Think Progress covers the push for the APA to recognize that pharmacists have a moral imperative to refuse to participate in the state-sanctioned administration of death.
by Leah Sakala,
April 14, 2014
Our friend and colleague Kelsey Kauffman is urging the American Pharmacist Association to join virtually all other leading medical associations in declaring that the Hippocratic Oath bars medical professionals from participating in executions. As Tara Culp-Ressler reported in Think Progress:
States are turning to so-called “compounding pharmacies” — facilities that are outside of the regulatory scope of the Food and Drug Administration — to get the ingredients they need for untested cocktails like the one that killed McGuire. Compounding pharmacies, which repackage drugs to keep down the cost of filling prescriptions, are already controversial from a public health perspective. For instance, in 2012, a compounding pharmacy was identified as the source of a deadly meningitis outbreak that killed 36 people. Since then, Congress has worked to crack down on these unregulated facilities, although some public health advocates don’t believe the recent legislative push goes far enough.
Some compounding pharmacies have agreed to manufacture the drugs that states need to kill people, but state officials won’t always reveal the details. States like Oklahoma and Missouri claim that publicizing where they’re getting their lethal drugs will result in too much public pressure on the compounding pharmacies to stop producing them. So the methods they’re using for executions are increasingly kept secret, and it’s not entirely clear whether they’re violating the Constitution’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Kauffman hopes that, if the American Pharmacist Association adopts a new policy position that forbids pharmacists from assisting in executions, this will all become moot because the employees at compounding facilities won’t be able to continue supplying these drugs. And, after attending APhA’s annual meeting at the end of last month, Kauffman believes senior officials in the pharmaceutical industry are receptive.
“I look at the American Pharmacist Association as a partner in this process, and when it comes to almost all of the pharmacists I spoke to, I see them as future allies,” she said, pointing out that medical professionals don’t have to be personally opposed to the death penalty to agree that it’s against their code of ethics to participate in them.
Kelsey is working with corporate accountability organization SumOfUs on a petition collecting 50,000 signatures to urge the American Pharmacists Association to ban its members “from participating in executions in any way.” Please sign if you haven’t already!
John Green responds to Hank's video about Mass Incarceration with his own insightful comments on racial disparities and why the U.S. has the world's highest incarceration rate.
by Peter Wagner,
April 11, 2014
The other half of the Vlog Brothers, John Green, responds to his brother Hank’s amazing animated video about Mass Incarceration in the U.S. with his own insightful comments on racial disparities in prison and the one of the key reasons why the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world: because sentences in this country are so much longer than for the same offense in other countries.
The best part is from 0:47 to 1:35:
I was also thrilled to see that one of John’s sources was this excellent article in The Economist America’s prison population: Who, what, where and why which was based on our briefing Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie.
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.
Conn. legislators continue to support over-reaching, diluted, version of sentencing enhancement law creating urban penalty, failing to protect children.
by Aleks Kajstura,
April 4, 2014
As I watched the Connecticut Judiciary Committee’s discussion of sentence enhancement zone reform (SB 259) before its successful vote on Wednesday (SB 259 begins at 02:09:35), I was struck by how many Connecticut legislators continue to support an over-reaching, diluted, version of the state’s sentencing enhancement law. It’s frustrating to see that legislators who have had years to study this issue still misunderstand both, the law’s function and the bill to strengthen it.
Senator Kissell explained the long-held support for the law in his region of the state (at 02:12:15):
Former Rep. Bill Kiner, who was in the House of Representatives over 20 years ago, helped champion the underlying law. And, at least in my neck of the woods… when I said, “Well, should the whole state have that enhanced penalty?” They said, “Sure!” …. [R]educing the distance to the schools goes in the wrong direction… They [constituents] don’t want us to weaken the underlying laws.
It may be counter-intuitive, but by shrinking the zones, the bill would actually strengthen the law. The law relies on the protected spaces to have harsher sentences than other areas. But the 1,500-foot distance, creates no such protected spaces, because nearly entire cities are covered – leaving no specially protected area around schools. The effect is in essence no different than what Sen. Kissell’s constituents say they want, everywhere having an “enhanced penalty”. But when everywhere has an enhanced penalty, then that’s just the penalty, there is nothing “enhanced” about it. If the legislature would like to reconsider the penalties for drug offenses that’s a separate question, but the mechanism of this law, meant to protect children from drug activity, relies on additional – enhanced – penalties around specific protected places.
Sen. Kissell concluded (at 12:18:02) that: “there’s not an easy answer to this… because on the one hand, I think that we want to be fair and even handed but on the other hand we don’t want to say that ‘we are ok with people selling drugs’ and ‘let’s cut back the barriers’…. I’m not so sure that enhancing penalties but reducing the distance gets us to where we wanna go”
I disagree, the bill actually does present a simple answer without giving the message that the legislature would be “ok with people selling drugs”. This bill would not legalize any drug offense. The sentences for the underlying offense would remain unchanged, and the bill would in fact concentrate the state’s enforcement resources around schools to actually protect kids from drug activity. As Representative Meyer explained (at 02:28:40):
When you charge a person, an adult selling drugs to another adult, more than a quarter mile from the school and when the law, as this law does, imposes a mandatory a one year extra imprisonment… it doesn’t relate any longer to creating a school safety zone….
…in concept it’s very important to create a school safety zone, but once you make it 1,500 feet and you’re having one adult selling to another and it doesn’t involve school safety in any respect… [T]he Sentencing Commission is bringing us some reality here and actually is making the school safety penalty stronger by its proposal and now by this bill.
Sen. Kissell points to arrests as proof that the law works (at 02:15:57). But in fact, these arrests prove the law doesn’t work, in several ways. First, the law is meant to move drug offenses out of these zones, so if the law worked, we would see few arrests in the zones (and possibly more outside the zones as the law’s deterrent effect takes hold). Arrests inside the zones prove that the law is not working to move those activities elsewhere. Second, to have a better sense of the law’s imact we need to look at the type of arrests made, not just their number. Sen. Kissell stated (at 02:16:47) that “If the argument is that … people are being put behind bars, then it [the law] is having some kind of impact.” Sure, the law has an impact, but the question is: does it have the desired impact?
The goal of the law is to keep drug activity away from children, but as Rep. Meyer hinted at, nearly all of the arrests do not involve students – and those that do, involve only students (in one case a few students sitting outside the school smoking marijuana). Reducing the zones to the 200 feet proposed by the bill would allow the law to have a meaningful impact by setting aside specific uniquely protected spaces. Connecticut would still maintain serious penalties for drug offenses, and the extra mandatory minimum penalty would be reserved for those offenses committed near a school.
For more information about the law and proposed solutions, check out our sentencing enhancement issue page, and my recent report.
New report analyzes Connecticut's failed sentencing enhancement zones, reveals law doesn’t work, can’t work, and creates urban penalty.
April 3, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, April 3, 2014
Contact:
Aleks Kajstura, 413-527-0845
Easthampton, Mass. — The Prison Policy Initiative released a report, “Reaching too far: How Connecticut’s large sentencing enhancement zones miss the mark”, that analyzes Connecticut’s failed 1,500-foot sentencing enhancement zones. Connecticut’s law, meant to protect children from drug activity, requires an additional sentence for certain drug offenses committed within 1,500 feet of schools, day care centers, and public housing projects. The resulting sentencing enhancement zones are some of the largest in the country.
“The law’s sheer expanse means it fails to actually set apart any meaningfully protected areas and it arbitrarily increases penalties for urban residents,” explains Aleks Kajstura, Legal Director at the Prison Policy Initiative, and the report’s author.
The report mapped eight of the zones in the state’s cities and towns and demonstrates that the law doesn’t work, and in fact cannot possibly work as written. In addition to failing to achieve its goal of creating protected spaces, the report found, the law creates an “urban penalty” that increases the sentence imposed for a given offense simply because it was committed in a city rather than in a town. For example, 92% of the City of Bridgeport residents live in a sentencing enhancement zone while only 8% of the Town of Bridgewater’s residents do.
The report recommends the sentencing enhancement zones be shrunk to 100 feet. This would allow the law to actually create the specially protected places as intended. Connecticut Senate Bill 259, which just passed out of the Judiciary Committee, takes a similar approach and would decrease that size to 200 feet. At these shorter distances the zones would come much closer to the law’s original intent of protecting children, and significantly reduce the urban penalty effect.
The report “Reaching too far: How Connecticut’s large sentencing enhancement zones miss the mark” is available at http://www.prisonpolicy.org/zones/ct.html
About the Prison Policy Initiative
The Prison Policy Initiative is a national, non-profit, non-partisan research and policy organization, with a focus on how geography impacts criminal justice policy.
About the Author
Aleks Kajstura is the Legal Director at the Prison Policy Initiative. Among other publications, she co-authored two reports on sentencing enhancement zones in Massachusetts: The Geography of Punishment: How Huge Sentencing Enhancement Zones Harm Communities, Fail to Protect Children (2008), and Reaching too far, coming up short: How large sentencing enhancement zones miss the mark (2009). These reports helped lead Massachusetts to roll back their enhancement zone law in August 2012.
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Santa Barbara Sheriff Bill Brown's ban on incoming letters in the county jail is breaking critical family communication.
by Leah Sakala,
April 2, 2014
Youth CineMedia, a non-profit in Santa Barbara, California, just released an excellent short video about how Santa Barbara Sheriff Bill Brown’s ban on incoming letters in the county jail is breaking critical family communication:
For more on why the Santa Barbara jail letter ban trend needs to end and how you can get involved, check out the local campaign Right to Write SB. You’ll also find Prison Policy Initiative reports, news coverage, and multimedia on this issue our resource page.
Ruth Greenwood, Fellow at the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, shares her thoughts on her work and why she joined PPI's board.
by Leah Sakala,
April 1, 2014
Next up in our blog series introducing several accomplished new members of the Prison Policy Initiative board: Ruth Greenwood. Ruth is a voting rights attorney and Fellow at the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. We are so glad to have her on our team here at PPI.
Why did you decide to join the PPI board?
Ruth Greenwood: I am really excited to have joined the PPI Board. I first heard about PPI through its work to end prison based gerrymandering. I saw Peter Wagner explain the concept in Gerrymandering: the movie, and couldn’t believe that a modern democracy with access to all sorts of technical data had not fixed the problem. Once I had discovered the great work of PPI in this area, I started reading about all the other work it does to highlight the problems of mass incarceration. The thing I like most about PPI is that it doesn’t just explain the problems clearly, but sets out workable solutions and then works to implement them.
What does your work focus on? And what’s the connection between that work and PPI?
RG: The work of PPI directly intersects with my work. I am a voting rights attorney and I focus on redistricting. In particular, I look at ways to improve minority representation in the United States. Ending prison gerrymandering would improve minority representation in my state of Illinois because pre-trial detainees can vote in the districts from which they come, yet are counted in the district where they are awaiting trial (sadly, there are tens of thousands of pre-trial detainees in Illinois and many await trial for years). I really hope PPI can end prison gerrymandering by 2020, so in 2021 when state and congressional districts are drawn again, we will have removed at least one of the distortions to our democracy.
What do you think is most unique about the Prison Policy Initiative and the projects it takes on?
RG: I like that PPI chooses “bite size” pieces of problems to expose and solve. There is a clear overall goal (reducing the negative effects of mass incarceration on public welfare), and fixing each issue PPI focuses on takes us a step towards that goal. I love that PPI is so good at clearly explaining complex issues and is always ready to provide additional research and advice to help out state advocates like me.
What’s something that you wish more people knew about the Prison Policy Initiative?
RG: I was shocked to find out that PPI does all that it does with so few staff members and such a small budget. It really made me realize that even though I’m a public interest lawyer and don’t have a big budget for charitable donations, my donations go a long way with PPI. I like knowing that I am helping a small organization do big things.
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).
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.
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!
