Power and democracy…

Sept 9, 2022

The Lawyer’s Daily – John L. Hill
Myles Sanderson parole decisions

The loss of life and the injuries in the Sanderson case has the power to move us to outrage and insistence on the harshest interpretation of legal punishment as a preventable measure.  But Hill, a retired professor of law who practiced and taught prison law offers a different approach. Hill first lays out the circumstances around Sanderson’s parole, the conditions imposed, the compliance with those conditions, the revocation of Sanderson parole, the reasons for the suspension of the parole violation, and in the current aftermath, a better approach for the Parole Board and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.  The clear suggestion is that the case needs to be refocused on prevention and real public safety, not on blaming.  https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/criminal/articles/39537/myles-sanderson-parole-decisions-john-l-hill?nl_pk=40ed8ea4-637a-4d76-870f-04f0eeae7de8&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=criminal

Toronto Star – Robert Benzie
Doug Ford’s Tories ram through ‘strong mayor’ law for Toronto, Ottawa – The next chief magistrates of Toronto and Ottawa will be “strong mayors” under a new law passed by Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives.

There appears two major changes for Toronto and Ottawa -and quite likely other places in time.  The first is greater control over budgets and the second is greater control over hiring / firing of senior staff.  The Bill passed, and becomes applicable with municipal elections on October 24, with all three oppositions party MLA’s voting against it.  “…only a two-thirds vote of city council could overrule a “strong mayor” on matters deemed a “provincial priority,” such as affordable housing, transit, highways, and other infrastructure… Critics fear the law will weaken local democracy by limiting the influence and authority of councillors.”  https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2022/09/08/doug-fords-tories-ram-through-strong-mayor-law-for-toronto-ottawa.html?source=newsletter&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=404CAADEF7EB839FC77B1B04F0C251E1&utm_campaign=bn_143733

Common Dreams (US) – Brett Wilkins
‘Monstrous’: Federal Judge Rules HIV Drug Coverage Mandate Violates Religious Freedom – The right-wing judge found that requiring insurers and employers to cover the HIV prevention drug violates the religious liberty of a company whose owner advocated executing LGBTQ+ people.

The article may invite a reflection on the operative connection between the law and lived reality.  In this case:  “U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled in Braidwood Management Inc., vs. Xavier Becerra that the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) requirement that insurers and employers cover pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, infringes upon the liberty of a company under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”  The medical community and social justice critics are outraged by the decision and by the fact that one of the owners of Braidwood Management Inc, Steven Hotze, a medical doctor who chairs the Conservative Republicans of Texas PAC, once said on live TV that the best way to handle HIV spread was “to shoot the queers.” Equally distressing is the issue of what other medical services covered by health benefits can be denied on the same rationale.  https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/07/monstrous-federal-judge-rules-hiv-drug-coverage-mandate-violates-religious-freedom?utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter   Related article: Buffalo News – Matthew Spina   Why it fell to a corrections officer to deliver a baby inside a Niagara County jail cell   https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/why-it-fell-to-a-corrections-officer-to-deliver-a-baby-inside-a-niagara-county/article_ce7055fc-1cb8-11ed-b1ef-0342c76b2826.html

Journal of Forensic Nursing (US) – July-Sept 2022
Mental Illness as a Vulnerability for Sexual Assault: A Retrospective Study of 7,455 Sexual Assault Forensic Medical Examinations

The incidents prompting sexual assault examinations has revealed what has likely been suspect for a long time but without actual study:  “It was found that 46.7% of study participants reported pre-existing MI (Mental Illness) and/or current use of psychotropic medications, more than double the MI prevalence rates in the general population. MI in patients seen for SAMFE (Sexual Assault Medical Forensic Examination) was associated with prior history of SA (Sexual Assault), medical health problems, and physical or mental impairment. In addition, patients with MI reported more violent SAs with increased anogenital and nonanogenital injuries.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9415228/?report=classic  Related article: Salon (UK) – Matthew Rozsa   Have American jails become the inferior replacement for mental hospitals?  A new study reveals that 10 times as many people with serious mental illnesses are in jails as state hospitals  https://www.salon.com/2022/09/05/have-american-jails-become-the-inferior-replacement-for-mental-hospitals/   Related article: Moorhouse School of Medicine / Satcher Health Leadership Institute (Atlanta, Georgia)   The Economic Burden of Mental Health Inequities Report    (The actual report does not seem available as yet, only material surrounding the unveiling of the report.  Readers may likely catch up with the actual report at:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2sNXCD2KGLdyjqe6FGzMiA/playlists and/or    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2sNXCD2KGLdyjqe6FGzMiA/videos )

 Office of the Governor – California Gavin Newsom

Newsom introduces a Bill providing what he is calling “a Community Assistance  Recovery and Empowerment or CARE Court.  The Bill will force municipal compliance with Care Court orders and will hold individuals accountable as well.  https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/08/31/governor-newsom-statement-on-the-legislatures-passage-of-care-court/   Fact Sheet for CARE Court legislation:  Governor Newsom’s New Plan to get Californians in crisis off the streets and into Housing, Treatment and Care https://mhsoac.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/Infogov_CARE-Court_Factsheet.pdf  Twitter from Alex Karakatsanis critiquing the proposal:  “THREAD. California politicians are about to complete an epic charade. The Governor is about to sign into law a massive new bureaucracy called “CARE Court,” which stands for Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court. It’s a story not getting enough attention. I’m writing about CARE Court for two reasons: 1) It illustrates how bureaucrats craft “reforms” that make the structural problems of our society worse; 2) CA politicians co-opted the language of “care” in service of an unprecedented expansion of state control and repression.” (Cf thread) https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1567577576595492866?s=03  Related article: Human Rights Watch (US) – Human Rights Watch Urges a No Vote on CARE Court (SB 1338)  https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/08/15/human-rights-watch-urges-no-vote-care-court-sb-1338?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The Lawyer’s Daily – David Dorson
Work, pay in Canadian prisons, part two

Dorson, himself a formerly incarcerated person, describes prison employment according to Soviet Russia’s dictates: “We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.”   All were expected to work, even 75 year olds but there was little or no accurate information about jobs or their availability.  Dorson lucked out and got a job as a tutor where going to school also counted as a job.  https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/34381

The Sentencing Project (US) – Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Ph.D.
How Many People Are Spending Over a Decade in Prison?  In 2019, over half of the people in U.S. prisons – amounting to more than 770,000 people – were serving sentences of 10 years or longer – a huge jump from 2000.

One of the aspects of prison as punishment that rarely gets attention is the impact of aging while serving a long sentence.  “Over 770,000 people in U.S. prisons were serving sentences of 10 years or longer in 2019—56% of the total prison population. This is an increase from 587,000 people in 2000—which represented 44% of the prison population in that year… The 12 U.S. jurisdictions where two-thirds or more of the prison population are serving sentences of at least a decade are: Georgia, West Virginia, Alabama, Montana, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, and Washington, DC.”     Approximately one in five have already been incarcerated for 10 years.  Black people incarcerated are 33% of the prison population while 14% of the US general population.  Recidivism rates typically fall after a decade in prison.  https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/how-many-people-are-spending-over-a-decade-in-prison/?emci=de3aae6d-112f-ed11-ae83-281878b83d8a&emdi=9b61ec84-7e2f-ed11-ae83-281878b83d8a&ceid=10203385

Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide:

“Every week, the CCDPW Database updates its execution monitor, providing accurate and informed information on the state of the death penalty from a global perspective. Here are the most recent totals for executions in 2022.”   https://twitter.com/DeathPenaltyWW/status/1567152093839953922?s=03