Oct. 7, 2022
Globe and Mail – Tom Cardosa
No way out – Once behind bars, racialized people are far less likely to get paroled when they are eligible. A Globe analysis examines why
This article is dated Feb 2020 but draws attention to the difficulty of Black persons and Indigenous persons getting parole when they become eligible. Renford Farrier, a Black man, was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life but the judge made the parole eligibility ten years. Thirty years later Farrier is still incarcerated. “For decades, experts have warned that race plays a significant part in someone’s odds of being released, but the evidence has always been anecdotal. Now, a Globe and Mail investigation has quantified that impact… An analysis of seven years of federal prison data has found that Indigenous, Black and other racialized men are 26 per cent, 24 per cent and 20 per cent less likely than their white peers to be paroled in the first year they’re eligible – even after controlling for their age, sentence length, offence severity, the year they were first eligible for community release and the risk assessment scores that estimate their likelihood of reintegrating into society.” Note that the Cardosa analysis does not include women or people serving life sentences. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-racialized-prisoners-in-canada-get-fewer-chances-at-parole-than-white/
CBC Radio White Coat, Black Art – Logan Turner
People with lived experience of addiction are helping an Ontario city tackle its overdose crisis – A network of workers offer peer support and harm reduction in 6 small communities
The Northwest Health Unit in Ontario services a series of small communities without the resources of larger centers and the article tells the story of Shauna Pinkerton, 44, who was born and raised in Dryden, Ont. Her own recovery has brought her to helping bring attention and help to mental health, addiction and housing issues in her community of 7400 people. She is a volunteer for the past year and thinks it’s important in reducing opioid deaths to get more resources to bear. In some cases, when visiting clients, she tests the opiates being used with fentanyl strips. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/peer-support-overdoses-dryden-1.6597906?_cldee=f-AbMJM157_nP9Ev-XV6IHJNrtZHQxy25zO4xchxtLVuENHWutjEhsVnSrmTotHc&recipientid=contact-c7d5c6afacb6ec11983e0022486dba55-f47e400de3444bc795b24e1d961aab5a&esid=5a19c22c-f443-ed11-bba3-0022486dc98c
Global News – David Fraser The Canadian Press
Canadian sex workers are challenging criminal laws in court. Here’s why
The argument is current in the Ontario Superior Court and the sex workers say that Canada’s prostitution laws do not allow the sex worker to obtain meaningful consent from the sex client / partner. “The Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform is now arguing the new laws are more restrictive than what they replaced and continue to criminalize sex work.” The new law dates from 2014 and was passed by the Conservative government at the time with a view to decriminalizing the sex workers… It says the new laws foster stigma, invite targeted violence and remove safe consent.” Says Michael Rosenberg, lawyer for the Alliance of sex workers: the new laws are “making it illegal to advertise or communicate about buying or selling sexual services are “unacceptably dangerous,” in part because they prevent health and safety checks, or meaningful conversations about consent, from happening.” https://globalnews.ca/news/9171536/sex-workers-criminal-laws-court-challenge/
CBC News / The Fifth Estate – Roxanna Woloshyn, Marie-Maude Denis
Canadian ransomware hacker sentenced to 20 years in U.S. prison – Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins pleaded guilty to ransomware crimes, $28 million in bitcoin seized
He worked for himself, and for Netwalker, a ransomware gang, that eventually hacked into US computers and landed him in hot water. “In June, Vachon-Desjardins — a former IT specialist for Public Services and Procurement Canada — pleaded guilty to four charges, including computer fraud and transmitting a demand in relation to damaging a protected computer in the U.S…Vachon-Desjardins, 35, was one of the most prolific affiliates of Netwalker, a Russian-speaking ransomware criminal gang that operated at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.” https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ransomeware-hacker-vachon-desjardins-sentenced-1.6606274 Related article: O.Canada.com – Anja Karadeglija MPs call for ‘national pause’ on use of facial recognition, particularly by police – Canada’s current legislation doesn’t adequately regulate facial recognition or artificial intelligence technologies, a report said https://o.canada.com/news/politics/mps-call-for-national-pause-on-use-of-facial-recognition-particularly-by-police
Rachel Barkow of the New York University Law School at the Cato Institute:
The Court of Mass Incarceration
The Cato Institute is known for its work on US constitutional law, with a lively interest in criminal law. Barkow was invited to speak at the Institutes Constitutional Day. She suggests there has been extensive overreach by many in the criminal legal system: “I could easily fill my time today with numbers as shocking as these that show the sweep of government overreach in criminal matters, whether by detailing the literally thousands upon thousands of collateral consequences of convictions that deprive people of rights and access to governmental benefits or by detailing inhumane conditions in prisons and jails or abuses by police and prosecutors that go unpunished. But instead of detailing the sweep of the governmental excess in all its tragic glory, I want to discuss an overarching question that applies to all of this: How can this happen under our Constitution?” The full address is 36 pages. She faults the Supreme Court for two contemporary failures: “It has condoned coercive plea bargaining and permitted widespread pretrial detention.” For Barkow the failure is in maintaining protection against government excess. https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2022-09/Supreme-Court-Review-2022-Chapter-1.pdf Related article: Tweet from Pema Levy: “Justice Jackson just took everyone to school on the 14th Amendment, explaining that its purpose was to ensure equality for people treated less equally than white people. It’s not lost that the originalists forget to apply originalism to the 14th Amendment.” https://twitter.com/pemalevy/status/1577314765306843137?s=03
Public Knowledge.org (US) – Shiva Stella
FCC Votes To Give Disabled Incarcerated People Access to Specialized Communications Services – The agency moves to help incarcerated people with disabilities stay connected with their families.
The FCC is the federal Communications Commission which has decided to take a hand in the issue of communications for incarcerated people who are also disabled. The ruling applies not only to access but also to a long fought issue over costs passed to both the incarcerated and their families. ““Incarcerated people with a hearing and speech disability will benefit greatly from the action the FCC takes today because this will give them access to the specialized communications services they need to connect. In addition, the FCC’s prohibition on inmate calling service providers making a profit center out of the unused funds left on calling cards and debit accounts that inmates and their families paid for, is a common-sense reform to help protect a vulnerable base of consumers.” https://publicknowledge.org/fcc-votes-to-give-disabled-incarcerated-people-access-to-specialized-communications-services/
Washington Post – Radley Balko
For those freed after wrongful convictions, gratitude is a lot to ask
In this article, Balko raises three salient points, one about wrongful conviction and a second about the harm done by plea bargaining. The major thurst is about yet a third issue and that is the supposed expectation that such a wrongfully convicted person should be grateful – in some cases there is recompense, in other jurisdiction none. Here’s the scene: “As you might imagine, the homecoming was a happy occasion. There was an enormous spread of food, music, dancing and a lot of contagious joy. But toward the end of the evening, it occurred to me how perverse it all was. Here was a man who was harming no one when, in the middle of the night, a team of police officers kicked down the door to his home, endangering him and his 18-month-old daughter. Maye reacted as many of us might have, by trying to defend himself. He made a mistake — the same mistake police have often made during these raids, typically with no consequences. For that he was arrested, severely beaten and imprisoned, and for the next decade, the state of Mississippi did everything it could to move him toward execution.” Where does gratitude fit? https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/30/adnan-syed-conviction-release-gratitude/ Related twitter: The Innocence Project of Texas: “”We have a criminal justice system that, as a matter of policy, has declared that procedure is more important than guilt or innocence.” https://twitter.com/innocencetexas Website: https://innocencetexas.org/ Related article: BigThink.com – Daniel Medwed How many innocent people is the plea bargain sending to prison? – This is a perversion of justice. (A podcast with written text) https://bigthink.com/the-present/plea-bargain-innocent-people-prison/
Axios (Chicago) – Monica Eng
The Bail reform debate in Illinois
The debate is around the legislation called the Pre-trial Fairness Act already passed by the state and due to be implemented in January 2023. The primary ingregient tackles the notion that only the poor are denied bail, largely because they do not have the money, making justice determined by one’s financial status. “The measure reforms the current “cash bail” system that bases the freedom of people awaiting trial largely on their ability to pay money; bail reform advocates note the current system disproportionately affects communities of color; the new rule replaces cash bail with a judge’s determination on the defendant’s risk to the public.” https://www.axios.com/local/chicago/2022/10/03/the-bail-reform-debate-illinois
Two Tweets from Dr. Nicole Lepera
On Childhood Trauma: “People don’t connect childhood trauma to adult behaviors because they don’t fully understand what’s traumatic when you’re a child. As children, we don’t have logic, we only have feelings.” (cf thread as well) https://twitter.com/Theholisticpsyc/status/1576927616791064576?s=03
On humans: “Human beings hurt each other. It’s what we do. Sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it’s not. This is why we need to learn how to repair in relationships. (cf string) https://twitter.com/Theholisticpsyc/status/1577333593373757443?s=03
Tweet from Dr. Amit Araya:
On MAID: “A 66 year old quadriplegic man is pursuing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) because the home care supports he required were suddenly cut…How do people not see what is wrong with this picture?!” https://twitter.com/AmitAryaMD/status/1577271128347004929?s=03 Related article: CTV News (Montreal) ‘I can’t live that way’: Montreal man seeking medically assisted death due to home care conditions https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/i-can-t-live-that-way-montreal-man-seeking-medically-assisted-death-due-to-home-care-conditions-1.6090165
Tweet from Journal of Prisoners on Prisons:
Call for Support “On 1 March 2022, one of our journal contributors applied for a work permit so that he could support himself after having spent time in jail. A work permit is required because he’s been stripped of his citizenship in addition to being criminalized.” https://twitter.com/jpp1988/status/1577329954395754501?s=03
Tweet from hooksbot: (Quotes from belle hooks, RIP, well known author and advocate)
On mass media: “We have to constantly critique imperialist white supremacist patriarchal culture because it is normalized by mass media and rendered unproblematic.” https://twitter.com/hooksbot/status/1577062148081082368?s=03