Prison Reform

  U.S. Incarceration Rates

Remain Highest in the World

Advocacy Groups Say Reform Efforts Don't Go Far Enough

By Steve Rensberry

RP News

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EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - 12/6/2020 - The United States continues to lead the world in incarceration rates, with approximately 2.2 million people currently living their lives in the country's prisons and jails, according to researchers at The Sentencing Project.

Source: The Sentencing Project

    Unfortunately, progress toward reform remains slow or even nonexistent in many states.

    "This follows a nearly 700 percent growth in the prison population between 1972 and 2009," the organization says, highlighting an online report available here. The prison population has stabilized in recent years, it says, largely through pragmatic changes in policy and practice, with a 9 percent decrease since peaking in 2009

The total prison population (state and federal) was approximately 1.4 million at the start of 2019. Adding another 740,700 in jail, 874,800 on parole, and 3,673,100 on probation raises the total number of people under control of the U.S. Corrections System to 6,613,500 individuals.

"For more than a decade, the political climate of criminal justice can be seen in a variety of legislative, judicial, and policy changes that have successfully decreased incarceration without adverse impacts on public safety," the organization says. It cites Proposition 47 which California voters passed in 2014, in which certain lower level crimes were reclassified to misdemeanors; as well as reform efforts targeting the Rockefeller drug laws in 2009; the Fair Sentencing Act, passed in 2010, reducing sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses; and a decision in 2014 by the United States Sentencing Commission to reduce excessive sentences for up to 46,000 people in prison for federal drug offenses. See: criminal justice facts.

    Not all states are seeing the same results, however, with six states having seen no reduction from peak levels, and 25 states seeing prison reductions of less than 10 percent. The states of Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas and Oregon actually increased, recording their highest prison populations ever in 2018.

Reforms have been the exception for anyone imprisoned for violent crimes, such as burglary, robbery, assault, rape or murder. "Overall, the number of people imprisoned for a violent offense has only declined by 2 percent between the year 2009 and 2017, despite substantial declines in violence since the mid-1990s," the organization states in its publication, U.S. Prison Decline: Insufficient to Undo Mass Incarceration.

Why are so many Americans in prison? One common view is that longer sentences and an overzealous drug war have played a big part, which they have, but Forham Law School Professor John Pfaff cites other significant trends, namely a trend by district attorneys to file an increasing number of felony charges, in effect becoming much more aggressive and sending far more people to prison.

"I can't tell you why they're doing that," Pfaff said, in a 2015 article by Leon Neyfakh for slate.com, Why So Many Americans are in Prison? A Provocative New Theory. "No one's really got an answer to that yet. But it does seem that the number of felony cases filed shoots up very strongly, even as the number of arrests goes down."

Pfaff cites data showing a sharp rise in crime and the prison population from 1975-1991, with violent crime rising by 400 percent from 1960-1991, and property crime by 200 percent. He estimates that as much as half of the prison growth during that period could be attributed to rising crime.

Source: The Sentencing Project

The interesting thing was that from 1991-2010 crime was on the decline, and fewer people were being arrested. The prison population, however, kept climbing.

    "What appears to happen during this time—the years I look at are 1994 to 2008, just based on the data that’s available—is that the probability that a district attorney files a felony charge against an arrestee goes from about 1 in 3, to 2 in 3. So over the course of the ’90s and 2000s, district attorneys just got much more aggressive in how they filed charges. Defendants who they would not have filed felony charges against before, they now are charging with felonies," Pfaff states.

One possible explanation, he said, is that the crime boom made the prosecutor's position somewhat of a "launch-pad position" with respect to political ambitions, so appearing to be "tough on crime" was important -- even though crime was going down. The data is unclear, however.

The Sentencing Project cites the following in a fact sheet about prisons:

• The number of people incarcerated in state and federal prisons increased by 9.7% from 1,391,261 to 1,526,792 between 2000 and 2015.

• In addition to the nearly 1.5 million people in state and federal prisons, there were 721,300 people in local jails in 2015, yielding a total incarcerated population of 2.2 million.

• Between 2010 and 2015 the number of people in prison decreased by 4.9%.

• 1 in every 115 adults in America was in prison or jail in 2015.4.6 million people were on probation or parole in 2015 for a total of 6.7 million people in America under some form of criminal justice supervision.

• The 2015 U.S. incarceration rate of 670 people per 100,000 population is the highest in the world.

Reference
Prisoners in the United States
World Prison Brief
A Provocative New Theory on Prisons
Trends in U.S. Corrections

Conflict Continues in Portland

Trump's 'Secret Police Force' Casts 

a Dystopian Pall

By Cheryl Eichar Jett
Opinion/Analysis

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   EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - July 24, 2020 - Citizens of the fictional country of Oceania feared the Thought Police in George Orwell's dystopian – some say prescient – novel entitled 1984. After Donald J. Trump won the 2016 presidential election, Amazon sold out of Orwell's book. Will the outrage over the unmarked military police at the Portland, Oregon, Black Lives Matter protests spike another round of social protest book sales?

The Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse. Photo by Steve Morgan. Creative Commons License.

   While the Oceania Thought Police are fiction, the unmarked military descending from unmarked rental vans to harass, injure, and kidnap protesters in Portland are disturbingly real. Real enough to cast a dystopian shadow across the United States as U.S. President Donald J. Trump and his willing sidekicks, Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, violate civil rights in Portland and threaten to send uninvited federal law enforcement into other major U.S. cities to do their bidding.
   Against the background of intense and ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, unidentified (except for a generic “police” patch on their camo uniforms) paramilitary showed up in Portland earlier in July. And they are still there. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed them and insists the forces are in Portland to defend federal buildings against violent anarchists, although the statement they initially released simply lists instances of graffiti. Meanwhile, the protesters aren't backing down. If anything, their numbers are increasing as the “Wall of Moms” and subsequently the “Portland Dads with leaf blowers” have shown up to help protect the young protesters. Ironically, consider the pepper spraying of Portland's Mayor Ted Wheeler at an anti-police brutality protest.
  Condemnation of the troops' presence and actions has been swift and fierce. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, urging that “the Department of Justice (DOJ) must begin the necessary, independent, and thorough process of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute, those responsible for ordering and carrying out attacks on protesters.” Democratic mayors of major cities across the country have also pushed back in a letter sent to both DHS and DOJ.
   During the past several days, criticism has been relentless. On Tuesday, July 21, on the MSNBC TV show “Deadline Whitehouse,” journalist and national-affairs analyst John Heilemann called the unmarked military in Portland a “trial run” for actions in additional cities. Heilemann posed the question, “Is this going to be used as voter intimidation on Election Day?” Eric Holder, former U.S. Attorney General during the Obama administration, also appearing on the show, said that Trump “may be planning to delegitimize the election this way.”
 

  Also on Tuesday, Retired Three-Star Lt. General Russel Honore, who became the voice of reason and an American hero with his decisive and effective action after he was put in charge of the Hurricane Katrina effort in 2005, was on fire on “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams.” Honore, with a long and well-respected military career behind him, vociferously decried the paramilitary actions, “What kind of bullsh** is this? Wolf [DHS Acting Secretary] needs to be run out of Washington. He has no business being in charge of Homeland Security . . . they have denigrated this to a lawless group who go around and think they can suppress demonstrators.”
   On Wednesday, the concern clearly grew. Appearing on “Meet the Press Daily” (MTPD), Sen. Ed Merkley, D-Oregon, opined that Trump is simply planning to stir up more trouble in order to present himself as the savior. Also on Wednesday's MTPD, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon said that we are “looking down the barrel of martial law during an election.” In reference to the Black Lives Matter protest, Wyden stated that Donald Trump and Chad Wolf have “basically inflamed the situation.” Yet another guest was Mayor Quinton Lucas, D-Kansas City, Missouri, who quipped that instead of a dog whistle it's “dog barking” from Trump.
   On Wednesday evening, on “The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell,” Neal Katyal, an MSNBC contributor and Professor of National Security Law at Georgetown University Law Center, formerly Acting Solicitor General of the U.S., analyzed the situation. In terms of policy problems, “we see secret unmarked agents beating and teargassing the American people,” Katyal explained. “Legally . . . what we are seeing is rebellion against our deepest constitutional principles. This is a betrayal of what America's about.” An hour later on “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams,” Steve Schmidt, the always-eloquent former Republican strategist and founder of the Lincoln Project, called the deployment “federal thuggery.” He added, “It's out of control, and no American should stand for this.”
   This week, an Oregon court is hearing a lawsuit seeking a restraining order barring federal agents in Portland from restraining citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden testified that these actions by Trump are nothing more than part of his re-election campaign, with film footage being obtained for his “law and order” platform. A ruling is expected yet this week.
   Chad Wolf, the former lobbyist appointed by Trump to the position of Acting Director of Homeland Security, defended his actions in a July 21 press conference, and in subsequent appearances on news shows. “We will not retreat,” he stated. Wolf was previously an architect of the Trump administration's family separation policy.
   Trump is threatening to deploy federal forces to other major cities (with Democratic mayors) in what he calls “Operation Legend.” Acting DHS Secretary Wolf insists this is different from the situation in Portland, making the distinction that in Portland they are protecting federal buildings from violent rioters, while in the other cities the intent is to assist with overcoming a high violent crime rate. Trump's “Democrat cities” rhetoric and a crackdown on local crime are being conflated, and mayors aren't buying it. Both Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzger and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot have pushed back strongly against federal forces arriving in Chicago.
   Trump's authoritarian deployment of unmarked baton-wielding federal troops into America's major cities against the wishes of their mayors is a chapter that's going to be hard to close the book on any time soon. This is not dystopian fiction, but the sad and shocking reality, and it's still being written.

Further reference
Neither side is backing down as federal agents and protestors clash
Lawmakers, church, others file suit
ACLU sends letter to Attorney General Barr
Mayors call on Trump Administration to withdraw forces
Trump considers 'more federal law enforcement' for Detroit protests
Nothing can justify the attack on Portland

Men Charged in $7 Million Mortgage Fraud Scheme

   NEWARK, N.J. – 10/21/10 – A former mortgage broker and his purported co-conspirator in a mortgage fraud scheme were arrested recently on a criminal complaint which alleges they conspired to defraud various mortgage lenders of more than $7 million by conducting at least 50 fraudulent real estate transactions involving residential properties in New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
   Eddie Dukhman, aka Eddie Dukeman, 34, of Sewaren, N.J., and Frank Corallo, 37, of Maywood, N.J., were arrested recently by special agents of the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service on a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. 
   Dukhman was arrested at his home. Corallo, who awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in an unrelated scheme, was arrested when he reported to pretrial services concerning that case. Both defendants were expected to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael A. Shipp in Newark federal court.
   According to the complain that was unsealed, Dukhman, supposedly in the real estate business, and Corallo, a former mortgage broker, engaged in a conspiracy to defraud mortgage lenders from January 2007 to December 2009.
   Dukhman, with the assistance of two attorneys, arranged to purchase properties owned by financial institutions – commonly referred to as real-estate-owned or REO properties.  Corallo recruited other individuals to purchase those same properties at around the same time, referred to in the complaint as the “borrowers.” 
   Dukhman, Corallo and other unidentified co-conspirators employed numerous fraudulent techniques to effect their scheme – including falsifying financial documents, HUD-1 settlement statements (HUD-1s) and residential loan applications; causing borrowers to apply and obtain loans on properties that they did not own; and failing to record deeds with the county clerk’s office. 
   Specifically, Dukhman and Corallo caused fraudulent loan applications and HUD-1s to be submitted to mortgage lenders claiming that the purchaser of the REO property was the borrower (rather than Dukhman); that the borrowers put money down at the closing; that the properties would be the primary residences of the borrowers; that the borrowers had more assets and earned more than they actually did; and that the purchase price was almost twice that actually paid by Dukhman.
   When the loans were approved, the two attorneys identified in the complaint as “GT” and “EF” furthered Dukhman’s scheme by depositing the proceeds of the loans in one of their respective attorney trust accounts.
   Either of the two attorneys would then act as closing agents for Dukhman, who would purchase a REO property using the proceeds of the mortgage fraud scheme. After paying the closing costs, the attorneys distributed the proceeds of the mortgage fraud to Dukhman, Corallo and their co-conspirators. 
   After the attorneys gave Dukhman the deed to an REO property, he had it altered to reflect a sale between the REO bank and the borrower for the purchase price listed in the fraudulent documents submitted to the lenders.   Altered deeds were filed in the county clerk’s office – leaving Dukhman out of the title history.
   Additionally, Dukhman set up shell companies to receive the proceeds of the fraud. To that end, proceeds were funneled through financial institutions in the United States and ultimately transferred to various foreign accounts, including an account in the Cook Islands.  The government is seeking to forfeit the money in that account. 
   In all, Dukhman and Corallo conspired to defraud numerous mortgage lenders out of more than $7 million.
The wire fraud conspiracy count with which each of the defendants is charged carries a maximum potential penalty of 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
   U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward, and special agents of the Secret Service, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge James Mottola, with the investigation leading to the criminal Complaint.
   The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stacey A. Levine of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Heath Care and Government Fraud Unit and Peter Gaeta of the office’s Asset Forfeiture Unit.
   Source: Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force