Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

MARION - The Ohio State University - Marion sociology lecturer Brenda Chaney plans to lead a group of college students through an exchange program with the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville.

According to a news release, Chaney plans to have a group of students participate in the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, which invites college students and inmates to come together and learn in the same classroom. The program is national, headquartered at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa., and includes 12 colleges and universities with about 7,500 students involved to date.

Chaney is hopeful that the students and inmates will write papers, read books, discuss social issues, do presentations and take part in a graduation ceremony together.

"Students will learn that there is a fine line between who goes to prison and who goes to college," she said in a statement. "Students will learn that a slight change in circumstance could put them in the other place."

Chaney will go through specialized training provided by the Inside-Out program. She said the program, which is being offered as an Ohio State Marion course, could benefit any student but particularly those focusing on criminology, sociology and psychology.

Chaney can be reached at 740-725-6282 or by email at chaney.2@osu.edu.

Facebook stalker turned email hacker sentenced to four years in prison; sent nude photos of victims.

George Bronk, 24, was sentenced to four years in prison.

A California man who searched women's Facebook pages for clues that allowed him to break into their email accounts was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday.

Prosecutors said George Bronk would take over the email accounts, then search their email folders for nude pics they sent – and then forward it to their entire contact list – including their families, friends and coworkers.

Brown pleaded guilty in January to charges that included false impersonation, possession of child pornography and computer intrusion.

"This case serves as a stark example of what occurs in so-called cyberspace. It has very real consequences," Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Brown said.

Prosecutors expressed concern that Bronk, 24, demonstrated a "high degree of callousness" though an evaluation by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation showed that Bronk demonstrated remorse and said he was an alcoholic.

According to prosecutors, the 24-year-old began his email attacks while taking care of his ailing parents in December of 2009 and continued them until he was busted last September.

After he took over victims' accounts, he taunted them and would even threaten some into sending more explicit photos.

Perhaps even more frightening, according to prosecutors, he proved that social networking can provide easy information to make many people's emails hackable.

"The victims we went to said 'I had very robust passwords.' But it didn't matter how robust the password was if the recovery question is easy," Robert Morgester said. "Lost your password? What's your favorite color or what high school did you go to? Or what's your dog's name? And he was able to glean that information from social media."

Prosecutors told the AP there were victims in at least 17 states.

The California creep isn't the only person sentenced even this month for wreaking havoc on someone's life by hacking into their email. In Minnesota, Barry Ardolf was sentenced to 18 years in prison after he hacked into his next door neighbor's Wi-Fi network and among other things, used his email account to send sexual emails to the victims' coworkers as well as threaten to kill Vice President Joe Biden.

Education liberated me from a life of crime

Bob Cummines, OBE, FRSA and chief executive of Unlock, the national association of ex-offenders, was formerly a notorious bank robber.


"Education liberated me from a life of crime," says Bobby Cummines, now a life fellow of the RSA, soon to receive an honorary master's from the Open University, and, last month, awarded the OBE by the Queen at Buckingham Palace for his services to reformed offenders. It's not bad for a former armed robber who spent a total of 13 years in high security prisons before deciding he needed to change for the better.

As founder member and chief executive of Unlock, the national association of reformed offenders, Cummines has spent the last 12 years campaigning against the social exclusion and discrimination that stymies the efforts of many reformed offenders to "go straight."

He leads a team of four staff operating from a tiny office above a dentist in Snodland, Kent. Unlock receives no government funding and relies on charity donations for its existence. But the organisation thinks big and boasts some significant successes in its fight for the right of offenders who have served their sentences and have a desire to live crime-free, productive lives to be treated by fairly by the rest of society.

A notable success was persuading sections of the insurance and banking industries of the merits of welcoming prisoners and ex-prisoners as customers. Unlock has established a specialist insurance broker service and now has a list of 17 insurers on its Insurance and Convictions Consumer Guidance leaflet. Working with Halifax and Barclays, Cummines has developed a guide to enable prison staff to assist people in prison or on the verge of release to open bank accounts. "The emphasis of our work is to reduce the likelihood of re-offending by people who have served their sentences," he says. "Without bank accounts people cannot access the financial services the rest of us take for granted."

It is hard to imagine that Cummines was ever part of a criminal culture. But like many who end up in prison, he started young. "I was a bright kid, but I never played by the rules. I was from a big Irish family of eight children. We lived in King's Cross in London when it was at its worst with drugs, gangs, prostitutes, you name it. To get out of the slums you became a bricklayer, joined the army or became a villain. Thieving was quite acceptable, so long as you didn't rob your own people."

He left school at 15 with no qualifications, but got a job in a shipping office. He puts the wrong turn his life took down to his first encounter with the police. "I was in a park with my mates when somebody let off a starting pistol. The police were called and began bullying us. I stood up to them." He says the police returned later and produced a cut-throat razor they said was his. "It was a fit-up," he says. "My dad said the police don't tell lies, plead guilty, you'll get a fine and it'll be forgotten about in a few years."

He got the fine, but his bosses at the shipping office saw his guilty plea and sacked him. "I was gutted," he says. "I thought, if you want me to be bad I'll show you how bad I can be." Within a year he was sentenced to six months in a detention centre for the possession of a sawn off shotgun. "It was supposed to be a short sharp shock, but it was just violence practised against vulnerable kids. I came out of there tougher and angrier than ever."

Over the next two decades Cummines established himself as a hard-core professional criminal. "If I had carried on, I would either have been shot dead by the police or innocent members of the public could have been shot."

The change came while he was serving a 12-year sentence and he credits a prison education officer, a prison probation officer and a former south London gang boss. "I started studying social science and psychology with the Open University. I began reading about deviant behaviour and thought, 'I'm reading about me!' The more I read, the more I realised I didn't have to be the way I was. The high I used to get from crime was replaced by a bigger high from learning."

Cummines left prison for the last time almost 25 years ago. He struggled to get work and fit into the "straight" world, but eventually succeeded, getting a degree at Greenwich University and going on to hold senior positions with various employers. "Getting work was hard because I had to make up my employment history," he says. "To live an honest life, I had to be dishonest about my past. That was one of my motivations for joining Unlock and one of the things we are campaigning to resolve," he says. As chief executive he has been a member of the home affairs select committee inquiry into the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, an expert witness on to the home affairs select committee on prisoner education and a specialist adviser in the 2004 public inquiry into murder of Zahid Mubarek in Feltham Young Offenders Institution.

"Prison doesn't work, education works," Cummines concludes. His one big dream is for a series of super academies, which he has christened the Diamond Project. The aim would be to provide training, education, advice and guidance for low tariff offenders and those at risk of breaking the law. Cummines and his colleagues have spent years working on the proposals. They held talks with the last Labour government and have met the coalition government. During his last meeting with Lord McNally, minister of state for justice, the peer promised to arrange meetings between Unlock and other senior officials.

The recent government review of prisoner education pledged to put education and training at the heart of Ken Clarke's promised "rehabilitation revolution" in our jails. Cummines, who has already secured the promise of several hundred million pounds' worth of private finance for the project, is hopeful. "I told Lord McNally, 'People usually come here to ask you for money, but I want to give you money,'" he says, smiling.

With an average cost of £37,000 a year to keep someone in prison and the cost of re-offending estimated by the home office at between £9bn and £13bn a year perhaps he has a point.

"They would be investing in good behaviour. You can educate people out of crime. Or you can educate people into crime, by giving them no education and banging them up with experienced criminals."

Prisoners reintroduction to society

In the Federal & State, prisoners face many problems upon release. Most releases have limited financial resources or none at all.

Many do not have employment, and some do not have homes or families to whom they may return. Most of them receive indifferent or hostile reactions or treatment from the community. Those who have been in prison for long periods of time have the additional problems of catching up on how our contemporary society does things.

All encounter emotional problems in reacting to the new environment and many feel depressed, estranged, lonely and rejected.

One official said, “Some organizations such as their local community Church help prepare prisoners for release, but the availability of pre-release programs is limited.”

I am of the view that Federal & State Prisons should offer training programs to assist prisoners in preparing them for release or a gradual re-entry into society. Prisons should make some attempts to deal with the two most immediate problems; money and jobs.

I believe that there are a variety of ways to assist prisoners in making this transition. One is to develop better pre-release programs. These programs are to be held within the prison environment. The purpose is to train the prisoner or offender in ways of daily living such as how to get a job, how to keep a job, how to relate to family members and others, and how to live in a world that may have changed significantly since the offender began his or her period of incarceration.

I also believe that pre-release programs should include educational and vocational programs, treatment programs or life enrichment programs, in which offenders are taught how to control their emotions, plan for the future and establish goals.

The second problem for ex-prisoner or ex-offender is employment. I was informed by a top prison official in an interview that there are programs at Federal & State Facility's that help prisoners for employment, such as survival skills (carpentry, painting, farming etc), goal setting, stress management, and reintegration into society.

During the said interview, the official said that the prisoners are taught how to manage money and they participate in recreational and other leisure activities. I suggested to the official that there should be decision making and problems solving classes as well.

However, from a recent study I have conducted where I interviewed a number of ex-prisoners, I have concluded that the employment picture is very bleak for ex-offenders and that many of them have not had adequate training before or during incarceration. So, the prison becomes a revolving door for most of them.

They come out and go right back in. As a community, we need to try and alleviate this problem. One way to start is by implementing the mentioned programs for the prisoners before they are release from the Correctional Institution.

SureShot Books helps Prison Inmates

SureShot Books makes it possible for family and friends of prison inmates to send books to prisoners as well as sending magazines to inmates and we also have newspapers available from all states.

SureShot Books is part of the SureShot 2k family of companies that was founded in 1990 to help the families of prison inmates to make it possible for their loved ones to improve their lives through education enabled by providing them the ability to send books to inmates to help them learn useful life skills, which also has an influence how efficiently an inmate will respond upon release.

Here at SureShot Books, we fervently believe that the fact that you have made a mistake does and should not mean that your life is ruined forever. We believe that everyone deserves a second chance.

Based on studies made by the US Department of Corrections, an inmate that takes the opportunity to improve their education while incarcerated has a much better chance of reintegrating into society and becoming a productive contributing member of society. Providing books for prisoners is an effective method of helping them to improve their lives.

Our hope is that by enabling families and friends to send books to inmates we can have a positive influence on the lives of both the inmate and his or her family. Families can help their loved ones by ordering books from the comfort of their homes.

To make education available to more inmates, SureShot Books has a complete library of books, newspapers, magazines and greeting cards available in Spanish so the fact that a prisoner may not speak English well does not prevent him or her from taking advantage of our books for prisoners due to a language problem. We also have books that can help them to improve their English comprehension or any other language.

Looking ahead, SureShot Books remains committed to ensuring that stable, secure and reasonably priced supplies of Books, newspapers, & magazines are available to inmates at all times.

To make the prisoners able to interact with their children even though they are away, we have added a NEW program where inmates can order Children's Books from our catalog or web-site and have them send directly to their children.

We firmly believe that even though a prisoner's body is locked up, their mind can always be free to travel the world and learn about anything they are interested through the magic or books.

visit us @ www.sureshotbooks.com

Did jail strip search go too far?

A federal appeals court ruled that a woman's intimate search of a male inmate – which was filmed and watched by dozens – was unreasonable. The Supreme Court declined to take the case.


Washington

The US Supreme Court declined on Monday to examine a federal appeals court ruling that the strip search of a male detainee by a female guard in an Arizona jail was an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The action lets stand a 6-to-5 ruling by the full Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco involving a search conducted by a female cadet at a jail run by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department.

The case comes at a time of heightened public awareness of intrusive searches as a condition of air travel, including intimate pat downs and technology capable of simulating a strip search. The case dismissed on Monday, however, took place in the context of a jail.

How much do you know about the US Constitution? A quiz.

At issue was a 2004 search of Charles Byrd, a pretrial detainee, at a minimum security jail in Phoenix.

Mr. Byrd was one of 90 detainees ordered to submit to a unit-wide search for contraband and weapons. Byrd was told to remove his clothing except his boxer shorts, which were described as pink and comprised of very thin, revealing material. The searches took place four to six at a time. Some were conducted by cadets from the detention officer training academy. Present during the searches were an estimated 25 cadets, a number of training supervisors, and 10 to 15 uniformed guards. The procedure was also videotaped.

Byrd said in his lawsuit that he should not be subject to such an intrusive search by a female guard. He also charged that the female guard – later identified as Cadet Kathleen O’Connell – squeezed his genitals and kneaded his buttocks during the search.

Unlike a standard strip search, which involves visual inspection of the naked body, Byrd’s search was a cross between a pat-down search and a strip search. Rather than a visual inspection, Byrd’s search relied on the sense of touch to identify concealed weapons or contraband.

The cadet ran her hands over parts of Byrd’s body, including the most private parts of his body. The cadet estimated the search took 10 to 20 seconds; Byrd says it was closer to 60 seconds.

No weapons or contraband were found. But the experience left Byrd feeling humiliated.

A federal judge threw out portions of his lawsuit but allowed a jury to decide whether the incident was an unreasonable and unconstitutional search. The jury ruled against Byrd.

A federal appeals court panel upheld the jury’s conclusion.

The full Ninth Circuit in San Francisco agreed to hear Byrd’s appeal. The court split 6 to 5, ruling that the cross-gender strip search performed on Byrd was unreasonable and violated his Fourth Amendment rights.

“The indignity of the non-emergency strip search conducted by an unidentified female cadet was compounded by the fact that there were onlookers, at least one of whom videotaped the humiliating event,” wrote Judge Johnnie Rawlinson for the court majority.

“Courts throughout the country have universally frowned upon cross-gender strip searches in the absence of an emergency or exigent circumstances,” Judge Rawlinson said.

Judge N. Randy Smith filed a dissent joined by four other judges. “Not lightly do I find reasonable a female officer’s probing search of a male detainee wearing only thin boxer shorts,” Judge Smith said. “Nevertheless, I believe the precedent and the facts compel this result, unsavory to our sensibilities though that result may be.”

Smith said he felt the case was more a pat-down search than strip search, since Byrd wore his boxers throughout the procedure.

The judge said court precedent allows female officers to conduct pat-down searches of the groin area of fully clothed male inmates. He said precedent also allows female officers to observe unclothed male inmates in their cells and in the showers.

Smith said judges should defer to decisions made by corrections officials regarding such searches. With 10,000 prisoners in the Maricopa jail system, there are not enough male guards to conduct all the searches necessary to run the jail, he said.

Restricting the ability of female guards to conduct certain kinds of searches might “perpetuate sexist notions that a female is only useful when a male is not available,” Smith said in his dissent.

The judge added: “Instead of converting Durango Jail into a target for equal opportunity litigation, I defer to the prison officials’ reasoned and sensible judgment on these matters.”

The case is Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department v. Byrd (10-1201).

116 Federal Prisons in the U.S. provide e-mail access

The Facebook page reads: "We are inmates in the federal system who are looking for someone to talk to. We have e-mail capability so we may chat."

A few caveats: "You must be educated and (non-ghetto) please." Oh, and only women need reply.

Welcome to 21st-Century prison life, a world where those on the inside can communicate with those on the outside via cyberspace.

As of this month, all 116 federal prisons in the U.S. provide e-mail access to qualifying inmates who pay 5 cents per minute to use the computer.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons reads all the e-mails, and recipients have to agree to be contacted.


Internet access, though, remains off-limits.

Some states are following suit.

Kansas, for example, lets inmates use e-mail, online banking and videoconferencing with friends and family. Washington state has installed e-mail kiosks in several large prisons. And North Dakota lets inmates e-mail those on pre-approved lists.

Michigan uses a program called JPay, which lets outsiders e-mail inmates. But prisoners cannot reply electronically.

"We still have to ensure facility security," said John Cordell, a Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman, pointing out that full-scale e-mail "is not viable for us."

Maybe in the future, he said. But for now, snail mail, pay phones and personal visits will have to do.
Nearly 122,300 U.S. inmates qualify to use e-mail

Prisoners have been trying to find ways to communicate with the outside world for years, even secreting smartphones into footballs tossed over security fences.

But now, federal prisons have another high-tech -- and sanctioned -- option to stay in touch.

This spring, the Federal Bureau of Prisons officially made e-mail available in all 116 of its prisons, with nearly 122,300 inmates -- more than half the federal prison population -- already qualifying for the program. The idea is to help inmates keep ties with the community and family members by letting them talk online.

Of course, inmates trying to communicate with the outside world isn't new. Cell phones and smartphones are getting smuggled inside by the thousands.

But prison officials say e-mail offers a link that can be easily monitored. The messages going in and out are screened. The recipients are pre-approved, and only those who agree to be e-mailed can get messages.

"The Bureau of Prisons has taken a lot of pains to make sure that any security concerns are taken care of. If the public is scared that some inmate is going to be stalking in cyberspace, that is not going to happen," said Elizabeth Kelley, co-chairwoman of the Corrections Committee for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Kelley, a supporter of the prison e-mail system, said it lets inmates go over matters with their lawyers without requiring a visit. It also helps prisoners conduct limited job searches, reaching out to employers who may be willing to hire ex-offenders.

"We know that maintaining ties to the community is absolutely essential to the re-entry process," Kelley said.

No tax dollars are used for the program, known as TRULINCS -- Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer System. The program is funded by profits from inmate purchases of commissary products and telephone services. Inmates are charged 5 cents per minute to use the computer.

Based on recent Internet activity, inmates are doing plenty of cybertalking.
Tweets from Riddle

In state and federal prisons nationwide, cell phones and smartphones are regularly smuggled in -- in some cases getting tossed over fences -- leaving the corrections community scrambling to stay on top of the problem.

Inmates are texting, tweeting and posting on Facebook, thumbing their noses at rules banning Internet use.

The ever-defiant Detroit political consultant Sam Riddle continues to update his Twitter page from federal prison, most recently posting photos of himself and fellow inmates in North Carolina, where he is serving a 37-month bribery sentence.

In California, notorious cult leader Charles Manson was caught twice in recent months with a cell phone in his prison cell.

In Georgia, a group of inmates used smartphones to organize a strike, triggering lockdowns at four facilities in December.

In South Carolina, a guard was shot six times in September after an inmate used a smuggled cell phone to order a hit on the man at his home.
Inside Michigan prisons

It is those kinds of stories that keep the Michigan Department of Corrections Internet-free.

MDOC spokesman John Cordell said Michigan hasn't yet decided to jump on the prison e-mail bandwagon. In addition to the federal prison system, a handful of states are allowing inmates to e-mail family, friends and their lawyers.

"Michigan has a pretty strict Internet-based policy. There are no network connections inside the prison setting that a prisoner could utilize," said Cordell, noting any kind of Internet use could jeopardize inmate and public security, even tightly monitored e-mail.

Instead, Michigan inmates communicate using the pay phone, written letters or actual visits at the prison, he said.

There's also JPay, a system that allows outsiders to send an e-mail to the prison a printed copy is delivered to the inmate. But the prisoner can't respond via e-mail.

"It's one of the things that ultimately we may consider," Cordell said of full-scale e-mail. "But right now, it's not something that's viable for us."

That's too bad, say prisoner advocates and criminal defense lawyers.

They say prison e-mail has several benefits: it's easier to monitor and read than regular mail, it's cheaper than pay phones for inmates, and it helps prepare inmates for re-entry by keeping them in touch with the outside world.

"That's a lot more reasonable than them using the phones," said criminal defense attorney Anthony Chambers, who has several clients in federal prison and views prison e-mail as "extremely helpful."

Chambers is serving as standby counsel to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian national charged with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25, 2009.
Abdulmutallab is detained at a federal prison in Milan, but he is among those who do not have access to e-mail.

Neither does former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who is in state prison in Jackson on a probation violation stemming from the text message scandal that drove him from office.

Visit www.sureshotbooks.com for inmate books, magazine's, newspapers & gifts