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From Los Angeles Times

States can't opt out of Secure Communities program

The Obama administration has told governors the fingerprint-sharing program that targets criminals in the country illegally does not need their approval to operate in their states.

by Brian Bennett, Washington Bureau

August 6, 2011

Reporting from Washington

In an unusual move, the Obama administration has told governors they cannot exempt their states from the controversial Secure Communities program, which uses fingerprints collected by local and state police to help immigration authorities identify and deport tens of thousands of criminals each year.

The Department of Homeland Security notified 39 governors Friday that the fingerprint-sharing program did not need their approval to operate in their states, and said it had voided agreements they had signed to authorize their states' participation, according to a copy of the letter.

"This change will have no effect on the operation of Secure Communities in your state," read the letter, which was signed by John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Governors in the other 11 states had not signed agreements.

The action was immediately denounced by some political leaders, immigration advocacy groups, and other opponents of the program.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) called the decision to cancel the agreements "astonishing." At Lofgren's request, the Homeland Security Department's inspector general is investigating how the Secure Communities program was pitched to local officials.

The decision is "an insult" to the governors and "the latest in a long line of deceptive DHS theatrics," said Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union legislative office in Washington.

Begun in 2008, Secure Communities was chiefly intended to identify and deport convicted felons found to be in the country illegally.

Each time local or state police arrest and book a suspect into a jail, his or her fingerprints are sent to the FBI, and then are stored in criminal databases. The FBI then notifies the state or local authorities of the suspect's criminal history.

Under Secure Communities, the FBI also shares the fingerprints with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Suspects who are found to be in the country illegally may be deported.

The fingerprint-sharing is used in more than 1,400 jurisdictions, or about 70% of the country, including the entire Southwest border. Homeland Security officials plan to expand it nationwide by 2013.

So far, more than 77,000 immigrants convicted of crimes, including more than 28,000 convicted of offenses like murder, rape, and sexual abuse of children, have been deported under the program.

Governors in California, Illinois, Massachusetts and several other states have complained that the effort also has ensnared thousands of minor offenders, including some who were arrested but not yet tried or convicted, and has deterred some crime victims from coming forward to aid police.

Several governors had announced their intention to withdraw from the program. Others had simply refused to sign agreements.

In June, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick declined to participate, saying the program is "overly broad" and "may deter the reporting of criminal activity."

Patrick's office declined comment Friday, saying aides were still trying to understand the decision.

Colorado officials had negotiated their agreement for months last year to ensure it included protection for victims of domestic violence who may be arrested by mistake and then identified as illegal immigrants.

Those protections are now void, said a Homeland Security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-secure-communities-20110806,0,5832833,print.story

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California needs more time to fix prison overcrowding, report says

Legislative analyst says sending thousands of inmates to local jails is a good step. But the planned realignment won't move enough inmates as quickly as a federal court requires, according to his report.

by Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times

August 6, 2011

Reporting from Sacramento -- California is unlikely to meet a federal court mandate to reduce its prison population by 34,000 inmates within two years, so state officials should ask for more time, the Legislature's top advisor said Friday.

Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor also challenged Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to reduce the number of inmates sent to out-of-state contract prisons, saying California instead should consider exporting more felons.

"The administration's push to reduce the number of these out-of-state beds while at the same time reducing overcrowding in the prisons makes little sense at the present time in our view," said the report by the Legislative Analyst's Office.

Brown has not decided whether to seek an extension of the court-imposed deadline, but believes the report "confirms that California is on the right track" with its plan to send some state inmates to county jails, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Ashford.

Taylor's report agreed that shifting thousands of low-level offenders to serve their sentences in county jails would move the state closer to complying with the court order. But the analysis "indicates that the realignment plan alone is unlikely to reduce overcrowding sufficiently within the two-year deadline."

Sending some offenders to jails and local parole programs could reduce the prison population by 32,000 inmates, the report said, but that won't be accomplished in two years and it would still leave the state "several thousand" inmates short of the court's requirement.

California currently has more than 143,000 inmates in 33 prisons. In May, the U.S Supreme Court upheld a ruling by a federal three-judge panel requiring the state to reduce overcrowding, although the justices urged some flexibility on the deadline.

Compliance could be harder to achieve if the state follows through on plans to reduce the number of inmates sent to contract prisons, the report warned. The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has contracts to hold 10,000 California inmates in out-of-state prisons and about 4,000 in contract prisons in the state.

Taylor recommended that the Legislature continue, "and possibly expand," the out-of-state program "at least until such time as [the Corrections Department] is able to comply with the … inmate population reduction targets."

As California reduces its prison population and frees up beds, it would make sense "to start to bring inmates back," said department spokesman Oscar Hidalgo. "But there are no immediate plans, and we will not do that" if it risks being in noncompliance, he said.

Taylor's office also recommended that new contracts for prison-construction projects be put on hold until a review can determine whether they will be needed when the inmate-reduction mandates are met.

Ashford said the Brown administration was working with the Legislature "to guarantee that new facilities will only be constructed if absolutely necessary."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prison-overcrowding-20110806,0,6314695,print.story

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Californians would rather ease penalties than pay more for prisons

Poll shows a change in attitudes as California seeks ways to comply with court-ordered cuts to its prison population. Soured economy is a key factor.

by Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times

July 21, 2011

Reporting from Sacramento

Cash-strapped Californians would rather ease "third-strike" penalties for some criminals and accept felons as neighbors than dig deeper into their pockets to relieve prison overcrowding, a new poll shows.

In the wake of a court order that the state move more than 33,000 inmates out of its packed prisons, an overwhelming number of voters oppose higher taxes — as well as cuts in key state services — to pay for more lockup space.

The survey, by The Times and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, shows a clear shift in attitude by residents forced to confront the cost of tough sentencing laws passed in recent decades.

The poll canvassed 1,507 registered California voters between July 6 and July 17, about six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an earlier court order requiring the inmate numbers to be cut. It was conducted by two firms in the Washington, D.C., area: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Democratic firm, and American Viewpoint, a Republican firm. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.52 percentage points.

The ailing economy far outweighs crime as the top concern for most people today, the pollsters said. That, along with the court order, could help explain voters' new receptivity to changes long sought by prisoner-rights advocates:

— More than 60% of respondents, including majorities among Democrats, Republicans and those who declined to state a party preference, said they would support reducing life sentences for third strike offenders convicted of property crimes such as burglary, auto theft and shoplifting.

— Nearly 70% said they would sanction the early release of some low-level offenders whose crimes did not involve violence.

— About 80% said they approve of keeping low-level, nonviolent offenders in county custody — including jails, home detention or parole — instead of sending them to state prisons. The same percentage favors paroling inmates who are paralyzed, in comas or so debilitated by advanced disease that they no longer pose a threat to public safety.

The pollsters noted that people don't generally favor the release of convicted criminals. But "when it comes to prisons," said Linda DiVall of American Viewpoint, "voters are looking for solutions that don't raise taxes or take money from other priorities like education."

Only 12% of respondents said they'd be willing to accept less state spending on healthcare or education to pay for more prisons. And less than a quarter of voters want to pay higher taxes to build prisons or ship inmates to private lockups in other states to comply with the courts.

This year the state plans to spend $9.8 billion on prisons, making it the third-highest general fund expenditure, behind education and healthcare.

"We spend such a large portion of our budget on crime and prison systems, and we get so little for it," said Amanda Hixson, 59, a Democrat from Sacramento.

Politicians determined to burnish their law-and-order credentials try to scare the public about releasing inmates early, Hixson said, "but some guy who's got three pot busts just isn't going to be that terrifying on the street."

Melissa Mason, 60, a Republican from the central California town of Nipomo, was one of the few respondents willing to see the state raise revenue to build more prisons or send inmates out of state.

"I'm not crazy about increasing taxes," Mason said, but offering inmates early release after they've been arrested, convicted and sentenced by responsible authorities "is wrong — it's very, very wrong."

Most others dismissed the idea of higher taxes to pay for additional prison space: 76% of Republicans and 72% of Democrats.

Perhaps the most pronounced divergence of opinion appeared along ethnic lines, on the issue of early releases. More than 70% of white respondents were in favor, compared with 59% of Latinos who supported the idea.

Similarly, 64% of whites said sentences for some three-strikes offenders should be reduced; 50% of Latinos approved.

The pollsters said the split probably reflects a socially conservative tradition among Latino voters more than a concern about personal safety.

"I think it's indicative of an overall world view," said Stanley Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. "It's more of a cultural response — that people who are not socialized and not responsible need to be kept away from people who are more responsible."

The centerpiece of Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to address prison overcrowding — shifting responsibility for tens of thousands of low-level inmates to county jails — received overwhelming support from voters in both parties: 81% of Democrats and 74% of Republicans approve.

Under Brown's plan, counties would also assume responsibility for tens of thousands of parole violators currently sent back to state prisons each year, even though they typically spend less than three months behind bars.

More than 70% of Californians approved a 1994 ballot measure creating the three-strikes law, imposing life sentences on previously violent felons who commit even a minor third crime. Voters also have increased the time that inmates serve before eligibility for parole, and they repeatedly have rejected ballot measures that would have reduced sentences for nonviolent drug crimes.

Now, California's lockups are so packed that a panel of federal judges in 2006 ruled that the resulting lack of access to healthcare amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The judges said an inmate died every six or seven days from preventable causes.

After the high court affirmed their ruling in late May, the jurists set out a detailed timeline for officials to abide by the order. The first deadline is in November, when the inmate head count must be down by at least 10,000.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-poll-prisons-20110721,0,4309478,print.story

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From Google News

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Officers Guilty of Shooting Six in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — In a verdict that brought a decisive close to a case that has haunted this city since most of it lay underwater nearly six years ago, five current and former New Orleans police officers were found guilty on all counts by a federal jury on Friday for shooting six citizens, two of whom died, and orchestrating a wide-ranging cover-up in the hours, weeks and years that followed.

The defendants were convicted on 25 counts, including federal civil rights violations in connection with the two deaths, for the violence and deception that began on the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans on Sept. 4, 2005, just days after Hurricane Katrina hit and the levees failed.

“The officers convicted today abused their power and violated the public's trust during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, exacerbating one of the most devastating times for the people of New Orleans,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said. “I am hopeful today's verdict brings justice for the victims and their family members, helps to heal the community and contributes to the restoration of public trust in the New Orleans Police Department.”

In a grisly account, prosecutors said four of the defendants — Sgt. Kenneth Bowen, Sgt. Robert Gisevius, Officer Anthony Villavaso and former Officer Robert Faulcon — had raced to the bridge in a Budget rental truck that morning, responding to a distress call from another officer.

There they poured out of the truck and opened fire, without pausing or giving a warning, on members of the Bartholomew family, who were walking to a grocery in the largely abandoned city. James Brisette, 17, a friend of the family, was killed, and four others were gravely wounded by the police, who kept firing as the Bartholomews raced for safety.

Several of the officers then chased Ronald and Lance Madison, two brothers, to the other side of the bridge, where Mr. Faulcon shot Ronald, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, in the back. Sergeant Bowen was convicted of stomping him on the back as he lay dying.

No guns were recovered at the scene, and witnesses — both officers and citizens — testified that the victims were unarmed.

The cover-up began immediately, prosecutors said, and the jury found all of the officers, as well as retired Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, guilty on charges of obstructing justice, fabricating witnesses, lying to federal investigators or planting a firearm at the scene to bolster a made-up story.

While the jury convicted on all counts, it stopped short of considering the killing of Mr. Madison to be murder in connection with a firearms charge. Such a finding would have affected the sentencing range, though four of the defendants are nevertheless faced with potential life sentences. Mr. Kaufman faces up to 120 years. Sentencing is set for Dec. 14.

On the insistence of Judge Kurt Englehardt, the courtroom was nearly silent as he read guilty pronouncement after guilty pronouncement.

Family members of the defendants sobbed quietly. Outside the courthouse, Bobbi Bernstein, a deputy chief of the Justice Department's civil rights division and the hard-charging leader of the prosecution, was in tears as she hugged Lance Madison, who was arrested during the cover-up of the shooting that left his brother dead. “I am thankful to have some closure after six long years of struggling for justice,” Mr. Madison said quietly.

The verdict was long in coming, and followed a problem-plagued attempt by the Orleans Parish district attorney to prosecute the officers for murder, an effort that ended in a judge dismissing all charges in 2008.

The federal prosecution began shortly afterward, and the Police Department as a whole began coming under more scrutiny. At one point there were at least nine federal criminal investigations into the Police Department's actions, some of which are continuing; four have already led to indictments and three, including the Danziger case, to convictions.

In May 2010, the Justice Department announced a federal civil investigation into the department, an inquiry that has produced a scathing report on its practices and will eventually lead to a consent decree, a legally mandated blueprint for reform.

Around 60 witnesses were called over the course of the monthlong Danziger trial, including victims, one of whom was unable to raise her right hand to swear in because she lost it as a result of the shootings on the bridge, and several officers who had been involved in the shootings and the police investigation and later pleaded guilty.

The trial was not only about these five officers but also about what exactly happened in the weeks after the hurricane, a sort of judgment on the initial widely held belief that the authorities were trying to control elements of a citizenry run rampant.

In the years since, that narrative has been qualified. While some people did turn to crime and violence, it has become apparent that some of the bloodshed and chaos was brought about by members of the long-troubled Police Department.

In opening and closing arguments, prosecutors portrayed the Danziger victims as people merely trying to survive when they were descended on by the police. Instead of assessing the threat when they arrived on the scene, prosecutors said, these officers tried to send a harsh lesson to people they had wrongly suspected of firing at the police.

“They thought they could do what they wanted to do and there wouldn't be any consequences,” said Theodore Carter, an assistant United States attorney, in his closing statement. “This led to their crime, it led to their brazenness. It never occurred to them they were shooting up two good families.”

While some of the defense lawyers argued that the citizens were in fact armed, or that other people in the vicinity were shooting at the victims, their main argument was that the officers' actions must be judged in the context of those first horrible days after Hurricane Katrina, when New Orleans was a city on the verge of anarchy.

As in a similar trial of the police last year, defense lawyers said that the officers should be considered heroes for staying in the city when so many others left and that, given the air of imminent and omnipresent danger in those days, their instincts should not be criminalized.

“He has to decide and act in a split second, a nanosecond, to make a life or death decision,” said Paul Fleming, who represented Mr. Faulcon. Given the circumstances, he said, “It is a decision that is reasonable, it is a decision that is justifiable and it is a decision that is not a crime.”

Jim Letten, the United States attorney for Louisiana's Eastern District, said that was exactly wrong. It is in situations like the anarchy after Hurricane Katrina, he said, when it is most crucial that the police be depended upon to protect citizens.

“Who can we count on when our society is threatened?” he asked. “If we can't depend on them, who can we depend on?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/us/06danziger.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

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School shooting plot in Louisiana stopped

COVINGTON, LA. (AP) — Authorities in suburban New Orleans say they have foiled a plot by three teenagers who planned to attack their high school on the opening day of classes.

St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain says officials at Lakeshore High School informed deputies July 17th they had uncovered the plot by a group of students that called themselves Day Zero. It wasn't immediately clear how the school found out about the plan.

The sheriff says the 15-year-old boys are being held in juvenile detention on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism. They turned themselves in this week.

Strain says extra deputies will be at the school when classes start Monday, though authorities believe everyone involved was arrested.

Investigators say the group planned to bring guns and targeted at least one student

http://www.ksn.com/news/national/story/School-shooting-plot-in-Louisiana-stopped/DaK9hGejyESqPdBv48fG2A.cspx

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COPS Office Changed Police, Community Relationships

CrimeSolutions.gov Website Offers Back to School Resources to Practitioners, Teachers
In much of the country, the first day of school is just around the corner. Justice practitioners, teachers and others can visit the CrimeSolutions.gov Website and learn about successful school-related programs. Among the highly rated programs are Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers which aims to prevent the development of aggressive and antisocial behaviors in children within an elementary school setting and the Positive Action Program, which focuses on improving youth academics, behavior, and character within schools, families and communities. Another program, Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, promotes emotional and social competencies to reduce aggression and behavior problems among elementary school–aged children. http://crimesolutions.gov/

BJS Releases Victims of Serious Violent Crime Report
About nine percent of victims of serious violent crime -- rape or other sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated assault -- received direct assistance from a victim service agency, according to the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report, Use of Victim Service Agencies by Victims of Serious Violent Crime, 1993-2009 . While the rate of serious violent crime in the United States declined overall from 22 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 1993 to 6 per 1,000 in 2009, the percentage of victims receiving assistance from victim service agencies remained relatively stable. http://www.bjs.gov

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice - Office of Justice Programs -- www.OJP.gov

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cops-office-changed-police-community-relationships-126839943.html

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New Jersey

'Caught' doing the right thing brings rewards to residents in Woodstown

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