Rew,
I think much of what you say is true to a point but the winds of change are shifting as of late. I think this way of thinking was especially true during the eighties through the nineties and maybe into the early two thousands. But over the past ten years we've begun to see a fundamental change. Starting with questions with how prisoners are treated and reintroduced into society and reducing recidivism. It begun to snowball, looking at solitary confinement, prison sentences, therapy, support structure and on and on. We've begun to see more and more cases that shine the light on how prison isn't the answer from the Micheal Cornelius Anderson case to some of the numerous recent statutory rape cases. How work programs, therapy and social programs can be a better deterrent than prison. It's making the news more and more, in fact I'm hearing more and more politicians talking about it, the topic even made the rounds at the Democratic debate. It's happening, it's slow but it's happening.

Frog,

There may be pockets of success here and there, but personally I do not think the prison sentences are getting shorter nor do I think that the conditions in prison are improving either. But I do applaud your optimism.

Being an election year, there is a lot of talk about prison reform, but nothing has been done yet, and I doubt if those elected ever truly address prison reform once they are in office.

According to the Sentencing Project, there has been an increase in the number of inmates in the United States from year to year. See the graph-----

http://tinyurl.com/p7w29yt

If you look at the first graph---the one with the blue fill in--- you can see that the prison population in the United States has skyrocketed in the last several years. Unless there has been some kind of miraculous change in the last year or so, we are continuing to send more and more young men and women to prison.

You said, "The winds of change are shifting as of late."

According to FAMM, "The length of federal child pornography sentences has increased 500 percent in the last 15 years."

That does not sound like a favorable wind of change. In fact it sounds like an F5 tornado in the opposite direction.

We continue to have more and more prison deaths, fewer programs, zero programs for the mentally ill in prison, and the conditions have severely deteriorated in the last 10 years.

http://tinyurl.com/nanpnwy

The prison system in this country is on life support at the moment.

The length of sentences have certainly not decreased at all. I think much of the talk about better inmate programs, less solitary confinement, better prison conditions is nothing but talk----and that is about it.

Regarding the prison conditions, in Oklahoma the private prison corporations are charging Oklahoma 16% more than last year for the prison space to house their inmates and as a result Oklahoma is REDUCING inmate programs and services to take up the slack.

http://tinyurl.com/pkdwy2c

What I am hearing from my sources, solitary confinement continues to be a huge problem, and it is getting worse. They use a lot of solitary confinement as it is cheaper to house inmates in that manner than to pay guards to control everything; a 23 hour a day lockdown only requires a shift Captain and one or two officers per 180 men or so.

http://tinyurl.com/oyv6eja

You might ask the ACLU how the prison conditions have worsened over the years.

None of the people I speak with have observed any better conditions in either state or federal prisons.

rewdiazepam

I think charges of CP are certainly the most brutal of whipping posts right now and I can understand. But the feds just released 6 or 7 thousand in one fell swoop, the most mass release ever. I've read some states are considering the same. Ct has closed three prisons and has passed the second chance program. Ct has also started a study on is sex offender laws and policies realizing that it's blanket policy doesn't really work. Same goes for Nevada and CA with Nevada thinking of the radical approach of abolishing the public registry. NH has passes legislation requiring juries MUST be notified of jury nullification. So there are bright spots.

Yes, Frog, there are some bright spots. But prison conditions and reasonable sentences are not one of them. I also don't see the conditions of probation getting much better for a sex offender, either.

I think we are possibly talking about two different things here. I will wholeheartedly agree that there is real reform in the future regarding the sex offender registries. The politicians and our leaders will drag their feet as long as possible, but the tide is turning in that area. Too many people---voters AND parents with teens----have seen the light and are willing to accept some changes in the registry, which was NOT true 10 years ago.

More people----and not just registrants and their families----are clamoring for more reasonable registries, or to have it abolished altogether. The general public is not behind prison reform; only the families of inmates.

The one factor that might bring prison reform to the forefront sooner is the cost. This nation is spending a ton of money trying to house every Tom, Dick, or Harry that commits even a minor crime. We do have that in our favor.

BUT for all the board members and their loved ones, yes, registry reform is coming, although it will be very, very slow. But there is much hope in this area.

Looking back, I have never seen a time when things look as favorable for us as right now. The AWA was certainly a huge bump in the road, BUT we are making steady progress in our fight for fair treatment.

rewdiazepam

Yes incarceration, probation, and the registry are three different topics all sort of entwined together.

As far as conditions go that varies from state to state, prison to prison. The cost is definitely becoming an ever increasing burden and states are finally waking up to that. Luckily here where I live they are trying to do something about it. One inmate I talked to took all the programs offered and has turned his life around. He managed through a prison work program to get certified in becoming a personal trainer and yoga instructor. Yes not all prisons have these programs but should, I gaurentee the recidivism rate would go down with these types of programs more wide spread.

Yes you are right we're starting to see bright spots in registry reform. It will happen but slowly. I also think sex offender probation will slowly reform as well as recent cases have highlighted some of the ridiculousness of the restrictions. People need to work and be able to have housing.

The reason why I brought up NH passing legislation on jury nullification is the fact there have been recent cases where jury nullification has worked. The fact that in NH a jury must be notified of it is astonishing and maybe other states will adopt it. It could become a real weapon and more widespread in keeping the people that don't deserve a harsh punishment out of prison. People are human and make mistakes.

HATE SPEACH rolls down hill: Speaking of wrongful convictions: There is even a "Registry of the Wrongly Convicted" who are finally found to be Actually innocent HOWEVER I propose a Registry for the ACTUAL Rabid Prosecutors Registry of the politically inclined who went ahead and prosecuted when the ACTUALLY KNEW they didn't have a real case just a lot of prejudice and fear-mongering to set before a jury of equally prejudiced "citizens"
The problem often is that AFTER conviction the prosecutor throws away DNA evidence or never get evidence tested when newer DNA tests come out (or never took DNA in the first place) and simply relied on unreliable witnesses) or over charged and bullied to get a plea deal out of an equally prejudiced / incompetent public defender or a lawyer with political ambitions of their own...
When people who were wrongly convicted come out of jail some say they "harbor no ill will"??? (Just traumatized and ruined for life??) Nobody "gets their life back in any real sense after such an experience)
And those who are innocent/ wrongly convicted but who cannot prove it ( because you know "everybody claims they are innocent" are finally paroled and "put on the Registry" and deal with PTSD/ anger and try to get past all that to build some kind of life AFTER all that. This system is truly broken and driven by prejudice and fear monger spewing more crap (like http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2.) to make themselves wealthy It truly is an example of HATE SPEACH..

I agree Rew - DAs should not be elected officials - they should be people that are bound to justice for all but because they are elected they are bound to those that will re-elect them -

I agree the plea bargain is as much a part of the problem as any other part - true some people opt for the plea because it contains a better outcome but to truly be able to exercise justice the accused should be able to exercise their RIGHT to go to trial without the threats of harsher punishment - that is a perversion of the word justice.....

One thing that bothered me about the interview is when Vieth said "First of all, you can't have a sexual relationship with a child. So we have to change our language. But if this was the first time he sexually abused a child, taking into account the developmental issues that we're talking about, so on and so forth, he's probably not somebody who should be on a registration for life."

I think this is totally BS. This 14 girl understood exactly what she was doing and will guarantee that it wasn't about abusing a child. This is part of our problem with society in that we do not make the children accountable for their actions. When I grew up, we knew we were going to be held accountable regardless if we were 8 or 18. I also remember being a 14 year old girl...

I've said this over and over again, when teens do something like steal, vandalize, abuse, car jack, so on and so forth everyone wants them tried as adults because "they knew what they were doing". When all of a sudden they portray themselves as adults on adult websites and lure men and women in all of a sudden they don't know what they're doing and not mature enough. Which is it? You can't have it both ways.