Re: Home Is Where The Heart Is

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So LB steps in, establishing her dominance.

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It's in tapped today, and I thought one commenter added some important insights, but you can't link to indiviudal comments at tapped.

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Particularly on matters relating to the Coriolis force. No one had better mess with me on which way water spirals down the drain, I tell you.

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Yay, LB!

Isn't this technically unconstitional, under the 3/5s of a person thing?

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4: I don't follow the unconstitutionalness. They're counted as whole people, just in a place they can't vote.

And 2: Hell, with my very first post ever I fail to give Sausagely his due credit. As Godfather of the blogosphere, he can have my legs broken for that, right?

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Good issue for your maiden post, LB! Pretty much everything about the US penal system pisses me off, and almost none of it gets reported.

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Probably not unconstitutional (after all, children are counted in the census, even though they can't vote), but it's definately a bad way to go about apportionment.

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well, because they will be affected, more or less, by the district they currently reside in, and not the district they commited the crime in or used to reside in. now, if you wanted to change the census based on how long they will be in prison, I'd be all for that. but enough of this legal person counting mumbo jumbo.

crossposted as 129 in the thread below.

re 5: they can't vote anywhere, so why count them then, hmm? and then why count children?

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Well, I'm not a lawyer, so my hypothesis probably isn't very followable. But surely the 14th amendment or the Voting Rights Act or something has to cover this whole "transport people somewhere, deprive them of voting rights, but count them as constituents" thing. Surely. I mean, it just seems so, so. . . . unfair.

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This is obviously fucked up. But, the other side of the coin is (and I'll bet this is a common argument in favor of the status quo) the urban areas shouldn't have the political power to just dump their inmates in someone else's backyard and still retain the political power of the inflated residency. It's a trade-off of sorts.

But, since the inmates are disenfranchised, obviously the political power of the prison areas is dramatically inflated instead.

Solution: give inmates the right to vote!

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This post is totally prissy. (I'm not sure I see a solution to the problem. I wouldn't want to fuck around with census numbers too much in recoding people, either. We have enough issues with map-drawing.)

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give inmates the right to vote!

There was some state that recently started letting low-level convicts vote, though I can't remember which one. Or if the bill even passed, rather than just being introduced. But I agree, disenfranchising prisoners doesn't seem to make much sense, despite fears that they will legalize all sorts of crimes (or something).

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It's not just urban/suburban, though. I would bet that prisoners go from blue states to red states, inflating the number of electoral votes the red states get. So the red states push through policies that benefit them (farm subsidies) at the expense of policies that benefit the blue states (revitalizing inner cities), leading to more crime in the blue states, meaning more prisoners get shipped to the red states, which means.... Lather, rinse, repeat.

Or at least this is the conspiracy theory I developed after visiting my grandparents in prison-rich farm country this Christmas.

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What I'm about to say smacks of the logic for having husbands representing their wives prior to women's suffrage, but since it's also part of the reasoning behind children being unable to vote under the current system: shouldn't they be counted in the district where either their significant other, parent(s), or other guardian live, by their choice, on the grounds that those people have their interests at heart and will hold legislators responsible. There are obvious administrability problems with this, but I like it.

4: Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime [my emphasis], the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

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1. Awesome to see you posting LB.

2. I mostly despise this practice because of the issues related to depressed economies being propped up that you cite. I care less about this in a few locations, e.g., Maine. b/c there are only 2 congressional districts there, and prisoners are able to vote. Massachusetts used to be the same way, but we went and amended our Constitution. Regressive crap!

3. I've often wondered about this vis-a-vis DC. Nobody's worried that the District is about to go Republican any time soon, but all those prisoners are getting shipped out to Federal prisons all over the country. (It's the Repukes way of helping the District in the absence of adequate funding--especially galling, since so many suburbanites avail themseleves of the city's resources and pay no local taxes and the Federal Government's presence places demands on the city's coffers.) I don't know how they were counted when there was a prison in NoVA for D.C.'s prisoners that Tom Davis managed to have shut down.

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Yeah, what is the rationale for depriving convicts of the franchise? Is there really a fear that someone will get elected to Congress on a pro-murder platform? If it's strictly punitive, well... its sort of adorably high-minded to think that Americans are so attached to our right to vote.

(Also, mazel tov to LB on being the first of the next generation to post.)

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10 raises a good point. Why should NYC retain the voting rights of X million constituents when X-Y constituents actually live there? It's not necessarily the case that the prisoners will return to their original districts once out of jail (and if they're in for a long time, their districts may have shifted.)

How are college students counted normally? College isn't a prison sentence, but it's about as long as a short one. I'm still listed as a resident of my hometown though I haven't lived there in some time; I suppose it's different because I can vote (but I've also been able to sign up for voting here without changing residency, sooo.)

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14 seems sound to me.

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There's also an air of collective punishment about the current practice: your communities produced these criminals, therefore your communities should pay the price.

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the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

So then why are prisoners counted for Congressional districts at all?

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Because, to some extent, they look to that district to protect them. But to say that it is the fault of the suburban/low-population/depressed regions is to miss the forest for the trees. Lets say you count the prisoners in their home city, or whatever. Then, when the prison starts to crumble, who says, hey, buffalo (e.g.) needs money to rebuild the prison! nobody, because buffalo doesn't have a big enough say anymore. so then you either have a crumbling prison, or the prison goes away, replaced by some cheaper new prison closer to the city (where maybe it's privately run). So now a bunch of people in buffalo have even fewer job prospects, so they either move ot the city crowding the prospects there, or they suffer until the state picks them up (or they take from you).

Remember, NYC isn't picking up the burden of housing criminals at Ossining. That's getting picked up by the local residents, who, though they may work there, also take the risk of being close by the jail (subject to break outs, depressed property values, etc.).

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td, I may not be reading carefully enough, but it just seems to me that the text of the 14th Amendment prohibits it.

Still I support both felon and prisoner enfranchisement.

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21 illustrates the need for full enfranchisement.

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The part I italicized says that the remedy of decreased apportionment does not apply to the case of people convicted of crimes, and the remedy doesn't apply to anything else, because of the 15th amendment.

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bg,

see w/d's 14th acomment above.

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20: It's an easy misreading, but the 14th amendment says that you do, not that you don't, count prisoners for districting purposes even if they've been deprived of the franchise.

8, 21: I don't know if it's reasonable to call a prison a burden on a locality. It's a source of jobs, and spending by the state on local industries. And prisons aren't built by Buffalo, they're built by New York State in Buffalo -- construction and maintenance comes out of state, not local, budgets. (I guess the point about fear of prison breaks and lowered property values is fair, although I would say that prison breaks are uncommon, aren't they? And property values are pretty low around most prisons anyway.)

This, though: "Because, to some extent, they look to that district to protect them," seems way off. What does the local government, or the state legislators, of Buffalo do for prisoners in Buffalo? Maintain roads? Improve the quality of public schools? While inside, prisoners are very insulated from local government, and when they get out, they don't stay around the prison, they go home. (Or, maybe, move elsewhere, but I bet most go home.)

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jd,

I don't think that's the case, but ymmv.

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LB,

I would disagree that a prison isn't a burden on a locality. After all, would you rather have a factory or a prison (I guess it depends on what kind of factory). Yes, it is a bevy of jobs, but it's not teh awesome.

As for your second point, you are correct, although I assume in the case of a fire, the prison relies on the locality. But then, I haven't seen the inside of a prison (other than Alcatraz) and I've never studied them, so what do I know?

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I meant, as a solution to both giving the prison districts the numerical clout to maintain their prisons, and ensuring that said clout does not necessarily translate to more draconian measures for the inmates.

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29: Fair enough.

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29 has an opposite problem, the prison may well have a larger population than the rest of the district, so the voters of the prison can overcome the will of the resident populace. It's not certain that this result is wrong, but it seems troubling to some people.

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I would disagree that a prison isn't a burden on a locality.

Well, the question is whether localities seek or shun prisons. I don't have stats, but my strong impression is that prisons don't have a NIMBY problem -- localities compete for them. Now, not all localities compete for them, but in the places where they are located, I'm pretty sure they're viewed as a net benefit. (This is an impression, not knowledge -- if you're got info to the contrary, I'm convincible.)

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31: Certainly, localities hate that kind of thing when the voting transients are college students, let alone prisoners.

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28: I totally disagree. Towns are frequently petitioning to get a prison to be built in their city. Not only is it a bevy of jobs, visitation will sustain a bit of commerce, enough to keep the town going. If it were, on balance, a burden, no town would be begging the state to build their prison there. They get all the economic benefits without having to pay for the thing to be built. And believe me, there are few safety concerns. Escapes from prison are rare, and who hangs around town in the middle of nowhere once they escape?

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32: Wouldn't you want a prison in your backyard if it meant jobs for everyone? What if the state gave you the prison, only then didn't give you the tax dollars to maintain it because the reps in other parts had more clout? In all honesty, despite the other reasons I've given, I think it's partly a way to help ensure that localities get enough attention.

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Here is a page that I maintain with more facts and links about this apportionment subversion issue from a Pennsylvania perspective.

Pennsylvania -democracy incarcerated-

http://mysite.verizon.net/aahpat/pdi/workxpdi.htm

The Wash Post numbers don't make sense so I posted this today:

Washington Post is disinforming the public http://leftindependent.blogspot.com/2006/01/washington-post-is-disinforming-public.html

Last night I wrote this responding to the Wash Post article:

America; democracy incarcerated

http://leftindependent.blogspot.com/2006/01/america-democracy-incarcerated.html

America's right wing has been using the manipulation of apportionment as a Jim Crow campaign to subvert the Voter Rights Act and the 26st Amendment for the past twenty-five years. right wing Democrats as much as the extreme right wing Republicans. This is how the right wing prosecutor Democrats took the DNC back from the liberals after the progressive gains of the 1970's. SEE: How America's right wing has successfully subverted our democracy http://leftindependent.blogspot.com/2005/08/how-americas-right-wing-has.html

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only then didn't give you the tax dollars to maintain it because the reps in other parts had more clout?

This is the second time you've said this. Really, don't funds to build and maintain state prisons come out of the statewide budget? How could they possibly be a local expense? Maybe you know something I don't, but this makes no sense to me.

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don't funds to build and maintain state prisons come out of the statewide budget

I am positive this is true.

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36, 37: Yes, they do. But we're talking about apportionment. These funds don't magically get apportioned. Someone has to argue for funds getting sent somewhere. Otherwise, it wouldn't be politics, and things would be a whole lot easier.

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For instance, let's say ossining was starting to get worn down. Now Ossining, NY knows how to run a prison, and they'd love to have a new one built there, because that keeps the jobs there. Let's also assume that Albany wants a prison, because the state government can't employ enough people there. If Ossining doesn't have those extra representatives, it may not be enough to keep the jail there.

I may be contradicting myself. That's what I get for not having a conviction, and trying to argue from one side.

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OT: Does anyone know the best source for late-breaking Congressional news? I'm trying to find out how the Alito cloture vote went/ is going.

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Okay, I'm following you now. Still, once the prison is there, with inmates in it, the state really hase no choice other than to fund it at some level -- what's the alternative, locking the doors, turning out the lights, and starving the prisoners? I can't see that clout of the local legislators is going to have a large effect on the level at which an existing prison is funded; certainly not that such clout is likely to be necessary to keep a prison going at a minimally functional level.

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Bg,

http://www.c-span.org/ perhaps?

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But td, why would the representatives from a district that has a prison have any more reason to argue for moneys to keep up the prison? Poor prison conditions affect prisoners, not the people who work there. And prisoners can't vote. I would imagine (though I don't know for sure, I'll ask my boss) that the people who push for more money to be apportioned for prison upkeep are your standard criminal-loving liberals like myself, not the tight-fisted Republicans from rural areas.

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The prison districts, where the prisoners are counted, get the apportionment benefit without their politicians having to campaign to the thousands of prisoners in those districts.

In poverty block grants the money goes to the prison district where the prisoners are not members of the community. But their home districts, where families are left behind with even less economic viability than before the incarceration, do not get as much block grant money.

The rural prison districts are mostly homogenized white Republican while the home districts are urban diverse and pluralistic. Count prisoners where their homes are and many rural white Republcan districts will need to be redrawn. Often adding more diverse communities into those districts.

This is how the right wing has subverted American democracy. Actually it is how Richard Nixon and the Wallace wing of the Democrats colluded to use the drug war to undermine the electoral empowerment effects of the Voter Righte Act and the 26st Amendment. Right wing Democrats like John Kerry have gone along with t so that they do not have to campaign to liberlas, progressive, nonconformists and dissident minorities.

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how the Alito cloture vote went

72-25

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43, sure they affect the people who work there. I'd rather work in a prison that has the best up keep possible and that pays the best, than a prison that is in a state of declining repair.

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47 to 44.

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43: I wasn't sure whether they had print information. I don't have headphones with me, and I don't want to play any video with noise right now.

The filibuster attempt failed. The vote was 72-25. I'd like to see the breakdown.

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I just think that if the reps from a prison-district are going to argue for more money to come to their town in any way related to the prison, it would be to make salaries higher for the people who work there, not to, say, build an extra wing so prisoners don't have to be double-celled, or for renovation. State prisons are already extremely poorly mismanaged as it is. Stateville, in Illinois, has prisoners double-celled, which leads to a LOT of problems and even gets close to a constitutional violation, while an entire building on the premises, one that is only, I think, five years old, is left vacant. It's absurd.

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I do think that healh services tend to get understaffed, bu maybe those workers live outside of the district. Mental health is short-changed in Massachusetts.

And they cut corners on food. It's pretty much forzen turkey every day with mixed frozen veg. They also serve a lot of starch. I doubt that the margines of the supplier are affected at all.

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There are probably too many drawbacks to this, and it would take a lot of legislating and amending, but has anyone ever considered at-large representation (no geographic districts) at the state level?

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It seems bostoniangirl has been hitting Becks' liquor cabinet.

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bg, c-span has the details, i think.

anyhow, I was trying to reason why the apportionment makes sense one way or the other. it's really hard for me to have any clue, though, because it never really gets brought up on a national or statewide level as to how it affects elections or statewide funding.

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Wha's that, apo?

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I do think that healh services tend to get understaffed, bu maybe those workers live outside of the district. Mental health is short-changed in Massachusetts.

As of six years ago, when I was working on a class action on behalf of mentally ill prisoners in NJ, mental health was greviously, horrifically understaffed and under provided in NJ. Things happened to mentally ill prisoners in NJ state prisons that shouldn't ever happen, anywhere, to anyone.

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Mental health is short-changed in Massachusetts.

As far as I know, it's bad pretty much everywhere. I'm actually working on building a possible case about mental health care in prison right now. It's absolutely fucking appalling.

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LB, I'm trying to do that exact same thing for prisoners in Illinois. Any advice?

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Huh. Email me if you want to know anything about the class action I worked on, although it's a while back, at another firm, and I was a summer associate for most of it, and a first year for the rest. But anything I remember that might be of any use is at your service -- this is such important work.

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Cool. I probably will when I actually get closer to writing some things. What I'm doing is not actually bringing the case, but building a wealth of information convincing enough to get someone else, with money, to bring it.

What I really need is a doctor. At this point, my conjectures are just rampant speculation about what is or is not good mental health care based on my own intuition and limited knowledge.

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57: Right. Massachusetts isn't all that liberal, but if it's short-changed here, I'm pretty sure that it must be understaffed everywhere. And I'm just talking about the treatment of a prisoner I know who gets very bad depression. (And don't say that prison is depressing, and it's just situatinal.)

There was an absolutely horrific WGBH Frontline special about mistreatment of severely mentally ill prisoners. They beat up fairly psychotic people who are paranoid and won't leave their cells and don't give them adequate meds. The scene I saw could have easily been avoided by injecting the guy with some ativan. In one state, they send them to the correctional psych hospital to patch them up when things get too bad, but then they fail to treat them once they get sent back.

And I'm not sure that prisoners, unlike the involuntarily committed or NG by reason of insanity have any right to psychiatric care.

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Cross-posted. I had a worms-eye view of the case: as I remember it, the strategy was focussing on horror stories, mainly successful suicides and self-injuries, although we had some truly unpleasant incidents with direct abuse of mentally ill prisoners by guards.

A key to the case was that our class members were disproportionately in what's called in NJ Administrative Segregation; it's essentially solitary confinement as punishment for breaking prison rules (something which the mentally ill tend to do more often) and were deprived of treatment while in Ad Seg.

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And I'm not sure that prisoners, unlike the involuntarily committed or NG by reason of insanity have any right to psychiatric care.

Luckily, they absolutely do, just as they have a right to medical treatment. However, courts have been pretty loathe to declare any particular course of psychiatric care insufficient. The problem with bringing claims about any kind of health care, mental or otherwise, is that the current standard is "deliberate indifference" to "serious medical needs" for the action to rise to a constitutional claim. Proving that someone deliberately disregarded someone's mental health needs, in a way that wasn't just an exercise of medical judgment, is really hard.

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60: One easy thing is to look at incidents where prisoners were deprived of meds -- it's an important measure of care, but you don't need to know much to figure out if it happened: just get the medical chart and it should be right there. If the information isn't in the chart, then the bad charting is, again, an objective problem with the care. (Not just from the point of view of transparency to outsiders -- the chart is necessary for any one health-care provider to communicate with others about what's being done for the patient.)

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solitary confinement as punishment for breaking prison rules (something which the mentally ill tend to do more often)

For sure. One of the claims that I'm trying to formulate is that there is a constitutional claim that arises out of the fact that mentally ill inmates are getting seg time upon seg time for actions that are essentially symptoms of their mental illness. One particularly poignant example that I read just last week was a prisoner who, when the correctional officer came to bring him his food, was mutilating his arm with a self-fashioned instrument. The c/o said "stop cutting yourself!" The prisoner ignored him. Got 3 months seg time for "disobeying a direct order."

Fuckers.

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That's totally the sort of incident we focussed on. Look, let me call people at my old firm, and see if I can get copies of our briefs for you. It'll give me an excuse to get back in touch.

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64: Yeah, that info is definitely not in the charts. I can barely even figure out what medications they were prescribed at any given time, because the medical records are sporadic, and when they do exist, they're almost totally illegible. Also, I have some evidence of medications being discontinued because the prisoner would habitually refuse the medication. That in itself is ludicrous to me, but I don't know how probative that is...

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Awesome. I'm emailing you, so you can have my address in case you get anything from them.

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Cool. I should say that I can't check hotmail from work, so I only respond to hotmail after hours or on weekends, and in a slow and erratic fashion. (I get hardly any mail through that address, so I often forget to check it.)

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That's fine. This is exciting - now if only I could figure out a way to do this kind of work for a living...

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It's fun stuff -- you really get a sense that you're helping. We got an excellent settlement - an agreement to provide care meeting a bunch of objective standards; staffing, charting, appropriate housing, etc. Of course, the settlement's only as good as the enforcement, and since I've left D&P I don't know how the enforcement has gone.

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Mother Jones special report 'Debt to Society'

http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/prisons/

From the section 'Incubating disease':

"a California-based advocacy group called Stop Prison Rape estimates that as many as 364,000 prisoners are raped every year." http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/prisons/disease.html

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Stop Prisoner Rape is awesome. I want to work for them.

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The American prison system combined with the Jim Crow drug war make American democracy a total farce. A lie and a fraud.

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Consider this. More than 13 million Americans have been disenfranchised by Jim Crow felon laws. Mostly the drug war.

In both 2000 and 2004 the difference in the presidential election was about 3 million votes.

This issue was the deciding difference. Especially when combined with the voter roll purges, long line process subversions and other systemic tactics used by locals to undermine the integrity of the electoral process.

I do not believe that there has been a valid federal election in the United States of America since Richard Nixon and the racists of the two parties created the other dirty little war, the drug war, in 1970.

The drug war, America's longest civil war.

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silvana: 04:34 PM

If only anyone would listen to them.

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Republicans will vote for more money for prisons because they're getting big contributions from Wackenhut / Corrections Corp of America. I always liked the name Wackenhut.

Around here, I think, the sentencing authority has to pay for the prisoner, wherever they're housed. If one County's jail is full, that County will pay another County to house the prisoner. Similarly, the Feds pay for people held in County jail on Federal orders (often, people on immigration charges).

Around here, the rumor is that medical personnel are being hired to work above their license grade. That is, techs doing RN work, RNs doing MD work, etc. They might be willing to be interviewed. High turnover in those jobs, too, I hear.

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Michael H Schneider: 04:46 PM

The GOP gets their due from the prison industry and the apportionment manipulation that falsely creates homogeneous rural districts. The Democrats get their due from the police and prison unions. And from the fact that as long as nonconformists and dissident minorities are being mass disenfranchised with the Jim Crow drug laws the right wing leaders of the Democrats do not have to campaign to the left in elections. All they have to do is poach the Republican moderates.

these mechanisms combine to lock out ot the electoral process in the Democratic Party leftists, progressives, liberals, nonconformists and minorities, all who are acting on questioning authority by choosing an illicit intoxicant. The white right wing that dominates the leadership of both the major political parties simply don't want to have to sit down with America's left and minorities to politic, build winning coalitions or compromise in developing legislation.

America is the right wing Democrats vs. the extreme right wing GOP. All others are locked out of the process. Period!

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In california, the prison guard union contributes a lot of money to state politicians. They basically lobby for the contruction of new prisons and for harsher sentencing. It is insane.

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Round about 1886 or so the New Mexico Territorial Government decided to build a prison and a university, with one to go in Albuquerque and the other in Santa Fe. Santa Fe, being the capital, was given the first choice of which to have. Guess what they chose?

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Around here, the rumor is that medical personnel are being hired to work above their license grade. That is, techs doing RN work, RNs doing MD work, etc.

This was certainly true in NJ in the 80's and early 90's.

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Upstate economies in NYS love prisons. It's the only growth industry in upstate NY.

In NYS, the counting of prisoners upstate instead of downstate has profound political repercussions--if those 7 Senate districts were downstate instead of upstate, the Senate would be Democratic (instead of Republican as it is now). That's HUGE.

Spending and construction on prisons mostly isn't for the benefit of prisoners--it's for the benefit of the contractors who provide those services. This is why prison spending is so bizarre. It's a result of the effective lobbying by counties and various prison service industries. Prisoners are the ultimate non-player in politics: no public sympathy, no money, no ability to organize, no votes. It's a minor miracle they get anything at all.

Right now, most medical care in prisons is being contracted out to organizations whose business model is to bid low for capitated contracts (say, $500 million a year to provide all necessary medical care to 75,000 prisoners) and then make a profit by not providing care. That's why you've got RNs doing MDs jobs.

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Silvana: What I'm doing is not actually bringing the case, but building a wealth of information convincing enough to get someone else, with money, to bring it.

What I really need is a doctor. At this point, my conjectures are just rampant speculation about what is or is not good mental health care based on my own intuition and limited knowledge.

Take a look at James Gilligan's book Violence. Gilligan was brought in to do mental health work in an MA prison after some high-profile disaster (inmate suicide, I think) and in the process of totally reforming the system he had a chance to build a whole philosophy. Can't summarize the book, but he gets to why people with existing mental illness are hurt by prison, why people develop mental illness in prison, and why treatment for both groups is in the direct best interest not only of the inmates but the guards, the corrections system, and the taxpayers. Great stuff.

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Holyl Shit I had no idea. . .

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