North Carolina Newspapers

4A EDITORIAL AND OPINION/tT^e C^rlotte $o«t Thursday, June 29, 2006 Morial CI)arlotte ^osit The Voice of the Black Community 1531 Camden Road Charlotte, N.C. 28203 Gerald O. Johnson ceo/publisher Robert L, Johnson co-publisher/general manager Herbert L White editor in chief OPINION Transforming America’s prison culture Reform is best way to stop the cycle of violence, recidivism in nation’spenetentaries By Marc H. Morial NAT/ONAL NE^VSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION What happens behind bars in the jails and prisons of this nation doesn’t stay there. It triddes out into the community Every year, 13.5 million people — a disproportionate number of them African-American — pass through our nation’s prisons and jails, with a vast majority - 95 percent — eventually re entering society Some leave their periods of incarceration as hardened crimi nals anxious to return to a life of crime. Others do not. In the 1990s, harsher punishments for dn^ crimes fueled the current prison population boom. And in light of the FBI’s recent announcement that violent crime was up 2.5 percent in 2005* the problem isn’t hkely to go away anytime soon. In our nation’s efforts to “get tough on crime,” we’ve lost some of our compassion for our fellow man. We’ve let cynicism under mine our hope that rehabilitation is possible for all people - no matter how dastardly their deeds. All human beings deserve a modicum of respect and dignity But in our nation’s prisons, you real ly have to wonder if that standard is being upheld. Inhumane conditions - driven by overcrowding, financial woes and understaffing have pushed some prisorrs to the bcdling point. They’re not places where prisoners have a decent chance at rehabilitation- They are places where criminals become better and more violent criminals. Miud you, corrections is a tough profession, and a poorly understood one. Corrections officers often work long shifts in tense, overcrowded facilities without enough backup, support or training. Many wardens run agir^ and understaffed facilities and deal with a workforce in which expe rienced officers are likely to leave the profession for better-pay ing, less-stressful jobs just when they’re ready to become good mentors for new recruits. These pressures cause stress, injury, and illness among the prison workforce, and contribute to a dangerous culture inside. The tension is further exacerbated by radal and cultural differ ences. Because the exercise of power is an important part of a correc tions officer’s job, it’s natural that in situations where staff who are under stress, inexperienced, and lack training are more like ly to abuse their power. In prisons where the culture has devolved, rules aren’t enforced, prisoner-on-prisoner violence is tolerated, and antago nistic relatiorrships can eiupt into overt hostility and physical violence. In the 1960s m my home state of Louisiana, the maximum security state penitentiary in Angola had a reputation for being “America’s bloodiest prison.” I don’t know what prison carries that distinction today but I can say with some confidence that it is no longer Angola. While reforms began decades ago, the most dramatic changes occurred over the past 10 years as the prison’s fundamental institutional culture was profoundly transformed. Prisoners at Angola are treated with dignity and respect by everyone who works there, and prisoners are expected to recip rocate that treatment. Prisoners have been given hope through education and morally based programming, and responsibility through meaningful employment. The fair and reliable enforce ment of the rules by staff and prisoners means less violence. For the past 15 months, I have served as part of the 20-mem- ber bipartisan Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons. We have visited prisons all over the nation and listened to ejqjerts - in search of ways to make prisons safer not only for staff but also inmates - and in turn - our society at large. We recently released a report, called “Confronting Confinement” that hi^rlights a wide array of dangerous condi tions surroimding incarceration - the violence, poor health care, inappropriate segregation, lack of political suppoiT for labor and- management, weak oversi^t of correctional facilities and lack of reliable data on violence and abuse rates. Of 30 practical reforms recommended, we called for expanding the capacity of the National Institute of Corrections to effect pos itive institutional culture change. The NIC already has a very promising program in place - the Institutional Culture Initiative that provides tools and training to prison staff charge the culture of their institutions. The program helps them learn to resolve conflict throi^i communication - particularly across cultural and racial differences - rather than violence. In an era when everyone and their imcle seems to want to “get tough on dime,” I realize that institutional “culture change” sounds like a soft approach. But our commission heard over- whelmingly that when one changes the culture one charges the entii'e institution. Prisons that add punishment on top of the s^tence will be vio lent places. Prisons that treat prisoners with basic hiunan dig nity and respect are more likely to be places where violence and abuse are the rare exception and not the rule. Let Angola serve as a positive role model for prison reform. If profoimd culture change is possible in Angola, it is possible anywhere. MARC H. MORIAL is president and CEO of the National Urban League. &mTeP(iL , Beyond the Voting Rights Act Civil ri^ts leaders are cor rectly focusing on the hijack ing of proposals to renew the Voting Rights Act by a hand ful of Southern Dixiecrats President Bush, Republican leaders in the House and Senate as well as a dear majority of the mem bers, both Democrats and Republicans, have expressed support for renewal of the landmark legislation. Allowing the Democrat- tumed-Repuhhcan minority to hold the legislation hostage, even temporarily, represents a failure of leader ship on both sides of the aisle. But there is something even more sinister than Dixiecrats acting like they’re stiU fightir^ the Civil War - the deliberate campaign to millify ballots cast by AMcan- Americans. After all of the vote" registration and get- out-the-vote drives, if this scheme is not taken on, it won’t matter whether African-Americans vote in national elections or eiyoy the protection of the Voting Rights Act. This point was brought home by Greg Palast, an investigative reporter for BBC Television and the Guardian newspapers, at the recent Rainbow/PUSH national convention in Chicago. In both his public speeches and his latest book, Armed Madhouse, piablLshed by Dutton, Palast recoimts in excrudating detail how dis qualified ballots, most of them cast hy African- Americans, were enou^ to have easily defeated Bush had they been coimted. In his book, Palast notes that CNN’s 2004 esdt poUs broadcast after midnight Election Day, showed John Kerry defeating Bush amor^ women voters by 53 percent . to 47 percent. Among men, Kerry defeated Bush 51 per cent to 49 percent. “So here’s yottr question, dass: What tiiird sex put George Bush over the top in Ohio and gave him the White House? “Answer: the uncounted.” Pal^t explains it this way: “The nasty little secret of American democracy is that, in every national election, ballots cast are simply thrown in the garbage - mil- Hons of them. Most are called ‘spoiled,’ supposedly unread able, damaged, invalid They just don’t get counted.” And the consequences are disastrous. “In Ohio, . there were 153,237 ballots simply thrown away more than the Bush ‘victory’ margin,” Palast writes. “In New Mexico the imcoimted vote was five times th^Bush alleged victo ry margin of 5,988. In Iowa, Bush’s triumph of 13,498 was overshadowed by 36,811 votes rejected.” Offidally 1.8 million \mcounted votes w^e report ed to the federal Election’s Assistance Commission. That would be bad enot^, but Palast reports that those are only partial numbers and the final figure exceeds 3 million This massive political disen- fi^anchisement is carried out in four basic ways: 1) Provisional ballots - allowing voters to cast votes that are to be coimted later, provided that they can be ver ified. “Republicans won by the rejection of provisional ballots that were cast in Democratic precincts.” The author says 1,090,279 provi sional ballots were tossed out. 2) Spoiled ballots - created when writing is too light to be read or the card is not pimched haixl enough, some times creating “hanging chads.” Discoimted votes: 1,389,231; 3) Uncoimted absentee bal lots - 526,420 in 2004. 4) Barred voters - “There’s the purge of ‘felon’ voters whose only crime is VWB, Voting While Black,” Palast writes. Tb see how these denials charts the margin of victory - or defeat — we only need to look at the 2000 Florida results. “Black folk cast 54 percent of the 179,855 ballots ‘spoiled’ in Florida in that election,” Palast observes. “Given the nearly unanimous supjjort for Democrats among those black voters, candidate A1 Gore undoubtedly was the choice of the vast majority of those votes thrown in the spoilage bin. Indeed, if we can calculate, with high-accuracy that Gore’s total vote in the state would have been higher by 77,000 if all spoiled votes had bem tallied - in a race officially giving the presiden cy to Mr. Bush by 537 votes.” In 2004, it was the same story but a different state, this time Ohio. The uncount ed votes in the Buckeye state came to 239,127. Bush’s mar gin of victory was 118,599. In both Florida and Ohio, the secretary of state - the per son responsible for oversee- ir^ the election—was co-chair of Btish’s presidential cam paign, r^resenting a clear conflict-of-issue. During the last presidential campaign, Palast got a hold of a GOP purge or chaHeaige list used to depress the black vote. The list was compiled fix)m predominantly black zip codes and the would-be vot ers were guilty of one thing, as Palast pointed out - voting while black Yes, it’s crucial that we renew the Voting Ri^ts Act. But our work must not stop there. We must make sure that once we do vote, it coxmts and is not used as part of a schane to r^ the election. GEORGE E. CURRY is editor- in-chief of the National Newsapaper Publishers Association News Service and BlackPressUSA eom. What would Rip Van Winkle think? Play a game with me. Let’s play ‘North Carolina- Rip Van Wnkle.” If the game has a familiar ring, it is because North Carolina has been called the “Rip Van Winkle State,” prob ably because the state once had a backward reputation. Van Winkle, you remember, fell asleep Consumer technology, women in leadership move North Carolina ahead According to Irving, “It was some time before he could get into the regular track of gos sip, or could be made to com prehend the strange events that had taken place diuing his toipor. How that there had been 'a revolutionary war-that the coimtiy had thrown off the yoke of old England-and that, instead of bdng a subject of his Majesty, George ni, he was now a fi-ee citizen of the United States.” In our game we will pretend • that one of our parents (or grandparents) fell asleep in 1957 and woke up today What are the things hei-e in North Carolina that would smprise them the most and would be the hardest for them to imderstand and deal with? In 1957, North Carolina’s econexmy was largely driven by agriculture and traditional manufacturing. The University of North Carolina won the national collegiate basketball championship with an all-white team. The schools and public facilities of the state were almost mitire- ly segregated. The Research Triangle Park was hardly more than a gleam in Governor Luther Hodges’ eye. If our parents had gone to sleep back then, what would be most shocking if he or she woke up just now? Of course, our North Carolina Rip Van Winkle (let’s call him “NC Rip”) would be awed by the con sumer technology the com puters, the email. I-pods, the World Wide Web, the cell phones, digital cameras. NC Rip would be amazed at the labor saving and convenient machines that make life in our homes so easy High defi nition color TV would knock him off his feet. But I don’t think it would take NC Rip very long to get used to these thir^. Usually even the most dramatic new consumer devices quickly, instantly become necessities. The changes that might not be so easy for NC Rip to beheve and accept might more likely be in the areas of race, women’s roles, business procedures, and religinu. If NC Rip attended a “main line” potestant church on the first Sunday after he woke up, he might find an ordained woman in the pulpit or serv ing communion. He might even hear people in church talking about how ‘back ward” it was that some other church groups had not yet ordained women. Whatever NC Rip’s religion, his ideas about women in leadership positions would be challenged. Do you think he would believe that the most recent presidents or chancel lors at UNC (System), North Carolina State, and Duke were women? Could he accept this charge? Coming fiom a time when there were strong lingering prejudices against Catholics, would he understand that our governor and the former president of UNC are Cathohes and nobody ever thought to make an issue of it? Would he beheve that he could not fight up a dgarette in most buildings in North Carolina? Or that, while its 1957 team was aU white, UNC’s 2005 UNC national championship basketball team’s starting team was all black? Or that the state has three major league professional sports teams? That one of them is owned by a successful black businessman? That another played this week for the world’s championship? Or that a woman is the editor of the state’s largest newspaper, and a black is the publisher of the second largest? Now it’s yovir turn. What else would sweep oiu N.C. Rip off his feet? After a period of adjust ment, Washington Irving wrote that the original Rip “now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon foimd many of his former cronies, though aU rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred makir^ friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor.” I wonder if our NC Rip would also be able to adjust so well. What do you think? D.G. MARTIN is the host of UNC-TV’s "North Carolina Bookwatch," which airs on Sundays at 5 ptn.