a public defender

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This is a post that has been in the making for a long time. It is incomplete and at times will be incoherent. These are questions, however, that I think are worth exploring and attempting to answer. So bear with me on this Sunday as I ramble.

Anyone who has followed this blog for the past year will no doubt be aware of several high profile criminal justice stories in CT: the Cheshire incident, the David Pollitt incident and the more recent New Britain incident. Starting with Cheshire, reform of the criminal justice system has been on the minds of many residents of this State, mostly pushed forward by our esteemed legislature and Governor. We were once on the path to reducing our prison population and now we are growing and bursting at the seams with no relief in sight.

Prison sentences have been beefed up to unimaginable levels in the name of public safety, rehabilitation programs have been abandoned and common sense no longer prevails.

Yet there are people who do not feel this is enough. Read the comments to any Courant article on criminal justice and you will see that there are people who feel that any sentence short of life is inappropriate.

This State, fueled by the vote-seeking legislators, has become gripped in what might be the biggest “tough on crime” wave in the country.

The paradox, however, is something that I have long suspected.

The question mark is because I can’t tell from this piece what the heck actually happened. Shoddy, shoddy writing.

Under pressure to respond after two deadly home invasions in the past nine months, the state Senate voted early this morning to strengthen the state’s criminal law and allocate $10 million for enhanced crime-fighting.

The bill passed by 32 to 3 at about 2:20 a.m. Thursday after the Senate Democrats withdrew a previous amendment that had prompted a sharply bitter debate with Republicans. The final version gained bipartisan support after lawmakers said the bill would authorize a judge to double the penalty following a second violent crime and triple the penalty after a third offense - up to a maximum of life in prison for a violent felon.

The debate on the three-strikes bill had the usual rhetoric from the Republicans that criminals are not being punished. The Dems responded with “bumper sticker politics”.

So what happened, exactly?

Earlier in the evening, the Republicans had verbally pummeled the original bill on the Senate floor, saying that it would actually weaken the state’s laws for violent crimes. Following that clash, Democrats — who hold the majority in the chamber — suddenly postponed the debate and called for a recess shortly before 11:30 p.m. The chamber reconvened later, and the “three strikes” debate pushed the vote past 2 a.m. Thursday.

“This is an extraordinary change in our public policy,” McDonald said, adding that criminals “will be punished in extraordinary ways.”

But Sen. John Kissel, an Enfield Republican, said the original bill was so badly written that it would not accomplish the legislature’s tough-on-crime goals and, in fact, would backfire.

“I guess I’m missing something,” Kissel said. “It actually is weaker addressing persistent dangerous felony offenders. … This amendment pushes us backward. How can this be tougher on criminals? It’s not.”

Out of 21 violent crimes mentioned in the original bill, the maximum prison sentence would actually be reduced for eight of them, Kissel said. That includes second-degree manslaughter with a firearm, among others.

Oh well, that’s interesting. Pray tell us, Courant, why these sentences would be reduced and what other crimes?

No? That’s not important to the narrative? Oh. Okay. Well, then tell us what the final version of the bill was.

Besides streamlining the law, the bill provides money for more prosecutors, public defenders and probation officers, along with expanding the state’s “cold case” unit and providing additional re-entry programs for criminals who are released from prison.

“So many people fail on probation,” said Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, a New Haven Democrat. “So many people fail on parole.”

But McKinney said he was stunned when he read the original five-page bill. Currently, a criminal could receive 40 years in prison for compelling someone to have sex at gunpoint. The bill, crafted by Democrats, would reduce that penalty to 20 years, he said.

Wait. I’m confused. Is this the original version, the amendment that was scrapped or the final version? Don’t know? I don’t either. Good job there, Chris Keating, Capitol Bureau Chief. Now I know less than I did when I started reading your story.

Can you condense all of this into bullet points for stupid old me?

# $5,492,000 to improve supervision of sex offenders who are on probation, including upgraded lie-detector and global-positioning-system (GPS) technologies. The money also would be used for truancy prevention and helping officials serve warrants on probation violators.
# $2,147,000 to hire more parole officers and prison guards, along plus expanding the use of GPS technology to track criminals who are on parole.
# $910,000 for the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services to provide supportive housing and for improving the women’s jail-diversion program, among others.
# $681,000 to the Division of Criminal Justice for more prosecutors and better computers.
# $514,000 to hire more employees for the state police major crime squad.
# $252,000 to the Public Defender Service Commission for lawyers to handle more prosecutions and aide indigent criminals.

Yet nothing on penalties. Sigh.

Oh, by the way Chris Keating, Capitol Bureau Chief, the correct term would have been “indigent defendants“, not criminals. Unless, of course, this bill removed the presumption of innocence. Which I have no way of knowing whether it did or not, because I didn’t understand anything you wrote.

Anyone have a link to the actual bill that was passed?

I have long supported greater prisoner re-entry and rehabilitation programs (as you all may know), so I was happy to see that President Bush will sign the Second Chance Act today.

In a sharp change in attitudes about incarceration, many states and private groups have recently experimented with “re-entry” programs to help released prisoners fit back into their communities and avoid new crime.

The strategy will get a major boost this week. President Bush is to sign the Second Chance Act in a public ceremony on Wednesday, making rehabilitation a central goal of the federal justice system. In a sign of how far the pendulum has swung, the measure passed Congress with nearly unanimous bipartisan support.
With the new law, the federal government is to provide more money and leadership in a field where progress is likely to be difficult at best, experts agree.

The law authorizes the spending of $165 million a year for grants to promote and experiment with support services and methods to assess which offenders are more like to commit more crimes.

So will the passage of this bill have any impact in Connecticut and will Connecticut take re-entry programs and rehabilitation more seriously? It seems that there may be a chance. Mike Lawlor, judiciary committee co-chair, was “active” in the Council of State Governments and he has been pushing for a similar focus on re-entry in Connecticut and will be in attendance at the bill signing ceremony today.

While much of the criminal justice debate in Connecticut has centered around mandatory-minimums and harsh three-strikes laws, there apparently is more going on that the press has not cared to report.

But state House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, said that behind those disagreements are wide support for re-entry programs backed by Lawlor, co-chairman of the legislature’s judiciary committee.

“We have a ton in common,” he said.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s commissioner of correction, Theresa Lantz, has repeatedly testified in legislative hearings that supervised-release programs are highly effective. Like most governors, Rell has shown little interest in an expensive prison expansion program.

Michael Thompson, director of the Justice Center at the Council of State Governments, said the new push for re-entry programs grew from a realization in the states that a multi-billion-dollar expansion of prisons alone cannot check crime.

Let us hope that this is indeed true and that the legislature will take re-entry seriously. It is foolish to think that we can prevent crime and that the only solution is to lock people up for long periods of time. The sooner we turn our focus and resources to providing released inmates the tools with which to integrate into society, the sooner we start making our communities safer.

Two news stories today that allow me to hope, just a little bit, that perhaps some sense is seeping into the Capitol. The first proclaims boldly that the suspect in the recent New Britain home invasion had “little rehab for sex offense”.

The ex-convict accused in this week’s fatal New Britain home invasion dropped out of a sex offender treatment program during a 10-year prison stint that involved seemingly little rehabilitation, according to prison and parole documents.

That’s actually inaccurate - he had to leave the program because he was transferred to another facility.

But Williams’ case is now raising questions about whether the state correctional system properly prepares an inmate for eventual release.

“Whenever we run into those situations that are so horrific, it raises the question if our correctional system is performing to the extent that it can,” said state Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, a member of the judiciary committee.

“I think we need to make a concerted effort to benchmark what that optimum program level should be in the Department of Correction, and then see how far away from that level we are,” Kissel said.

Very far, Senator, very far.

Yet there are some that still can’t tell front from down. DOC rep Brian Garnett’s statements remind me of the famed Iraqi minister of (dis)information:

In general, Garnett said, inmates, “can participate in as many programs as they want and refuse to participate in programs.”

“You can’t force an offender to take part in a program,” he said. “You can make them sit in the room, but if they’re not going to engage in participating in the program, all you’re doing is wasting a chair.”

“Can participate” here should be taken to mean “could participate if it weren’t for severe overcrowding and lack of room, facilities and spots in programs”.

Ooops. There’s no such thing as prison overcrowding. My bad.

State Rep. Michael Lawlor, D- East Haven, co-chairman of the judiciary committee, said the case points to the need for more rehabilitative services in prison, but also housing for sex offenders upon release from jail and prison because few want to take them.

“They did not let him out early,” Lawlor said. “Now he finishes his sentence and he’s on probation.”

“What should you do?” Lawlor said. “You should have a place you can force him to go while he’s on probation. No such place exists. That is the problem.”

And no one wants these places in their towns.

The second story is about Gov. Rell’s top secret meeting with law enforcement yesterday (from which Dem legislators - who control the legislature - were excluded). After that meeting, there were no calls for three-strikes laws, but rather a call to streamline the persistent offender statutes and more funding for GPS monitoring.

“The current persistent felony offender law is like the tax code,” said [Chief State's Attorney Kevin] Kane, a longtime prosecutor who stood next to Rell at the afternoon press conference. “You’ve got to be a Philadelphia lawyer to understand it. … If I have a hard time reading it — the number of times I’ve read it — imagine how a judge feels when he’s reading it pretrial.”

Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, the highest-ranking senator, said “there’s no reason why we can’t work with the governor” on her request to increase funding for global positioning system, or GPS, monitoring to track convicted sex offenders with bracelets that could monitor their movements.

Williams also favors more money for re-entry programs for those released from prison and for more beds for sex offenders after their release.

“I would like to think we’re moving beyond the finger-pointing stage,” Williams, of Brooklyn, said. “My goal and hope is to move beyond the political rhetoric.”

Me too, Senator, me too…

To inject some lightheartedness into a serious discussion, here’s Amy Winehouse:

What is it in Connecticut’s water that makes some people batty? Whatever it is, it seems to have some staying power. After Cheshire and more recently the killing in New Britain, Connecticut Congressman Chris Murphy has announced plans to introduce legislation making “home invasion” a Federal crime. From his press release, a copy of which is posted at CTLP:

Today, Congressman Chris Murphy (CT-5) announced a pair of legislative initiatives designed to make home invasion a federal crime and provide additional federal resources and technology to parole and probation officials. Connecticut residents have witnessed two heinous home invasions and murders in less than a year – one just this weekend in New Britain, and one in July in Cheshire.
Murphy’s proposal intends to:

• make home invasion a federal crime;
• improve the FBI’s tracking of home invasions across the country;
• improve federal resources for parole and probation activities, including federal funds for the use of GPS monitoring devices and the hiring of additional parole and probation officers;
• And create a national training center for parole and probation officials.

“Connecticut has been through enough this year. These senseless crimes have hurt so much more than our homes and families – they have shattered our sense of safety and security in our communities. It’s time for the federal government to provide more assistance to the states to keep us safe,” said Murphy.

Now, I’m no Constitutional scholar and I know less about Federalism, but this quote sums up the nutiness of his proposal (thanks to a post on a local listserve):

“The Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local, and there is no better example of the police power, which the Founders undeniably left reposed in the States and denied the central government, than the suppression of violent crime and vindication of its victims. Congress therefore may not regulate noneconomic, violent criminal conduct based solely on the conduct’s aggregate effect on interstate commerce.”

United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000). So what’s the basis here for Federal legislation? I guess if there was a firearm that was used. But wouldn’t there have to be a showing that the firearm crossed state borders? So we would be talking about a very, very small subset of home invasions.

The real reason, I suspect, is to look good. Two of the districts he represents happen to be the scenes of horrific crimes.

However, is there no one advising him? It didn’t occur to him that this would not fall under Federal jurisdiction? Waste taxpayer money and others’ time to look good?

What’s that deficit at now?

The killing of a 62 year old woman last week turned into a political battle over three-strikes laws with a sideshow on plea bargains. Not too long after news broke that Leslie Williams, a probationer, was arrested for one murder and one attempted murder, Gov. Rell renewed her calls for a three-strikes law.

State lawmakers called her out on this, not so subtly suggesting that the was using this tragedy to push her political agenda. They also pointed out that Williams would have had only one “strike” against him and thus, there really was no reason to use this crime to reignite the three-strikes debate.

But they just couldn’t leave it at that.

The problem is not the lack of strong enough criminal penalties, but that prosecutors plea bargain down from offenses that would put offenders away for longer periods, [Judiciary Committee co-chair Mike] Lawlor said. If the suspect had been convicted of what he was originally charged with — first-degree sexual assault — he would have received a 10-year minimum sentence instead of the eight years he received on the plea bargain.

Prosecutors are part of the executive branch, which Rell heads, Lawlor said. She should have talked to Waterbury State’s Attorney John Connelly — never accused of being soft on defendants — to find out why his office agreed to the plea bargain, Lawlor said. Connelly needs to explain that, he said.

And explain it Connelly did. I don’t have to explain the reasons behind, or the importance of, plea bargaining to those of you in the field. Apparently, these basic truths are lost on our legislators, however - or maybe they’re simply ignoring reality in an attempt to win this public battle of perception in an election year. Questioning plea bargaining practices as a whole is a dangerous game to play.

The Courant, of course, has been lapping this up, publishing numerous stories every day. Maybe other news media organizations are doing the same.

Yet, while they discuss plea bargaining, whether sex offenders should have privacy in homeless shelters, whether Rell’s position on three-strikes is inconsistent with her other positions, I have seen little to no mention of the real big problem here: society’s aversion to the reintegration of sex-offenders and the numerous obstacles placed in their path.

One can argue that no matter the resources available to Williams, he would have re-offended. I have no way of arguing for or against that. We will never know. Yet, here is a man (one among thousands) who upon release lived in two homeless shelters. He was sleeping in the victim’s car prior to the incident.

The mass hysteria surrounding sex offenders in our communities in well documented. The utter lack of rehabilitation in our correctional system is well known to those in the field. We can go on increasing punishment for crime all we want, yet that only underscores our utter ignorance (or disregard) of the causes of crime. Probably the only sensible thing I’ve read in the past few days is Rell’s acknowledgment that we will never be able to stop crime (I’m not sure whether she actually believes that); yet we act as if that is a realistic goal.

If we are not willing to fund programs that rehabilitate and make it easier for the recently released to seamlessly reintegrate into society, then we are not really tackling the problem and enhancing public safety. We might as well start handing out life sentences for all crimes.

Previous, similar thoughts here.

By a 25-16 vote, the Judiciary Committee voted against one three-strikes proposal today. The bill called for mandatory life sentence for third time offenders.

Opponents said the revamped three-strikes-and-you’re-out proposal was deceiving because it would not automatically require a life sentence for a third violent offense. The bill still gave prosecutors the discretion to decide whether to charge someone under the law.

And committee co-chairman Rep. Michael Lawlor said prosecutors have told lawmakers they would rarely use such a law.

“The bottom line is, this is very misleading,” said Lawlor, D-East Haven.

Another reason legislators gave for the down vote was that they had just recently tinkered with the persistent offender statute and not enough time has passed to evaluate whether that works or not:

Connecticut already has a law on the books addressing repeat offenders. During a special session in January, where many Cheshire-related reforms were passed, lawmakers tinkered with the law. They passed a version that removed a requirement that a judge make certain findings before imposing up to a life sentence for third-time offenders. That law takes effect March 1.

Sen. Andrew McDonald, the other committee co-chairman, said lawmakers should wait and see if that works.

“We are trying to fix something that we don’t know as yet is broken,” said McDonald, D-Stamford.

Not satisfied with the harsh penalties enacted by the special session of the legislature in February, we once again embark on a discussion of “true” three-strikes laws. There are four separate proposals before the Judiciary Committee to create a three-strikes and you’re out law and there are several bills dealing with prison overcrowding, inmate services and re-entry programs.

Here is a list of all the bills being considered today and here is all the submitted testimony.

What intrigues me is that there seems to be a lot of talk about funding rehabilitation and programs for first time offenders and providing re-entry services.

Prison overcrowding was also a big issue, with Commissioner Lantz being questioned for several hours. What she was still unable to give, however, was a maximum number of inmates that the correctional facilities could hold. I don’t think that’s a difficult question.  Several legislators were pressing her on that. It turns out that the maximum number of permanent beds that our system can hold is 20,095. This, as she explained, does not include adding more permanent beds and temporary beds. Why she could not estimate from there how much space is remaining and how many inmates can be fit into that remaining space is a mystery. Rather, I suspect that she did not want to. Which isn’t particularly helpful because overcrowding is a serious problem and we don’t have a max capacity number then how do we know when the facilities are overcrowded?

My views on this are well known, so I won’t repeat them.

Here is one report on today’s hearing, focusing on the Chief State’s Attorney’s opposition to the 3-strikes bill. More as it becomes available.

The hearing is actually still going on, so you can watch either on your TV (CT-N) or on the web.

Allegations of prison overcrowding and inhumane treatment of inmates abound and yet the American Idol Governor continues to turn a blind eye. Take this latest lawsuit for example. Two inmates at Cheshire Correctional filed a lawsuit claiming that they were forced to defecate and urinate in plastic bags because of the severe overcrowding problem.

In the lawsuit, the men say they were let out of the locked day room — designed as a place to read or watch television, not sleep — once per night to use the bathroom, according to their suit. In intervening hours, they have used plastic bags to urinate or defecate, they claim, and suffer from bladder problems as a result of having to hold their wastes.

The Governor’s response was more of the same:

Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the Department of Correction, said he could not comment on pending litigation, but said the state’s prisons are “orderly, humane and safe.”

DOC Commissioner Theresa Lantz has insisted that the prison system can absorb spikes in population, a position that frustrated the correction officers’ union and certain legislators last year when she refused to put a number on the prison system’s capacity.

A few weeks ago I heard about two separate assaults on correctional officers, but couldn’t find any news coverage of it.

This is a real problem, folks. It’s about time DOC did something about it.

The Danbury News-Times (and apparently the Conn Post too) has this fantastic piece about the state of Connecticut’s prisons (you know, it’s really strange to be reading these stories about CT, when just six months ago, I used to read similar pieces with frequency about other states.)

From 1985 to Feb. 15, 2008, Connecticut’s prison population has soared from 5,422 to 19,690.

“It’s crazy,” concedes state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven. “We are spending more money to run our prisons than run our colleges.”

“Think about it,” said [lawyer Frederic] Ury, a former president of the Connecticut Bar Association. “In just a 20-year period, we have quadrupled the number of people in our prisons and no one seems to be concerned about it.”

So what is the reason for this staggering increase in the population? Certainly the war on drugs and reports over the years seem to show that it really hasn’t had much of an actual impact on the drug problem. But there’s also a trend towards longer sentences and inmates serving longer periods of their sentences, especially since the elimination of good time (not that there’s an actual statue repealing good time, but that’s a story for another day).

“That’s a big difference,” said Bridgeport State’s Attorney Jonathan Benedict. “I don’t think this office is seeking greater sentences for the same crime than we did when I started 30 years ago. But inmates are serving more time on their sentences than they were 30 years ago.”

Now with the three-strikes law back in the judiciary committee, the potential for a further increase in the population is even greater. So what is to be done about it? The only realistic option at this point is building another prison. I’m pretty sure the legislature isn’t the mood to look at actual reform, given their passage of the criminal justice bill that had less reform and more punishment.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell is also pushing a “three strikes” law that would impose life terms on those convicted of three serious felonies.

But Tracy, the convicted felon, believes that’s the most dangerous law the legislature could impose.

“You tell someone they’re going away for life if they get caught — well, they’re not going down easy,” he said. “They’re going to bring danger to themselves, the people around them, and the people who come to get them. That’s a high price to pay.”

With the state’s prisons bursting beyond their 18,000-plus capacity, Lawlor sees only three options. The most obvious, he said, is to build more prisons.

Finally, Lawlor said, “We can do nothing and face being sued in federal court. Then we’ll get a federal judge running our prisons.”

As I’ve said before on this blog, these are quick fixes and won’t serve the long-term problem. One of the smartest things I heard was on Colin McEnroe’s radio show a few months ago. He was interviewing someone from Minnesota (I think; correct me if I’m wrong) Corrections, who said that we have to change expectations. Politicking is geared toward eliminating crime. That’s completely unrealistic and foolish to have as a goal, because it will never happen. Rather, we must work to reducing crime.

The way to do that is to look at what actually leads people to a life of crime. But there’s always very little interest in that. Not good politics and certainly not as surefire a way to retain your seat as locking people up is.

Stephen Cox, chairman of Central Connecticut State University’s criminology department, believes the best approach is to attack the reasons for crime.

“No one wants to hear about the factors that cause people to commit crimes — substance abuse, joblessness, homelessness,” [former CCDLA president Michael] Fitzpatrick said. “They just want them locked up and out of sight.”

“We can start by making bigger investments in our inner cities,” added Cox.

“We need politicians who will stop playing the sound-bite game,” said [Henry] Schissler, [a professor]. “We know the pieces that need to be fixed — better education, substance-abuse treatment programs, jobs with living wages — so why are we choosing not to fix them?”

Because it doesn’t sound as good and doesn’t get as many votes.

I’m sorry, I have to say it. She’s freakin’ scary now. I think she’s lost it and I can almost picture her sitting in a darkened room, illuminated by frequent lightning, hair standing up, rubbing her hands together, eyes pointing in separate directions, cackling, laughing maniacally as she imagines these proposals.

The Governor, as part of her budget and state of the state speech yesterday, proposed these changes to the criminal justice system. Are you ready?

I will be submitting legislation to require a mandatory minimum sentence for Burglary in the Second Degree and to change Burglary in the First Degree to include burglary of an occupied dwelling, day or night.

I wonder if she reads the current statutes before making these proposals: “By Jove! I’ve got a brilliant idea! Let’s outlaw one man killing another!”

I would also like to put in place a three-strikes law for those convicted of three violent felony offenses.

And to satisfy those who thought mistakenly there was an “out” in the original proposal, I am removing the possibility of a case review after 30 years. Now it’s three strikes for violent felony convictions and you’re truly out.

There you go. “Original” three-strikes. Completely ineffective and counter productive. I’m also particularly tickled by the “to satisfy those…” comment. American Idol Governor, indeed.

I am also proposing legislation to significantly toughen our laws dealing with sex offenders.

All too often we hear or read about a predator attempting to entice a child online or about a sex offender failing to register as required.

One simple fix I am proposing is to bar offenders from legally changing their names to escape police attention or to avoid registration.

Again with this recidivism nonsense and this shows real ignorance on the topic. Yeah, we hear about MySpace predators because every single time it happens, there’s a media frenzy. Yet, 90-ish % of “predators” will be within the family. They don’t need myspace.

This name changing this is also odd. Why can’t they be allowed to change their name, as long as they register? To change your name, you have to get an order from Court, no? So if you’re on the sex offender registry, it should be pretty easy for someone to figure that out and make the change in the registry.

But I want to go further. I want to require offenders to report in person to police and to provide the name and address of their employers and the license plate number and description of their cars.

And they will also have a special imprint on their driver’s licenses.

Further than need be… This is scarlet letter territory we’re entering into here. Why should the sex offender have to provide the name of his employer? Do we want to further outcast these people? Look at my post from the other day, about the sex offender who can’t be located because he’s been kicked around like a football, or the sex offenders living under the bridge in Miami, one of whom has decided to disappear. Yeah, that’s public safety.

And in the name of public protection, I am calling for another significant change: I want all persons arrested for an A or B felony the most serious of criminal charges to provide DNA samples immediately upon arraignment.Those convicted of lesser felonies and certain misdemeanors must provide a DNA sample at conviction.

These samples will be processed to see if there are any matches related to unsolved crimes.

Incredibly, the law on the books only requires DNA samples to be taken at the end of the inmate’s sentence.

This is where one eye starts spinning uncontrollably, some cats enter the picture and fade to black.

This is just frightening. Absolutely frightening. Presumption of innocence? Them’s just fancy terms. Don’t mean nothing. You’re arrested so you’re guilty. Give up your damn DNA. Heck, I got a better idea. Why wait for people to be arrested. Let’s just have the police go to everyone’s homes. We can all stand in our yards in a line and the police can walk by, taking our DNA. You know, because innocent people don’t exist. Diogenes was right. There isn’t an honest man.

By the way, the statute calls for DNA to be collected after conviction. DOC can choose to collect that sample upon initial entry and they don’t always collect it prior to release.

She’s absolutely lost it and has no idea what to do and what not to do. Pandering is scary enough. This delusional law-making is scarier.

More from CTLP, CT News Junkie.

Disclaimer: This is my opinion. I don’t really think she looks like that in her home. That was my poor attempt at satire. Also, I don’t know what the public defender’s office’s official position would be. This is just mine.

Now that stricter home invasion laws have been enacted, Governor Rell indicated at a press conference today that she will be considering whether to lift the parole ban this weekend. This will certainly be good news for a correctional system that is barely hanging on by a thread and is bursting at the seams (hah! TWO in a row!).

At a ceremony Friday, in which Mrs. Rell signed into law the new criminal justice reforms passed earlier this week by the legislature, she said she needs to make sure a few more things are in place before she lifts the ban. However, “I hope to have that decision over the weekend,” she said.

Cathy Osten, a lieutenant and president of CSEA/SEIU Local 2001’s correctional supervisors, said Friday morning that all the state’s correctional facilities are overcrowded. She said she’s been with the department more than 18 years and it’s been overcrowded almost half of that time. She said the current population increase is a result of the governor’s ban on parole.

Ironically, her new bill might get its first test on the first day! The wife of the Assistant Deputy House Speaker walked in on two robbers in her home today (Morons). Will it matter what time she actually signed the bill into law?

Gov. Rell also indicated that she would try and raise a three-strikes bill again, because the people of CT want it or some such nonsense. Except that the most recent QU poll showed that they don’t. I guess she’s the American Idol Governor only when it suits her ideas.

is here. I’m going to go join the legislators and stick my head in the sand. (From CTLP)

Update: It seems that a “three-strikes” provision has been defeated.

Second Update:  Home invasion is now a crime, not requiring proof of knowledge of persons present; three-strikes is not on the books. However, the persistent offender law has been re-written to make it easier for prosecutors to seek harsher penalties.

Prosecutors seeking to convict someone as a “persistent offender” will no longer have to prove that an offender has “a history and character that … indicate that extended incarceration will best serve the public interest.” Instead, prosecutors will simply have to show that the defendant has the requisite number of previous convictions necessary to apply a longer sentence.

This, however, still leaves them with the discretion of whether to charge someone as a persistent offender.

Some of the other provisions that were passed:

•Expanding global positioning system monitoring of 300 more criminals out on parole and believed to be the most likely to commit more crimes. The state would have to hire 10 new parole officers to monitor the parolees.

•Providing more residential treatment beds for sex offenders.

•Creating an automated system to notify victims of court hearings and make it easier to allow state agencies to share information about victims.

•Requiring a state-of-the-art computer system.

•Adding a forensic psychologist and two victim advocates to work full-time for the parole board.

•Providing a video link between each prison and the parole board, costing about $250,000 overall, for parole hearings.

•Requiring the courts to provide often-secret juvenile and youthful-offender records to the parole board and Department of Correction.

No measure concerning building prisons or improving rehabilitation were taken up. Those might be addressed in the general session next month.

The legislature’s special session is set for tomorrow, when they will debate reforms to the “horribly broken” criminal justice system. Earlier in the week, reports stated that both parties had agreed on almost all the reforms. Not true, it seems. There are still some sticking points. The Republicans, taking the hard line stance, want a three-strikes law which would mandate life sentences for anyone convicted of a third violent felony. The Dems, showing some good sense for a change, are resisting that.

Republicans have been calling for an automatic sentence of life imprisonment for any criminal who is convicted of three violent felonies, but some Democrats have rejected that concept as an overly simplistic solution that would take sentencing discretion away from judges.

On top of that, they want to make home invasion a “per se” crime.

Cafero and Senate Republican leader John McKinney of Fairfield are both concerned about a loophole in a 34-page draft bill concerning the wording of the proposed home-invasion law. Currently, the invasion of an occupied home is not considered a violent crime, and lawmakers in both parties want to change that. The Republicans say a loophole in the draft bill would prevent prosecutors from pursuing a charge of home invasion if the criminal claimed that he did not know the house was occupied.

I have no problem with classifying burglary as a violent offense. The second part of this quote is just plain wrong. Prosecutors can charge defendants with whatever the hell they want (and often do). It’s the proving part that’s difficult (burden of proof and all that). Not only does it remove the intent requirement - that is, intentionally enter a house knowing some is in there - and makes all acts of entering a home the same.

Derek Slap, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, said Williams agrees with Republicans that wording in the draft bill should be changed. The Senate president feels strongly that if you break into somebody’s home, and they are home, it’s home invasion,” Slap said.

Or burglary. But whatever.

“In addition, he doesn’t have a problem with the governor’s proposal that if you break into somebody’s home at night — whether they are home or not — that’s home invasion.”

I still have a problem with this. This essentially removes incentive for burglars (let’s be honest: this is not going to stop burglaries) to ensure that no one’s home. This does not deter.

The Governor’s proposal is also meeting resistance from youth advocates. Part of her proposal called for opening up access to juvenile records, which are currently sealed and unavailable.

[S]ome youth advocates fear that opening the files undermines the basic principles of juvenile justice and is unfair to individuals who shouldn’t be punished for their reckless behavior when they were young. “This really eviscerates the purpose of juvenile court, which is to provide rehabilitation in a confidential setting,” said Martha Stone, executive director of the Center for Children’s Advocacy at the University of Connecticut School of Law.

Stone and other juvenile advocates point to recent scientific research showing that adolescents’ brains continue to develop through their early 20s and that teenagers are not able to fully appreciate the wrongfulness of their acts until their bodies have fully matured.

At the very least, they say, this proposal should be put off till the regular session, so there can be testimony and public debate.

Finally, the Governor’s office is still playing denial games in regards to prison overcrowding. DOC continues to maintain that the population is “manageable”, while DOC employees keep reminding us that it is not.

“We have over 800 inmates sleeping in unconventional areas — dorms, closets, bigger utility closets with three or four people sleeping on the floor,” said David Testa, president of Local 387 of the correction officers’ union. “We think 800 inmates sleeping on the floor is an emergency. … The system we have presently isn’t working.”

In the nomenclature of the Department of Correction, the inmates in “nontraditional housing” are considered as the “overflow” of prisoners who do not have traditional beds. To the union, that means criminals sleeping in plastic sleds on gymnasium floors and in converted closets.

DOC is still in full denial mode, however. Sorry Mr. Garnett. I’ll believe my clients over you, thanks.

Curiously, they have re-assigned a number of COs from “less essential” posts to “dormitories, cell blocks and other priority areas crowded with prisoners”. The result?

To staff those posts, the department leaves less essential ones vacant on a day-to-day basis, he said. Those might include posts in a laundry room or school classrooms. Those programs, including educational lessons, are shut down for the day if no is guard present, Garnett said.

Great. Not only are the sleeping on floors and sharing a sink with 50 other inmates, but the few classes and programs that are available to them are closed because of this overcrowding.

Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, an East Haven Democrat who is co-chairman of the legislature’s influential judiciary committee, tells another story. He says there is only one sink for a group of 55 prisoners at the Whalley Avenue jail in New Haven. Inmates in that group use it to wash their hands and their clothes, Lawlor says. The same 55 criminals, he says, regularly stand in line to use one toilet — in a jail that is sometimes hot and stifling with a powerful stench.

“Some are mentally ill,” Lawlor said. “Some are HIV positive. Some have tuberculosis. Everybody’s mad and angry. No privacy. No quiet.”

It’s pretty damn obvious to everyone that prisons are overflowing, that tensions are high and there’s absolutely no productive outlet for the inmates. The Gov. talks a good talk, but it’s becoming painfully obvious that she has no clue what she’s talking about or how to really handle a growing problem. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like many others in the lege do either.

A graphic from the Courant showing current population levels [it's in PDF format for some reason]. What’s really striking (and worrisome) about those numbers is that most facilities are overflowing and all medium to maximum facilities are above their capacity (bar Northern).

After yesterday’s press release by the Guv, apparently outlining her own proposals for criminal justice reform, the task force she appointed to make recommendations released theirs.

Initial recommendations from Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s task force on changing the parole system did not include a “three strikes” law for automatic life sentences, but focused instead on programs for ex-offenders that would cost tens of millions of dollars annually.

Funny how none of the stories covering the Dems or the Guv’s proposals mentioned cost. At least the task force understands that rehab is a big portion of crime prevention.

The task force called for expanding counseling services, housing and drug treatment for offenders leaving prison.

The recommendations included special housing for sex offenders; mental health screenings for an increased number of offenders upon release; more job training for all former offenders; and a Center for Excellence in the Management of Problem Sexual behavior that would study sex offenders.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that someone finally has common sense and has suggested sensible proposals. But you’d be wrong:

The two sets of recommendations contain many of the same proposals — creating a full-time parole board, hiring more parole officers and creating a new crime of home invasion to cover burglaries of occupied dwellings.

I don’t know how else to say this: “Home invasion” is already a crime. It is known by it’s less ritzy name “burglary”.

Oh well. I guess the Guv couldn’t care that much about her own task force that she had to release her personal recommendations - or more appropriately, she doesn’t give a damn about rehabilitation.

Edit: CTLP has more.