What Is The School-To-Prison Pipeline?

TYT Network.

What is the school-to-prison pipeline?

The “school-to-prison pipeline” is a disturbing national trend where children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems, according to the ACLU.

Many of these children have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse, or neglect, and would benefit from additional educational and counseling services, but instead, they are isolated, punished, and pushed out into the criminal justice system.

“Zero-tolerance” policies at schools criminalize minor infractions. Cops in schools leads to students being criminalized for behavior that should be handled inside the school. Blacks and Latinos are especially vulnerable to these trends and the discriminatory application of discipline.

South African Leaders Visit Cook County Jail, Have Odd Question

Sam Seder

NBC / The Chicago Tribune had an interesting account of a South African delegation’s reaction after touring a Cook County, IL, jail facility. (The account was buried towards the end of an article about the Cook County criminal justice system.)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-alvarez-dart-evans-preckwinkle-city-club-met-20150507-story.html

Schizophrenic Woman Tased To Death In Virgina Prison

A mentally ill woman died after a stun gun was used on her at the Fairfax County jail in Virginia last February.  Fairfax County sits next to Washington, D.C.

Natasha McKenna was restrained with handcuffs behind her back, leg shackles and a mask when a sheriff’s deputy shocked her four times, according to incident reports, states The Washington Post.

McKenna initially cooperated with deputies, placed her hands through her cell door food slot and agreed to be handcuffed, the reports show.

But McKenna, whose deteriorating mental state had caused Fairfax to seek help for her, then began trying to fight her way out of the cuffs, repeatedly screaming, “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me!” the reports show, states The Washington Post.

Six members of the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team – including two supervisors – were dressed in white full-body biohazard suits and gas masks, and placed a struggling 130-pound McKenna into full restraints, states Patch.com.

“But when McKenna wouldn’t bend her knees so she could be placed into a wheeled restraint chair, a lieutenant delivered four 50,000-volt shocks from the Taser, enabling the other deputies to strap her into the chair, the reports show,” stated the Washington Post.

Attorney Harvey J. Volzer said doctors have told the family that the 37-year-old woman was stunned as many as five times during an encounter with sheriff’s deputies as they prepared to transfer her to Alexandria to face a charge stemming from a fight with police there, states The Washington Post.

According to Patch.com, the Fairfax County Police Department, in conjunction with the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, released the following details Thursday regarding the current in-custody death investigation of Alexandria resident Natasha McKenna:

“On Tuesday, Jan. 20, the Alexandria City Police Department obtained a felony warrant against Natasha McKenna for assaulting a law enforcement officer(Code of Virginia §18.2-57). The assault occurred during an encounter they had with her on Thursday, Jan. 15.

On Sunday, Jan. 25, McKenna called the Fairfax County Department of Public Safety Communications Center reporting that she had been assaulted. The arriving Fairfax County police officer then assisted her with making the report and she agreed to be examined at a local hospital for her alleged injuries. Detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department’s Major Crimes Division and Crime Scene Section also responded to conduct a follow-up investigation.

While at the hospital with McKenna, detectives and a victim services specialist assisted with the investigative efforts. During the course of the investigative efforts, McKenna elected to no longer pursue the investigation and declined further police services. During the course of the investigation, a record check revealed McKenna had the outstanding arrest warrant for assaulting a law enforcement officer in Alexandria City.

On Monday, Jan. 26, shortly after 1 a.m., McKenna was transported from the hospital to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center (ADC), where the warrant was served and she was remanded to the custody of the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, as directed by a Fairfax County magistrate. The Sheriff’s Office made contact with Alexandria at approximately 7:40 a.m. to inform them that they were holding an inmate with an Alexandria City charge.

On Saturday, Jan. 31, McKenna physically assaulted a Fairfax County deputy sheriff while incarcerated at the ADC.

On Tuesday, Feb. 3, the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, pursuant to its protocols for managing combative inmates, made a decision to have the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team (SERT) remove McKenna from her cell for transport to the detention center in the City of Alexandria as related to her charge that originated in the City of Alexandria. As the SERT attempted to secure McKenna in her cell and restrain her for transport, she physically resisted the deputies and refused their commands. The SERT consisted of six deputy sheriffs, which included two supervisors.

During the struggle to restrain McKenna, a member of the SERT deployed a conducted energy weapon (Taser) on McKenna. While being restrained, deputies placed a spit net (which is designed to restrict and prevent spitting) on McKenna. A nurse from the ADC medical staff was present at that time to check on her prior to transport and cleared her for transport. Deputies attempted to put her in a medical transport chair, but McKenna continued to be combative and was moved to a restraint chair for transport to a vehicle transfer area, commonly known as a sally port.

A Fairfax County deputy sheriff was assigned to record the deployment of the SERT and the video is currently retained as evidence by detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department and will not be released at this time.

Deputies escorted McKenna from the cell area to the sally port where the transport vehicle was waiting. Once at the sally port, medical personnel from the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office checked McKenna and determined she was experiencing a medical emergency. The spit net and restraints were removed and medical staff and deputies from the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office administered CPR and an automated external defibrillator (AED) while awaiting rescue personnel from the Fairfax City Fire Department. McKenna was then transported to the hospital by ambulance and after life support was removed, died on Sunday, Feb. 8.

There were reports from outside sources that alluded to McKenna suffering an amputated finger. However, the investigation by detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department affirmed that McKenna had a pre-existing injury (missing the tip of her ring finger on her left hand), which was noted during the arrest booking on Monday, Jan. 26.

To date, detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department have conducted an extensive number of comprehensive interviews, and the in-custody death investigation is active and on-going. When complete, detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department’s Major Crimes Division will present their entire investigation, which will include any video and data from the conducted energy weapon, along with the findings of the Office of the Medical Examiner (still awaiting report), to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office for an independent review to determine if there is any criminal liability under the Code of Virginia.

All information provided in this release is based on the ongoing investigation and may be subject to revision as the investigation continues. The Fairfax County Police Department and the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office continue to work together to release information and complete a swift, thorough investigation. The Fairfax County Police Department will provide further updates within the next 30 days or as soon as additional information becomes available.”

More here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/woman-died-violently-at-hands-of-fairfax-county-sheriffs-lawyer-says/2015/02/14/09f4c84a-b3be-11e4-886b-c22184f27c35_story.html

(Updated post)

Sociology Students Go to Prison For Class Requirement

Temple University

For 18 years, the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program has been “a staple of social and criminal justice education at over 100 universities,” writes Krysta Amber Loftis of USA Today.  Inside-Out arranges classes at local prisons featuring both incarcerated and non-incarcerated students.

The Inside-Out program began in 1997 at Philadelphia’s Temple University, and has since become a staple of social and criminal justice education at over 100 universities, including Michigan State, the University of Toledo, Penn State and Dartmouth.

Take the example of Central Michigan University (CMU).

Members of CMU’s chapter of the national Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program spend Tuesday nights in the Central Michigan Correctional Facility in St. Louis. The class, Social Issues through the Prism of Prison, is taught by sociology professor Justin Smith.

This is the second semester CMU has offered the course.

“It’s (13) students from the inside and (13) students from the outside,” Smith said, explaining that the incarcerated men are between the ages of 20 and 65.

“A lot of this is a reaction to making sure we’re improving education in prisons, but also in higher education institutions. It’s a way to offer CMU students a very diverse setting to learn in (and) a way to learn from a variety of experiences, a variety of ages.”

The prison portion of the class consists of group discussions.

Issues range from the criminal justice system to gender, race and racism, class, social change, social movements and collective action.

“Both the inside guys and outside students get a lot out of it,” Smith said. “The inside guys are mostly older, and they’ve been through a different lifestyle than the students. The students have had a lot more access to education. We’re able to have a lot of good discussions.”

Brothers Who Spent Decades Behind Bars For A Crime They Didn’t Commit Get Initial Payment Of $1.6 million

WEWS NewsChannel5

A judge ruled Friday that two brothers wrongly convicted for a 1975 slaying they didn’t commit will receive $1.6 million in an initial payment for the decades they spent in Ohio prisons.

Judge Patrick McGrath of the Ohio Court of Claims said that Wiley Bridgeman – 60 – will get a check for $969,093, and his brother, Kwame Ajamu, 57, will be given $647,578.  Ajamu previously changed his name from Ronnie Bridgeman.

“I’m very glad this is headed toward the end of the process,” Ajamu told The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.  “But this was never about financial gain. It was about getting my brother out and getting Ricky Jackson out.”

Bridgeman was released Nov. 21, more than 39 years after he had been locked up. Ajamu was released from prison in 2003.  Bridgemand and Ajamu, along with friend Ricky Jackson, were all convicted of murdering a man near University Circle in Cleveland in 1975.

More:

http://fox8.com/2014/11/20/we-are-free-wrongly-convicted-man-to-join-friend-who-also-spent-decades-behind-bars/

Lead Prosecutor On Glenn Ford Case Apologizes

TYT Network

“It was a long journey of conscience for a former Louisiana prosecutor,” stated the Huffington Post.

“He went from celebrating a death sentence with rounds of drinks three decades ago to writing an anguished, open letter of apology after the convicted man was recently declared innocent and set free.”

“I apologize to Glenn Ford for all the misery I have caused him and his family,” A.M. Stroud III wrote in a letter published in The Times of Shreveport. “I apologize to the family of Mr. Rozeman for giving them the false hope of some closure.”

Ford is an exonerated prisoner released earlier this month from the Louisiana State Penitentiary after serving nearly 30 years on death row. Isadore Rozeman was the elderly victim who was killed in a 1983 robbery.

Stroud’s letter was more than just an apology. It was a condemnation of the state’s decision to oppose compensating the now cancer-stricken Ford for three decades lost. It was also a firm statement against capital punishment.

Unfortunately, a Caddo Parish, Louisiana judge ruled on Friday, March 27th, that Ford will not receive state-mandated compensation, states nola.com.

Ford, 65, petitioned the state for wrongful conviction and imprisonment compensation roughly nine months after Louisiana prosecutors filed a motion to vacate his 1984 conviction.

However, First Judicial District Court Judge Katherine Clark Dorroh sided with a challenge to that petition made by the Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell’s office.  It alleged that Ford failed to meet the law’s “factually innocent” clause. That provision requires petitioners to have not committed the crime for which they were originally convicted as well as “any crime based upon the same set of facts” used in the original conviction.

(Updated article)

America’s Longest-Serving Innocent Prisoner Receives $1 Million For 39 Years In Jail

An Ohio man who spent 39 years in prison for a murder that he did not commit will receive more than $1 million in compensation from the state of Ohio for his wrongful imprisonment, states The Telegraph.

Ricky Jackson, who was only saved from execution by a paperwork error, served the longest known sentence of any American who was subsequently found to have been wrongfully convicted.

“Wow, wow, wow, that’s fantastic, man,” Mr Jackson, 58, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper when he was told that he would receive the million-dollar payment following an order from the Ohio court of claims.

“This is going to mean so much.”

Jackson was 19 when he and two friends were sentenced to death row in 1975 for the murder of Harold Franks, a money order salesman, near a corner store in Cleveland.

He and the two brothers were convicted on the basis of the testimony of a 13-year-old boy who said that he witnessed the killing of Franks.

The boy, Eddie Vernon, was on a school bus a block away with other children at the time.

He later recanted his account as an adult.   However, no other witnesses placed him at the scene at the time of the murder and there was no other evidence linking him to the killing, states The Telegraph.  He was originally sentenced to die, but appeals and mistakes in the paperwork delayed the process.

Prisoners In Sexy Outfits Seduce Guards And Break Out Of Prison

Twenty-eight inmates escaped from a Brazilian jail after three women in “fantasy police” outfits reportedly seduced prison wardens.  The event happened in February.

Police found three wardens naked and handcuffed inside the Nova Mutum public jail, near Cuiaba, central Brazil, the morning after the break-out.

The women reportedly drugged the prison guards by giving them spiked whisky after convincing them to take part in an orgy, according to investigators.

Inmates then left the prison through the main doors, even taking with them guns and munitions they had taken from prison caches.

Police later found a bag of lingerie and “dominatrix” police uniforms believed to have been worn by the seducers, states starrfmonline.

Photos of one the naked wardens, believed to have been leaked by amused police officers who found him, have been shared thousands of times on social network sites.

TYT Network

More here:

http://www.starrfmonline.com/1.1988088

(Updated post)

Former Federal Judge Regrets Sending Man To Prison For 55-Years Over Marijuana

Do judges ever have a conscience that catches up with them?  Do they ever regret harsh punishments? Are their hands ever tied over sentencing?

Weldon Angelos was just 24 years old when he was sentenced to 55 years in federal prison for three marijuana sales, according to Yahoo! News.  He is one of the hundreds of thousands of federal prisoners serving decades-long sentences for non-violent crimes, thanks to mandatory minimum sentencing laws created in the 1980s during America’s war on drugs.

Angelos may not live long enough to experience freedom again.

His case has haunted the federal judge that put him there.

“I do think about Angelos,” said Paul Cassell, a now-retired federal judge in the Utah circuit. “I sometimes drive near the prison where he’s held, and I think, ‘Gosh he shouldn’t be there. Certainly not as long as I had to send him there. … That wasn’t the right thing to do. The system forced me to do it.”

Back in 2002, Angelos was an aspiring music producer and a father of two young boys living in Salt Lake City. Determined to make it big, he founded his own record company, eventually collaborating with big names like Snoop Dogg.

But Angelos told ABC News he also started dealing pot on the side.

Federal authorities caught wind of Angelos’s dealings and set up three stings, using a criminal informant to buy about $1,000 worth of marijuana from him. There was one critical detail in the case – during the deals, the criminal informant claimed Angelos had a gun.

The case went to federal court and Angelos was convicted in federal court of selling narcotics while in possession of a firearm.

These offenses fall under mandatory minimum sentencing laws, and prosecutors treated each of the three marijuana deals as its own individual offense. This is called “stacking” the charges.  It means Angelos was facing three prison terms, stacked on top of each other. All in– 55 years in prison, with no possibility of parole.

When Cassell delivered his ruling in the Angelos case, he was quick to point out how severe the sentence seemed compared to violent crimes.

“If he had been an aircraft hijacker, he would have gotten 24 years in prison. If he’s been a terrorist, he would have gotten 20 years in prison. If he was a child rapist, he would have gotten 11 years in prison. And now I’m supposed to give him a 55-year sentence? I mean, that’s just not right,”

More:

https://gma.yahoo.com/former-federal-judge-regrets-55-marijuana-sentence-012200265–abc-news-topstories.html

Mrs. ‘Future Charles Manson’

What is a “conjugal visit” in prison?

Wikipedia: “A conjugal visit is a scheduled period in which an inmate of a prison or jail is permitted to spend several hours or days in private with a visitor, usually his/her legal spouse. The parties may engage in sexual intercourse. The generally recognized basis for permitting such visits in modern times is to preserve family bonds and increase the chances of success for a prisoner’s eventual return to life after release from prison. Additionally, they serve as an incentive to motivate inmates to comply with the various day-to-day rules and regulations of the prison, and to avoid any infringement which might disqualify them from having a conjugal visit.”

CNN speaks with Afton “Star” Burton, a woman who is set to become the future Mrs. Charles Manson.

CNN