Audit: Michigan’s prisoner re-entry initiative harms public safety, fails to track ex-convicts, By Mike Martindale, February 8, 2012, Detroit News: “A much heralded Michigan prisoner release program is only moderately effective, not sufficiently monitored and lacks proper record-keeping, according to a state audit released Tuesday. The audit is the second in less than a year criticizing the Michigan Prisoner Re-entry Initiative, which the Department of Corrections has held up as a successful model of how to safely blend ex-convicts back into society. Corrections officials claim the initiative - which has received more than $175 million since 2007, including $52 million last year - has cut recidivism by giving ex-convicts aid for housing, transportation, employment, health care and education. The 32-page audit focuses on shortcomings and provides support to critics who say the department has put budget issues before public safety…”

Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry program keeping more parolees out, audit finds, By Dawson Bell, February 7, 2012, Detroit Free Press: “A Michigan prison program to aid parolees’ transition to life on the outside has produced a ‘notable’ reduction in recidivism in recent years, according to an audit released today. The report by the Office of the Auditor General found that parolees enrolled in the Michigan Prisoner Re-entry Initiative were significantly less likely to end up back behind bars. The reduction was even more pronounced among parolees who had a history of parole failure before widespread use of the program in 2007, the report said…”

Judge allows thousands to join child support lawsuit, By Bill Rankin, January 3, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Thousands of parents facing possible jail time for failing to pay child support can join a lawsuit that says lawyers should be appointed to represent them if unable to afford counsel, a judge has ruled. In a Dec. 30 order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter granted class-action status to a suit filed last year against the state by five parents who had been jailed for child-support debt. Georgia is one of the few states nationwide that does not provide lawyers for indigent parents facing civil contempt in child-support proceedings. The state already struggles, because of budget shortfalls, to provide lawyers to indigent people charged with criminal offenses. The lawsuit contends Georgia is creating modern-day debtor’s prisons for those jailed when they have no ability to pay because they have lost jobs or are disabled and unable to find work…”

Thousands of children of deported parents get stuck in foster care, By Francisco Miraval, November 17, 2011, Denver Post: “In the United States today there are at least 5,000 children in foster care because their parents were deported or have been arrested due to irregular immigration status, according to a recent report prepared by the Applied Research Center, a New York organization that promotes social and racial justice. The actual number of immigrant children in this situation could be much higher, said Seth Wessler, author of the report, adding that whatever the true figure is, it is likely to triple over the next five years if immigration laws do not change and if the emphasis on enforcement continues. Part of the problem in estimating how many children of deported immigrants are transferred to foster families is that national data simply do not exist, said Wessler, because neither Immigration and Customs Enforcement nor social services departments are required to compile the information. Moreover, within many states, such as Colorado, each county operates independently with regard to foster fami- lies. If the data exist, these agencies have no obligation to share it…”

More resources urged for high-risk youths in foster care, By Garrett Therolf, November 9, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “As California implements a new law extending foster care benefits to youths until age 21, social workers and policymakers should focus their efforts particularly on the hardest cases, according to a major new study. The study found that substantial amounts of money are being spent on Los Angeles County’s so-called crossover youth - children who start out as foster kids and end up committing crimes that land them in the juvenile justice system. At least 10% of the 20,000 youths under probation supervision were foster children, the study found. Each crossover youth cost taxpayers $35,000 on average in just the first four years of adulthood - more than twice the amount spent on those who were in only the foster care system or the justice system…”

Florida’s welfare drug testing halted by federal judge, By Rebecca Catalanello, October 25, 2011, Miami Herald: “A federal judge in Orlando on Monday temporarily blocked Florida’s controversial law requiring welfare applicants be drug tested in order to receive benefits. Judge Mary Scriven issued a temporary injunction against the state, writing in a 37-page order that the law could violate the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on illegal search and seizure. ‘The constitutional rights of a class of citizen are at stake,’ Scriven wrote. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the state last month on behalf of Luis Lebron, a 35-year-old Navy veteran and single father from Orlando who is finishing his college degree. Lebron met all the criteria for receiving welfare, but refused to submit to a drug test on the grounds that requiring him to pay for and submit to one is unreasonable when there is no reason to believe he uses drugs…”

Growing prison populations hinder budget cuts, By Kevin Johnson, October 20, 2011, USA Today: “The rising number of prisoners serving costly life terms across the country is complicating state officials’ efforts to make dramatic cuts to large prison budgets, lawmakers and criminal justice officials said. From 1984 to 2008, the number of offenders serving life terms quadrupled, from 34,000 to roughly 140,000, according to the most recent count by The Sentencing Project, which advocates alternatives to incarceration. One of the fastest-growing subgroups are inmates serving life without the possibility of parole. Those numbers have jumped from 12,453 in 1992 to 41,095 in 2008 and represent the most costly inmates to house as the aging inmates require increased medical care…”

Medicaid expansion seen covering nearly all state prisoners, By Christine Vestal, October 18, 2011, Stateline.org: “The federal health law’s controversial Medicaid expansion is expected to add billions to states’ already overburdened Medicaid budgets. But it also offers a rarely discussed cost-cutting opportunity for state corrections agencies. Starting in 2014, virtually all state prison inmates could be eligible for Medicaid coverage of hospital stays-at the expense of the federal government. In most states, Medicaid is not an option for prison inmates. But a little known federal rule allows coverage for Medicaid-eligible inmates who leave a prison and check into a private or community hospital. Technically, those who stay in the hospital for 24 hours or more are no longer considered prison inmates for the duration of their stay…”

Opponents say S.C.’s voting law unfair for the poor, By Pam Fessler, October 19, 2011, National Public Radio: “South Carolina is one of several states that passed laws this year requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID at the polls. The South Carolina measure still needs approval from the U.S. Justice Department to ensure that it doesn’t discriminate against certain voters. Voting rights advocates say the requirement will be a big burden for some, especially the elderly and the poor, who can have a difficult time getting a photo ID - even in this day and age…”

Texas juvenile justice reforms working, group says, By Allan Turner, October 4, 2011, Houston Chronicle: “Reforms instituted in the wake of 2007 allegations of widespread sexual abuse of minors in Texas Youth Commission facilities have led to dramatic improvements in the way the state deals with young offenders, according to a national juvenile justice study released Tuesday. Authors of the Annie E. Casey Foundation study, No Place for Kids: The Case for Reducing Juvenile Incarceration, reported Texas’ number of incarcerated minors dropped from 4,800 in August 2006 to 1,800 in August 2010 - without an increase in the state’s crime rate or juvenile arrests…”

• High court hears key Medicaid case, By David G. Savage, October 3, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “The Supreme Court justices opened their new term Monday by hearing a major healthcare case that tests whether judges can stop California and other cash-strapped states from cutting their payments to doctors and hospitals who serve low-income patients. The case heard Monday will probably affect how much money is available to pay for medical care for more than 50 million Americans, about half of them children, who depend on Medicaid…”
• For justices’ first day back, a knotty case involving Medicaid cutbacks, By Adam Liptak, October 3, 2011, New York Times: “The Supreme Court started its new term on Monday with arguments in a difficult and consequential case over California’s attempt to cut Medicaid payment rates. The justices were not focused on the ultimate question of whether state officials were entitled to address the budget crisis there by lowering payments to medical providers. Rather, they considered the threshold question of whether the providers and Medicaid recipients were entitled to sue over the move…”

Judge halts welfare cuts for 41,000 Michigan residents, By Doug Guthrie, October 4, 2011, Detroit News: “A federal judge today accused the state of ’slight of hand,’ and halted plans to end welfare benefits to nearly 41,000 Michigan residents. U.S. District Judge Paul Borman determined after a hearing today that the state failed to give proper notice to those it planned to cut off, and although the issue was brought to the federal court in a lawsuit filed by just three plaintiffs, the judge also granted class status to include everyone affected by the state’s decision…”

New state rules raising hurdles at voting booth, By Michael Cooper, October 2, 2011, New York Times: “Since Republicans won control of many statehouses last November, more than a dozen states have passed laws requiring voters to show photo identification at polls, cutting back early voting periods or imposing new restrictions on voter registration drives. With a presidential campaign swinging into high gear, the question being asked is how much of an impact all of these new laws will have on the 2012 race. State officials, political parties and voting experts have all said that the impact could be sizable. Now, a new study to be released Monday by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law has tried to tally just how many voters stand to be affected…”

• Alabama life already changing under tough immigration law, By Patrik Jonsson, September 29, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Even before federal judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn upheld the toughest parts of Alabama’s groundbreaking immigration law Wednesday, daily life in Alabama had already begun to look - and feel - a little different. The state’s agriculture commissioner says some farmers are mourning squash rotting in the fields, after migrant workers either left or avoided the state, some in fear that their children would be used as deportation tools as schools next week begin checking the immigration status of incoming students. Two days before Judge Blackburn proffered her ruling, Alabama announced a new car-registration database called ALVerify, to head off fears of citizen revolts against long courthouse lines as residents prove their citizenship. And those working to rebuild the state from this spring’s massive tornado outbreak predicted delays under the expectation that Hispanic workers will be harder to find to lay roofs, build decks, and pour foundations…”
• Law doesn’t mark end of Alabama immigration battle, By Scott Neuman, September 29, 2011, National Public Radio: “Alabama’s toughest-in-the-nation law on illegal immigration went into effect Thursday, a day after a federal judge upheld some of its key provisions, but the court battle over the issue appears far from over. State law enforcement can now question and detain without bond people they suspect may be in the country illegally, and public schools are required to verify students’ immigration status. U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn on Wednesday upheld those and other key aspects of the law. The Justice Department, civil rights groups and some Alabama churches had sued to stop the measure from taking effect…”

• Legislators: State could save millions if prison officials seek Medicaid funding for inmates, By Sebastian Kitchen, September 19, 2011, Montgomery Advertiser: “Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Alabama, who have not agreed on much in recent months, are questioning why the state prison system is not seeking reimbursement for medical treatment of Medicaid-eligible prisoners — a change they believe could save the state millions during tough economic times. The prison commissioner in Mississippi, Christopher Epps, told the Montgomery Advertiser his state has saved $10 million through the program since implementing it in 2009 and that Mississippi has fewer inmates than Alabama. State legislators have pushed corrections officials and the administrations of Gov. Robert Bentley and former Gov. Bob Riley to adopt the program, in which a vendor qualifies eligible inmates for Medicaid reimbursements…”
• State delays implementation of Medicaid overhaul until Nov. 1, By Beth Musgrave, September 20, 2011, Lexington Herald-Leader: “After hearing concerns from Kentucky hospitals, the state announced this week that it will delay implementing an overhaul of the state’s Medicaid program until Nov. 1. The state announced in July that it was hiring three companies to manage care for 560,000 people on the health insurance program for the poor and disabled. The controversial move is expected to save the state $375 million over the next three years. Managed care was scheduled to begin Oct. 1 in Kentucky…”
• Feds give Utah’s Medicaid overhaul mixed reviews, By Kirsten Stewart, September 19, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “Utah’s plan for reforming Medicaid is getting mixed reviews from the Obama administration. Like many states, Utah is looking to redesign its Medicaid program to contain costs. A blueprint submitted in July for federal approval calls for moving Medicaid patients into managed care networks that would pay providers to keep patients healthy, instead of for more tests and treatment. The meat of the proposal - its payment reforms - has been well received, said Utah Medicaid Director Michael Hales. But officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have indicated they don’t support a controversial provision that would impose higher co-payments and deductibles on pregnant women and children enrolled in the low-income insurance program…”

• Medicaid change delayed, By Dale Wetzel (AP), September 16, 2011, Jamestown Sun: “A chronically delayed new computer software system to handle North Dakota’s Medicaid bills, which was to be finished in nine months, will not be working until mid-2013, an executive told state legislators Thursday. The project was originally scheduled to be finished two years ago. Last summer, a vice president for the software’s developer, Affiliated Computer Services Inc., promised it would be functioning by June 2012. ACS is a unit of Xerox Corp…”
• Utah explores extending Medicaid to inmates, By Kirsten Stewart, September 15, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “Utah health officials are exploring expanding the state’s Medicaid program to cover inmates’ hospital stays and doctors’ office visits. Inmates have traditionally been barred from the state-federal health insurance program, which caters to the poor and disabled. Currently, the Department of Corrections contracts directly with the University of Utah’s hospital and clinics for procedures that cannot be handled at the prison infirmary, and the state picks up the tab. Moving inmates onto Medicaid would shift most of the funding burden onto the federal government, explained state Medicaid director Michael Hales on Thursday at an advisory board meeting. In the past, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been loathe to shoulder what has long been a state obligation, said Hales. But the agency has recently signaled a willingness to bend the rules…”
• Calif. Medicaid expansion: A lifeline for ex-convicts, By Sarah Varney, September 13, 2011, National Public Radio: “California has embarked on an ambitious expansion of its Medicaid program, three years ahead of the federal expansion that the health law requires in 2014. At least half a million people are expected to gain coverage - mostly poor adults who never qualified under the old rules because they didn’t have kids at home. Among those who stand to benefit right now are ex-offenders. Inmates often leave California prisons with no consistent place to get medical care. But that’s changing…”

Unable to pay child support, poor parents land behind bars, By Mike Brunker, September 12, 2011, MSNBC.com: “It may not be a crime to be poor, but it can land you behind bars if you also are behind on your child-support payments. Thousands of so-called ‘deadbeat’ parents are jailed each year in the U.S. after failing to pay court-ordered child support - the vast majority of them for withholding or hiding money out of spite or a feeling that they’ve been unfairly gouged by the courts. But in what might seem like an un-American plot twist from a Charles Dickens’ novel, advocates for the poor say, some parents are wrongly being locked away without any regard for their ability to pay - sometimes without the benefit of legal representation…”

• House OKs tighter rules on food aid for criminals, By Karen Bouffard, September 8, 2011, Detroit News: “The state House tightened rules for Bridge Card users Wednesday, giving Michigan State Police powers to help root criminals from the welfare system. The legislation passed Wednesday would set up an automated program to compare lists of public assistance recipients with lists of people with outstanding warrants and bar anyone with a warrant from getting public assistance. It also prohibits people who are jailed from receiving food stamps or other assistance, bans dispensing cash from Bridge Cards at ATMs in casinos and bars the cards from being used to buy alcohol, tobacco or lottery tickets…”
• State House passes new restrictions on Bridge Cards; bills go to Senate, By Kathleen Gray, September 8, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “New restrictions on the use of Michigan’s Bridge Cards, which operate like a debit card for food and cash assistance to low-income residents, were passed without debate Wednesday in the House. Jail inmates would no longer be able to use the cards, nor could they be used to get cash from ATM machines in casinos or to buy alcohol, lottery tickets or tobacco products. Approximately 1.3 million bridge cards are in circulation in the state. The amounts the state loads onto the cards are determined by the level of income and family size of recipients…”

Tennessee’s voter-ID law draws congressional scrutiny, By Elizabeth Bewley, September 9, 2011, The Tennessean: “Laws that require voters to show photo identification at the polls reduce election fraud, supporters of Tennessee’s new voter ID law told Senate lawmakers Thursday. Opponents of such laws countered that they target low-income, minority and student voters, who are more likely to vote for Democrats and might lack government-issued IDs such as driver’s licenses and passports. Democrats and voting-rights advocates told members of the Senate subcommittee on civil rights that rural and elderly voters also could be disproportionately affected because they might have trouble traveling to get an ID. In Tennessee, voters older than 60 aren’t required to have a photo on their driver’s licenses…”

Legal aid programs for poor deal with deep cuts, By Elizabeth Crisp, August 29, 2011, USA Today: “Programs that provide free legal aid to the poor are laying off employees, cutting services and increasingly turning away people who need assistance, as slashed budgets face deeper cuts. ‘It’s a really dire situation,’ said Rebekah Diller, deputy director of the justice program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. ‘Courts around the country are struggling right now with massive amounts of people who have no legal representation.’ Legal aid programs provide representation in civil cases related to domestic violence, foreclosures, child custody issues and similar matters. The Constitution guarantees legal representation if a person cannot afford to hire a lawyer in criminal cases, but in civil cases, people are on their own…”

More of county’s youth in poverty, courts, By Mealand Ragland-Hudgins, August 9, 2011, Daily News Journal: “Rutherford County children fared better than their peers across the state on the 2010 Kids Count report, although increases were seen in the areas of local children living in poverty or being referred to juvenile court. Released today, the report is an analysis of issues that can affect children’s well-being in all 95 of Tennessee’s counties. Included in the report is data on high school dropouts, children on public assistance, medical care, safety and risky behaviors. Most data in the report is based on numbers compiled in 2008 or 2009, depending on what information was available. Individual rankings by county were not provided, and data was only broken down by city for Memphis and Nashville-Davidson County…”

• Bloomberg to use own funds in plan to aid minority youth, By Michael Barbaro and Fernanda Santos, August 3, 2011, New York Times: “The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in a blunt acknowledgment that thousands of young black and Latino men are cut off from New York’s civic, educational and economic life, plans to spend nearly $130 million on far-reaching measures to improve their circumstances. The program, the most ambitious policy push of Mr. Bloomberg’s third term, would overhaul how the government interacts with a population of about 315,000 New Yorkers who are disproportionately undereducated, incarcerated and unemployed…”
• Can George Soros, Michael Bloomberg save New York’s troubled young men?, By Ron Scherer, August 4, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to improve the lives of young black and Hispanic males. On Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg announced that the city, combined with his own philanthropy and that of billionaire George Soros, would spend $127.5 million over three years to try to cut down on some of the factors that result in higher rates of poverty, incarceration, and unemployment among young minority men…”
• A hand up, not a handout, for young black and Latino men, Editorial, August 4, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Blacks and Latinos took the brunt of America’s Great Recession. Their wealth gap with whites is now at a record high. And with large cutbacks in government social programs, there’s a greater need than ever for private giving to help these two groups. That’s the reasoning behind a $130 million initiative in New York City by two billionaires, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and financier George Soros, to target young male minorities with innovative approaches to helping them succeed - as workers and as fathers. Each man is giving $30 million to the public-private project. (Mr. Soros already funds many such programs in other cities.) Known as the Young Men’s Initiative, the three-year project is just the latest of dozens of programs started in recent years to focus on young African-American and Latino males - groups with dreadful rates of poverty, education, and employment…”

Racial profiling laws yield data but few changes, By Daniel C. Vock, August 3, 2011, Stateline.org: “Eight years ago, Illinois began requiring police departments, including the state police force, to keep track of traffic stops to see whether their officers practiced racial profiling-stopping black or Hispanic motorists more often than whites because of their skin color. Now, a civil rights group wants a federal investigation of the Illinois state police based largely on the data collected under the law, which was sponsored by Barack Obama when he was a state senator. After examining the data, the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union says state troopers ask to search the cars of black and Hispanic drivers more often than those of white drivers, in cases where police have no legal grounds to search the cars on their own without the driver’s consent. But state police are more than 2.5 times as likely to find illegal items (such as alcohol, drugs or stolen property) when searching the vehicles of whites compared to those of Hispanics. Alcohol is the most common item police find among all groups, the ACLU claims, but whites are the most likely to have drugs and drug paraphernalia. The complaint is not focused on specific allegations of prejudiced behavior. What it alleges is that state officials hardly look at racial profiling information at all. The law requiring the collection of traffic stop data created a panel to review the results, but the slots were never filled and the group never met…”

Half of Pa.’s inmates are rejailed within 5 years, By Mensah M. Dean, July 5, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “When Antoine Stone found work at a grocery store this spring, he took a giant step toward self-sufficiency while inching away from ever again being a financial burden on Pennsylvania taxpayers. The well-spoken single father of two daughters didn’t just have to overcome the ravages of the recession to land his first real job in years. For Stone, 38, the hurdles to finding work were much higher, and of his own making. The West Philadelphia native estimates that in his younger years he racked up eight to 10 arrests, serving short stints in city jails. But it was a parole violation stemming from a drug-possession conviction from nearly 10 years ago that landed him in state prison for the first time, from January 2006 to February 2008. As a convicted felon, Stone needed more help than the average job seeker, and found it at the nonprofit Pennsylvania Prison Society, which in a 12-week program taught him life skills, how to write a resumé, how to dress for success and how to be a better father. The vast majority of the inmates released from Pennsylvania’s prisons don’t go through such programs - and it shows…”

• Regulators combat unemployment insurance waste and fraud, By Paul Davidson, July 4, 2011, USA Today: “State and federal regulators are cracking down on waste and fraud in the unemployment insurance system, abuses that have hit record levels as jobless claims surge in a weak economy. In the 12 months through March, the overpayment rate was 11.6% - more than $1 for every $9 paid out, Labor Department figures show. That’s up from the 12 months ending in June 2010, when a record $16.5 billion, or 10.6% of the $156 billion in jobless benefits disbursed to Americans, should not have been paid, according to the department. The overpayment rate was 9.6% in fiscal 2009 and 9.2% in 2008. Officials partly blame soaring unemployment, which forced state officials to use fraud-prevention workers to help handle an unprecedented wave of claims. ‘They were using every person they could find,’ says Gay Gilbert, Labor’s unemployment insurance administrator…”
• R.I. joins push to halt unemployment benefits fraud, Laura Crimaldi (AP), July 4, 2011, Boston Globe: “A nationwide crackdown is coming for people fraudulently drawing unemployment payments - those who were never eligible and workers who keep getting checks after they return to work - a $17 billion benefits swindle last year alone, say federal officials. With the poor economy lingering and the jobless rate remaining high, Rhode Island and other states are stepping up efforts to stop the fraud and improper payments. As much as 30 percent of the wrong payments in 2010 went to people who had returned to the workforce but continued to claim benefits, according to Dale Ziegler, deputy administrator for the Office of Unemployment Insurance at the Department of Labor. Those payments came even after a 2009 executive order by President Obama seeking new policies to cut payment errors, waste, fraud, and abuse…”

Thousands of federal prisoners convicted of crack cocaine crimes eligible for early release, Associated Press, June 30, 2011, Washington Post: “As many as 12,000 people in federal prison for crack-related crimes can get their sentences reduced as a result of a new law that brought the penalties for the drug more closely in line with those for powdered cocaine, a government commission decided Thursday. The decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission applies to approximately 1 in 17 inmates in the federal system. Congress last year substantially lowered the sentences for crack-related crimes such as possession and trafficking, changing a 1980s law that was criticized as racially discriminatory because it came down extra hard on a drug common in poor, black neighborhoods. The question before the commission Thursday was whether people already locked up under the old law should benefit retroactively from the changes. The six-member commission unanimously decided in their favor…”

Survey: U.S. trails in equal legal treatment of citizens, By Daniel Lippman, June 13, 2011, Kansas City Star: “The U.S. lags behind western Europe in access to civil justice and legal assistance, according to an international survey released Monday that also raised questions over whether U.S. police forces treat all citizens equally. The results of the survey by the World Justice Project, an advocacy group that promotes the rule of law, also signaled that some Middle Eastern countries continue to rank relatively low in certain areas, a key factor in the region’s popular protests.   ‘Without the rule of law, medicines do not reach health facilities due to corruption, women in rural areas remain unaware of their rights, people are killed in criminal violence and economic growth is stifled,’ William Neukom, the founder of the group, said in a statement announcing its second annual Rule of Law Index…”

ACLU: Michigan’s public defender system among worst, By Doug Guthrie, May 18, 2011, Detroit News: “Michigan’s system of appointing lawyers to represent criminal defendants who can’t afford to hire their own is among the worst in the nation, according to a report issued today by the American Civil Liberties Union. Using numerous prior studies by others that condemned the state’s dependence on a patchwork of dissimilar systems run separately by 83 counties, the report blasts a lack of oversight, funding, training and failure to meet national standards…”

• In Florida, off-the-job conduct may put your unemployment benefits at risk, By Jim Stratton, May 11, 2011, Orlando Sentinel: “A just-passed overhaul of Florida’s unemployment laws gives employers the ability to challenge jobless benefits to former employees for behavior that has little to do with how they conduct themselves at work. The provision permits businesses to fight a worker’s benefits claim based on ‘misconduct, irrespective of whether the misconduct occurs at the workplace or during working hours.’ In essence, it allows the business to cite a worker’s private behavior as a reason to deny benefits…”
• Bill could end long-term benefits for jobless, By Marisa Schultz, May 12, 2011, Detroit News: “States could end long-term benefits for laid-off workers and use the money to pay off federal loans for the unemployment benefits under legislation passed Wednesday in the House Ways and Means Committee. States also could use the federal extended unemployment money to pay for federal tax increases on businesses or to start job creation programs. Michigan is to receive $1.3 billion this year from the federal government, which will distribute $31 billion nationally. As a result of the prolonged recession, 29 states owe the federal government a total of $41.2 billion in outstanding loans for unemployment benefits. Michigan, which held the highest unemployment rate in the nation for nearly four years, owes nearly $3.2 billion and must start paying the bill Sept. 30…”

States eye drug tests for welfare recipients, By Kelli Kennedy (AP), May 10, 2011, Sarasota Herald-Tribune: “Lawmakers in more than two-dozen states have proposed drug-testing recipients of welfare or other government assistance, taking a tough stance on aiding the poor in the down economy. Critics say such laws would be unconstitutional - an argument that federal judges have agreed with before. Similar proposals have been introduced in past years by lawmakers in dozens of states, but none currently requires drug testing because it’s difficult to get around the arguments that the tests violate the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches. Michigan’s random drug testing program for welfare recipients lasted five weeks in 1999 before it was halted by a judge, kicking off a four-year legal battle that ended with an appeals court ruling it unconstitutional. No other state has enacted such a program, worrying about legal battles. But lawmakers say they’re willing to take the risk, as cash-strapped states struggle to close budget gaps, potentially paving the way for major legal battles. The National Conference of State Legislatures said at least 30 states have proposed to drug test recipients of government aid during the current legislative session…”

Conn. to help inmates pare child-support bills, By Pat Eaton-Robb (AP), May 1, 2011, Denver Post: “Julaquis Minnifield was sitting in his prison cell last summer when he received a notice from the state of Connecticut that he owed more than $13,000 in back child support for his 8-year-old son. Minnifield went to prison knowing he must pay $55 a week in child support under an order obtained by his former girlfriend but said he had no idea the debt was accruing while he was behind bars. He expects to owe more than $15,000 by the time he is released next year. ‘What chance do I have to pay if I’m incarcerated? The longer I sit here, the higher the debt goes,’ Minnifield, a 31-year-old Waterbury man, said in an interview at the Carol Robinson Correctional institution in Enfield, where he is serving a 2-year sentence for drug possession. It’s a challenge faced by incarcerated parents across the country, the vast majority of them fathers. Just because they are in prison does not mean they won’t have to pay child support or repay the state for welfare paid to their families in lieu of child support. Experts say the debt can make overwhelmed parents less likely to pay when they are released, and potentially damage relationships with their children…”

• Residents of Los Angeles County’s poorest areas to get help in keeping their homes, By Victoria Kim, May 2, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Thousands of residents in Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods will get new legal help in fighting high-stakes eviction cases involving slumlords and foreclosures under a pilot project approved by the state’s judicial leaders Friday. The new Eviction Legal Assistance Center at Los Angeles County Superior Court’s downtown civil courthouse will provide legal representation to about 15,000 people facing eviction over three years, according to legal aid groups, which will be jointly running the center…”
• State’s chief judge pledges more aid for poor in courts, By Thomas Kaplan, May 2, 2011, New York Times: “New York’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, on Monday called the state’s routine failure to provide lawyers for poor criminal defendants being arraigned in local courts a problem that ‘can no longer be tolerated,’ and pledged to remedy the situation within a year. Judge Lippman, in a speech at the State Court of Appeals, said too many New Yorkers were needlessly spending nights in jail after appearing without legal counsel at criminal arraignments in small-town and village courthouses. He vowed that the state would spend $10 million in an effort to improve the availability of legal defense provided to the poor…”

• Report: Fewer NJ residents in poverty getting legal aid, By Susan Loyer, April 26, 2011, MyCentralJersey.com: “Fewer low-income residents are receiving the legal representation they are entitled to receive in civil cases, according to a report released by Legal Services of New Jersey. ‘The Civil Justice Gap,’ released Tuesday, examines the shortfalls in legal aid for New Jerseyans living in poverty, its consequences and offers solutions. ‘There are many more people in poverty because of the recession,’ said Melville D. Miller Jr., president of Legal Services of New Jersey. ‘The newly poor, who lost jobs and were middle class, are dealing for the first time with things like foreclosures, evictions and domestic violence, all of which is induced by the new poverty. As a result, the demand for our services is up sharply.’ With a 20 percent to 45 percent increase in the demand for free legal services statewide and funding down by 35 percent during the past few years, Legal Services i forced to turn people away, Miller said…”
• Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s budget plan cuts legal services for poor, By Paul Srubas, April 25, 2011, Green Bay Press-Gazette: “A proposed funding cut to the state’s computerized court records system is part of a larger plan that would eliminate funding of a program that provides free legal aid to the poor. Gov. Scott Walker has proposed reallocating money collected as a fee when certain documents are filed in circuit courts around the state. The $21.50 filing fee currently pays for a variety of state programs. Under law, the amount is divided up, with each portion going to a specific program, such as $6 of every $21.50 going to the Consolidated Court Automation Program. The program, called CCAP, serves as the information technology department for the court systems throughout the state and makes court records available online through the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access database. A program providing civil legal services for the poor receives $4 from each $21.50 fee…”

Fraud taints state’s FoodShare program, By Raquel Rutledge and Jason Stein, April 23, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Thousands of people who receive publicly funded food assistance report losing their benefits card routinely - a sign investigators say shows many are cheating the state’s $1 billion program. Some sell their Quest cards for cash. Others trade them for drugs. And that’s not the only way the state’s FoodShare program is being abused, an investigation by the Journal Sentinel has found. Instead of using the cards as intended - as a tool to keep the poor from going hungry - participants who aren’t hungry can use the cards to profit. Unscrupulous recipients sometimes buy steaks, seafood and other expensive items with their subsidized benefits and then sell the food to friends at a discount to get cash. Other times they approach strangers in grocery stores, offering to use their Quest cards in exchange for cash - completing the deal in the parking lot and pocketing $50 for every $100 they spend in Quest funds for the strangers’ groceries. In other cases, recipients fail to report all their income or that a working spouse lives in the home. Some collect money from multiple states. Lax rules and oversight make the program susceptible to fraud…”

States seek to link public assistance, drug testing, By Ron Barnett, April 17, 2011, USA Today: “South Carolina state Sen. Harvey Peeler was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in January when the human resources director of one of the area’s major employers, textile manufacturer Hamrick Mills, told him the company was having trouble hiring some people from the unemployment rolls. ‘They said they had potential employees that would come and apply and couldn’t pass the drug test,’ Peeler says. Peeler, a Republican who says he heard similar stories from other employers, introduced a bill Feb. 9 that would suspend unemployment checks to people who fail a drug test they must take to get a job. South Carolina is among 27 states, including Florida, Massachusetts and Arizona, to consider legislation this year that would require recipients of various kinds of public assistance to pass drug tests, according to Meagan Dorsch of the National Conference of State Legislatures…”

• Study: Prisons failing to deter repeat criminals in 41 states, By Kevin Johnson, April 12, 2011, USA Today: “The number of inmates returning to state prisons within three years of release has remained steady for more than a decade, a strong indicator that prison systems are failing to deter criminals from re-offending, a new study has concluded. In one of the most comprehensive reports of its kind, the Pew Center on the States found that slightly more than four in 10 offenders return to prison within three years, a collective rate that has remained largely unchanged in years, despite huge increases in prison spending that now costs states $52 billion annually. National recidivism, or return, rates are holding steady even as state officials have launched programs to help prisoners re-enter society and as the recent financial crisis has forced states to cut their budgets and re-evaluate the types of offenders who should return to prison…”
• Study praises efforts in Missouri, Kansas to cut prison recidivism, By Mark Morris, April 12, 2011, Kansas City Star: “A new study on former prisoners who reoffend and return to prison gives Missouri high marks for a ‘dramatic’ decline in recidivism over the last six years. According to the Pew Center on the States, 46 percent of Missouri offenders released in fiscal year 2004 returned to prison within two years, for either a new crime or for a ‘technical’ violation of their parole or probation. However, that figure had dropped nearly 9 percentage points, to 37.5 percent, for offenders released in fiscal 2008, according to state figures…”
• Va. returning prisoners to jail at lower-than-average rate, study shows, By Michael S. Rosenwald, April 13, 2011, Washington Post: “Sixteen years after banning parole, Virginia has defied the nation’s unshakably high recidivism level, returning a lower rate of prisoners to incarceration than many other states, according to the first state-by-state comparison of recidivism. Although the state’s recidivism levels have edged up slightly since 2000, Virginia’s 28.3 percent recidivism rate for prisoners in the three years after their release in 2004 is well below the nation’s 43.3 percent rate during the same period, according to the Pew Center on the States study…”
• Four in 10 offenders released from prison return, survey finds, By Jessie Halladay, April 12, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Four in 10 offenders released from prisons across the nation are back behind bars within three years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States, the first ever state-by-state survey on inmate recidivism. According to state corrections data collected by Pew, 43 percent of prisoners released in 2004 and 45 percent of those released in 1999 were reincarcerated within three years, despite falling crime rates and rising corrections budgets…”

New York courts vow legal aid in housing, By David Streitfeld, February 15, 2011, New York Times: “New York court officials outlined procedures Tuesday aimed at assuring that all homeowners facing foreclosure were represented by a lawyer, a shift that could give tens of thousands of families a better chance at saving their homes. Criminal defendants are guaranteed a lawyer, but New York will be the first state to try to extend that pledge to foreclosures, which are civil matters. There are about 80,000 active foreclosure cases in New York courts. In more than half of them, only the banks have lawyers…”

State’s bills soar for legal aid to poor, By Milton J. Valencia and Matt Carroll, February 14, 2011, Boston Globe: “The state last year paid private lawyers $155.6 million to represent poor clients, almost 25 percent more than anticipated under a 2005 state law that was passed to make their pay more equitable with other states, according to a Globe analysis of the spending. At the same time, the state has failed to take several other actions recommended in 2005 that would have limited the state’s dependence on private lawyers - and the fees they received - and better defined who qualifies as an indigent defendant…”

States help ex-inmates find jobs, By Steven Greenhouse, January 24, 2011, New York Times: “Faced with yawning budget gaps and high unemployment, California, Michigan, New York and several other states are attacking both problems with a surprising strategy: helping ex-convicts find jobs to keep them from ending up back in prison. The approach is backed by prisoner advocates as well as liberal and conservative government officials, who say it pays off in cold, hard numbers. Michigan, for example, spends $35,000 a year to keep someone in prison - more than the cost of educating a University of Michigan student. Through vigorous job placement programs and prudent use of parole, state officials say they have cut the prison population by 7,500, or about 15 percent, over the last four years, yielding more than $200 million in annual savings. Michigan spends $56 million a year on various re-entry programs, including substance abuse treatment and job training…”

For poor, bail system can be an obstacle to freedom, By John Eligon, January 9, 2011, New York Times: “Before George Zouvelos agrees to post someone’s bail, a customer must put up cash, sign a 20-page contract and initial 86 separate paragraphs. Those paragraphs are chock-full of fees: $250 if the defendant misses a weekly check-in; as much as $375 an hour for obscure tasks like bail consulting and research; and unspecified amounts if Mr. Zouvelos, a bail bondsman based in Manhattan, farms out tasks like obtaining court documents or delivering release papers to jail. Then there are the thousands of dollars that Mr. Zouvelos can charge if he decides to revoke a bond and return a defendant to jail, as he did 89 times during a four-month period last year. The common perception of how the bail-bond system operates is fairly straightforward: A bondsman bails a defendant out of jail. If that defendant misses a court appearance, the bondsman can ’surrender’ him - chase him down and haul him back to jail. The reality is more troubling…”

Report faults state prisons’ treatment of mothers, By David Crary (AP), October 21, 2010, Miami Herald: “The number of women in America’s state prisons has reached a record high, yet many states have inadequate policies for dealing with the large portion of them who have children or are pregnant, according to a new 50-state survey. The report, being released Thursday by the National Women’s Law Center and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, analyzes policies in three areas - prenatal care, shackling of pregnant women during childbirth, and community-based alternatives to incarceration enabling mothers to be with their children. Only one state, Pennsylvania, received an A…”

• ‘Kids Count’ report shows progress for Oklahoma children, By Michael Overall, October 13, 2010, Tulsa World: “Statistically, children in Oklahoma seem to be healthier and better off now than they were in the mid-1990s, according to the annual ‘Kids Count’ report released Tuesday. But the researchers themselves are quick to mention that old saying: Statistics don’t tell the whole story. ‘Especially in this case,’ said Linda Terrell, executive director of the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, which presented the report at the University of Central Oklahoma. From birth weights and infant mortality to juvenile crime and drop-out rates, the report compares a dozen different categories of statistics to measure the well-being of children in the state. In most categories, Oklahoma has seen positive long-term trends. ‘But,’ Terrell raises a finger in the air to emphasize this point, ‘the data come from 2008,’ the most recent year with available information…”
• Parents in prison cause problems for Oklahoma children, By John Estus, October 12, 2010, The Oklahoman: “An Oklahoma mother is sent to prison. Her child is left motherless, develops emotional problems and flunks out of school. The child has a baby of her own before turning to drugs, a life of crime or both. Then that mother is sent to prison, leaving another child with a parent behind bars. This bleak cycle likely happens at a higher rate in Oklahoma than any other state, a new report shows. Oklahoma incarcerates more women per capita than any other state, and their children are five times more likely to end up in prison than their peers, according to the annual Kids Count Factbook from the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy. Lawmakers are taking notice of the issue as they grapple with an underfunded, overcrowded state prison system. The report states more than half of the nearly 26,000 people in state prisons are parents whose imprisonment means their children face a higher risk of going to prison themselves than their peers. Policymakers want to stop that domino effect, particularly when it comes to locking up mothers who committed nonviolent crimes…”

Reports: Some states charge poor for public defenders, By Kevin Johnson, October 3, 2010, USA Today: “States increasingly are imposing fees on poor criminal defendants who use public defenders even when they can’t pay, causing some to go without attorneys, according to two reviews of the nation’s largest state criminal justice systems. A report out Monday by New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice found that 13 of the 15 states with the largest prison populations imposed some charge, including application fees, for access to counsel. ‘In practice, these fees often discourage individuals from exercising their constitutional right to an attorney, leading to wrongful convictions, over-incarceration and significant burdens on the operation of courts,’ the Brennan report concludes. In Michigan, the report says, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association found the ‘threat’ of having to pay the full cost of assigned counsel caused misdemeanor defendants to waive their right to attorneys 95% of the time…”

Oklahoma lawmakers study fallout of high incarceration rate, Associated Press, September 14, 2010, The Oklahoman: “Oklahoma’s strict criminal sentences, especially for women, create hardships for the children of inmates and perpetuate a cycle that often results in the children behind bars themselves, experts warned lawmakers Tuesday. Several child advocates and a criminal justice expert testified before the House Human Services Committee that Oklahoma’s children are paying the price for the state’s tough-on-crime sentencing policies…”

Poverty rate paradox: Poverty rises, but FBI crime rate falls, By Patrik Jonsson, September 13, 2010, Christian Science Monitor: “The much-studied links between poverty and crime rates - which helped give rise to many Great Society programs - have not materialized so far in the Great Recession. Even with 15 percent of Americans now officially poor, both violent crime and property crime continued to drop in the United States in 2009, the FBI reported Monday. The housing crash’s backwash of foreclosures and high unemployment has pushed some in the middle class and the working poor to the brink of despair and insolvency. Yet crimes reports ranging from murder to carjackings, from graft to purse-snatching, all declined during the same period, forcing social scientists to reexamine long-held assumptions about the causes of crime and how society can best battle back…”

Budget woes hit defense lawyers for the indigent, By Monica Davey, September 9, 2010, New York Times: “Some public defenders in Missouri say the stressed state budget is interfering with their ability to provide poor defendants with their constitutional right to a lawyer. They say they are so overworked and underfinanced that they have begun trying to reject new cases assigned to them late in the month, when, they say, their workloads are already beyond capacity. Concerns about a deteriorating, overwhelmed public defender system in this country have been around for decades, but they have ballooned recently as state budgets shrink and more defendants qualify for free legal counsel…”

Judge: Accused still need public defenders, but bill the state, By Madeleine Baran, August 18, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “Karen Duncan walked into an Owatonna court room Tuesday with a bold request. Duncan, the chief public defender for 11 counties in southeastern Minnesota, asked a judge to free her and her staff from 46 criminal cases she said they are simply too overworked to handle. It was the first such request from a public defense system that is straining statewide from staff and budget reductions. Judge Casey Christian denied Duncan’s request, saying that defendants have a constitutional right to representation. But he told Duncan she could hire private attorneys for those defendants and send the bill to the state…”

• More people released from jail face homelessness: Report, By Jim Rankin, August 10, 2010, Toronto Star: “On a sticky day in June, Eric Cromwell changed into the clothes he’d worn when he was arrested two months earlier on an assault charge and walked out of the Toronto West Detention Centre on Disco Rd. He was given a TTC token but possessed little else. He did have a bachelor apartment where his rent is automatically deducted from his welfare cheque, but that’s where the latest trouble had occurred. There’d been an incident with a neighbour and conditions placed on him forbid him from going anywhere near home. He’d been in and out of jail a number of times, and on this occasion, as had been the case before, he had no home to go to. But he knew where to go. He took public transit to the Maxwell Meighen shelter at Queen and Sherbourne Sts. ‘Down here, to me, it’s like home,’ says Cromwell, 32. ‘I know where to go. I know where to get food. I know how to survive.’ Each year, more people - mostly men - are leaving Toronto jails with nowhere to call home and no plan or supports to keep them from heading back to jail, according to a report by the John Howard Society of Toronto…”
• Inmates stuck in cycle of jail and homelessness, By Joe Friesen, August 9, 2010, The Globe and Mail: “The path to prison often begins in homelessness, and the path back to freedom tends to leave former inmates homeless once again. It’s a vicious cycle of failed reintegration that leads to recidivism, according to a new report from the John Howard Society of Toronto. The report found that more than one in five inmates in the Toronto area were homeless when they were arrested. And there was little sign their prospects for integration were smoothed by their time in jail. One-third of inmates said they planned on living in a homeless shelter when they were released, and a further 12 per cent said they had no idea where they would go. The report, Homeless and Jailed: Jailed and Homeless, based on interviews with 363 people in jail, highlights the difficulties many former prisoners face when they are returned to the community. It concludes that current incarceration policies are adding to the problem of homelessness in Toronto…”

Ill. penalizes employers who shortchange workers, By Sophia Tareen (AP), July 30, 2010, Washington Post: “Employers who shortchange or don’t pay their employees will face stiffer penalties and workers will have more rights under a bill Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law Friday, which experts say makes Illinois’ wage theft laws among the strongest in the country. Starting Jan. 1, a repeat offense will be considered a felony, not a misdemeanor. Also, employers who violate wage theft laws will have to pay workers back from the date of nonpayment with interest and a $250 fine. Depending on the violation, the employer may also owe interest to the Illinois Department of Labor…”

Congress reduces drug sentence gap, By Erik Eckholm, July 28, 2010, New York Times: “Congress passed a bill on Wednesday that would reduce the disparities between mandatory sentences for crack and powdered cocaine violations, a step toward ending what legal experts say have been unfairly harsh punishments imposed mainly on blacks. The bill, which passed the Senate in March, was adopted by the House of Representatives in a voice vote and now goes to the President for signature. Administration officials have described the sentencing disparity as ‘fundamentally unfair,’ and Mr. Obama said during the 2008 campaign that it ‘disproportionately filled our prisons with young black and Latino drug users…’”