Promoting Justice

A recent GritTV segment featured Connecticut’s enactment of a law (HB 1570) to protect the civil rights of ex-prisoners and reduce recidivism (repeat offenses) by prohibiting inquiries into the criminal backgrounds of people applying for jobs with the state until an applicant is determined qualified for the position.

As this Dispatch will detail, after considerable media hype about Arizona-style bills sweeping across the nation, the reality is that from from Nevada to Arkansas to Massachusetts to Kansas and Rhode Island, anti-immigrant bills and ballot initiatives largely didn't move or failed to make this fall's ballot.  A key reason:  most state leaders and police chiefs recognize that requiring local governments to assume immigration enforcement responsibilities from the federal government will distract them from fighting violent crime and undermine trust with local residents that are essential to successful community policing.

Yet another set of anti-immigrant proposals, this time offered as last-minute amendments to a Massachusetts state budget bill, failed to gain traction last week.  Twenty-seven pages of draconian anti-immigrant amendments were reduced to text that simply re-states existing bars on undocumented residents applying for public benefits.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ended its term with a bang with a ruling in McDonald v.

With the highest incarceration rate in the world, in 2008 the U.S. puts one out of every 48 working-age men behind bars and spent $75 billion on corrections, the majority of which was spent on incarceration.  To make matters worse, a new study released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) found that the $40 billion jump in state spending on corrections between 1988 and 2008 outpaced nearly every other state budget item,  painting a bleak picture of incarceration in the U.S. and the resulting budgetary strain on the states. 

As this Dispatch will outline, U.S. incarceration rates have far outpaced the growth in the population because inflexible policies from "truth in sentencing" to mandatory minimum laws have meant non-violent offenses crowd prisons without probation and parole being used to end the budgetary costs of keeping all of them in prison.

Immigrant and workers' rights advocates celebrated a victory in Rhode Island this week with the announcement that State Rep. Peter Palumbo's anti-immigrant bill, closely based on Arizona's widely criticized SB 1070, would not get a hearing. Rhode Island House Speaker Gordon Fox came out in opposition to Palumbo's bill, and decided to table it -- the proposal was drafted roughly ten days ago, just before the end of the state's legislative session. 

Who benefits from hyping criminal enforcement as the solution to the immigration issue? 

As a Service and Employees International Union (SEIU) campaign highlights, one key player profiting off the nation's broken immigration system is the private prison firm, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).  CCA operates and profits significantly from private prisons across the country, many of which house immigrants in detention, a kind of legal limbo in which immigrants are imprisoned while their cases are being considered, or who are in the process of being deported.

Last week, the Connecticut Senate unanimously voted to enact HB 5207, which prevents discrimination against ex-prisoners based solely on their criminal record.  In March, the Connecticut House of Representatives also voted unanimously in favor of the bill.  The new law will prohibit state government employers from inquiring into a job applicant’s criminal record until the applicant has been deemed qualified for the position.  It will provide similar standards for those seeking state licenses and certifications for trades or vocations.

The outcry following the suicides of two Massachusetts students, who killed themselves after being subjected to intense bullying in the past year, culminated in Gov. Deval Patrick signing anti-bullying legislation on May 3rd.  The Massachusetts House and Senate passed the bill unanimously, following more than a decade of work by advocates.  The law prohibits actions that cause emotional or physical harm to students, including taunting over the Internet.  Faculty and students are required to have anti-bullying training and parents must be informed of incidents at school.  School employees, including custodians and cafeteria workers, must report incidents of suspected bullying and principals must investigate each case. 

As we highlighted two weeks ago, the Arizona legislature and Governor's decisions to pass a punitive, anti-immigrant bill - SB1070 - have unleashed a torrent of condemnations inside and outside of Arizona.  Voices speaking up against the bill have come not only from civil rights organizations, but have also included public safety officials, constitutional legal scholars, and, significantly, Republican leaders and candidates from other states with significant immigrant populations.