What the Hartford Courant calls “significant changes” in the Connecticut Department of Corrections budget pales in comparison to the money the state could save by reforming its drug laws. Among Rell’s many slash and burn proposals would be cuts to inmate medical services. Yet, such action would only save twenty-two million dollars over the next two years. Sounds like a lot of money, but consider this:
- This report says the state spent $44,165 per year per inmate in 2006, an amount which has likely increased since then.
- Almost 20% of all criminal offenses in CT are drug offenses, which is over 3,800 inmates.
Doing the math, that’s an estimated 168 million dollars annually. Yet, Rell fixates on cutting services at a variety of agencies.
And you could add to the list of wrongful convictions another 12.3% who are charged with Violation of Probation or Conditional Discharge—which very often relates to substance use as well or to not contacting their probation officer at a specified time—, which adds up to over 106 million…
The Prison Industry is a modern form of slavery!!!
Just look at the disproportionate incarceration rates for Blacks and Hispanics. “More than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For Black males in their twenties, 1 in every 8 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the ‘war on drugs,’ in which three-fourths of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color.” (http://www.sentencingproject.org)
And addition to all those who are locked up, consider the vast numbers who are on probation. According to a 2006 CT Gov report, the ratio of probationers to prisoners sentenced for a year or more was 397%. The DOJ reports About 1 in every 45 adults in the U.S. was supervised in the community, either on probation or parole, at year end in 2007. – “Among offenders on probation, about half had been convicted for committing a misdemeanor (51%), 47% for a felony, and 3% for other infractions. The most common type of offense for which offenders were on probation was a drug offense (27%).” http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pandp.htm
Add to this the fact that private companies are being contracted for probation and other services…
http://www.jud.state.ct.us/faq/adultprob.html#11
And how probation violation is used to bully people into pleading guilty to a new arrest charge…
“An important thing to remember about probation violations is that court prosecutors often use the threat of a violation of probation to get you to plead guilty to the substantive underlying charges of a new arrest. If you don’t plead guilty, they go forward with a violation of probation hearing where there are few rules of evidence. For instance, hearsay is generally allowed and generally speaking, the exclusionary rule is inapplicable. So if evidence was seized unlawfully, it is admissible.”(http://www.tinasypekdamato.com/PracticeAreas/Probation-Violation.asp)
How much more evidence does one need that we are living in a new era of slavery?