Human Rights Council Votes 22 to 7 to Establish Special Rapporteur

Human Rights Council Votes 22 to 7 to Establish Special Rapporteur

”Strong Support for the Iranian People”



(24 March 2011) Today’s Human Rights Council (HRC) decision to establish a UN special mechanism on human rights in Iran is an important step forward to address the human rights crisis and a victory for the Iranian people, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said.

Although the Iranian government has tried to lead an anti-human rights bloc at the UN, this vote is a repudiation of Iran’s efforts to hide behind cultural relativism as an excuse to subjugate citizens, the Campaign said. The vote showed “that the international community sees through Iran’s transparent lies about its brutal practices.”

The move followed two years of intense efforts by human rights advocates, as the HRC voted overwhelmingly on a resolution establishing a Special Rapporteur.

The resolution received an absolute majority of 22 votes in favor, versus only 7 against, and 14 abstentions. Of particular importance were the votes of Brazil, Senegal, and South Korea in favor of the resolution.

A wide spectrum of Iranian activists welcomed the resolution.

“This is a strong message of support to the Iranian people from the international community that they are not forgotten, and gross violations of their rights will not be tolerated,” said Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

In the Resolution establishing the mechanism, the HRC regretted Iran’s “lack of cooperation with the requests of the General Assembly” made in December 2010. The Council called upon the Islamic Republic “to cooperate fully with the Special Rapporteur and to permit access to visit the country as well as all necessary information to enable fulfillment of the mandate.”

“In the absence of any meaningful monitoring mechanism inside the country, we are facing a true crisis,” said Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoeini, a former member of Parliament in Iran who investigated prison conditions during his tenure from 2000-2004. “With human rights organizations shuttered and the Parliament failing to perform its oversight role, this mechanism is essential,” he added.

“The Iranian government can no longer deny and cover up the gross violations taking place,” added Puyan Mahmoudian, a student activist and editor-in-chief of the online student news site Daneshjoonews.

“At a minimum, the Special Rapporteur gives hope to the families of hundreds of political prisoners that their loved ones are not forgotten,” said Parisa Kakaee, a human rights activist.

“When I was imprisoned, I saw first-hand the impact of international protests on the Iranian government. Although they pretend they do not care, international protests and pressures do indeed matter to the government,” said Hassan Yusufi Eshkevari, religious scholar and researcher who has been defrocked by the Inquisition-style Special Court for the Clergy.

“The establishment of the special mechanism will not undo the gross injustices experienced by Iranian people over the past two years, but it will at least demonstrate international concerns and demand accountability from the Iranian government,” said Asieh Amini, Iranian journalist and human rights activist.

Nasim Sarabandi, a student and women’s rights activist, noted that one of the challenges facing the Special Rapporteur will be gaining access to Iran. “But even if the government does not cooperate with the Rapporteur, the victims, their families, and civil society can provide much documentation and information,” she said.

Iranian rights advocates and international groups have advocated for the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Iran since 2009, when Iranian authorities began a violent crackdown on the exercise of civil and political rights in the aftermath of the tainted June 2009 presidential election. As the situation deteriorated, including severe repression of the right to assembly coupled with a dramatic spike in executions, momentum grew to press Iran on human rights.

The civil society campaign for passage of the Resolution and for tougher UN scrutiny has involved hundreds of organizations and activists from around the world.

Thirty-eight human rights groups addressing issues in Muslim countries urged members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to support human rights in Iran as they had with respect to Libya.

One hundred eighty women’s rights activists signed a letter to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, urging her government to support the Resolution, which Brazil did.

Harrier jets last flight over Parliament...

Harrier jets last flight over Parliament...



Comment: Is this genuine or a photoshop? I stole it from Nourishing Obscurity blog where James Higham has failed to provide a link to the original source of the photo.

Former Tory MEP must repay £345,000 expenses

Former Tory MEP must repay £345,000 expenses

By Geoff Meade, PA, in Brussels

Thursday, 24 March 2011

Former Tory MEP Den Dover, who was expelled from the Conservative Party over allegations of expenses misconduct, has been ordered by the European Court of Justice to repay £345,289 in "unjustified" claims.

Mr Dover, 72, an MEP for the North West England region from 1999 to 2009, was suspended and then expelled from the party in November 2008 for "gross misconduct" after the Parliament demanded repayment of £538,000 in allowances officials said should not have been claimed.

He stood down at the 2009 European elections and launched an appeal in the European Court against the decision by European Parliament administrators to seek the return of the cash.

Today the Luxembourg judges found that he should pay back part of the amount - but said the European Parliament had not sufficiently demonstrated that the rest was unjustified.

The MEP has denied any wrongdoing over expenses he claimed between 1999 and 2008, when a total of £959,446 went to a company called MP Holdings Ltd, which names Mr Dover's wife and daughter as directors.

The money came from allowances MEPs receive to pay the salaries and costs of an MEP's staff.

In 2008 the Parliament's secretary-general raised questions about a possible conflict of interest and asked for full details of the use of parliamentary funds claimed by Mr Dover.

A ruling followed that only £421,156 could be justified in salaries, national insurance and legitimate staff travel expenses.

The rest was "without justification" said the Parliament, and it asked for the balance of £538,290 back.

Mr Dover told the court it was up to the Parliament to prove that the payments were unjustified, pointing out in court submissions that "the requirement to provide documentation justifying each item of expenditure since 1999 did not exist when the relevant expenses were incurred".

He said the European Parliament was aware that his wife and daughter held managerial positions in MP Holdings, and claimed that it has never "implemented a transparent system setting out clear preconditions for reimbursement of parliamentary assistance expenditure or required Members to produce documentary evidence of their parliamentary assistance expenditure".

Comment: Same old nasty party...

Ministers and judges: contempt of courts

Ministers and judges: contempt of courts

Ministers should never shirk their own legal duty so they can attack the judges for setting out law that is politically unpalatable to them

The foreign prisoners' row of April 2006 was one of the low points of Tony Blair's third term. The revelation that more than 1,000 foreign prisoners had been released into the community after serving their sentences without being considered for deportation – and had reoffended in some cases – rocked the reputation of the Home Office, sent panic waves rippling around a struggling government and effectively destroyed the career of the home secretary Charles Clarke. Predictably, it also triggered an authoritarian policy lurch, in which Mr Clarke and his successors began to operate a much tougher regime on potential prisoner deportees in the hope of reassuring public opinion. "Let us deport all those people," was how Mr Blair himself put it.

The problem with the old policy was that it was incompetent. The problem with the new one was that it was unlawful. From at least 1991, home secretaries had a published policy of only detaining potential deportees as a last resort. After the furore, Mr Clarke and his successors immediately adopted a diametrically opposite approach. Instead of a presumption of liberty they instituted a presumption of detention, even for those who had served their criminal sentences, with a few exceptions on compassionate grounds. Unlike the former policy, however, the new approach was kept secret.

Yesterday, the UK supreme court struck that policy down on the grounds that the home office took a "near blanket ban" approach, which it concealed and was contrary to its public policy. This was a very important verdict, not simply because the secret policy was a serious abuse of power over detained potential deportees, but also because the government's lawyers and the home office must have known that it was. And yet, even while knowing it, they went ahead with the secret policy. As Lord Dyson sharply put it in his lead judgment yesterday: "For political reasons, it was convenient to take a risk as to the lawfulness of the policy that was being applied and blame the courts if the policy was declared to be unlawful."

Judges are not beyond criticism. But this is a timely warning. Ministers of all parties have developed an unattractive and growing taste for judge-bashing. Yet ministers' duty to uphold the rule of law is set out on page one of the ministerial code. Sometimes, of course, the courts will find they have failed – that is what the highest courts are there to decide. But ministers should never contrive situations in which they shirk their own legal duty so they can attack the judges for setting out law that is politically unpalatable to them. Such a tactic takes the ministerial judge-bashing instinct even further, and with even less justification.

Baltimore council redistricting plan sparks controversy

Baltimore council redistricting plan sparks controversy

Councilwoman threatens suit; delayed prison data could alter map

By Julie Scharper, The Baltimore Sun, 7:28 p.m. EDT, March 23, 2011

As the deadline for redrawing City Council districts nears, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's plan is being criticized by some council members, community leaders and residents who chafe at the boundary changes and say the new districts could hurt the political prospects of blacks and Hispanics.

The former president of the Baltimore NAACP has warned that the plan could be seen as "packing" — limiting the voting power of blacks by concentrating them into one district. And a councilman has raised concerns that the plan could result in "cracking" Latino residents in Upper Fells Point and surrounding neighborhoods, by dividing them among three districts.

"The mayor's map is illegal and a flagrant insult to the 43,000 residents of this district," said Councilwoman Belinda Conaway, who is dismayed that parts of predominantly white Remington and Hampden will be excised from the 7th District under the mayor's plan.

Still, a majority of council members have signalled their support for Rawlings-Blake's plan, and final approval of the new map is likely to come next week.

"You're not going to have a perfect map," said Council Vice President Edward Reisinger. "I've been through redistricting three times. Everybody isn't gonna be happy."

Rawlings-Blake and the council have been under a tight deadline to redraw the city's 14 districts. The city charter requires the mayor to sign the new map into law by April 1, which forced Rawlings-Blake to introduce her plan before Census data was released and amend it after the population figures were finalized. The new districts will be used in September's citywide primary.

Under the mayor's plan, Northeast Baltimore's 3rd District would be the smallest, with 43,040 residents, and West Baltimore's 9th District would be the largest, with 46,849. All the districts are within 5 percent of the ideal size, according to city data.

Political insiders see Rawlings-Blake's map as particularly beneficial to two allies on the council — Reisinger and Council William H. Cole IV — as well as a mayoral staffer who is expected to run for an open seat in East Baltimore. Rawlings-Blake says that the map apportions the districts fairly, reunites some neighborhoods that were divided by past redistricting plans and reflects the overall racial makeup of the city.

Still, residents of East Baltimore's Butcher's Hill and Upper Fells Point neighborhoods are battling to stay in the 1st District, which includes Canton and Harbor East and is represented by Councilman James B. Kraft. Under Rawlings-Blake's plan, portions of both neighborhoods would be moved into the 13th district.

Residents of Butcher's Hill and Upper Fells Point fear that splitting their districts will reverse gains the neighborhoods have made over the past two decades.

"It's almost punishing a neighborhood that has spent so much time improving," said Tracy Gosson, a Butcher's Hill resident since 1995. "It's just a slap in the face."

Gosson, the founding director of Live Baltimore, who now runs her own marketing company, is troubled by the mayor's plan for her section of East Baltimore. She says Butcher's Hill has much more in common with the waterfront communities than with the neighborhoods to the north.

"I'm glad to see she's taking care of a potential candidate and not her voting residents," said Gosson. "This is a community that votes and it's a community that donates money. This is going to be a definite deal-breaker for me for her campaign."

Area residents have sent a sheaf of letters to Rawlings-Blake and the council asking to remain in the 1st District. They have spoken passionately and frequently at public hearings on the plan.

"You should be ashamed of yourselves," Butcher's Hill resident Terry Ehrenfeld chided council members at a hearing last week. "You talk about the importance of neighborhoods, but we're being split down the middle for no good reason. This is blatant gerrymandering."

Critics of the new map — including some council members — accuse Rawlings-Blake of redrawing boundaries to benefit her allies. Under the plan, Cole's district would pick up Locust Point and southern Federal Hill from Reisinger while turning Reservoir Hill over to Conaway's district. That would give Cole, Rawlings-Blake's closest ally on the council, a concentration of the city's wealthiest business areas. It would also increase the white population of his already predominantly white district.

Meanwhile, Reisinger would see his district expand to the north and west to make his Morrell Park home more central. Reisinger eked out a narrow victory over his opponent in 2007 and political insiders see him as having a better shot at re-election among voters in the Southwest.

The plan also shifts the boundaries for East Baltimore's 2nd District, where Brandon M. Scott, an employee in Rawlings-Blake's Office of Neighborhoods, is widely expected to run for the seat that Nicholas D'Adamo has held for more than two decades. The new map increases the percentage of black residents in the district, potentially increasing support for Scott, who is black.

The process of redrawing city districts has been complicated by a protracted wait for prison population data. Under a law passed last year, prisoners are being counted at their last home addresses — a change that raises the city's population count.

About 5,700 Baltimore residents are currently in prison, according to data state planning officials released this week. More than one-sixth — or 1,032 — are from West Baltimore's 9th District, which is represented by Councilman William "Pete" Welch. East Baltimore's 13th District, represented by Councilman Warren Branch, and Conaway's 7th District also have sizable populations of incarcerated residents.

Information about 1,200 federal prisoners has yet to be included because of a legal challenge from the Department of Justice, state planning spokesman Andrew Ratner said.

Conaway, one of three council members who opposed Rawlings-Blake's plan in a preliminary vote Monday, says the new map would violate the Civil Rights Act by further concentrating the percentage of black residents in her district.

She reached an agreement with Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke and Councilman Carl Stokes, who represent adjacent districts, that would have allowed portions of Remington and Hampden to remain in the 7th District. Although their agreement would have only affected those three districts, the majority of council members voted against Conaway's plan.

Some council members, including Rochelle "Rikki" Spector, Cole, and Robert W. Curran, said they voted against the amendments because Conaway had not briefed them on her changes in advance. Curran said he would have voted against Conaway's plan even if she had met with him, because he wanted to support Rawlings-Blake's map without any changes.

"This is a battle for the mayor to have control of the map," he said. "I'm not going to abandon the mayor, because she's been good to me in my district."

Some civil rights leaders also see problems in the plan, particularly in Conaway's 7th District. Former Baltimore NAACP president Marvin L. "Doc" Cheatham sent a letter to city officials warning that the plan could be seen as diluting the voting power of blacks.

Cheatham wrote that he agreed with Conaway that "packing seems to have taken place, starting with seemingly protecting the 11th District, which is having a trickle-down effect on the other districts."

"Packing" or "cracking" are violations of the federal Civil Rights Act, but they can be hard to prove in court, said Allison Riggs, an attorney who specialized in voting rights for the Southern Coalition. Cases can be lengthy and pricey and must meet narrowly defined criteria to prove that the redistricting plan dilutes a minority group's political power, she said.

Kraft, who co-chairs the council's redistricting committee with Conaway, has cautioned at public hearings that he believes the map could not withstand a legal challenge.

"I'm concerned about the dilution of the Hispanic/ Latino vote," said Kraft, adding that the map makes unnecessary changes. "As I understand the law, the best plan is the simplest plan that tries to maintain the districts as close to the existing boundaries as possible."

John Willis, a former Maryland secretary of state who is guiding the council through the redistricting, said he believes the plan is "presumptively legal" based on established case law.

But he cautioned that redistricting case law is constantly evolving and that this marks only the fourth time that the city has redrawn boundaries since the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

"I've been through this process before and you can never predict what court systems will do," said Willis.

julie.scharper@baltsun.com

twitter.com/juliemore

Parole Board pick backs away from Cinelli comments

Parole Board pick backs away from Cinelli comments

Says his remarks on case were made without all facts

By Matt Murphy, State House News Service / March 23, 2011

In a hearing on the last of Governor Deval Patrick’s four remaining nominees to the Parole Board, retired federal chief probation officer John Bocon walked back on comments he made during a private meeting with a councilor when he said he would not have voted to parole career felon Dominic Cinelli, who killed a Woburn police officer last year.

“Yeah, to a degree,’’ Bocon said, when asked if he should have answered differently. “Going through this process has been a series of questions with limited facts.’’

Bocon, under extended questioning from the Governor’s Council, said he did not have all the facts in the Cinelli case and therefore should have withheld judgment.

Bocon’s interview, which lasted nearly four hours, was the last with a series of nominees who appeared before the Governor’s Council following the resignation of five Parole Board members following the slaying of Officer John Maguire by Cinelli.

With the governor’s nominee for chairman of the Parole Board, Joshua Wall, already confirmed, the four nominees could all be voted upon next Wednesday.

Councilor Marilyn Devaney told her colleagues that in a private meeting Bocon had told her he would not have paroled Cinelli, knowing that he had previously escaped from prison and shot a security guard.

Devaney said she has asked every nominee the same question, and three of four told her they would have kept Cinelli behind bars.

Only Ina Howard Hogan, the general counsel to the Parole Board, told Devaney she needed more information, according to Devaney.

At yesterday’s hearing, however, Devaney’s question prompted a grilling of the nominee by other members of the council, who questioned why Bocon felt confident enough to make a judgment on Cinelli despite not knowing all the facts of the case and whether he was simply telling councilors what he thought they wanted to hear.

“I’d say I don’t have all the facts,’’ Bocon said, changing his position after Councilor Christopher Iannella established that Bocon had no knowledge of Cinelli’s institutional record, the rehabilitation programs he might have participated in while in prison, or his full criminal history.

Councilor Mary-Ellen Manning further probed Bocon’s knowledge of the Cinelli case before asking if he could guess what she thought was the correct answer to her question.

“Aren’t you figuring out what each of us wants to hear and telling us what we want to hear?’’ Manning said.

Bocon, a career probation official in the federal court system, retired last November as the chief federal probation officer in Boston when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 57. He told the council he was trying to be as truthful as he could, while still responding to the scores of hypothetical scenarios posed to him.

With 36 years in the criminal justice system, Bocon said that when he became chief probation officer in Boston he worked to transform the office from a law enforcement operation to a social work and treatment office.

Bocon said he believes parole improved public safety by giving released prisoners supervision and assistance in reintegrating to society rather than just releasing them back into the community at the end of their sentence.

Though he declined to offer his view on criminal offender record information laws because he said it was a legislative policy matter, Bocon did say he would support making Parole Board votes a public record.

He also declined to indicate how much his federal pension is worth, but said he would not be willing to waive or accept a reduced salary if confirmed to the Parole Board.

Attorney Stephen Huggard, a partner at Palmer and Dodge and a former federal prosecutor, testified on Bocon’s behalf, telling the council that Bocon was a man of “intellect and integrity’’ who could balance the needs of society with the rights of victims and the convicted who might come before him.

Paula Verdet of the Boston University Prison Project and Leslie Walker, the director of Prisoners’ Legal Services, testified against Bocon’s nomination despite acknowledging his qualifications.

Both Verdet and Walker questioned the make-up of the board, saying that Patrick’s slate of nominees lacked a psychiatrist or anyone with direct experience in dealing with inmates.

They also said it was important that the board have someone who appreciates the ability of an offender to be reformed over time.

“If, in fact, Mr. Bocon were to be on the board, there will be absolutely no one on the Parole Board who has worked with an incarcerated person, which I think is sad, unfortunate, and extremely shortsighted,’’ Walker said.

Walker said that since the Cinelli case she believes there has been reluctance among Parole Board members to release prisoners.

“I have never seen the level of hopelessness in prisons,’’ Walker said. “And as prisoners have said to me, a hopeless prisoner can be a dangerous prisoner.’’

© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.

Attempt to Empty Prisons Called a Big Mistake

Attempt to Empty Prisons Called a Big Mistake

The Moscow Times, 22 March 2011

The Kremlin is taking a step toward reducing the number of prisoners, drafting a bill to ease punishments on crimes ranging from libel to smuggling and kidnapping.

But judicial experts are unimpressed with the bill, which some called the work of incompetent officials with little knowledge of actual laws or legal practice.

The bill, co-authored by the Justice Ministry, is the third set of legal amendments drafted after President Dmitry Medvedev initiated a campaign last year to make criminal legislation more humane.

The detention of white-collar crime suspects was banned last April, and minimal prison sentences were canceled for 68 criminal offenses — among them fraud, theft and robbery — earlier this month.

The new bill is to be submitted to the State Duma by the end of this month, a senior Duma source told [http://www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2011/03/15/n_1747953.shtml] Gazeta.ru on Tuesday.

The issue is, indeed, pressing because official statistics indicate that prison does not mend the ways of criminals. Of the 820,000 inmates held in prisons nationwide in 2009 — the latest year for which the Federal Prison Service has released data — more than a third have served time previously.

Moreover, the number of repeat offenders among the prison population grew by 6 percent to 30.6 percent from 2003 to 2009, according to the Supreme Court's statistics.

Fines and Forced Labor

The new 83-page bill, a copy of which was obtained by The Moscow Times, proposes abolishing prison terms for certain crimes or replacing them with alternative punishments.

First-time convicts for economic crimes will not be jailed if they pay back six times the amount of damage they have caused, the bill says.

People convicted of minor crimes and first-time felonies may get off with fines, house arrest or forced labor instead of prison.

A number of offenses, including libel, insult, discrimination and illegal trafficking of consumer goods, will be decriminalized by making them punishable with fines, not prison terms. Kidnapping would be punishable by fines along with prison terms but not decriminalized.

The draft also proposes postponing sentences for drug users, who would be allowed to undergo treatment before going to jail.

The bill steps up considerably the authority of judges, who would decide at their own discretion whether to replace imprisonment with forced labor for certain crimes.

A judge would also be allowed to downgrade the gravity of a crime — leading to a softer penalty — in cases where the evidence favors a suspect.

A Kremlin spokesman refused to comment on the bill. An inquiry submitted to the Justice Ministry last Thursday was not answered by Tuesday.

A note attached to the bill says the Federal Security Service opposes the decriminalization of illegal trafficking of consumer goods, but the FSB has issued no comment on the issue.

Constitutional Court aide Oleg Vagin, in a statement, criticized the proposal to grant judges the right to reduce gravity of crimes. But a court spokeswoman said the court has made no official statements on the matter. Vagin, who also slammed the Kremlin's ongoing police reform, could not be reached for comment.

'Criminal Nightmare'

Independent analysts contacted by The Moscow Times criticized many of the bill's proposals.

"My overall impression is that the draft was done by dilettantes who have no clue about criminal legislation," criminal lawyer Mikhail Kleimyonov said in e-mailed comments.

Viktor Luneyev, a crime researcher with 50 years of experience, said in e-mailed comments that the bill could have been "fudged up by uneducated people who are unaware of the real crime in the country."

The bill ought to have been based on "fundamental analysis" of crime in Russia, but the country lacks qualified experts and statistical data for the purpose, Luneyev said.

Criminal lawyer Semyon Lebedev said most of the bill's proposals, coupled with the Kremlin's previous initiatives and "unaccomplished" police reforms, would land the country in a "criminal nightmare."

Lebedev opposed granting the judge the power to decide on the punishment, citing rampant corruption. "In current circumstances, any extension of the judge's powers is a pro-corruption factor," Lebedev said in a telephone interview.

Instead, the criminal legislation should be made "as detailed as possible," clearly establishing types of punishments for various crimes, he said.

His stance was echoed by Kleimyonov who said an extension of a judge's powers contradicted recent anti-corruption legislation aimed at giving officials less, not more, say in how to apply laws.

But lawyers Vladimir Ovchinsky and Yury Golik, as well as Lebedev, praised the proposal to replace prison time with re-compensation for economic crimes.

Lebedev supported the idea of alternative punishments, saying many people "ended up in prison only because the work of all Russian law enforcement agencies is aimed at putting a person in prison."

Ovchinsky also backed the abolishment of prison terms for people convicted of minor crimes, saying "only people who pose danger to society should be sent to jail."

Decriminalization

Most decriminalization proposals were also met with criticism. The decriminalization of the illegal trafficking of consumer goods will de-facto legalize smuggling, leading to the market being flooded with substandard and outright dangerous goods, said Ovchinsky, who quit as adviser to Constitutional Court Chairman Valery Zorkin in mid-March after his criticism of the bill angered the Kremlin.

The proposal resulted from "lobbying on the part of big trafficking chains," said Golik, an organized crime expert with the Russian State University of Trade and Economy.

"A fine of 2 [million] to 3 million rubles is a trifle when the traffic's cost is 500 million rubles," Golik said, referring to newly proposed punishments for smugglers.

"Authorities want to buy off criminal businessmen ahead of the elections," crime researcher Luneyev said in a reference to the State Duma vote in December and the presidential race of 2012.

Golik was also skeptical of the idea to decriminalize libel and insults, saying it would provoke new smear campaigns. The threat of criminal prosecution has served as a "mark of shame" that has "held back" liars and slanderers, he said.

As for the decriminalization of discrimination — officially "the violation of the equality of rights and freedoms of a citizen" — it simply contradicts a number of international rights agreements ratified by Russia, criminal lawyer Kleimyonov said.

Ovchinsky spoke in favor of reintroducing the forced confiscation of property — canceled in 2003 — as a criminal punishment instead of fines. Supreme Court statistics show 80 percent of people sentenced to fines simply do not pay them, he said.

He said defendants who were sentenced to fines but did not pay them should be jailed — a provision not envisioned in the bill.

Luneyev pointed out that the Criminal Code spells out 12 types of punishment, including correctional labor, supervised release and even compulsory army service, but only imprisonment and fines are actively applied because the legislation is not clear on the rest. The new bill does nothing to clarify this.

A Smarter Way to Deal With Drug Offenders

A Smarter Way to Deal With Drug Offenders

Drug courts can help ease the U.S. prison population and usher America into the civilized world when it comes to prosecuting drug-use offenses.

By Michael Scott Moore, March 23, 2011

Easing the U.S. prison population, reducing recidivism and creating a more civilized way of dealing with drug abusers might be as simple as implementing a drug court. (Junial / istockphoto)

Asa Hutchinson, a staunch Republican who once ran the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, went to Canada early in March to do a peculiar thing. He tried to talk the Conservative Party out of some new tough-on-drugs legislation that lawmakers may pass in Ottawa.

“We have made some mistakes, and I hope you can learn from those mistakes,” he told a legislative committee, offering a mea culpa for some of America’s drug-war policies.

The main mistake, he said, was jailing nonviolent drug offenders. He argued that a low-profile but fruitful move toward “drug courts” in the U.S., which aim to rehabilitate rather than punish offenders, was the way to go. American drug courts have mirrored some of the positive results from wholesale drug decriminalization — which Portugal, for example, resorted to a decade ago.

Drug courts started in Florida in 1989 as a response to the rise of crack. Now 2,140 exist nationwide. The rules change from state to state, but generally, a nonviolent defendant with a sparse criminal record and an addiction problem who facing the law on drug charges can be steered into a rehabilitation program. An offender in a drug court can avoid a fresh felony record by submitting to regular drug tests, joining Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous (it wouldn’t work for Charlie Sheen), and remaining clean for 90 days.

It sounds expensive, but it’s cheaper and more effective than jail. “A statewide study in Georgia found the two-year recidivism rate among drug-court participants was 7 percent,” writes The Economist, “compared with 15 percent for those on probation alone and 29 percent for drug users who served time in state prison.”

Drug courts are the obvious place for Americans to start with a serious program to decriminalize behavior that never should have been criminalized in the first place. Portugal, in this respect, is leading the way, while Canada and Russia seem to be regressing.

Asa Hutchinson belongs to a newish U.S. conservative group called Right on Crime, which wants a number of criminal-justice reforms to reduce the size and cost of government. It’s such a blazingly obvious small-government cause that it’s difficult to see how it remained undiscovered by conservatives for so long. But for years “tough on crime” was a conservative mantra that won votes in America.

Hutchinson told the Canadians that the sheer cost of tossing so many people in jail has led several American states to reconsider its drug-war policies, including some tough-on-crime “three strikes” laws, which were trendy in the ’90s and had the effect of locking up a huge number of drug offenders for an outrageously long period of time.

California’s three-strikes law, for example — enacted by popular vote in 1994 — jails people for a mandatory 25 years on any third felony conviction, even if the felony is relatively minor, like drug possession. (Or stealing a slice of pizza. ) Californians loosened the law for drug offenses in 2000, but the mandatory-sentencing craze still goes down in history as a ham-handed approach to crime-fighting. Perhaps ironically, it was backed by many current members of “Right on Crime” — like William Bennett, another former drug-war general.

Mandatory sentencing accounts for prison overcrowding as well as creaking state budgets. This financial consideration, rather than any ideal about civil liberties, has changed a lot of minds among the Right on Crime crowd. Hutchinson reported the grim results to the Canadians: “The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population but 23 percent of the world’s recorded prisoners. The incarceration costs are staggering. … And that cost is very challenging for many states.”

And when the drug offenders go free, after all that time in jail, they tend to go back to taking drugs. (Surprise!) Chances are they never stopped.

To Hutchinson’s credit, he was in favor of drug courts even while he led the DEA. Now, with gang war turning Mexico into Afghanistan, he and his group finally want to sway conservatives toward a more sensible approach to drug offenses. It may not help their cause to point out that Europeans got there first; but it is, embarrassingly, true.

Persons with disabilities must not be denied the right to vote

Persons with disabilities must not be denied the right to vote



People with disabilities do not generally ask for charity; they demand equal human rights. Their message was heard when the United Nations adopted a Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006. This treaty has now been ratified by 27 member states of the Council of Europe and signed by another 18. However, this is only the first step – the Convention should be implemented. A good start would be to “ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life on an equal basis with others… including the right …to vote and be elected”.

In fact, this right – spelled out in Article 29 of the UN Convention - is not a reality today in the majority of European states. The principle of universal suffrage is not consistently applied. Persons with mental health problems or intellectual disabilities are denied voting rights, in most cases as a consequence of having had their “legal capacity” restricted or removed.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled on such a case (Kiss v. Hungary) in 2010. Suffering from manic depression, Alajos Kiss had been placed under partial guardianship. As the Hungarian Constitution contains an absolute voting ban for people under guardianship, he was prevented from taking part in the general elections.

Landmark ruling by the Strasbourg Court

The Strasbourg Court found such a blanket, automatic ban to be impermissible. An indiscriminate removal of voting rights based solely on a mental disability requiring partial guardianship was not compatible with the relevant provision in the European Convention on Human Rights - the basic principle of which is universal suffrage (Article 3 of Protocol No. 1).

The Court also made the point that persons with mental health problems and persons with intellectual disabilities tend to be vulnerable and have in many cases suffered considerable discrimination throughout their lives. In view of the long-standing prejudices against them it was particularly important to avoid generalised classification as a basis for the restriction of their human rights, as this might lead to further social exclusion.

This landmark judgment was an important message to European member states, eighty per cent of which ban the political participation of persons in the same situation as Alajos Kiss.

Assistance - while retaining rights

However, the Court ruling did not exclude the possibility in all circumstances of depriving a person of the right to vote – as long as the criteria and the procedures were acceptable. This makes it necessary to discuss the precise meaning of some key passages of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which is more specific on this matter.

In fact, this treaty does not specify any exceptions to the rights therein. On the contrary, it stipulates that state authorities “shall recognize that persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life”.

The very purpose of the Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights by all persons with disabilities. This leaves no room for procedures in which judges or medical practitioners would assess the voting competence of a person and then give a green light - or not. As we do not test that capability for someone without disabilities, this would amount to blatant discrimination.

There are of course those who – because of their disability – have difficulties in fully exercising their human rights. In these situations society should offer assistance to make it possible for the individual to exercise them, including to take part in political life. The Convention places an obligation on governments to ensure that such assistance is provided if needed, including in exercising the right to vote. There is a huge difference between this approach and just depriving someone of their rights.

This is the paradigm shift that the UN Convention represents: it builds on the idea that we should go further than to just help persons with disabilities to adjust to existing conditions – our societies should seek to adapt to and accommodate everyone, including those with special needs.

Positive experiences

Some European countries have in fact taken steps in that direction. For example, a survey by EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency showed that in Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden, the rights of persons with mental health problems and intellectual disabilities to vote and be elected are protected by the constitution. Experiences in these countries have shown that any fears that this approach would cause any real problems were unfounded.

This is both a matter of equal individual rights and of a broader societal interest. As spelled out in the Council of Europe Disability Action Plan, our societies need to reflect the diversity of their citizens and benefit from their varied experience and knowledge. This is another reason why it is important that people with disabilities are able to exercise their rights to vote and to participate in political life.

Thomas Hammarberg, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

Merged Isle of Wight prison criticised in report

Merged Isle of Wight prison criticised in report

The merger of three prisons on the Isle of Wight has created an institution with "inherited weaknesses" including endemic drug use, a report has found.

Parkhurst Prison merged with Albany and Camp Hill jails to form HMP Isle of Wight in 2009

An inspection of HMP Isle of Wight found "degrading" sanitation provision, high use of force and inmates seeking sanctuary in a segregation unit.

Inspectors found a quarter of prisoners were locked in their cells during the day in one section of the jail.

The prison was formed from the "clustering" of three jails in 2009.

The report showed some progress had been made since the merger of Parkhurst, Albany and Camp Hill prisons but the amalgamation had created a massive institution with a number of problems.

Night sanitation was said to be "unacceptable", staff resorted to "inappropriate" use of special accommodation, drug use was widespread and there was not enough education, training or work to keep prisoners purposefully occupied.

Inspectors who visited the jail last October found too many inmates were unemployed and not enough focus was placed on vocational qualifications.

Governor resigned

The report also said safety had deteriorated at Camp Hill - though it had improved at the other two sites, where steps had also been taken to reduce the disproportionate use of segregation.

Other areas praised included mental health services and suicide and self-harm prevention, which was said to be "generally well-managed".

The report also noted efforts by management to develop staff-prisoner relationships.

When the three prisons were combined into one category B jail, holding about 1,700 inmates, it was said the move would save more than £1m a year.

But the merger has been criticised in previous reports and the governor, Barry Greenberry, recently resigned.

Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons, said the prison was "in many ways, the sum of its three disparate parts" and acknowledged progress had been "inconsistent".

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said the findings were "worrying" and reflected the "true cost of unchecked prison expansion".

She said: "Merging three separate prisons into one massive establishment has created a prison that, despite some improvements, is difficult to manage, unsafe in parts, with poor conditions in others and a lack of proper provision for education, training and work overall.

"These are lessons the government will need to consider carefully as it reviews its plans for the prison estate".

'Right direction'

But Michael Spurr, chief executive officer of the National Offender Management Service welcomed the improvements made following "a radical programme of change".

He said: "This report suggests the prison is heading in the right direction.

"The acting governor and his staff will continue to address the recommendations in the report and will build on the progress already being made."

In May last year, the prison had to replace its locks at a cost of £150,000 after a risk assessment showed there was a risk the locks could be "compromised".

A report from the Independent Monitoring Board into Albany Prison, published in May 2009, questioned the merger, saying: "The board feels the expense of the whole operation will not achieve the required financial result."

Steve Bell on George Osborne and the MoD budget

Steve Bell on George Osborne and the MoD budget

Do your bird Chaytor!

Do your bird Chaytor!

MPs' expenses: David Chaytor loses jail term appeal

David Chaytor, the former Labour MP, has lost a challenge against the length of his jail sentence for fiddling his parliamentary expenses.

David Chaytor was jailed for forging tenancy documents and invoices to falsely claim more than £22,000 of taxpayers' money for rent and IT work from the Commons authorities Photo: JANE MINGAY

10:10AM GMT 23 Mar 2011

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, and two other judges sitting at the Court of Appeal in London refused to reduce the 61-year-old's 18-month prison term.

Chaytor, who forged tenancy documents and invoices to falsely claim more than £22,000 of taxpayers' money for rent and IT work from the Commons authorities, was jailed on January 7.

It had been urged on his behalf that the appropriate sentence was one of 12 months.

Announcing the decision, Lord Judge, sitting with Mr Justice Henriques and Mr Justice Foskett, said: "This was a grave breach of trust and there was a further aggravating feature of this case.

"It is difficult to exaggerate the levels of public concern at the revelation of significant abuse of the expenses system by some Members of Parliament.

"Some elected representatives, vested with the responsibility for making the laws which govern us all, betrayed the public trust."

He added: "There was incredulous consequent public shock.

"The result was serious damage to the reputation of Parliament, with correspondingly reduced confidence in our priceless democratic system and the processes by which it is implemented and we are governed.

"This element of damage caused by the appellant and others cannot be valued in monetary terms, but it is nonetheless real, and the impact of what has been done will not dissipate rapidly."

Women remain barred from voting as Saudi Arabia announces elections

Women remain barred from voting as Saudi Arabia announces elections

Agencies

Last Updated: Mar 23, 2011

RIYADH // Saudi Arabia has announced it is to hold municipal elections next month after a two-year delay that had angered rights activists.

The electoral commission director, Abdul-Rahman al Dahmash, said in a statement yesterday that the elections would take place on April 23.

The kingdom held its first municipal elections in 2005, which were the first held under the absolute monarchy.

Half the seats are elected while the rest are appointed. The councils have little power and women are not allowed to vote or run.

The government said in 2009 it would delay the election for two years to explore the possibility of allowing women to vote.

But the government ministry in charge of the voting said yesterday that women would not cast ballots next month.

Meanwhile, Saudi demonstrators gathered outside the interior ministry yesterday morning demanding the release of political prisoners held without trial, Mohammed al Qahtani, a Riyadh-based activist, said.

Mr al Qahtani, who is the head of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, said he saw police detain about half of the estimated 100 protesters and place them on buses.

A similar rally was held earlier this month.

* Associated Press and Bloomberg

Google books agreement torpedoed by US court

Google books agreement torpedoed by US court

BBC News 22 March 2011 Last updated at 22:00

An agreement between Google and publishers over the web firm's publication of books online has been blocked by a US court.

The court ruled that Google's deal with authors and publishers would give it an unfair advantage

The web giant has scanned millions of books and made them available online via its eBooks platform.

Google had negotiated the deal to settle a six-year-old class action suit claiming infringement of copyright.

But the New York court said the deal would "simply go too far", giving Google an unfair competitive advantage.

Copyright concerns
Under the agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, Google would continue to digitise books and sell access online.

In return, the company would pay $125m (£76.9m) in royalties every year to the copyright owners of the books being scanned.

However, copyright concerns persisted, as the ownership of many of the works being scanned by Google could not be established, meaning many would be unable to claim the royalty payment.

"The [amended settlement agreement] would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case," said judge Denny Chin.

The agreement is also separately being investigated by the US Department of Justice on competition and copyright grounds.

"This is clearly disappointing, but we'll review the Court's decision and consider our options," said Google's managing counsel, Hilary Ware.

"Like many others, we believe this agreement has the potential to open up access to millions of books that are currently hard to find in the US today," she added.

"Regardless of the outcome, we'll continue to work to make more of the world's books discoverable online through Google Books and Google eBooks."

Google has already scanned some 15 million books.

Life, liberty, and Facebook?

Life, liberty, and Facebook?

Is there a Constitutional right to Facebook?

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

A recently-filed complaint claims that to be the case.

The complaint was filed by Majed Moughni, a Republican contender for U.S. Representative in Michigan’s 15th District in the 2010 election.

Moughni’s claim is that Facebook cost him the election.

Facebook did this, according to the complaint, by shutting down Moughni’s Facebook page.

The Facebook page was an integral part of Moughni’s election strategy. According to the complaint, Moughni “devised a plan to use Facebook to accumulate thousands of friends, who in turn would spread the message and over seat the longest servicing member of Congress. [sic]“

Moughni further told The Detroit News that the removal of his Facebook page was devastating to his campaign, and that they “took us off the face of the earth.”

The reasons why Facebook did this vary depending on who you ask.

According to Moughni, the page was closed because of comments Moughni made on Facebook attacking John Dingell, the current representative for the district.

Moughni believes that Facebook received complaints from Dingell supporters because of the comments, and Facebook used them as reason to shut down Moughni’s page.

Facebook’s explanation is short: the account was shut down after he had received several warnings regarding “suspicious or anomalous behavior.”

Whichever version of the facts is correct, in the end, it doesn’t matter.

As mentioned in an earlier post about a different Facebook lawsuit, Facebook has wide discretion to screen any material that it finds offensive.

It doesn’t matter if the speech Facebook is censoring is constitutionally-protected or even if the content of the speech is the reason for the censor. Congress explicitly granted civil immunity to “interactive computer services” on the issue (see 47 U.S.C. § 230 for the text of the statute).

As unconventional as the complaint seems already, it’s the next part that truly goes into uncharted territory: Moughni alleges that Facebook violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

You read that right. Moughni is alleging that Facebook, a non-governmental entity, owed him a hearing and judicial determination prior to shutting down his Facebook page.

Moughni is going to have a hard time finding a judge liberal enough to apply the Fourteenth Amendment to a private actor, much less one that will recognize the ownership of a Facebook page as a constitutionally-protected fundamental right.

However, as unusual as the claim is, it calls for relief that is becoming increasingly common: increased controls over Facebook’s ability to shut down individual pages.

These kinds of lawsuits are becoming more frequent as individuals, organizations, and political campaigns increasingly rely on Facebook as an easy and inexpensive networking tool.

This fact does not change the reality that Facebook still has an open license to terminate whatever pages it wants for whatever reason.

It seems the only real controls on Facebook are market forces (namely, the influence of public image on a business’s bottom line). Whether that will change, though, remains to be seen.

Comment: Is there a Constitutional right to Facebook? If so, there must be a constitutional right to the vote?

Click on the link above for links within the article.

How should DC redraw ANC boundaries?

How should DC redraw ANC boundaries?

by Geoff Hatchard • March 22, 2011 8:20 am



The US Census Bureau will be releasing detailed data for the District of Columbia this week, which will kick off the decennial process of adjusting DC's wards and, also very importantly, the boundaries for Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs).

The ANC boundaries are very important. ANCs have a role in everything from liquor licenses to bike lanes to new housing constructed in our neighborhoods.

Following the redistricting schedule used after Census 2000, the Council and Mayor will approve new ward boundaries by July. Task forces will then be convened in each ward to draw the new ANC boundaries. Those task forces will be appointed by the ward councilmembers, with the council chair and at-large councilmembers having the right to select a member for each ward's task force.

This DC Watch article on redistricting includes a section called "City Council Principles." The source of these principles is unclear, but if they are taken at face value, it's safe to assume that they haven't always been followed closely. The sixth principle states that the ANCs should be of approximately equal size, but ANC 2D has two commissioners, while each of the ANCs in Ward 5 (5A, 5B, and 5C) have 12 commissioners each.

With such large ANCs, commissioners are often voting on local quality of life issues very distant from their own homes. During last year's debates over a Big Bear liquor license in Bloomingdale, for example, commissioners from near Fort Totten Park—as far away from Bloomingdale as the White House is from Columbia Heights—were casting votes about whether Big Bear would create too much noise.

Very small ANCs can create their own problems. ANC 2C, which covers part of Shaw, has four commissioners. In recent years, it had numerous deadlocked 2-2 votes, including votes for chair, due to the presence of two factions overtly at odds with each other. Over the years, incidentally, ANC 2C has shrunk from 22 to 11 to 4 single member districts (SMDs), according to long-time resident Ray Milefsky.

Last fall, I spoke with Mary Eva Candon, formerly of ANC 2D in Sheridan-Kalorama, about the unique situation of being a commissioner on the only two-member ANC in the city. When asked if compromise is required to avoid deadlocked 1-1 votes, she responded, "We don't have tie votes; we work through our neighborhood's issues thoroughly and thoughtfully, open to all neighbors/residents input. In the eight years I have been one of a two-member ANC, we have never had a tie vote." This may be the only example of complete agreement in an American governmental body I've ever come across.

The ANCs in Ward 2 generally mirror neighborhoods, and in fact they are often called the "Dupont Circle ANC" (2B), "Georgetown ANC" (2E), and so forth. In other wards, there is little connection between and ANC and its neighborhood. Brookland, in Ward 5, is actually split between two ANCs (5A and 5B). ANC 4A contains neighborhoods between Georgia Avenue and Rock Creek Park in the northermost part of the city, and then also Crestwood, separated from the others by parkland.

There are currently 286 SMDs in the city. If the average size of an SMD continues to include 2,000 residents, as has been the practice in the past, the city's new population of 601,723 will yield approximately 301 commissioners. That means 15 new SMDs will be added in the parts of the city that have seen significant population growth.

One of the most controversial parts of drawing SMDs may be around universities. Some districts include large numbers of students, but they have little voice on the area's ANC.

New ANC boundaries should take into account how neighborhoods have changed and how relationships between commercial and residential space in the city have evolved, while also considering how those relationships are planned to continue to change in the coming decade. The city's population has grown for the first time since the 1940s, and new ANCs that accurately mirror that growth are needed.

I will discuss ideas for potential new ANCs in a future post.

Geoff Hatchard is an employee of the US Census Bureau, but the opinions in this article are his personal views alone and do not represent the Bureau's opinion or position on any issues.

Click on link above for links within the article.

Should prisoners pay for health care?

Should prisoners pay for health care?

Minnesota House GOP proposes public safety trims

State House Republicans are proposing that Minnesota prisoners be forced to come up with a $5 co-pay for every visit they make to a health care provider.

By: Associated Press report, Associated Press, Published March 22, 2011, 02:20 PM

ST. PAUL — State House Republicans are proposing that Minnesota prisoners be forced to come up with a $5 co-pay for every visit they make to a health-care provider.

It's one part of the House GOP's proposed two-year budget for public safety and corrections. The Republican plan proposes spending about $1 billion on corrections and other public safety programs, about $55 million less than what Gov. Mark Dayton has proposed.

Republicans propose a $12 million cut to programs for crime victims and battered women. Another cost-saving measure in the bill would require that offenders with 60 days or less in their sentences serve that time in a county jail or workhouse.

Republicans also propose slashing more than half the budget of the state Department of Human Rights.

Comment: I could support this if prisoners worked a full week and got paid at least the NMW.

Zwartsanall

Zwartsanall

Zwartsanall!

I take exception to so-called experts on human rights who are against the human rights of the victims of State abuse and support the State's abuse. If you look at Tom Zwart in a warts an all vision, he even looks a bit like Hitler! Nationalism and think tanks are a danger to the rule of law. Governments tell them their view or views on a particular issue, and pay them, and they come out with statements saying the same as the Governments. It's just another form of corruption. It reeks of brown envelopes. He who pays the piper calls the tune!

Tom Zwart states: "Increasingly the European Court of Human Rights is taking on the core values of the Contracting Parties, while skating on thin ice". When I first read this I assumed he was using "taking on" as in adopting. Now, I realise he is using it in the sense of challenging. Perhaps, Tom Zwart can pull his head out of his arse long enough to wake up to the fact what he is witnessing is a democracy revolution? The challenge is from the Individual v the State. Clue: Hirst v UK (No2). I don't see ECtHR v UK in the title of the case. The Court judged the contest and the UK lost. The UK appealed to the Grand Chamber and it upheld the Chamber judgment. The UK then decides to take its ball home and kick it into the long grass for over 5 years.

Perhaps, Tom Zwart might like to reflect on the UK's view that convicted prisoners lost the moral authority to vote by committing their crimes and being deemed serious enough to warrant a prison sentence? However, moral authority has never been a criterion for the franchise. On the other scale, when the expenses scandal reared its ugly head Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, opined that Parliament had lost the moral authority to govern. There is no moral authority to fiddle expenses out of the public purse. These MPs are undermining democracy by their breaking the rule of law. Then there is the convicted prisoners constitutional right to the vote being removed by the elected. It is for the electorate to choose the elected not vice versa.

This is what got my dander up (source)

More drivel from Tom Zwarthere.

Break the Chains: America Is Ripe for Prison Reform

Break the Chains: America Is Ripe for Prison Reform

Michael J. McCarthy, Huffington Post, Posted: March 22, 2011 02:01 PM

America's penal system needs a top-to-bottom overhaul -- and a movement of people ready to do something about it is taking shape nicely.

More than 2.3 million people are now behind bars in America -- either in federal or state prisons or local jails -- a larger proportion of the population than in any other civilized nation and a 500% increase since 1980.

Another five million are under some kind of supervision, like parole, probation or house arrest, for a grand total of more than seven million human beings.

Responsible voices within the penal industry -- from wardens and corrections officials to cops, prosecutors and judges -- are saying publicly that locking up so many people doesn't improve public safety.

Since 1980, crime rates have gone up and then down -- violent crime rates have been plunging since 1993. No matter the trend, the prison numbers marched upward.

In 1980, we had 139 prisoners for every 100,000 people; by the end of 2007 the number had exploded to 506 per 100,000 and growing.

A disturbing racial imbalance pervades the penal system. As far back as 1997, federal statistics showed 9% of the black population under some form of correctional supervision, compared with 2% of whites.

Fast forward to 2009, and the numbers haven't much changed. Every stage of law enforcement targets blacks in grossly disproportionate numbers, from arrest to incarceration.

It's most obvious when you look at the war on drugs. Whites and blacks use hard drugs at roughly equal rates, but blacks are about three times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses.

When federal laws were passed that punish crack at significantly greater rates than powder cocaine, 80% of the defendants charged under the tough laws were black.

One well-known case, that of Kemba Smith, resulted in a 24-year sentence for a first offense. She was released after six years when President Bill Clinton commuted the sentence.

There is, unfortunately, a callous indifference in many sectors of society to the insanity of it all, the waste and futility and unfairness.

That's the bad news. The good news is there's a growing consensus that the nation has gone too far -- and that we must stop putting so much stress on our budgets and our morals.

Blizzards of books, papers, think tanks and forward-looking local officials have been pressing for reform over the last decade.

Colorado State Senators Morgan Carroll and Pat Steadman and Rep. Mark Ferrandino lead the way in introducing many new bills to induce cost-saving prison reform measures without jeopardizing public safety.

In these budget-crunching times savings induced from prison reform, can be utilized in other, more vital areas of state government, such as education.

I recently spent a lively evening in discussions among scholars, activists and formerly incarcerated people at a conference sponsored by Pew Institute and the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. The consensus among the experts is that change is not only overdue but inevitable. In many cases, it has already begun.

Take the case of felony disenfranchisement. Most states have a bewildering thicket of laws and rules that keep an estimated five million ex-prisoners from registering and voting -- even though they can in many cases. Florida is the worst offender of this practice; they just passed a law for all ex-felons to wait at least five years to have their voting rights reinstated.

But since 2009, 19 states have changed laws and procedures to make it easier for ex-prisoners to regain the right to vote.

Five states have created racial-disparity panels to examine whether, how and when defendants are being sentenced without regard to skin color.

New York leaders have begun poring over a thick report, published by a special state sentencing commission, which calls for a range of reform. After years of pressure, judges are getting more leeway to sentence drug-addicted offenders to treatment rather than prison.

Moreover, cash-strapped state governments are finally listening to reformers who say it's better -- and cheaper -- to pay for job and recreation programs than for prison cells.

The end is in sight for our nation's long, unhealthy love affair with mass incarceration. It's time to break the chains, and not a moment too soon.

Michael J. McCarthy lives in Denver. Michael is a member of the Colorado Press Association and the Denver Press Club. Contact at: mjmccarthywrites@yahoo.com

10 prisoners to vote through postal ballot

10 prisoners to vote through postal ballot

PTI | 09:03 PM,Mar 22,2011

Coimbatore, Mar 22 (PTI) The State government has cleared the names of ten prisoners lodged in the Central Jail here, to vote for the April 13 elections to the Tamil Nadu Assembly. The Jail Authorities had sent a proposal to the government, after 32 prisoners expressed their willingness to exercise their franchise through postal ballot, official sources said. The political parties will not be allowed to campaign inside the jail and the prisoners have to select the candidates by going through newspaper reports or the party symbol and names in the postal ballots, they said.