We will be presenting at RENEW 2015: CMCA Correctional Ministry Summit, Billy Graham Center, Wheaton College, IL, May 29-31, 2015. If you are in the Chicago area, please join us for this important, informative & topical conference! – Jeff

RENEW 2015: Workshop Descriptions: Bringing Together Communities Suffering From Incarceration Issues: Inner City, White Collar and Nonviolent. A Christian Approach. Presented by Rev. Jeff Grant and Lynn Springer.

This workshop proposes a model that challenges churches in affluent communities to establish authentic “in-reach” ministries to care for those in their own communities suffering from hunger, poverty, homelessness, and issues related to incarceration.

Reprinted from Prisonist.org, Jan. 22, 2015

When I was five years old my father was sentenced to a maximum of 50 years in prison. I was not able at that age to comprehend how much my life would change from that moment on. I visited my father in prison when I was eight years old and then went 17 years without any contact.

During that time, my mom was a single mom for five years, working as a teacher and trying to support four kids. She was (and still is) amazingly strong and a positive example for me of what it means to be an empowered woman with enough vulnerability and strength to rely on and receive help from others. I remember members of our church would just show up at our doorstep with dinner or groceries or a new refrigerator when ours broke.

My mom said at the sentencing that the judge looked at her and told her that we were the “silent victims”. I understand what he means by that. When your family member has committed a crime against others, especially one that has been followed by the media, there is a level of guilt, shame, and embarrassment that can hinder self-care. Your only desire is that the victims feel no more pain at whatever cost. You suddenly become a source of pain, a reminder of what happened. I only know this now as an adult and by looking at the story through my mom’s lens. But as a five year old, I was not fully aware of the situation and therefore could not understand why I could not be around my friends anymore. My mom was wise enough to not neglect self-care, and put us all in counseling. Although counseling to me was getting to play Chinese checkers while my friend asked me if I ever felt angry at times, I enjoyed time with my counselor and at a young age had a positive view of counseling.

Even with the immense help of friends and family, we still struggled financially and emotionally. We were all hit with an unexpected bomb and my mom did everything she could to keep us on our feet.

There was a 17 year gap where I was indirectly the child of an incarcerated person. He was my father through genetics but was not in my life at all. One day as a 22 year old in college I had this random realization that I was not even sure if my father was still alive. As I am learning now, the prisons do not tell you much and especially not in a timely fashion. When my father almost died in prison in 2013, my aunt did not know about it for almost a month after the fact.

Back to being in college, I decided to google my father’s name to see if I could find out any information. This was the first time I had ever done this. What I found was pretty life-changing for me. My father was in a rehabilitation program called Shakespeare Behind Bars and a documentary was made about the program. My father is in that documentary. Suddenly, I had a way of seeing him after 15 years at this point. I worked myself up to watching it by reading reviews and watching trailers. I downloaded the documentary that night and watched it. I was hit to my core. My dad would say things throughout the film like “those who need mercy the most are the ones you think deserve it the least”. I felt as if he was crying out for someone to take notice of his pain, for someone to not define him by the worst thing he has ever done.

It took me two years to work up the courage to write him, but I finally wrote him my first letter in February 2014. Since then we have written countless letters, spend time on the phone weekly and I have gone to visit him twice. Our relationship is very unique in that my dad knew me as a child, and now all of sudden I am a woman. He missed out on very crucial years, and yet he gets to see the result of those years. We have moments where we feel really connected, and then moments where we’re reminded how much we do not know about each other. I knew my dad as a five year old. I did not know anything about his life, his growing up years, even how he met my mom. I do not know that much about him, although I am learning, and yet he is my dad and I feel like even though I do not know facts about him, I understand him.

He is my dad. And he is incarcerated.

I can tell him about my day, about what is going on in my life right now, but he does not get to experience it. I cannot just call him up whenever. He tells me about life inside the wire but I will never really be able to understand or truly relate to what he is going through. I can only sympathize when I wish to fully empathize.

My dad will sometimes reminisce about what could have been. He was a computer engineer and ahead of his time. He was on the edge of the technology boom and who knows what kind of apps, websites, etc. he could have created or invested in. He tells me if he had not gone into prison, he imagines we would be millionaires. Whether or not that is true, when he talks this way it reminds me of how drastically my life did change when I was young. I am happy with the person I have become and the adversities I have been through have allowed me to see the most important things in life, things other than potentially growing up as a millionaire’s kid. As much as I wish my father did not commit his crimes and leave my life at such a young age, I like the relationship we have now. Reminiscing about the past does little good. All we have is now. I remind my dad of this when he begins to look back. I can imagine he has a lot of time in prison to think. But I try to keep him moving forward, to think of what can be, to not try to correct his past mistakes but to see what he has in front of him: a daughter who supports him and cares about him now, not what he could have been had he not gone to prison or who he was before he committed his crimes.

I have learned so much about the prison system and the brokenness on the inside that is easily kept on the inside. I am grateful for what seems to be a push in more awareness of the conditions of our prisons and the problem of mass incarceration. I have sat in a visiting room and held back my own tears as I watch grown men unsuccessfully try to fight back tears as they hug their wives, children and mothers goodbye, some of them not knowing when they will ever see them again.

And I have learned the power of human connection. For someone inside the wire, contact with someone outside of it speaks so deeply to their soul. It helps them feel heard. It helps them feel like they are not forgotten. One thing I have seen in my dad is that it is easy to slip into oblivion. It is easy to push people out because they are already out and going through the pain of letting them in is a huge risk. It is easy to feel forgotten because to many people, you are.

The challenges of being an adult with an incarcerated parent mainly consist of a constant worry that they will be ok. I do not have unrealistic expectations that he would ever be at a point of thriving. If he calls and does not seem depressed, that is a win. One of my biggest fears before I wrote my dad is that he would die in prison without ever knowing that I care about him. That fear was almost a reality. A year and a half before I wrote my dad, he found out he has cancer. He is almost in full remission. A year later, something in his bowels ruptured and although he cried for help, no one did anything until a nurse came and ordered them to rush him to the hospital or else he would die. Many people do not survive what he went through. He just had a surgery to repair the rupture last month and before he went into it, he told me there were some risks and that I would be a person on their list to contact if anything happened to him. Thank goodness he came out of it fine. But I cannot rush to the hospital to see him. I cannot help him in his recovery. I have to trust him to a system that sees him as a number, a criminal only deserving of the minimal amount of care and not even that at times. He told me about a nurse at the hospital who was kind to him and that made everything so much easier. She treated him like a regular patient. When I cannot be there for him, I am grateful for people like that nurse who exhibit compassion beyond the norm.

I know I am not capable of making everything in his life perfect, nor should I try because that is too big of a task to bear, but I do carry around his pain. It is unavoidable. However, I choose to carry his pain with him. I choose to sit with him through the mess that is prison, through the ugliness that is depression, through the pain of loneliness, through the moments of shame and self-loathing, and through the joys that come through reconnecting.

Because not only is he my dad, he is a human being who is not invincible, no matter how much he wishes he was.

Texas prison program aims to produce business-savvy inmates

After 5 years of prison ministry, (2 days/month) at Garner Correction Institution in Newtown, CT, I have the following observations:

1)     Each inmate (person) is unique. In other words, instead of categorizing all prisoners or inmates in a certain way, each is a unique person. Whatever way you want to categorize someone, (e.g., by size, intelligence, age, color, etc.), you’ll find prisoners within the full spectrum of all these categories: tall/short, skinny/fat, smart/not so smart, dark/light, etc. In other words, each is unique.

2)     They are not shown proper respect.  It is one comment I have heard often, “they disrespected me.”  I remember one inmate coming into the chapel seething because he was patted down three times on the way to “Catholic Sharing”. We had a situation when a CO kept needling one of the inmates …..already in the chapel………who after taking it for about a minute used the “F” word, was cuffed and spent two weeks in SEG. Should he have kept his cool?…..absolutely. But seeing how the more effective COs perform their duties, you realize they engender more cooperation with inmates. In our Weekend Retreat, we were singing a song when a CO came in, the music stopped and in front of 9 volunteers and 28 inmates, the CO announced, “XXX, XXXX, you need to get your meds.”  Gene looked up and responded to the CO, “I don’t take meds now”. The CO said, “The nurse is here, gotta take your meds.”

3)     There aren’t enough programs to ensure successful reentry into society. Although guys participate in AA, NA, Anger Management and other programs, there aren’t enough skills development programs to help inmates secure employment once they are released. In one of our sessions, we went around the room with what they’d like to do once released. After 5 guys responded, it became clear they wanted to get into trades such as carpentry, plumbing, sheetrocking, etc. I actually said, “Hey, let’s build a house.” But when they get out (95% are released), they will not have the opportunity to build those skills to realize those dreams.

4)     Inmates have kids. During the first few weeks at Garner, I was surprised when many would pray for their kids at the end of the session.  I expected few if any would have children – after all, they’re prisoners. They must have thought of that before committing a crime. Or, since many were so young, you wouldn’t expect a kid to have kid(s).  If you look at the broader statistics: there are 2.2M prisoners in the US, and 2.7M children of prisoners. What is the impact? Recent studies show the impact is greater than losing a parent or having your parents divorced.  The impact is almost always negative!  First there is the stigma of seeing a parent being arrested – having the police in a show of force, breaking into a home and forceably cuffing and taking away your Mother or Father. There is the social stigma – how do you tell your friends your parent is incarcerated. There is significant guilt. There is a negative impact on social behavior resulting in increased violent outbursts. There are increased mental health issues.  School performance suffers. There is a lowered level of family income since a parent is not able to provide for the family. Because of a loss of parental rights, many children are placed in Foster care.  Many children don’t get the support they need to properly handle a difficult situation.  There is a term which applies to most children of incarcerated parents: Family Boundary Ambiguity. That is, children are not clear who is, or who isn’t a part of the family. Who is performing what role? With an incarcerated Mother, the situation is further exacerbated. With an increased family dysfunction, there is a resulting individual dysfunction. In high crime areas, there can be a Community of Violence – children experience so much criminal behavior, it becomes routine. They become numb to it – their chances of escaping it are limited.

Again, do inmates have children? You bet! Not only do we see the statistics that confirm this, anecdotally we see the same thing. In fact, in our last session at Garner, I sat next to an inmate with………………..…7 children!

So, you can see with increased incarceration, we are NOT creating a safer environment; we are in fact creating MORE problems – not only today, but more importantly in the future. There are very few good outcomes when parents of children are incarcerated.

Norfield Congregational Church, Weston, Connecticut
Sunday, January 18, 2015, 10 am, Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday
Reprinted from Prisonist.org, Sat., Jan. 17, 2015

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight Oh Lord – our Rock and our Redeemer.

Good morning, and welcome to Martin Luther King Sunday at Norfield Church.  What an auspicious day to be speaking, to salute the work and life of Dr. King in song and scripture, and to introduce our ministry to this wonderful congregation in the town in which we live.

My name is Jeff Grant. The title of today’s sermon is, “Authentic.”  And I’ve received a lot of lessons in being “authentic.” That is, lessons not in talking about authenticity, but lessons living an authentic life, and speaking from an authentic place.

Over the next fifteen minutes or so, I am going to do my very best to be authentic. I’m going tell you the story of a how I was transformed from being a successful New York corporate attorney, to becoming addicted to prescription painkillers, to surviving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison, to receiving my Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, to becoming an inner city minister in Bridgeport, to founding, with my wife Lynn, a prison ministry that supports the families of white collar and nonviolent criminals and their families.

I have an admission to make up front – I am a very flawed guy.  I have a lot of other issues that often prevent me from living and working a full day without collapsing. I suffer from bipolar depression.  I have diabetes and kidney problems. I have communication problems with my kids.  And I’m old.  Perhaps you can relate to one or more of these issues?

Let’s start first with the issues I had in writing today’s sermon for Martin Luther King Day.  When I first was asked to preach on this particular day, I had lots of ideas.  I picked out special scriptures to interpret.  I researched deep into the life and ministry of Martin Luther King.  Lynn and I even went to see the new movie “Selma,” about Dr. King – (a great movie, by the way).

I tried to do all these things, but frankly nothing authentic was coming.  I was feeling dejected.  And then, last Sunday we attended church here at Norfield, and in his sermon, Reverend Bernard reminded me that “God Loves Me Just As I Am.”  And in the coffee hour after church, our great friend Jim Hodel came over to me and told me that, when I preach next week, he can’t wait to hear MY STORY.

MY STORY, of course!  MY STORY is why I was asked to speak here today.  MY STORY what has gotten me this far.  And in order to preach on Martin Luther King Day, or any day, all I have to do is be authentic, and trust you with the story of Who I Am and Why I Care.

In so doing, hope and pray that, by fully my revealing MY STORY to you, in some small way it helps you to have the courage and agency to reveal your own authentic story own too.

MY STORY began when I suffered a sports injury in 1992.  I was a young, successful corporate and real estate lawyer with all the trappings – big house in Westchester County, NY, BMW, and vacations to the Caribbean.  You get the picture?

Anyway, I was playing basketball with my biggest client when lightning struck and I ruptured my Achilles tendon.  And in the course of the rehabilitation from that injury I got hooked on painkillers.  I never meant for it to happen – but it did and for over ten years I took them almost every day of my life.   The problem with taking pain killers – at least for me – was that it was insidious.  Day after day, little by little, they cut away at my soul, ate away at my judgment.  If I had had the ability to pull back and look at my life from a distance and see it in five or ten year slice, I probably could have seen how different everything looked over these different time periods.  The compromises I was making.  The physical changes. The mood and behavior issues.  The money problems.  It probably would have been obvious.   But I couldn’t do that – instead, day-by-day the cumulative effect was imperceptible.  I had no way of understanding that I was self-medicating my undiagnosed bipolar disorder.  I was miserable – my weight had ballooned to 285 pounds – I was vomiting up blood from anxiety.  I was spending way more money than I was making.  I was taking more and more painkillers.  I stopped showing up for client meetings.  The law firm was spinning out of control.

One day my office manager came to me and told me that we had a problem.  She told me that we weren’t going to make payroll that week.  How could that be possible?  I had been in business as a lawyer almost twenty years – and despite all the problems, all the madness, the business had grown to become one of the most successful law practices in Westchester County – something I still have no explanation for.   But we were out of cash – I could have done a lot of reasonable things.  I could have called a friend. I could have called the bank.  But my mind was reeling, and the drugs wouldn’t let me focus.  And that’s when I made my deal with the devil.  I told her to borrow the money from the firm’s client escrow account.  She asked me if I was sure that’s what I wanted to do, and I told her to do it.  And with two keystrokes of a computer, my fate was sealed.

I wound up borrowing and replacing client escrow funds a few more times – but the damage was really done the first time.  As these things go, soon there would be a grievance against me that started out over something small – but my client escrow records would be subpoenaed and I would start a three-year battle to retain my law license.  To defend against the defenseless.  Racked with shame and guilt, my pain killer use escalated and I got really out of control.

On Sept. 11th, when I saw the plane hit the second tower, I went into sheer madness.  It was as if the world stopped spinning.  I couldn’t think and I couldn’t work –  I started to lose clients and staff.  I was in a pit of denial and was looking for my way out.  There were commercials on TV and the radio for small business loans for businesses that had been adversely affected by the tragedy – I called and described my problem.  They told me that I qualified for a 9/11 loan.  But even having qualified, I was just too desperate and stoned – and I embellished my loan application to make sure I got the loan.  In a few weeks I did get the loan and I thought I was on track to save my law firm.  But it didn’t help – within a few very short months all the evidence had mounted and it became clear that I was going to lose my grievance case and was going to be disbarred from practicing law.

One day in July 2002 I had enough – I had no more fight left in me.  I just couldn’t take it anymore.  I called my ethics attorney and told him to throw in the towel and resign my law license.  That night, after my wife and kids went to sleep, I sat down in the big easy chair of the den in our house in Westchester, and tried to kill myself.  I swallowed an entire bottle of painkillers.   I just wanted the pain and the madness to stop.

I woke up a few days later in the Acute Care Unit of Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, CT and there was no way of knowing then that instead of my life ending, that my new life had begun.   I made it through seven weeks of rehab and started the long arduous but incredible journey of a road back to life through recovery.   I went to my first recovery meeting on my first night out of Silver Hill Hospital – and at that meeting I did exactly what I was instructed to do.  I raised my hand and said, My name is Jeff, I’m an alcoholic and I need a sponsor.  I met my first sponsor at my very recovery meeting, and have attended almost 9000 meetings since then and have never again touched another drink or a drug.  I am very proud to say that on August 10th of this year, God willing, I will celebrate my 13th sobriety anniversary.

But, of course, we already know that there was more to my story.  I did what any “sane person” would do with no money and no job – I moved my family to Greenwich, Connecticut – perhaps the wealthiest community in the country.  There I became a very involved member in recovery, and took on a lot of responsibilities and commitments.  After all, recovery had saved my life.  Over the first year or two, with so much wreckage to take care of – I had lost my career, my money, I lost our home in foreclosure, my marriage was in shambles.  But recovery was my bedrock – I was staying sober.

One morning, when I had about 20 months of sobriety, I received a call from the FBI.  The agent on the phone told me that there was a warrant out for my arrest in connection with my fraudulent statements on the 9/11 loan.  It had been four years, I was now sober almost two years – and I couldn’t believe that anybody was looking at that loan.  But one of the gifts was that I was able to face this as a sober man, and be there for my family, for my community and for myself sober.

I was sentenced to eighteen months in Federal prison.  For those of you who don’t know how the designation process works in the Federal prison system, basically on the day your name comes up you are designated by your security level – lowest to highest.  I had a security level of “zero” – so I could have been designated to a camp anywhere within 500 miles of our home in Connecticut. But on the day I was designated there were no beds in camps in this area – so I was designated to a Low Security Prison.  And that’s where I went.  On Easter Sunday, 2006, I reported to Allenwood Low Security Corrections Institution in White Deer, Pennsylvania.  And soon found out inside that there was one former lawyer – that would be me – two former doctors, five former stockbrokers, and 1500 drug dealers.  This was real prison and would be home for the next thirteen and a half months.

I was released from prison in 2007 and had to do a stint in a halfway house in Hartford, home detention and then three years of Federal probation.   I also had court ordered drug and alcohol counseling.   It was my counselor – a former Catholic Priest turned drug counselor- who recommended to me that I rebuild my life through volunteerism.  I called my old rehab, Silver Hill Hospital, and asked them if I could come interview for a volunteer position – they told me to come over that day.  We sat and talked for almost two hours, and importantly, I fully disclosed everything that that happened in the past few years.  They asked me to fill out an application and told me that they were going to do a background check – I was nervous.  I figured that if my own rehab wouldn’t take me for a volunteer job, who in the world would ever let me work for them?  I didn’t have to wait long.  Two hours later my phone rang and I was a recovery volunteer for Silver Hill Hospital.   This led me next to becoming a volunteer house manager at Liberation House in Stamford, CT, and then to Family Reentry, a nonprofit serving the ex-offender communities in Bridgeport and New Haven, CT. This was the first organization that asked me to serve on its Board of Directors.  My first project was with my then girlfriend Lynn – now my wife.  We worked with Family Reentry ex-offenders of and converted a blighted inner city block in Bridgeport into the largest privately owned public use park and garden in the State of Connecticut.  It is an oasis and completely revitalized that neighborhood.

All this time we were living in Greenwich and attending recovery meetings – and I became known as the “prison guy.”  I was sharing about going to prison, surviving prison, and staying sober through the entire experience.  Soon hedge fund guys and others who had white-collar legal problems were seeking me out.  Over those ten years, I must have met with and counseled over one hundred guys in various stages of going to or coming back from prison.  It was an eye opening experience and I had no idea that it was going to turn into a ministry.  I was just putting one foot ahead of another.

I went to a Reverend at the church that we were attending in Greenwich, and told him that I was searching for something more meaningful.  He recommended that I apply to Union Theological Seminary in New York City.  I told him that I thought that was a little crazy – for one thing, I’m a Jew.  Next, with my story, how would I ever get accepted to the preeminent urban seminary in the world?  But, he told me that seminaries are in the redemption business – and that I should apply.  And I did.  I was accepted to Union Theological Seminary and went to school there for three years.

In April 2011, I was baptized with water brought back by a friend from the River Jordan. In May 2012 I earned a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary with a Focus in Christian Social Ethics.

A few months later, while still working with white-collar families in Greenwich and doing reentry work in Bridgeport, I accepted an offer from The First Baptist Church of Bridgeport for Lynn and I to start a prison ministry at the church.  You have no idea how blessed we felt to have come from where we came from, and to have a life of service in a community where we could really make a difference.  And where they could make a profound difference in us.   I started to blog about the experience of working in the hood during in the day, and with white-collars in the evening – when lightning struck again.

I received a call from a reporter at a Hedge Fund Magazine who had read my blog – he asked me if I was the “Minister to Hedge Fund Guys?”  He asked if I would do an interview.  And I told him that I would on one condition:  that the story is about the creation of new form of ministry – An Authentic Ministry – that offers a safe space to people from our communities suffering in silence, to share their stories and find support.  It is from this place of authenticity, we can bring together suffering people from affluent and inner city communities, to communicate authentically with each other, and learn from each other.  What resulted was a sensitive and powerful interview that caught the attention of a lot of people.

The Progressive Prison Project and the Innocent Spouse & Children Project are the first ministries in the United States created to support the families of people accused or convicted of white collar and other nonviolent crimes.  These families are everywhere around us – they are in our own town of Weston – suffering in silence.  They receive so little compassion and empathy – and are so easy to “other” – by a world that is all too eager to believe the next sensationalized headline and to ignore the human side.

Since then, so many incredible things have happened in our journey.  Among them, I was invited to join the Board of Directors of Community Partners in Action, in Hartford, CT.  I was asked to join the Editorial Board of the new book, The Justice Imperative, about the state of criminal justice here in Connecticut and in our country.  And we moved from Greenwich to our new home in this lovely town of Weston and started to regularly attend this wonderful church.

Lynn and I now split our time doing inner city prison ministry, and ministering to white-collar people and families.  The wives and children are innocents of situations not of their own doing, in situations where they have often not been independently represented, in which husbands and fathers have gone to prison often leaving them penniless, homeless, shunned by their communities.  For these mothers and children, we have assembled teams of ministers, advocates, lawyers, counselors and other professionals to protect them and get them safely through to a new life in a new family dynamic on the other side of prison.

As I see it, the biggest tragedy of all about white-collar and nonviolent crime is not how big the matter is, or sensationalized the headlines – it is in our failure to see it as an authentic human story, with real people, real brokenness, and real families left behind.

Thank you for this opportunity to be authentic, and share with you My Story.  May God Bless You and Keep You Always.

Amen.

U.S. Panel Proposes Changes To White-Collar Prison Sentences: Reuters

Reprinter from reuters.com, Jan. 12, 2015, By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some executives and others convicted of stock fraud could face shorter prison terms under a U.S. commission’s proposal to change how white-collar criminals are sentenced.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission on Friday released proposals to amend advisory federal guidelines that would shift the emphasis in calculating a sentence for frauds on the market to financial gains instead of investor losses.

The proposal follows years of criticism by defense lawyers and some judges who say that the guidelines focus too much on financial losses caused by fraud, leading in certain cases to sentences that are too harsh. Judges have discretion to impose any sentence, but are required to consider the guidelines.

In stock fraud cases, losses can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, contributing to an advisory sentence of life in prison.

Under the commission’s proposal, judges in these cases would consider the gains from a fraud, a number defense lawyers say would often be considerably smaller.

The Sentencing Commission has scheduled a March 12 hearing on the proposals. The panel has until May 1 to submit any amendments to Congress. If Congress does not act by Nov. 1, the changes become law.

Notable securities fraud defendants include former Enron Corp Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling, who in 2013 had his prison sentence reduced by 10 years to 14 years following appeals, and former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers, who in 2005 was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The commission has proposed setting a threshold sentencing level for gains, ensuring punishment in cases where profits are minimal.

Depending on what floor is set, there is a “very good chance a number of cases would result in lower guideline sentencing ranges,” said David Debold, a lawyer at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who heads up an advisory group to the commission.

Defense lawyers cautioned that the proposed changes would not always result in a lower sentencing range. Some frauds like penny stock manipulation, for example, could involve significant gains to defendants and might still lead to lengthy sentences.

Other proposals would affect the weight given to factors such as the harm to victims and the sophistication of a fraud.

Some defense lawyers say the proposals overall do not sufficiently emphasize a defendant’s culpability and leaves loss as a driving factor for the bulk of fraud cases involving identity theft, mortgage fraud and healthcare fraud.

“These changes don’t go nearly as far as we would have liked,” James Felman, a Florida lawyer and member of an American Bar Association task force advocating changes to the guidelines.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris, the commission’s chair, said in a statement that the panel did not consider “the guideline to be broken for most forms of fraud,” but that its review had identified “some problem areas where changes may be necessary.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Grant McCool)

Connecticut’s 2014 prison population hits lowest level in 16 years: New Haven Register

by Charlene Muhammad Special to the NNPA from The Final Call (FinalCall.com)

In 2014 Black America’s suffering increased at the hands of angry White men in black and blue, who are sworn to protect and serve. But responses to police killings and attacks must be stricter and stronger because police reforms have not worked, analysts say.  “The police represent the state. They are not there to serve the interest of the people, so we have to start with that concept,” said Elaine Brown, a former Black Panther leader. The long-time activist said she couldn’t point to any police reforms that have worked, but she offered some that wouldn’t be difficult to enact, starting with community policing and residency as a priority for qualifying officers.

Officers also need to get out of cars and walk streets, instead of patrolling all day and then jumping out on people and shooting, she added. “Ain’t nobody going into Beverly Hills slapping nobody upside the head and shooting people because they ran out the store, but kids are stealing all day long in Beverly Hills.

But the police are out there. They’re Officer Friendly. Everybody knows them,” Ms. Brown said. “But in the case of the Black community, given our oppressed and depressed status, then we should have police that understand that community. So if they don’t live there, they should at least be walking the beat, so they know Mr. Jones is going to get drunk on Friday night, so there’s not a reason to kill him, or those boys are doing whatever it is they’re doing, but it’s a question of community control,” she said. Part of community control can be reflected in simple reforms, but not cameras, she said. “We already know what that does: Nothing. Although that’s helpful at the end of the day if the camera’s turned on, if they’re not lying and fixing up stuff, acting like it didn’t work that day, and all of that other stuff they do,” Ms. Brown argued. People need a police force that actually has a relationship in the community, but many forces are strikingly different, like Oakland, where at minimum 80 percent of the police are White and don’t live there, Ms. Brown told The Final Call.

In Ferguson, Mo., the epicenter for protests against police killings and brutality, Blacks make up more than 67 percent of Ferguson’s population, yet there are only three Blacks on its 53-man police force. “You’ve got racial divide. You’ve got White cops policing Black communities … and that’s not to say that the Blacks don’t often participate in this stuff; but generally speaking, if you live in the neighborhood, you ain’t going to be shooting Billy Bob like it ain’t nothing. You’ve got to go home. It’s just a practical question really,” Ms. Brown argued. The irony, she said, is the recent spate of police killings didn’t occur in the South, but rather in places like New York. Then there was the non-indictment of officers in the Aug. 5 police killing of John Crawford in a Walmart in Dayton, Ohio, which has many feeling it’s “open season” on Blacks. Between Michael Brown, Jr., the unarmed 18-year-old shot to death in Ferguson and John Crawford, killed in the toy gun aisle of a Wal-Mart, there were other Black and Latino men, youth and women slain by police. Even the outgoing U.S. attorney general admits crime reduction is tied to public trust. In early December, Attorney General Eric Holder said President Barack Obama had instructed his team to draft an executive order creating a Task Force on 21st Century Policing. The task force will prepare a report and recommendations within 90 days of its creation.

President Obama has also proposed a three-year, $263 million investment in 50,000 body-worn cameras for police officer, expanded training for law enforcement agencies, and additional resources for police reform, including additional opportunities for the Department of Justice to facilitate community and local law enforcement engagement. “Particularly in light of  recent incidents we’ve seen at the local level and the concerns about trust in the criminal justice process which so many have raised throughout the nation, it’s imperative that we take every possible action to institute sound, fair and strong policing practices,” Atty. Holder said. The Justice for Mike Brown Leadership Coalition’s Five Point Plan of Action calls for creation of civilian review boards, use of cameras and cell phones to document encounters with police and creation of a national database to document charges of police harassment and brutality. The National Urban League’s 10 recommendations include review and revision of police use of deadly force policies, widespread use of body and patrol car dashboard cameras, and appointment of special prosecutors to investigate police misconduct. Many aren’t convinced such “reforms” will do much good. “Let’s just say they did work. The lapel cameras can show a police officer in the wrong, and, they go before a grand jury. We’ve still got to get past the grand jury level. We’ve still got to get past a district attorney who is going to prosecute that police officer … his best friend,” commented Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson.

Former BART officer Johannes Mehserle who fatally shot unarmed Oscar Grant III

Despite reforms gained by his family and the Oakland community after former Bay Area Rapid Transit officer Johannes Mehserle fatally shot his unarmed nephew Oscar Grant, III. on a station platform on Jan. 1, 2008, not much has changed, said the activist. If by chance people get past a prosecutor, they still have to deal with juries that are so overwhelmed with White supremacy that Blacks, Whites and Latinos tend to rule in favor of police, Mr. Johnson continued. People can still be forced to peel away layers of the criminal justice system, only to be denied justice by a judge who overturns a just jury verdict, as did L.A. Judge Robert Perry in his nephew’s case, Mr. Johnson said. “We’ve seen it over and over again … in reality, it’s no fairness. It’s just protection of police officers, so the simple reforms of a police officer does not take away the ill-effect of the criminal justice system. This whole system has to be revamped,” he told The Final Call. The Justice for Oscar Grant movement was able to get lapel cameras for officers, additional training on handling mental health patients, a law allowing for an independent auditor that would report directly to the BART Board and investigate public complaints, an 11-man citizen review board to participate in disciplinary actions and 81 recommendations tied to police use of force, training, and community engagement. The suggestions came out of an independent review of BART by the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. “Whether those reforms have done anything or actually helped, I’d have to say from what I’m seeing on a consistent basis, no,” Mr. Johnson said. The oversight review board and the auditor were never adequately funded by BART and both are controlled by the police chief, who can deny any claim, he continued.

While people can appeal to the department’s general manager, normally, the general manager will side with the chief, so no real improvements have been made, Mr. Johnson said. “In many respects, we still have no real ability to implement any kind of punishment or terminate a police officer when they’re actually in the wrong,” Mr. Johnson said. As for lapel cameras, officers still aren’t turning them on when needed, he said. BART police are supposed to activate cameras before making contact with anyone, but in Dublin, Calif., where one officer was shot by another during a probation search, none of the officers present either wore or activated their cameras, he noted. “These officers are turning them on and off at will to cover themselves when they know they’re in the wrong. Again, here we have another failure of some type of reform when it comes to cameras not working. Officers can’t be held accountable if the lapel cameras are not turned on, or, if they’re turned off during encounters, there has to be real harsh discipline, and that isn’t taking place,” he said. In mid-April, activists pressed to no avail Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck to find and discipline officers who broke antennas on police vehicles and interfered with audio recordings made while patrolling predominantly Black and Brown communities. Officers removed 72 of approximately 160 antennas from cars that patrolled South L.A. the L.A. Times reported. Officials didn’t investigate who broke the antennas, nor did department officials, but they did issue warnings and put an antenna tracking plan in place for each shift.

A group of protesters chant “Black lives matter” outside of a window of the West Oakland Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train station after 14 protesters were arrested after they formed a human chain on a platform to stop trains from moving in Oakland, Calif., Nov. 28.

In the midst of #BlackLivesMatter protests over the non-indictments in the Michael Brown, Jr. and Eric Garner killings, activists noted that police murders of Blacks have a long history and are not something that occurred overnight. Calls for reform aren’t new either, activists note. “First of all, they don’t need no reform. They already know the law,” insisted Amen Rahh, professor emeritus of Africana Studies at California State University-Long Beach. “It’s the whole criminal justice system, not just the police beating you and shooting you. It’s the justice system that lets them go when they do it.” “They don’t need reform to treat White folks. Why they need reform to treat us? They just need to have a balance, and they must pay a price, a national price, whenever they hurt any African American anywhere.” Prof. Rahh recommended using an independent Black political party to push legislation that punishes abusive cops and hold hearings on violations of law. Blacks also need a national economic policy and must pursue their own agenda to survive, he added. “As long as we’re marching for peace, reform and policy change, they’ve been dealing with that for years. They don’t care about that, because they’ve been killing us all the time … but we must push our agenda, a Black national empowerment program, from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. He always taught us to be organized as a people and to develop unity,” Prof. Rahh said.

Today on NPR’s StoryCorps: Click here to hear them tell their moving story.

James Taylor says it was almost impossible to find a job after he was released from prison in 1999. He had been serving 7 years for weapons possession and drug charges.

But then he met Darlene Lewis. Darlene runs an organization dedicated to helping former inmates find jobs, preparing them for interviews, placing them with local businesses and advocating for them in court. She’s helped thousands of men and women.

“When you first met me, you was almost in tears,” Darlene says.

“You sat me down. You found out what it was I was trying to do, and if I couldn’t get what I was trying to do, what would I like to do then?” James says.

The first job Darlene sent him to was at McDonald’s. “I became a manager, and then I lost the job, but you were right there waiting to pick me up and send me somewhere else — because I know where quick money is, and that’s part of what leads you back into the streets,” he says. “But you continued to help me and push me when I’d fall.”

“You know, you was going to fall off the wagon ’cause we all do,” Darlene says. “But I knew you’d come back. I always knew that, ’cause of your heart and because of your sincerity. I knew eventually that you was going to make it.”

“You have been a mother to me. You took me in, and I mean, I couldn’t replace you in my life. If I tried, I mean, I’d be searching forever.”
– James Taylor

Today, James works as a videographer and youth mentor. He recently started his own media advertising company.

The biggest misconception people have about him, he says, is that he hasn’t changed. “They’re still waiting for that guy to come back. They don’t think that what I’m doing now is real. Even though I have faults, I look in the mirror and I like what I see,” James says.

“Do you ever feel like I’ve been too hard on you?” Darlene asks.

“Yeah! But during those times that I feel like that, I remember prison,” he says. “When you’re hard on us, it’s love in it. You care. They didn’t. You have been a mother to me. You took me in, and I mean, I couldn’t replace you in my life. If I tried, I mean, I’d be searching forever.”

“We make a good team,” Darlene says.

“Yes ma’am, we do.”

Produced for Morning Edition by Liyna Anwar.

StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.

I too served a bit of time at the Danbury Federal Prison Camp, where I met the spirited Beatrice Codianni. It was her wisdom and support that made my time there bearable and purposeful. With all the media circus around another famous celebrity sentenced to serve time there, she was swamped with phone calls about what Mrs. Guidice could expect. Beatrice decided to speak up and out… appearing on several news programs. Yes, of course all the meaningful stuff was edited out, yes, she was taken out of context. So in effort to walk in truth, she penned this important and powerful piece that appeared first on the Reentry Central website where she is the Managing Editor and in the paper I am Editor-in-chief of, the Inner-City News. Beatrice and I are friends and Sisters in the hyper-mass incarceration struggle. Babz Rawls Ivy, Online Editor and Content Curator.

What the Tabloids Did Not Tell You about Prison and Teresa Guidice
By Beatrice Codianni  

Originally posted in Reentry Central on  January 7, 2014

When it was announced that Teresa Guidice was going to be sent to Danbury Federal Prison Camp for crimes involving bankruptcy fraud and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, Reentry Central was inundated with phone calls from the media asking if we would speak to them about what it would be like for her in the Danbury Camp.

At first we were apprehensive. We did not want to be a part of exploiting Teresa’s situation. But when several reporters suggested that prison camps were comfortable, laid back places I felt that, as Managing Editor of Reentry Central, I had to speak up on behalf of the women, Teresa included, who are incarcerated at the Camp.

The following are just some of the facts I spoke about that unfortunately ended up on the cutting room floor:

• There are 2.2 million people incarcerated in America, the largest incarceration rate in the world.
• One in 28 children in America have a parent behind bars.
• There is a hugely disproportionate amount of African Americans behind bars, and the criminal justice system is racist.
• Most parents who are sentenced are not afforded the opportunity of serving staggered sentences as Teresa and her husband were allowed to do.
• Many children of incarcerated parents end up in foster care.
• Prison camps are a waste of taxpayers’ dollars because people can only be sentenced to a prison camp if they are not a threat to society. It is much more cost effective to sentence a person convicted of a non-violent crime to an alternative-to-incarceration program.
• The majority of people who are released from prison have a really hard time finding a job, or a place to live, (unlike Teresa who stands to profit from her experiences via paid interviews, a book, and maybe a reentry reality show.)

I knew when I was asked to speak that the focus was going to be on Teresa Guidice, but I was hoping that a crucial fact, or two, regarding the harsh realities of America’s criminal justice system would be reported. I was wrong. The prison camp at Danbury is not “cushy.“ Nor is incarceration funny as is portrayed in the Orange is the New Black series. Until the media focuses on the real story about mass incarceration in America instead of on a few celebrities who go to prison, there will continue to be public apathy toward millions of average human beings warehoused behind bars.

The truth can only set us free if we are aware of it. What Teresa can buy on commissary should not outweigh the real facts concerning mass incarceration.

Beatrice Codianni is the Managing Editor of Reentry Central. She is also a member of Real Woman, Real Voices, an organization created to educate the public about issues that women, particularly mothers, face during incarceration and reintegration back into the community. Beatrice served 15 years in federal prison. www.reentrycentral.org