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JS Update April 27, 2009

Testimony: Alternatives to parole and probation supervision improve safety, reduce costs

In these related documents Judith Greene, Director of Justice Strategies, Néstor M. Ríos, Senior Research Analyst and Director of Operations for Justice Strategies, and Judith Sachwald, independent consultant and former Director of Maryland's Division of Parole and Probation, present their testimony before a joint session of Colorado's House and Senate Judiciary Committees, held April 27, 2009.

Testimony began with Judith Greene addressing the joint committee on Justice Reinvestment, an innovative strategy for reducing spending on corrections, increasing public safety, and improving conditions in those neighborhoods from which large numbers of people are sent to, and return from, prison. Advocates of this strategy urge reductions in prison spending and investment of those savings into the infrastructure and civic institutions of "high risk" neighborhoods to help residents improve the quality of their lives. Ms. Greene testimony offers examples of this strategy at work in Hartford, Connecticut; Wichita, Kansas; and Phoenix, Arizona. Read more »

JS Publication March 23, 2009

Maryland’s Parole Supervision Fee: A Barrier to Re-entry

Judy Greene co-authors this report, published by the Brennan Center for Justice, that examines the imposition and collection of legal financial obligations – fines, supervision fees, court costs, and restitution – in Maryland. The report finds that billing individuals $40 per month for their parole supervision is a penny-wise, pound-foolish policy that undercuts the State of Maryland’s commitment to promoting the reentry of people into society after prison. Implemented nearly two decades ago during a national wave of new supervision fees, the Maryland policy was intended to raise extra revenue for general state functions. However, quantitative research performed by Justice Strategies shows that the fee is largely uncollectible, due to the dire financial situation in which parolees find themselves, and that the “paper debt” it creates does more harm than good.

News Article AZFamily.com August 15, 2009

Video: Study says local immigration enforcement is wasting money

Section 287(g) of Federal Immigration Law allowed Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies to train with federal ICE agents in detecting and arresting illegal immigrants.

"These 287(g) officers aren't making us any safer, claims Bob McWhirter, "They're spending most of their time chasing after gardeners and dishwashers - people without criminal records."

A non-profit research group called Justice Strategies says the 287(g) program has "corrupted" criminal justice and is a misuse of funds. The group also calls for a federal investigation.

News Article Los Angeles Times February 26, 2009

Police not focusing on dangerous illegal immigrants, study says

Police officers empowered by a federal program to enforce immigration laws are instead arresting day laborers and street vendors, the report finds.

A federal program that empowers local police to enforce U.S. immigration laws has failed in its promise to target illegal immigrants who pose a threat to public safety or national security, according to a study released today.

Instead of focusing on serious criminals, local law enforcement officers are arresting "day laborers, street vendors, people who are driving around with broken taillights," said Judith Greene, coauthor of the study by Justice Strategies, a New York-based nonprofit research organization focusing on humane and cost- effective approaches to criminal justice and immigration law enforcement.

At the same time, the costly enforcement program is diverting resources from local police and sheriff departments, the authors wrote. Many of the agreements are in cities where the crime rates are lower than the national average but had Latino population growth higher than the national average, they said.

There were more than 65 agreements between federal immigration officials and local law enforcement agencies across the nation and more than 950 officers had been trained by federal authorities as of late 2008, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Read more »

News Article Arizona Republic February 26, 2009

Experts call ICE program used by Arpaio a failure

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's continuing and controversial crackdown on illegal immigration and the federal program that lets him identify and arrest undocumented immigrants is a financial and public-safety failure, according to a new report.

News Article New York Daily News February 25, 2009

Ineffective raids should be ICE'd

The image of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as an efficient institution carrying on a heroic struggle for national security has been tarnished.

A couple of weeks ago, a study by the Migration Policy Institute revealed that 73% of the people arrested since early 2008 in much ballyhooed ICE raids had no criminal records. Yet the flashy paramilitary operations were billed by the Homeland Security Department as carefully planned dragnets for dangerous "immigrant fugitives."

News Article Naples Daily News February 26, 2009

Think tank critical of program that allows Collier deputies to act as deportation agents

A Brooklyn-based criminal justice think tank released a report today critical of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program used by the Collier County Sheriff’s Office that allows local law enforcement officers to act as deportation agents.

News Article Phoenix New Times February 26, 2009

VINNIE'S BOO-BOO

"WTF?!" That's what this ticked-off Toucan thought when he saw that local Immigration and Customs Enforcement flack Vinnie Picard was quoted in the paper of record as saying, "Arizona's 287(g) program is working as intended," and that there are no "firsthand" complaints of racial-profiling lodged with the Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a part.

Had Vinnie been smokin' the good ganja? Does the guy read the papers? Or does he just use them to roll himself a fat doobie?

Even if Picard never got around to perusing the ACLU's big lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio alleging all kinds of civil rights abuses, complaints regarding Arpaio's 287(g)-men — you know, the 160 MCSO deputies "cross-trained" by the feds as ICE agents — are as plentiful as frickin' poppies in Afghanistan these days.

The Bird figures you'd have to be doing your best King Oedipus impersonation to not see evidence that Arpaio's abusing his 287(g) powers. Maybe Vinnie never got his invite to Joe's 200 Mexican March earlier this month, where Arpaio segregated a passel of undocumented immigrants in their own separate Tent City, with its own electrified fence, marching them past a gauntlet of shutterbugs from the Fourth Estate. Read more »

News Article Fort Myers News Press February 26, 2009

Report calls for Collier deputies to cease immigration enforcement

A national report released today calls for the end to a program that gives local law agencies immigration enforcement powers, arguing that Latino population growth has fueled its rise rather than high crime rates.

JS Publication February 27, 2009

Local Democracy on ICE: Why State and Local Governments Have No Business in Federal Immigration Law Enforcement

287(g) is a tiny provision in federal immigration law that allows Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to take local police away from their mission of fighting crime, and pull them into the murky territory of targeting immigrants for arrest without suspicion of crime. ICE described the 287(g) program as a public safety measure to target “criminal illegal aliens,” but its largest impact has been on law-abiding immigrant communities. Rather than focusing on serious crime, police resources are spent targeting day-laborers, corn-vendors and people with broken tail-lights. This report details findings from a year-long investigation of 287(g) by Justice Strategies, and recommends that the ICE program be terminated.

People who live in immigrant communities say that 287(g) brings the problem of racial profiling to their neighborhoods. Our analysis shows that 61 percent of jurisdictions that have entered into 287(g) agreements have crime rates that are lower than the national average. Census data show that 87 percent, however, are undergoing an increase in their Latino populations higher than the national average. Read more »