March 31, 2016 – RI Future

March 31, 2016May 17, 2016

Prison Op/Ed Project: Education, job skills, and a place to live

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With the exception of the intake facility, about 50 people are released from prison every month here in Rhode Island. Of those, at some point at least 30 of them recidivate (that means they go back to prison). This is because our reentry programs are insufficient.

To truly reintegrate former inmates back into society, and also cut down on recidivism, let’s first put people in a situation to flourish and not fail. As a person that’s been incarcerated for the last two decades, I’ve seen what works and what will not.

Because most former prisoners want to be productive citizens and not products of their environment, despite what the media or policymakers will lead you to believe.

First, let’s try instilling a marketable skill in people who are about to leave prison. The DOC says it spends about $40,000 a year per inmate, and for women the number is more like $130,000. Let’s put some of that money to good use by hiring people that can teach and educate prisoners. It’s already hard trying to gain employment in this economy, and harder still if you’re a convict.

Second, we need to learn to re-bond with family. For most people, family is their only lifeline back into society. And reconnecting with them when we get out is not as easy as it seems. To pick up where you left off, even if you’re not going home to a program. Then sometimes you’re even sleeping on someone’s couch! And you have to adapt to their life situation.

Third, the rhythms of life on the outside are an adjustment—here in prison you’re told when to eat, when to go to your cell, or that no, you can’t use a phone or get a bar of soap from the cell next door. And all of a sudden you are back to being a son, mother, or a father. There’s no transition into this, and it can be scary. Because all of this—it’s new to you! It wasn’t like this before you went away. Even your kids might feel that something has changed. Some kids or spouses will have trouble coping with someone who has been gone coming home just like that.

You will also be coming from an all-alpha environment where you are constantly talked down to or where someone is always trying to get over on you. Respect is not given in prison; you have to fight for it. We need to learn and remember that society doesn’t function like that! We need to distinguish the differences between normalcy in jail and normalcy at home. Again, this is no easy feat.

So why not put something in place that can help with this?

Yes, all these things are up to the individual. However, the mission of the RIDOC is to contribute to public safety by maintaining a balanced correctional system of institutional and community programs that provide a range of control and rehabilitative options for criminals. This is their description, and yet the design, at least in maximum security, is to effectively deter you from school and productive programs, as well as family togetherness (because visits are so limited).

This isn’t a knock on the DOC—it’s a call to wake up and do what’s best for everyone! Let’s not talk about what needs to be done—let’s do it! See if we can simplify this! Education, job skills, and a place to live. We don’t want you to give it to us. We want you to help us help ourselves.

Prison Op/Ed Project’ teaches civic engagement, writing – Meghan Kallman
Does racial injustice still exist? Look at our schools – Aaron Carpenter
Rhode Island charges felons absurdly high court costs – Christopher Nemitz
Public school students and inmates need more vocational training – Darnell Hie
Prison policies put probation and vocational training at odds – Norman Johnson
Corporate-modeled prison industrial complex doesn’t serve society – Adrian Rojas
Incarceration is the new slavery – James Poston
Justice isn’t blind with data-based sentencing – David Brown
Ending welfare entitlements opened the door to disability fraud – Dan Davidson
Post prison services would stem system’s revolving door – Michael Wheelock
You’re vote doesn’t matter as much as your money – David Brown
How schools emulate prisons, and prepare students for them – Richard Pimiental
Cars that are good for society – David DeGrasse
PTA involvement instead of prison mentality in schools – Mustapha Bojang
Prison is about re-socialization, not corrections – Christopher Marsich
ACI administrator praises Prison Op/Ed Project – Ralph Orleck
Alcohol, incarceration and what it means to matter – Laura Baumgardner
Was Myron Magnet a genius or just a Republican? – Danny Mercure
Ike was right: Military industrial complex corrupted economy – Christopher Marsich
Second Chance Act deserves second chance at full funding – Christopher Rocheleau and Adrian Rojas
Who poses a bigger threat to US: Ben Carson or Ahmed Mohamed? – David Brown
Taking a play out of black Mizzou football players playbook – James Poston
Why don’t female ACI inmates have a nice big rec yard like the men – Merissa Piccoli
Literal segregation – Philip Randall
Religion, violence and America – Derick Smith
They say knowledge is power, but is it? – Devin Kyle-Garris
Time to change what we consider newsworthy – David DuBois
Prison Op-Ed Project gives inmates a voice – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

March 31, 2016March 31, 2016

Rich people have paid sick days. Poor people do not.

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Rhode Island’s House Committee on Labor is today considering H7633, An Act Relating To Labor And Labor Relations— Healthy And Safe Families And Workplaces Act, legislation that if passed would provide Rhode Island workers with earned paid sick days.

Among the basic provisions of this legislation are the following:

Annual accrual of 56 hours (equivalent to seven 8-hour work days) of earned sick leave.
Ability to make use of paid leave after 90 days.
Rollover of unused sick leave into new calendar year, with option to instead pay employees for unused time.
Protection of earned sick leave time in the event an employee is transferred to a different division of the same company, and in the event that “an employer succeeds or takes the place of an existing employer”.

Until national legislation is passed providing earned paid sick time, state and local provisions can provide this important family-friendly employment standard. As of March 2016, five states have passed earned paid sick time legislation, including three of our New England neighbors, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont. As well, at least fifteen cities and counties have passed legislation providing earned paid sick leave, including San Francisco, Washington, DC, New York, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), and San Diego.

The experience of those jurisdictions that have been leaders in enacting family-supporting earned paid sick leave is instructive. In San Francisco, the first jurisdiction to introduce earned paid sick leave, employment in the five years after implementation of their earned paid sick leave provisions grew twice as fast in the city than in neighboring counties lacking earned paid sick leave, and grew even faster in the food service and hospitality industries with significant concentrations of workers benefiting from the new provisions.

A report by the Center on Economic and Policy Research found that in neighboring Connecticut, the policy was implemented at little to no cost for business (consistent with findings from an Economic Policy Institute study prior to passage), and that two years after initial implementation, more than three-quarters of employers were supportive of the law.

Provision of earned paid sick days results in significant savings for both employers and government:

Employer savings are considerable, and include savings due to:

increased worker productivity,
Lower turnover rates
Reduced workplace contagion from reduced presenteeism (attending work while sick)
Fewer workplace injuries

Government saves through savings to public health insurance programs, through reduced reliance on emergency rooms for treatment of illnesses. With availability of paid sick time, an employee is able to schedule an appointment with his/her primary care provider for diagnosis and treatment. One recent study shows that extending earned paid sick leave to all currently uncovered would save over $1.1 billion annually, including savings of $517 million to public health insurance programs such as Medicaid. Other savings result from reduced reliance on public assistance, as nearly one in four employees report losing a job or being threatened with job loss for taking time off due to personal or family illness. Earned paid sick leave gives employees much needed economic security, which is critical to family stability.

One significant reason to pass paid sick leave legislation is that failing to do so further exacerbates disparities based on income. The Economic Policy Institute shows in stark terms that “rich people have paid sick days [while] poor people do not.” While only one in five (20 percent) of private sector workers in the bottom 10 percent of wage earners has earned paid sick time, nearly nine in ten (87 percent) of top-five wage earners have earned paid sick time.

The case for providing earned paid sick leave to workers in Rhode Island is strong. It’s good for businesses and workers, making Rhode Island a more family-friendly place to live and work.

March 31, 2016

Court rules school districts cannot charge students for summer school

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The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island and R.I. Legal Services today applauded a Superior Court decision holding that the Cumberland school district could not charge a student a $700 fee in order to attend summer school to avoid repeating ninth grade. The ruling overturned a 2014 decision issued by former state Department of Education Commissioner Deborah Gist that, at the time, was denounced by educational advocacy groups as undermining decades of precedent guaranteeing a free and equal public education to all children in the state.

Then-Commissioner Gist had agreed with the school district’s argument that it could charge the fees because summer school did not constitute a core element of education as defined by the state’s Basic Education Plan. However, in a 25-page ruling issued yesterday, Superior Court Judge William Carnes, Jr. rejected that argument. The judge stated that “not only is there no statutory authority for the collection of fees for summer school, but also the charging of such a fee is contrary to the spirit of the school system itself—which is to provide a free public education to all students.”

The judge pointed out:

In the instant matter, [the student] was given a choice: recover his required credits through additional instruction during the summer, or recover them by repeating the ninth grade. Assuming that instead of attending summer school, he had opted to repeat the ninth grade, it is beyond dispute that the school could not have charged him tuition for that additional year of schooling. Instead, however, [the student] opted to recover his required credits by attending summer school and, in doing so, he was charged a fee for his attendance. The fact that one option would have been free and the other option incurred a fee necessarily leads to an absurd result.”

The ACLU, RI Legal Services and other groups were deeply concerned about the precedent the Gist decision would have set had it been upheld. Prior to her decision, the Department of Education, citing the importance of a free public education, had for decades routinely invalidated attempts to levy any fees on student programming as varied as night classes, after-school activities, interscholastic sports and Advanced Placement classes.

Susan Giannini, the mother who brought the lawsuit on behalf of her son, said today: “It was a real financial hardship for me to send my son to summer school, but we had no real choice because he probably would have dropped out otherwise. I feel for other families in a similar situation whose children are at risk of dropping out. This decision will help families that can’t afford to pay fees have equal access to an education.”

R.I. Legal Services attorney Veronika Kot, who represented Ms. Giannini in the lawsuit resulting in yesterday’s decision, said today: “This ruling is in keeping with Rhode Island’s longstanding commitment to equity in education. For over a century our state has prohibited fees for student programming and services due to their discriminatory impact on educational opportunities for lower income families. The Court’s decision reaffirms this commitment to a free and equal system of public education for all students.”

Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, added: “If former Commissioner Gist’s decision had been upheld, it would have institutionalized a two-tiered educational system, offering enhanced educational opportunities for those who could pay for them and inferior ones for those who could not. Nothing could have been more damaging to the fundamental notion that our children deserve a free public education.”

The court ruling can be found on the ACLU of RI’s website here.