Reentry “Simulation” Program

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of West Virginia has developed a Reentry Simulation program that recreates some of the struggles and challenges faced by individuals who are transitioning from incarceration back into society.

The goal is for participants to gain an understanding of the significant obstacles faced by men and women attempting to navigate the system upon their release from incarceration and returning home to their communities. In their words, “to walk in the shoes of one who is returning home gives invaluable insight for professionals who are tasked with helping those individuals achieve a successful reentry.”

In the program, participants assume the identity of an ex-offender and receive a packet of materials, including a “Life Card.” The “Life Card” explains the reentrant’s criminal background, current living situation, current job situation, and the specific weekly tasks that must be accomplished in order to avoid the risk of being sent back to prison for non-compliance with the requirements of his or her supervised release. In a series of 15 minute segments, the “reentrants” navigate a series of stations that represent the many places a returning citizen must navigate in real life on release. Each table has random elements which produce real life uncertainty when dealing with each of these agencies and organizations. Some of these stations include DMV, Probation, Court, GED, Bank, Employer, Social Services, Church, Pawn Shop, Landlord/Rent, Transportation, Health Clinic, Treatment, etc. Additionally, there are “monitors” and “officers” who check “Life Cards” to aid Probation Officers in assessing each reentrant’s level of compliance. They also identify those who may need increased levels of supervision.

In between each of these segments (at the end of each “week”) reentrants return to their “housing locations,” which can be home, the halfway house, homeless shelter or jail, depending on how successful they have been in satisfying the conditions of their release and accomplishing their assigned tasks. They then engage in a guided discussion with the event facilitators debriefing them with regards to their experiences and helping them reflect on their successes and failures.

A full description is here: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndwv/reentry-simulation

Marin County recently put on this Reentry Simulation through their Whole Person Care program: https://www.marinij.com/2022/10/26/marin-exercise-fosters-empathy-for-former-inmates/

Underground Scholars at UC Santa Cruz

The Underground Scholars Initiative (USI), a peer support system for previously incarcerated and system impacted students, has come UC Santa Cruz, with a new chapter that began operations this past fall. Beginning with a single program at UC Berkeley in 2013, the program now operates at seven UC campuses, providing services such as counseling support, financial literacy, internship and job opportunities, and a community of individuals from diverse backgrounds that members can rely on before and after graduation. 

Although higher education is one of the best predictors of successful reentry, without the support and resources available through programs like USI, formerly incarcerated individuals are eight times less likely to complete college than their peers according to the Prison Policy Initiative. The Rising Scholars Program in the community college system, Project Rebound in the Cal States, and USI chapters in the UC system all work to improve those numbers by encouraging enrollment and retention through resources and support.

As Daniel Davis, a member of the UCSC USI community puts it: “We find that people that have been impacted by incarceration often don’t fit in with the crowd that is typically at a world-class university. A sense of belonging is something that has to be cultivated through resources, community, and general acceptance.”

“Having [an] exposure to a diversity of people and things really helps people to put in perspective and take control over their lives,” said core leadership team member and fourth-year UCSC transfer student Missy Hart. “[We encourage them to] take control over their lives, their stories, and help them in a way that’s going to be positive for themselves and everyone else around them.”

Funding for the USI chapter at UCSC comes from the Renaissance Scholars Program, Services for Transfer and Re-entry Students (STARS) – both student support offices at UCSC – and from individual donors and grants, including from the original UC Berkeley chapter. A large part of the funding went to hiring a director, Joshua Solis, a recent UCSC graduate.

“It was through the overwhelming support of STARS and Renaissance Scholars that allowed for Underground Scholars at UCSC to emerge as a support program for formerly incarcerated and system impacted students,” Solis said. “The funding that was allocated to Underground Scholars emphasizes their commitment in building capacity for supporting all of our students at STARS.

The UCSC Underground Scholars are hosting a virtual introductory event on Wednesday, February 24:

CSIBA

The newly created California System-Involved Bar Association – CSIBA – has as its mission to increase access to legal education and State Bar of California licensure for people with prior criminal justice system involvement. The brainchild of Frankie Guzman and James Binnall, themselves attorneys with histories of criminal justice system involvement, CSIBA hopes to harness the energy and commitment of others similarly situated to provide education, mentoring, and advocacy to achieve that mission. Here is the project vision:

“The California System Involved Bar Association is above all else – a community. Our members are invested in the successes of those who come after us, as we understand that to effectuate real, lasting change, we must continually give back to our population. When one achieves their goals, we all benefit. 

One of the primary purposes of CSIBA is to offer our community a sense of hope. Often, our population is discouraged from pursuing a career in law because “people like us can’t do that” or “are not allowed to do that.” We are here to dispel those myths. Our members, all formerly incarcerated or system involved, are practicing attorneys specializing in a variety of areas of law and working in a host of different fields. For example, our members include licensed attorneys who are professors, policy advocates, and non-profit leaders.

Though hope is a necessary first step, we understand that without resources, hope is of little value. Along those lines, we have built a statewide network of members to help formerly incarcerated and system involved individuals to achieve their dream of becoming a licensed California attorney. From admission to law school through licensure, members are available to share their stories, offer encouragement, and strategize next steps. In short, we will walk with you on your path to becoming an attorney.

Too often our population is viewed as having an abundance of deficits.  Many talk about formerly incarcerated and system involved people as having needs and posing risks.  It is our belief that such an approach overlooks the assets, strengths, and attributes that we have as a population.  All of us have navigated the criminal justice system – and for some of us that included incarceration.  Still, we have come out on the other side wiser and stronger.  This demonstrates a type of resilience and character that we believe translates into being a successful attorney. This group is about that belief – the belief that we make good, ethical lawyers.

Thank you for visiting our site. We appreciate your interest and if you are formerly incarcerated or system involved, please reach out, join a meeting, and start to work toward your dream of entering the legal profession. If you are simply interested in our organization, we welcome your help. We collaborate with a vast array of stakeholders, because we know the difficulties our population faces and the necessary assistance we all need.

– James M. Binnall & Frankie Guzman
CSIBA Co-Founders & Co-Executive Directors”

Paul Seeman is a member of the CSIBA E-Board.

Voter Suppression On Trial – Live!

In 2018 the Florida electorate approved Amendment 4 to the Florida constitution, restoring voting rights to citizens with felony criminal records. A few months later, the Republican-led Florida Senate drew up a payments bill, requiring those citizens to settle all financial obligations before they could register to vote. Governor DeSantis signed the bill into law in June 2019, and shortly thereafter a coalition of Floridians and voting rights organizations sued Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, arguing that a law that requires payment of all legal fines, fees and restitution before a citizen can register to vote amounts to an illegal poll tax. That case has gone to trial today, Monday April 27, 2020, in the Northern Districtsof Florida.

The case sits squarely at the intersection of the civil rights movement for formerly incarcerated people, the criminal justice reform movement, and the acrimonious partisan battle over voter suppression issues. Because of COVID-19 and the resulting shutdown of court systems, the trial is being held in a virtual digital courtroom, and as a result anyone can listen in on the live audio feed:

Call-in (571) 353-2300

Access code 034872985

 

EXPUNGEMENT OF CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

That is the title of a first-of-its-kind empirical study of the effects of state laws limiting public access to criminal records – commonly known as “expungement.” It is worth quoting the abstract in its entirety:

 “Laws permitting the expungement of criminal convictions are a key component of modern criminal justice reform efforts and have been the subject of a recent upsurge of legislative activity. This debate has been almost entirely devoid of evidence about the laws’ effects, in part because the necessary data (such as sealed records themselves) have been unavailable. We were able to obtain access to deidentified data that overcomes that problem, and we use it to carry out a comprehensive statewide study of expungement recipients and comparable non-recipients. We offer three key sets of empirical findings. First, among those legally eligible for expungement, just 6.5% obtain it within five years of eligibility. Drawing on patterns in our data as well as interviews with expungement lawyers, we point to reasons for this serious “uptake gap.” Second, those who do obtain expungement have extremely low subsequent crime rates, comparing favorably to the general population—a finding that defuses a common public-safety objection to expungement laws. Third, those who obtain expungement experience a sharp upturn in their wage and employment trajectories; on average, within two years, wages go up by 25% versus the pre-expungement trajectory, an effect mostly driven by unemployed people finding jobs and very minimally employed people finding steadier or higher-paying work.”

The paper is available here.

The Innocent Defendant’s Dilemma

In the classic game-theory “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” the puzzle is that two suspects questioned separately may end up getting harsher punishment when they both cooperate with law enforcement and implicate their accomplice than if they each stay silent – even though it appears they will get more lenient treatment if they cooperate.

The normal game is described in detail in Wikipedia:

Prisoner B


Prisoner A

Prisoner B stays silent
(cooperates)
Prisoner B betrays
(defects)
Prisoner A stays silent
(cooperates)
Each serves 1 year Prisoner A: 3 years
Prisoner B: goes free
Prisoner A betrays
(defects)
Prisoner A: goes free
Prisoner B: 3 years
Each serves 2 years

A real life version of this is the innocent defendant’s dilemma – a defendant who pleads guilty or no contest in return for a more lenient sentence, while maintaining their innocence – an “Alford” plea – may end up facing harsher treatment later on in the process than a defendant who is factually guilty and is therefore able to truthfully express remorse in return for more favorable outcomes in probation, parole, or other collateral consequence contexts.

We know for a fact from the evolution of DNA testing and the popular scope of “Innocence Project” investigations that innocent defendants do plead guilty. Those cases are almost always serious felonies, so it is hard to know the real extent of the problem or practice in the criminal justice system as a whole, but in a 2013 study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology – “The Innocent Defendant’s Dilemma: An Innovative Empirical Study of Plea Bargaining’s Innocence Problem”, (Volume 103, Issue 1) a controlled experiment found that more than 50% of a sample of college students were willing to falsely admit guilt for a perceived benefit.

That finding makes an interesting bookend to a paper in the Missouri Law Review – “Plea Best Not Taken: Why Criminal Defendants Should Avoid the Alford Plea” (68 Missouri Law Review 1 (2003)) discussing how the legal system assumes and allows innocent defendants to plead guilty – an “Alford” plea – or nolo contendere, but then assumes guilt for post-sentencing, rehabilitation, and other collateral consequence purposes. As the authors of that article point out, because of the lack of “remorse” that goes with a continuing claim of innocence, those defendants may be treated more harshly after the Alford or nolo plea than others who are in fact  guilty of criminal conduct and are able to express remorse and regret in return for favorable treatment in probation, parole, or other collateral consequence contexts:

“Availing oneself of an Alford plea may result in a stiffer sentence than that imposed on someone who merely pleads guilty…Courts have consistently upheld sentence aggravation for defendants who have pled guilty, but maintained their innocence based on their “lack of remorse.” In addition, courts have revoked defendants’ probation because after utilizing the Alford plea and asserting their innocence, they fail to admit their offense as part of a probation-mandated counseling program. Finally, courts have upheld the denial of parole to defendants who have utilized the Alford plea, professed their innocence, and then failed to admit their guilt while in prison.”

Just one more small example of how the over-criminalization and over-charging that drive our plea-bargain based system of criminal adjudication leads to systemic injustice and hypocrisy.

Bail Reform Challenge In California

The historic bail reform legislation passed in California last year, described in a blog post here in August 2018, is being challenged by the bail bond industry. As described by the LA Times,  a national coalition of bail agency groups has collected enough signatures to put a measure on the ballot in 2020 that would overturn the reform legislation and restore the money bail system.

Bail bonds are a $2-billion national industry, and there are 3,200 bail agents registered in California.

Pending the referendum, bail reform based on the new law – SB 10 – continues. At least 11 counties are employing roughly 40 different pilot pretrial programs to reduce the number of people cycling in and out of jail, and as many as 49 California counties are using risk assessment tools, or tech analyses that help courts determine which defendants are fit for release and which pose a risk to public safety or of not coming back to court. California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who helped craft the state’s bail law, has assembled a working group to evaluate pretrial programs and make recommendations on next steps now that the law is on hold, and Gov. Gavin Newsom earmarked $75 million in his budget proposal last week for counties over the next two years to implement and evaluate pretrial efforts in up to 10 courts.

 

The Blessings of Forgetting….

 

The Jacob Marschak Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in the Behavioral Sciences at UCLA

“In this talk, Ralph Miller will briefly review sources of non-pathological forgetting, including spontaneous decay with increasing retention intervals, displacement from short-term memory by irrelevant information, associative interference by similar but different information, and inadequate retrieval cues at test. He will discuss the potential for recovery of target information from each of these types of forgetting without further training and will consider the frequently overlooked but highly beneficial consequences of most forgetting.

Miller will examine forgetting caused by associative interference, including influences of the test situation, the retention interval as a function of whether the interfering information was acquired before or after the target information, and the nature of the target information and interfering information. He will also describe some basic procedures for reducing or increasing forgetting when desired.”

 

CHARLES E. YOUNG RESEARCH LIBRARY MAIN CONFERENCE ROOM 11360

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2019 | 3 to 4:30 P.M.

 

The Blessings of Forgetting and the Fates of Forgotten Memories

Speaker: Ralph R. Miller, Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Binghamton

 

“Too Tough on Crime?”

 

“Too Tough on Crime? The Impact of Prosecutor Politics on Incarceration”  is a new study by Ashan Arora, a Research Director at the University of Chicago Crime and Education Labs The study is statistically sophisticated (sample: “Estimates of the effect of DA identity are obtained by using local linear functions within a narrow bandwidth of close DA elections. I estimate standard RD specifications of the form Yi = + Di + f(Vi) + ui (1) where Yi is the outcome variable, e.g. the number of sentences, Vi is the forcing variable, the Republican vote share in the DA election, and Di is an indicator variable taking the value of 1 if the county elects a Republican DA and 0 if the county elects a emocratic/Independent DA.’

The conclusion:

“This paper explores the impact of chief prosecutor political affiliation on sentencing outcomes in the state criminal justice system. Linking just under 600,000 convicted defendants to their elected District Attorneys, I use quasi-experimental variation generated by close elections to show that Republican DAs do not affect the number of individuals sentenced to prison at the county level, but sentence defendants to longer prison terms compared to their Democratic and Independent counterparts. This translates into a persistent increase in incarceration well after DAs’ time in office. This increase in sentence length does not lead to overall crime deterrence, as arrest rates remain unchanged for a broad range of offense categories. Further, this increase in sentence length  dissipates in the period following Blakely v. Washington (2004),  consistent with judges in state courts gaining more discretion and limiting prosecutors’ ability to affect eventual sentencing outcomes.”

Mental Health Diversion Law – Fits and Starts

The LA Times reports on the slow implementation of AB 1810 in San Diego County, in part due to resistance from prosecutors. The mental health diversion law, AB 1810, which was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last June 27, is intended to steer people with mental health conditions into treatment and away from jail or prison. It gives judges discretion to order defendants into a pretrial diversion program for treatment instead of prosecution. If the person’s mental health treatment is ultimately deemed successful — the diversion can last up to two years — then all charges will be dropped. If at any time the judge determines the treatment isn’t working, the criminal case can start again.

In San Diego, only 2 defendants out of 19  – in cases ranging from residential burglary to vandalism – have been granted diversion. San Diego prosecutors have opposed pretrial mental health diversion in every case, contending the law is unconstitutional on a variety of grounds, including that it is too vague and violates victims’ constitutional rights. In court papers in each case, the prosecutors call the law “a dangerous change to the manner in which criminals with mental health diagnoses” are treated in the criminal justice system. And they also argue that defendants may have a qualifying mental disorder but lack a specific plan for treatment — which should disqualify them from diversion.