It's no surprise to learn of decisions within the Bush administration that seem arbitrary. By what standard did the administration decide to remove religious texts from chapel libraries in federal prisons?

Inmate Moshe Milstein told the judge by telephone that the chaplain at Otisville removed about 600 books from the chapel library on Memorial Day, including Harold S. Kushner's best-seller "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," a book that Norman Vincent Peale said was "a book that all humanity needs."

The book ban is supposedly "intended to prevent radical religious texts, specifically Islamic ones, from falling into the hands of violent inmates." What makes an Islamic religious text "radical"? Are there objective standards that the Bureau of Prisons applies equally to all religious texts without regard to the religion they advocate?

"A lot of what we are missing were definitely prayer books or prayer guides and religious laws on the part of the Muslim faith," [inmate Douglas Kelly] said.

In our unitary executive branch, perhaps it's the Decider himself who decides which religious texts are fit for inmates to read.

Finally, something positive to report on California's troubled prison system. They have adopted a new policy of extending the right to conjugal visits to gays and lesbians:

California's prison system is changing its regulations to allow conjugal visits for gay and lesbian inmates in response to a legal threat and a 2003 law that gave domestic partners many of the same rights as married couples.

Facing a complaint from an inmate in a Vacaville prison and pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has begun to allow overnight visits for inmates with registered domestic partners and is to adopt permanent regulations later this year. The change will allow gay and lesbian inmates the same rights as other inmates, who are eligible to spend up to three days with family members in living areas -- usually trailers -- on prison grounds.

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The season finale of "24" included the implanting of a microchip in a teenager to track his whereabouts. I remember one other episode where the same thing was done.

Looks like some legislators in Oklahoma had the same idea:

Legislation that would authorize microchip implants in people convicted of violent crimes was sent back to a committee yesterday. This after state House members questioned whether the proposal would violate constitutional civil liberties.

The measure, approved by the Senate, authorizes microchip implants for persons convicted of one or more of 19 violent offenses who have to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence. (my emphasis)

The tiny electronic implants are commonly used to keep track of pets and livestock, but several House members questioned whether their forced use in people would be unconstitutionally invasive.

The measure passed the Senate? Is this an aberration? Sentencing Law and Policy thinks it may be the trend of the future.

I've been appalled at GPS monitoring of my clients. I've fought it unsuccessfully when it was imposed as a bond condition in a stalking case. But a microchip? I'd take it to the Supreme Court. And little good that will do if we get more Bush-nominated right wing judges on the Court.

The Washington Post reports on changes to "Club Feds," the least restrictive federal prison camps. Actually, the article is a review of another article in a right-wing think tank's magazine.

Back in the good old days, when a nice, respectable white-collar criminal went to federal prison, he could do his time playing tennis with crooked pols, embezzling bankers, book-cooking accountants and other high-class folks. Not anymore. Now, Club Fed admits all kinds of lowlifes.

Yes, Club Feds have changed in the last 30 years, but not because of who they admit. It's because they have become places of forced labor with rules that turn inmates into automatons.

A much better read on how the camps have changed is this letter written in December by legendary criminal defense lawyer Tony Serra, who at 71, was serving 10 months for misdemeanor tax evasion.

Tony doesn't just describe the differences. He includes a plan for change. Here's his nine point platform:

The New York Times reports on self-pay county jails in California, where for a fee of around $100 a day, inmates can get special accomodations and privileges.

For offenders whose crimes are usually relatively minor (carjackers should not bother) and whose bank accounts remain lofty, a dozen or so city jails across the state offer pay-to-stay upgrades.

... Many of the self-pay jails operate like secret velvet-roped nightclubs of the corrections world. You have to be in the know to even apply for entry, and even if the court approves your sentence there, jail administrators can operate like bouncers, rejecting anyone they wish.

As for amenities,

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Privatizing governmental services might not always be a bad idea, but adding a profit motive to governmental functions that have nothing to do with profit often spawns disaster. Take the case of privately run prisons. They can be quite profitable, and states (urged along by lobbyists) are increasingly turning to private enterprise to deal with the prison crisis that politicians have manufactured. This despite evidence that private prisons are neither more accountable nor more cost effective than government-run prisons.

Perhaps the New Castle Correctional Facility in Indiana was dysfunctional before the state turned over its management to the GEO Group, Inc., but it's fair to ask why a riot broke out in its first year of private management.

A "full-scale riot" broke out Tuesday at a medium-security men's prison, according to the mayor, and pictures taken from television helicopters showed at least two fires burning in the courtyard.

Will GEO Group, Inc. pick up the tab for all the taxpayer-funded law enforcement that's trying to clean up the mess it couldn't control?

New York has settled a lawsuit brought by advocates for mentally ill prisoners. Among the practices the state has agreed to stop: 23 hour a day isolation and feeding them a diet of bread and cabbage.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan in 2002 by several prisoners’ rights groups against the administration of Gov. George E. Pataki, claimed that the state had failed to provide the treatment the prisoners needed and that solitary confinement had led to severe psychiatric deterioration, self-mutilation and suicide.

The agreement with the administration of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, which still requires court approval, means that the mentally ill who are confined to special housing units will get at least two hours of treatment outside their cells each day and as many as four hours’ additional recreation time. As attorney general, Mr. Spitzer represented the Pataki administration in the case, but he said last year that he would not hesitate to change course as governor.

Bread and cabbage? Shameful.

At 94, John Rodgriguez is California's oldest "lifer." But he didn't get a life sentence. He got a sentence of 16 to life. He's served the 16 plus another ten years for second degree murder of his wife 25 years ago.

He's in a wheelchair, his only prison violations were misuse of the telephone and the last time that happened was in 1992.

He participates in AA, a family has offered to take him in if released, and yet he stays in prison, an effective "lifer." He was a war hero, earning a bronze star in WWII.

Every time the Parole Board has recommended him for parole, the decision has been reversed by the Governor. Last year the reversal was by Gov. Schwarzenegger.

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This is a disgusting story on so many levels.

Mercy was in short supply the night of Oct. 5, 2006, at Theo Lacy jail. Someone – perhaps a deputy – had inaccurately fingered inmate John Derek Chamberlain as a child molester. And that mistake became a death sentence.

Chamberlain, a 41 year old software engineer, was in custody because he couldn't make bail on a $2,500.00 misdemeanor child porn charge. A deputy inaccurately told other inmates he was a child molester. Prison-style vigilantism took over and as the guard watched television, later saying he wasn't aware anything was going on, Chamberlain was brutally murdered by a gang of inmates.

In the days prior to his murder, Chamberlain had called his ex-girlfriend and his public defender to say he was afraid and being threatened. The public defender called the jail and asked if he should be moved. He wasn't moved.

The details of the grisly murder.

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Florida Governor Charlie Crist has won the battle against state Attorney General Bill McCollum to restore civil rights, including the right to vote, to most ex-offenders.

Florida officials on Thursday voted to end the practice of stripping ex-criminal offenders of their civil rights, including the right to vote. Florida is one of just three U.S. states, all in the Deep South, that have maintained long-standing constitutional barriers to restoring civil rights to those that have committed serious crimes, rights groups say.

Meeting in a special session, the Florida Clemency Board agreed by a 3-1 vote to allow some 950,000 ex-felons to automatically have their civil rights restored, removing a barrier that goes back 140 years.

Jeb Bush opposed automatic restoration. Crist made it a campaign pledge.

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A lawsuit brought on behalf of mentally ill prison inmates states what should be the obvious: solitary confinement and mental illness make a combustible match.

After 13 inmate suicides and suicide attempts by isolated inmates in Massachussetts, including mentally ill inmate Mark Cunningham,lawyers have filed suit in federal court.

Mr. Cunningham’s case is one of 18 suicides and suicide attempts by inmates in solitary confinement described in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday by advocates for inmates and the mentally ill. They are seeking to prevent Massachusetts from placing mentally ill inmates in such segregated cells.

“We aren’t saying these folks should go free; we aren’t saying they shouldn’t be under high security conditions,” said Stanley J. Eichner, executive director of the Disability Law Center. But Mr. Eichner said putting prisoners in solitary conditions and denying them adequate mental health services was “literally the fatal flaw in the system.”

It's time to end the habit of putting mentally ill inmates in solitary confinement. It should be a no-brainer that confining a mentally ill person to 23 hours a day of isolation is going to be a death sentence, albeit one inflicted by his own hands.

In the wake of New York's passing a law last week allowing sex offenders to be held in civil confinement after their prison terms are up, the New York Times examines the dubious wisdom of such laws.

Here's a snippet:

only a small fraction of committed offenders have ever completed treatment to the point where they could be released free and clear. Leroy Hendricks, a convicted child molester in Kansas, finished his prison term 13 years ago, but he remains locked up at a cost to taxpayers in that state of $185,000 a year — more than eight times the cost of keeping someone in prison there.

Mr. Hendricks, who is 72 and unsuccessfully challenged his confinement in the Supreme Court, spends most days in a wheelchair or leaning on a cane, because of diabetes, circulation ailments and the effects of a stroke. He may not live long enough to “graduate” from treatment.

As the Times notes, very few will. This is a six page article that examines the flaws and mistaken assumptions in these laws.

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