bolster their still-unregulated “single call” program.

Our report found that the phone companies set up these $10-15 “single call” programs to extract additional income from desperate consumers. Before the call can be connected, the recipient must first agree to either have a $9.99 to $14.99 “premium message” charged to their cellphone, or to pay that amount by credit or debit card. These “single call programs” are currently unregulated and far more profitable for the phone companies than the prepaid systems: Securus’ $14.99 charge is $1.80 for the call and a $13.19 “processing fee”.

Securus seems to be committed to this profit mechanism, recently acquiring 3Cinteractive, a “mobile platform company”, having already previously secured 3Cinteractive’s patents for collect calls to cell phones.

But luckily for folks who live in Alabama, the Alabama Public Service Commission is keeping an eye out for $13 processing fees. The Commission recently concluded: “As more calls are completed using ‘text-to-collect’ and ‘pay now’, the average price for inmate calling will trend upward regardless of regulatory caps established for ICS usage rates and authorized fees.” And the Commission’s proposal to bring these calls under the same rate and fee caps as other prepaid and collect calls would create the country’s first regulation of this profit mechanism.

The Alabama Public Service Commission is still seeking comments on their proposed ICS reform, so we’ll keep you posted.

Massachusetts Department of Corrections moves forward with dog sniff plan

As soon as we learned of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections's plan to use dogs to screen people entering prisons starting this week, we wrote them another letter.

by Leah Sakala, November 7, 2013

If you visit a Massachusetts prison this week, you may be subjected to a dog sniff search.

As soon as we learned of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections’s plan to use dogs to screen people entering prisons — including friends and families visiting their loved ones — starting this week, we wrote them another letter.

We reminded the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections that the research clearly shows that helping incarcerated people maintain close relationships with their families and communities increases the chances that they will succeed after they are released. Using dogs to screen visitors not only adds an additional humilitating experience for visiting family, but it is also out of step with the vast majority of correctional security systems in the country.

If you want to weigh in on this issue as well, make your voice heard by contacting the Department of Corrections, Executive Office of Public Safety, and the Office of the Governor.

Michigan ACLU uses our map, testifies against harmful loitering bill

We produced a map to illustrate the ACLU’s testimony against a counterproductive zone law.

by Peter Wagner, October 17, 2013

The Michigan ACLU testified yesterday against a bill proposing counterproductive and ineffective restrictions on where people on the sex offender registry would be allowed to “loiter”. This bill would expand the current restrictions to also include all areas within 1,000 feet of a day care center, creating “a nearly impossible burden on listed offenders and on law enforcement.” Here at the Prison Policy Initiative, we produced a map to illustrate the ACLU’s testimony by demonstrating that the simple-sounding law would blanket dense urban areas with a confusing pattern of imperceptible zones.

Our map showing that most of the Michigan capital city of Lansing is within 1,000 feet of just two dozen of the 10,729 day care centers in the state.

We’ve also prepared similar analysis for court cases in Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts and elsewhere. This work grew out of our research on sentencing enhancement zones, the drug laws that give enhanced penalties based on where an offense occurs, not on its dangerousness. These laws are all too common, and the basic differences are the number of protected places, the distances involved, and how that distance is to be measured.

In all the cases we’ve looked at, a few key points about geography and geometry keep coming back:

• Drawing large circles around thousands of places blankets entire cities in “protected” or “off-limits” areas.
• Doubling the distance in one of these statutes makes the protected area four times as large (remember pi r squared?).
• 1,000 feet — and most distances, for that matter — are actually much further than most people assume.
• Laws that measure the distance as the crow flies extend coverage to areas that are, for all practical purposes, very far away.
• Laws that measure the distance on a property line-to-property line basis cover considerably more area than simple 1,000 foot circles drawn around the center point of a particular property.

Most importantly, however, the laws that fail to work as intended share the same fundamental flaw of covering too much area. This might sound like it would produce more safety but it actually produces less for the simple reason that when you make everywhere special, nowhere is special.