The New York Times reports on Colorado's plan to use prison inmates as farm laborers in place of immigrants.

Under the program, which has drawn criticism from groups concerned about immigrants’ rights and from others seeking changes in the criminal justice system, farmers will pay a fee to the state, and the inmates, who volunteer for the work, will be paid about 60 cents a day, corrections officials said.

My objections to the program are over at 5280.com, where among other things I note that the L.A. Times is spot on in calling the proposal evidence that Colorado's strict anti-immigrant laws have backfired.

California's plan to outsource its prison management problem to private prisons in other states met with a judge's disapproval, forcing the state to confront the reality of its bloated prison population. The decision is a loss for Gov. Schwarzenegger in his struggle with the state's powerful prison union.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association and the Service Employees International Union challenged Schwarzenegger's transfers for violating the emergency act and a provision in the state Constitution. That provision prohibits using private companies for jobs usually performed by state workers. The judge agreed with the unions on both points.

The governor worries that the state will be forced to release dangerous prisoners to alleviate overcrowding. If the governor used his pardon power to free prisoners serving lengthy "strike" sentences for nonviolent crimes and to shorten drug sentences, he'd find it easier to house the violent criminals.

In 2004, TalkLeft called attention to the abusive conditions under which a mentally ill inmate had been confined in Dallas County. Three years later, Dallas County is paying $950,000 to settle the lawsuit filed by the families of three mentally ill prisoners who were denied medication during their confinement.

Just over half of the award went to James Mims, a Dallas County jail inmate whose psychiatric medications were withheld for two months in 2004, his attorney David Finn said. Mims also nearly died when water was shut off in his cell for two weeks.

Dallas County taxpayers might want to ask whether the jail plans to improve its management of mentally ill prisoners.

Forbes reports that Corrections Corp. of America saw a 37% profit increase in the 4th quarter of 2006.

For the full fiscal year, Corrections Corp.'s profit more than doubled to $105.2 million, or $1.71 per share, from $50.1 million, or 83 cents per share in 2005.

The principal reason seems to be that demand is up at both the state and federal levels. Prison occupancy rates rose to 97%.

Here's more. [Via Think Outside the Cage.]

Using electronic monitoring and tight supervision, California could tackle the crisis of overcrowded prisons by returning nonviolent offenders (including nonviolent drug offenders) to to their homes. Instead, the state announced a "temporary" plan to ship inmates to other states, removing them from the families and support systems that are critical to rehabilitation.

The plan, which inmate advocates say is illegal and might be challenged in court, calls for transferring as many as 5,000 inmates to private facilities in Arizona, Oklahoma and Mississippi, beginning as early as April 2. First to go would be illegal immigrants already scheduled to be deported after serving their sentences, and low-risk offenders.

To entice prisoners to volunteer for a transfer, the state touts the comparatively luxurious conditions available in distant prisons, including access to ESPN. Reminding inmates that California prison conditions are crappy hardly seems like a sound prison management strategy. In any event, the recruitment program failed, forcing the state to transfer large numbers of inmates against their will.

The New York Times had an editorial yesterday on our ever expanding prison population that included the amount we are spending on prisons. It's now up to $60 billion a year.

After a tenfold increase in the nation’s prison population — and a corrections price tag that exceeds $60 billion a year — the states have often been forced to choose between building new prisons or new schools. Worse still, the country has created a growing felon caste, now more than 16 million strong, of felons and ex-felons, who are often driven back to prison by policies that make it impossible for them to find jobs, housing or education.

What's the solution? Use prisons as a sanction of last resort. Let's stop incarcerating the non-dangerous offenders. Let's end mandatory minimum sentences.

Tell Congress to pass the Second Chance Act providing support services to those leaving prison.

The Times offers more good recommendations:

Via the New York City Independent Media Center and the DMI blog:

These are some statistics from the Department of Justice reflecting data through 2005.

What they tell us: America continues to be a prison nation. The drug war doesn't work. Over-incarceration doesn't work. Our elected officials in Congress need to spend time addressing these issues in 2007.

• the prison population grew 1.9% over the past year
• the United States has 2,320,359 people incarcerated
• in 1995, America sentenced 411 people per 100,000 residents; today it is 491
• there are around 600,000 more people in jail today than 10 years ago
• since 1995, the total number of male prisoners has grown 34%; female prisoners have risen 57%

This is a Christmas shout-out to all those who are spending the holidays behind bars, and to the friends, families, and lawyers who visit them.

John Prine:

The search light in the big yard
swings round with the gun
and spotlights the snowflakes
like the dust in the sun.
It's Christmas in prison
there'll be music tonight
I'll probably get homesick
I love you. Goodnight.

Tyrone Brown violated his Texas probation by testing postive for marijuana use. He was 17. The judge sentenced him to life in prison. He has served 16 years.

20/20 ran a story on Brown in November and viewers were outraged. The Judge was voted out of office.

Now, it appears, Brown may be freed.

Brown, who pleaded guilty to his first and only offense at age 17, was given probation after a $2 armed robbery in which the victim wasn't harmed and had his wallet returned. But months later, Brown violated his probation by testing positive for marijuana. In most cases of marijuana violations, Texas judges — and Dean — often recommend counseling and allow the defendant to remain on probation with a stiff warning.

In this case, however, without explanation, Brown was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

President Bush has issued fewer pardons than any president since World War II. But, Thursday, he awarded 16 of them.

Five of the pardons were in cases that involved drug crimes. Other cases involved bank fraud, mail fraud, the acceptance of a kickback, a false statement on a loan application and conspiracy to defraud the government over taxes.

Seven of the 16 received no prison or jail time when they were sentenced, instead getting probation or a reduction in their military pension. The longest sentence was nine years, for aiding cocaine distribution, followed by a six-year term for conspiracy to possess marijuana.

More stats:

Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't overstating matters when he declared a state of emergency in California's prison system. The question now is whether the state has the political will to solve the problem that its failed "lock 'em up" policies have created.

The creation of new prisons seems likely, but the governor and lawmakers are also seriously contemplating broad changes to the parole system and the establishment of a sentencing guidelines commission — anathema to some just a year ago — like those used by other states to reduce overcrowding and its costs.

Guidelines may only worsen overcrowding if, as in the federal system, they prevent judges from imposing rationally merciful sentences. The state should start by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and by looking for alternative ways to punish drug offenders and nonviolent criminals.

Here's a look at the problem:

The United States has the right to incarcerate convicted offenders. But, does it have the right to torment them, drive them insane or impose conditions of confinement that cause extreme physical disabilities?

No, we're not talking about detainees or Guantanamo. We're talking about Supermax at Florence Colorado, often called Alcatraz of the Rockies.

The latest to complain: Eric Rudolph:

Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph laments in a series of letters that the caged atmosphere of the federal prison where is spending the rest of his life is designed to drive him insane.

Rudolph, who hid out from authorities for five years in the woods of western North Carolina before being captured, says in correspondence with a Colorado newspaper that his surroundings at the Supermax prison are getting to him.