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Violence, Mental Illness, and the need for Prison Reform

/ Melissa DiRado / Leave a comment

According to a recent New York Times article, “Over the past decade, the use of force by correction officers has jumped nearly 240 percent, even as the daily population has declined by almost 15 percent over the same period.” Such an increase is extremely concerning to those who oversee the prison system as well as those who advocate for those who are incarcerated.

What is the explanation for this increase?

Some attribute the increase in violence, in part, to the surge of prisoners who have some sort of mental illness. Such conditions often make following the rules of prison difficult, and often these prisoners lash out. Additionally, it is concerning to learn that “The proportion of inmates with a diagnosed mental illness has grown to 40 percent, from 20 percent, over the last eight years, according to the Correction Department.” While there has been some increase in the training received by corrections officers as to how these inmates differ from the general population, it appears more needs to be done.  Even with an increase in training, the lack of sound procedures seem to be directly linked to the tragic death of one mentally ill inmate, Mr. Echevarria. Mr. Echevarria ingested a toxic cleaning agent, and corrections officers ignored his pleas, him vomiting blood, and he eventually died in his cell.

Some of the violence is being attributed to inmates being abused at the hands of corrections officers. One former inmate who was interviewed in this article recounts some of the abuse he suffered: ““I was cuffed, they kicked us, punched us, threw garbage on us, and Maced me all at the same time.” This same inmate, in another incident with corrections officers, was “beaten by at least 10 correction officers in April 2012 after he refused to leave his cell.” As a result, he suffered a fractured nose and vertebra and said he “was choked until he passed out.”

While prison reform has never bee a popular topic, these articles certainly beg the question of when will be enough. How much more abuse will people who are incarcerated have to suffer before changes are made? It seems horribly wrong to treat incarcerated individuals differently because they are incarcerated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/nyregion/rise-in-mental-illness-and-violence-at-vast-jail-on-rikers-island.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/nyregion/complaint-by-fired-correction-officer-adds-details-about-a-death-at-rikers-island.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140325&nlid=67905862&tntemail0=y&_r=1#story-continues-1

 

Feel Good Friday: Hero Coach Halt School Shooting

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Feel Good Friday: Hero Coach Halt School Shooting 

Several weeks ago, CBS’s 60 Minutes told the amazing story of Frank Hall, an assistant football coach at Chardon High School.  When a a shooter entered the high school and started spraying gunfire into a crowd of students, Hall confronted the shooter and chased him out of the building.

Here is how the story began:

Two years ago this week three students were killed and three were wounded in a high school shooting you probably don’t remember because there are so many. An assistant football coach named Frank Hall helped stop that shooting. But when we sat down with him recently, Hall told us he wished there was no reason to know his name or, God forbid, think of him as a hero. He’s the type you’d call a “regular guy.”

On February 27th, 2012, Hall was doing what he always did. With hugs and fist bumps, he kept order among a hundred kids gathering in the school cafeteria before class. Then, Hall was confronted by a question no one can truly answer. What would you do at the sound of gunfire? No time to think. There’s only the reflex of character. This is the story of a fraction of a second and the months of consequences that follow. . . .

This post was originally published on the SLACE Archive. For more public policy related video/audio, be sure to check out the SLACE Archive for daily podcast recommendations.

The Human Impacts of Climate Change

/ Danielle Kloster / Leave a comment

I just recently finished reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. Kolbert focuses the first half of the book on exploring the places, people, and creatures that climate change has already begun to affect, and the second half on the policy debates under the Bush administration, as well as the state of scientific research at the time. Originally published in 2006, the book is now eight years old, making it somewhat outdated. However, its age also makes Kolbert’s narrative about people suffering the consequences of a warming Earth even more intimidating. She writes about the receding and disappearing glaciers that we often hear about, but she also delves into the issue of permafrost thawing in Alaska and other northern areas, the migration of butterfly species northward in England as temperatures rise, and the risks to coastal communities of sea level rise. When Kolbert traveled to Alaska to research the book and meet with one of the leading experts on permafrost, she found homes and other structures that were beginning to collapse due to the thawing of the ground below. It can be easy living in a temperate climate to forget about the human impacts of climate change that are already being felt. It seems like here in the Northeast, climate change only becomes a part of our public discourse after a major storm event.

After finishing the book (which I highly recommend), I did a little research to see what the current state of climate change policy is under the Obama administration. A look at the administration’s climate change page shows that the administration has made a greater effort recently to work with the international community in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. However, it seems that most of the agreements and coalitions call for a general reduction in greenhouse gas emissions without hard numerical goals to meet. While the Obama administration has made an effort to begin the process of reducing carbon dioxide emissions here in the US through the limits set on coal plant emissions built in the future, it seems like too little, too late. As Kolbert explains, climate change is happening and it is affecting people now. Emissions globally continue to increase and the current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is around 400 ppm (according to NOAA). Besides the other reasons of energy security, national security, and the environment, investing in sustainable and renewable energy sources and reducing our individual energy use are crucial for getting emissions under control, and even then there is no guarantee that we won’t feel the effects of climate change. The people in Alaska are clearly feeling it already and relatively small levels of sea level rise will be enough to inundate many coastal communities, besides the recent extreme and sporadic weather patterns that have been attributed to climate change in the media (though not in any scientific publication that I know of). Climate change and its policy are complicated issues, and I plan to delve into them further in my next few posts.

Maggie Gallagher’s White Flag (And Bitter Predictions)

/ Matthew McKeon / Leave a comment

A few days ago, Huffington Post blogger Lila Shapiro posted her recent interview with Maggie Gallagher, co-founder and former president of the National Organization for Marriage and, more recently the Institute for Marriage And Public Policy.  While HuffPost’s “Gay Voices” articles tend to skew towards shrill tirades against comparatively trivial grievances, Shapiro stepped back and let Gallagher speak her mind. The results were interesting.

 

The focal point of the article was that Gallagher more or less acknowledged the inevitability of marriage equality, and that she would henceforth direct her energy to other issues.  Gallagher said that she had no regrets about fighting for an issue she cared deeply about, but that there are other battles she looks forward to fighting. “I now have a lot more freedom now to figure out what I want to do with the next 20 years of my life,” she told Shapiro.  Gallagher’s concession was naturally big news, but it’s her additional comments regarding the future pro-marriage equality America that interest me.

 

When asked her opinion on increasing support of marriage equality from religious groups in the U.S., Gallagher had her explanation ready.  She reasoned that as the dominant public morality in this country changes to support marriage equality, religious groups will want to conform in order to avoid being seen as backwards.  Gallagher predicted a bleak future for these groups:

 

“If responses to previous cultural/sexual/moral clashes (like abortion or the sexual revolution) are any indication, religions that embrace the dominant morality and reject core Biblical teachings will fade, fast, like the Episcopalians in this country.”

 

To me, this illustrates a profound misunderstanding of religious support of marriage equality and LGBT rights generally.  Gallagher seems to believe that religious Americans were coerced or assimilated into a viewpoint out of fear.  That contention sidesteps the reality that many individuals in “mainline” Protestant denominations have advocated for LGBT rights – including marriage – as soon as the issue began to gain public notice in the early 2000s.

 

Perhaps more importantly, Gallagher missed the mark on impact of religious groups embracing marriage equality. While both Catholic and mainline Protestant church attendance may continue to decline, it will not be because of a compassionate stance on marriage.

 

Congregations are growing older and they need newer, younger members to survive.  It is no secret that younger Americans are more in favor of marriage equality than their parents or grandparents, but this trend continues even among comparatively conservative Evangelical Christians.  A 2011 Pew Research poll f0und that 44% of respondents aged 18-29 supported marriage equality, compared to only 12% of respondents over the age of 65.

 

I have seen the fallacy of Gallagher’s prediction with my own eyes and in my own community.  As a practicing Episcopalian, I have regularly attended services at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Syracuse since my arrival in 2011.  In 2013, a rainbow flag was introduced beside the American and Episcopal flags, indicating the church’s inclusiveness to all who pass by.  On at least two or three Sundays after the new flag was hung, several new and younger people and couples wandered in during the service and took a seat.  Afterwards, they expressed relief to the pastor that they found a church that accepts them.

 

Such occasions give me hope that Maggie Gallagher’s bleak predictions for the future of religious America are unfounded.

(Sources for this article can be found in the hyperlinked text within)

Prison Grandma

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Prison Grandma

This edition of Sunday Funday brings a CBS Sunday morning (Steve Hartman) tale of the prison grandma, an elderly woman who passes the time in a very unlikely location–a Kansas prison.

Here is a description of the segment from the CBS website:

SuEllen Fried, of Prairie Village, Kan., started coming to Lansing Correctional around 1980 for what she thought would be a little volunteer work, but the now-81-year-old-grandmother ended up committed to these guys for life. Steve Hartman reports.

This post was originally published on the SLACE Archive.  For more public policy related video/audio, be sure to check out the SLACE Archive for daily podcast recommendations.