Showing papers in "Pace law review in 2004"

Prisoners of the Census: Electoral and Financial Consequences of Counting Prisoners Where They Go, Not Where They Come From

Abstract: * This research was supported by grants from the Soros Justice Fellowship Program of the Open Society Institute. † Eric Lotke is Director of Research and Policy at the Justice Policy Institute. He performed this research as a Soros Senior Justice Fellow. Previously, he was the Executive Director of the D.C. Prisoners Legal Services Project, a judicial clerk on the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown and George Washington Law Schools. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and of the University of Wisconsin. ‡ Peter Wagner, JD, is a Soros Justice Fellow and Assistant Director of the Prison Policy Initiative, a widely-used internet project providing accurate, timely research and policy reports on criminal justice issues. He is the author of Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in New York, the first systematic state analysis of the impact of prisoner enumeration policies on legislative redistricting. As part of his Soros Justice Fellowship, he is currently measuring the impact of prisoner enumeration on legislative redistricting in a number of states and publishing the results on the project’s website, PrisonersoftheCensus.org. 1. BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE, BULL. NO. NCJ 200248, PRISONERS IN 2002 1 (2003), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ pdf/p02.pdf [hereinafter PRISONERS IN 2002]. 2. See BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE, BULL. NO. NCJ 175688, WOMEN OFFENDERS 8 tbl.18 (1999), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ bjs/pub/pdf/wo.pdf; see also BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE, BULL. NO. NCJ 182335, INCARCERATED PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN (2000), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/iptc.pdf. 3. See, e.g., Todd Clear, The Problem with “Addition by Subtraction”, in INVISI-

The Common Law of Supermax Litigation

Abstract: Like chain gangs and boot camps before them, “supermax” prisons were a raging fad in the 1990s—yet another round in the perpetual “tough on crime” political bidding war. According to Chase Riveland, former secretary of corrections in Washington and Colorado, “[t]hey have become political symbols of how ‘tough’ a jurisdiction has become. In some places, the motivation to build a supermax has come not from corrections officials, but from the legislature and—in at least one instance—the governor.”1 In a report prepared for the National Institute of Corrections, Riveland defined supermax as:

Bumps in the Road to the Courthouse: The Supreme Court and the Prison Litigation Reform Act t

Abstract: It seems a little strange that a lawyer who has spent a professional lifetime in correctional law either representing correctional agencies or what might be called the \"correctional middle\" as a commentator on legal issues in the field, but who has never represented an inmate in a court of law, would be writing about problems lawyers who do represent inmates face in regard to litigating on behalf of their clients. But I am charged with that task. Representing offenders probably has never been easy. Inmate \"causes\" are rarely popular with the public. While some are amiable enough clients with serious claims, others are not. They may exaggerate claims, they may be demanding, and most certainly, they virtually never can pay. Litigation can be hostile. Even when relief is obtained on paper, converting the paper relief into real change in the prison can take years and repeated trips to court. In the early 1970s, as the \"inmate rights\" movement was building up steam, a variety of factors made inmate litigation much easier than today. Start with the facts of cases. Prisons and jails were often filthy, dilapidated, poorly run hellholes. Inmates might be given guns and told to supervise other inmates. A 1,000 inmate Arkansas prison ran with eight (count 'em, eight) guards who were not convicts.' Only two worked at

Addressing the High School Hazing Problem: Why Lawmakers Need to Impose a Duty to Act on School Personnel

Abstract: This Article argues that, to be effective, hazing law needs to impose both a criminal and civil duty on school personnel to act affirmatively. Part I of this article discusses in detail the problem of high school hazing. Part II discusses how American law addresses (or fails to address) hazing. Part III discusses shortcomings in moral reasoning that underlie current anti-hazing law. Part IV explores legal alternatives to address hazing. Part V concludes that the best way to address hazing is for Congress, under its spending power, to withhold education funds from individual states unless they: 1) impose both a criminal and civil duty on school personnel to act affirmatively against hazing, 2) impose penalties on school personnel that violate these duties, and 3) bar the affirmative defenses of "assumption of risk" and "sovereign immunity" where these duties are violated.

A Punk's Song about Prison Reform

Abstract: This article critiques prison reform from the perspective of a "jailhouse punk"-a male inmate who assumes a submissive "female" role in the inmate subculture. A punk's institutional life reveals an oppressive gender system that functions largely apart from the rule of law. Following the introduction to the Article, Part II examines the site of masculine domination, the subterranean prison. Part III demonstrates that three gendered attributes of liberal legalism impair judicial scrutiny of the subterranean prison. Part IV examines the politics of prison rape and two pertinent federal laws, the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 and the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. Part V looks to George Fletcher's "second" constitution for guidance. It embraces public values similar to those advanced by feminist jurisprudence. These values can inform a new prison regime, one that counters gender oppression through a milieu grounded in civic virtue. Concluding remarks follow Part V.