Sen.Montgomery,Assemblyman Aubry & Children and Families Commissioner join together to protect families from being separated.
Lawmakers and criminal justice reform advocates joined together at the State Capitol last week to garner support for legislation (S.2233/A.5462-A) that will allow foster care agencies the discretion to delay filing papers to terminate the parental rights of parents who are incarcerated or enrolled in a substance abuse treatment program.
Making the Right Connections: Brandon, 13, (center), at State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery’s right, stated at a recent press conference: ‘I’m glad my mom is by my side right now helping other children get their moms back and passing this bill. I just want to say that I’m glad that I have her and I love her.”
The bill’s sponsors, Senator Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry (D-Queens), were joined in discussing their legislation by New York State Children and Families Commissioner Cladys Carrion, Correctional Association representatives, and formerly incarcerated women and their children.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) Expanded Discretion bill gives incarcerated parents and their children a greater opportunity to work towards reunification and safe permanency options that do not involve severing family bonds.
“The time is now to pass my bill, which will go a long way toward helping families develop and maintain healthy, lasting connections,” said Senator Montgomery, who is the Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Children and Families. “For too long, we’ve failed to protect the best interests of children in foster care with parents in prison and treatment programs. I sponsored this bill to give families separated by the criminal justice and child welfare systems the fighting chance they deserve to rebuild and stay whole.”
Almost always, ASFA requires a foster care agency to file a termination of parental rights petition if a child has been in foster care for 15 of the last 22 months. However, the median sentence length for women in New York’s prison system is 36 months and most incarcerated parents are limited to family visiting opportunities, telephone and mail service and unable to participate in foster care planning meetings, making it difficult to fulfill child welfare responsibilities.
More than 100,000 children have parents in a New York State prison or jail, including nearly 10,000 children with an incarcerated mother.
Terminating their parental rights will not necessarily find equal permanency for a child and many continue to stay in foster care. “This legislation will allow parents in prison and residential treatment, who are working towards rehabilitation, an opportunity to maintain and develop loving, supportive relationships with their children and to find permanent placements that do not involve severing important family bonds forever,” said Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, Chair of the Committee on Correction. “Giving these families the chance to stay connected is the right thing to do – it is also a crucial component of curbing recidivism and enhancing public safety.”
“For over a decade, New York’s ASFA laws have devastated parents caught up in the criminal justice system and their children,” said Tamar Kraft-Stolar, Director of the Women in Prison Project at the Correctional Association of New York. “This bill takes critical steps toward balancing the playing field for families separated by prison and treatment programs struggling to stay connected. Its provisions will help ensure that ASFA’s timeline does not trump permanency decisions that are best for the child and the family.”
Susan Jacobs, Executive Director, Center for Family Representation, stated: “Our organization represents hundreds of parents, including parents in prison, in child protective and termination of parental rights proceedings. We know from years of experience that having the time to facilitate meaningful visits and communication can mean the difference between a family staying together and losing ties forever.
In addition, termination hearings are among the most time-intensive and expensive proceedings in Family Court. When additional time is provided to work on solutions, it is possible to create workable and safe placements for children, and savings for state and local governments.”
The ASFA bill passed the Assembly on January 26, 2010 and now awaits consideration by the full Senate.
Senator Eric T. Schneiderman and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries joined forces with a statewide coalition today to announce a new organizing campaign plan to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York State before the 2010 Census.
The coalition’s goal is to organize across the state to pass Senator Schneiderman’s bill that would require New York State to count incarcerated persons in their home communities-rather than in the districts where they are incarcerated-for purposes of drawing legislative district lines. If passed, it would be the first law in the nation to count prisoners in their home communities for districting purposes.
“It’s an absolute injustice that New York currently counts people in the districts where they are incarcerated, rather than in their home communities. I am proud to be here to join forces with Sen. Schneiderman, Assm. Jeffries and this coalition to end this unconstitutional practice. If we do not act soon, it will be 10 long years for another opportunity to right this wrong. We cannot afford to wait,” said Rev. Al Sharpton.
“Equal representation under the law benefits everyone,” said Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, the lead sponsor of the bill to end prison-based gerrymandering. “The practice of counting people where they are incarcerated undermines the fundamental principle of ‘one person, one vote’ – it’s undemocratic and reflects a broken system. This legislation is as simple as it is fair: it requires that legislative districts at every level of government contain an equal numbers of residents. The time to act is now.”
Assemblyman Jeffries is the bill’s lead sponsor in the Assembly.
“This bill is necessary to break the back of the prison industrial complex where certain communities benefit from the criminalization of young people who disproportionately come from low-income neighborhoods across the state. Prison-based gerrymandering is unfair, unethical and unconstitutional, and we will not rest until the process is changed,” said Assemblyman. Jeffries.
“Prison-based gerrymandering continues to cheat needy communities of fair and equitable representation across the state of New York. This archaic formula perpetuates traditional electoral disparities by insuring that many men and women of color be counted by the U.S. Census in counties where they are incarcerated as opposed to where they resided at the time of their arrest. This practice cheats neighborhoods of much needed resources as well as a fair share of political representation,” said Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, a co-sponsor of the bill.
The new coalition was represented by Citizen Action of New York, The Public Policy and Education Fund, The Prison Policy Initiative, New York Civil Liberties Union, Demos, Common Cause, the Brennan Center for Justice, Fortune Society, Bronx Defenders, Praxis Project, Correctional Association of New York, Community Service Society, New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN), Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Center for Law & Social Justice, Nu Leadership Policy Group, Prison Families of New York and Exponents. The announcement was followed by a statewide organizing meeting that included more than 50 community-based organizations focused on passing this legislation.
Eddie Ellis, executive director, Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, Medgar Evers College, CUNY, said, “This critical piece of legislation speaks to the fundamental principle of a participatory democracy, namely: ‘one man/woman, one vote.’ In additional to violating the constitution of the state of New York regarding residency, the current census counting process for incarcerated people also violates the ‘one man/woman, one vote’ principle in as much as it assigns disproportionate representation to certain counties to the detriment of others. As such, this process must be changed.”
“When the Census tallies incarcerated people at prison locations far from home, the picture of the American civic community is distorted, with profound ramifications for our democracy,” says Erika Wood of the Brennan Center for Justice. “The policy gives public officials in prison districts an incentive to build their districts on the backs of ‘ghost voters,’ packing in prisoners who count toward the district size but who are not permitted to vote.”
“New York State is undermining the core American principles of fairness and equal representation by pretending that inmates are legitimate constituents of the districts where they are incarcerated,” said New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “Our state must end this corruption of the political process and count all New Yorkers as members of their home communities.”
“Common Cause/NY applauds Senator Schneiderman and Assembly Member Jeffries for their leadership in righting an obvious wrong,” said Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY. She added, “In order to achieve fairly drawn legislative and congressional districts and insure the efficient use of scarce government resources, it is essential that the census miscount of incarcerated New Yorkers not be the basis for redistricting and distribution of resources. Article II, Sec. 4 of our state constitution demands no less.”
We once visited a stockyard in Sioux City Iowa and spoke to some of the cattlemen there. They said that when it came to making money from a cow, they use “Everything but the moo.” That this is pretty much the attitude of upstate politicians towards the prisoners held in their districts, becomes apparent in an interview with State Senator Velmanette Montgomery.
Not only do the prisons provide jobs for the area and increase the local voting power, Senator Montgomery pointed out that for decades “The Republicans were able to rule the senate based on the prisoners,” counted as part of their districts. Another plus for the upstate districts from having prisoners on the count is that they take not only the body, but find profit in the prisoner’s station in life as well. “After all, that is what the Census is for,” she continued. “It determines how many people live in each city who are of different income, age, ethnic, and occupation categories. All of these factors help generate public dollars based on the needs of people in the various categories.
So in the upstate counties, prisoners are counted as low income and have all of the needs associated with that. Funding goes to those districts,” rather than the home districts where most come from, districts in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx.
The Senator points out that what this means for districts such as hers is that “With the Rockefeller Drug Law repeal, many more people will be returning home in the next few years. Based on that we have a constant influx of people who need support services. And if they’ve not been counted as part of our district, We’ve lost funding based on that.”
So for years after the prisoners are counted, they will be released back to the areas they came from, areas that have been deprived of the dollars to service them. “We’ll need to provide housing, all health services, substance abuse treatments, counseling, as well as, hopefully, job training and job placement.”
“The Census counts population, period. Based on population, a senate district is drawn, council districts are drawn, congressional districts are drawn, and city council districts are drawn.” Speaking of how this relates to the State Senate, Montgomery said “If it were not for the prisoners, there would not be enough people in some upstate areas to form a Senate District..”
Senator Eric Schneiderman’s has introduced an act “to amend the correction law, the legislative law, and the municipal home rule law, in relation to the collection of census data,” that seeks to correct this situation.
” There is definitely pushback on this legislation” from upstate legislators says Montgomery. “It does not benefit them. In those rural areas, they had more power than urban centers where the prisoners come from.”
As a former slave, valued at 3/5th of a man, Frederick Douglass would be familiar with the situation highlighted by the report of the prison initiative (www. prisonpolicy.org ) where we see that in state Senator Dale Volker’s 59th District, when you deduct the 8,951 prisoners (4,447 of which are black), the district has 285,306 residents. Senator Montgomery’s 18th District has 311,260 residents- not even adding in the count from the prisons. Meaning that the people in her district are worth almost 10% less than those in the rural areas upstate.
“Freedom or die a slave!,” declared Harriet Tubman (1819/20-1913) who freed herself and 300 others from enslavement in the mid-19th century. Tubman’s legacy resounds today in the lives of heirs who move unrestricted and make choices with few constraints.
Call them daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, aunts, educators, nurses, doctors, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, bakers, filmmakers, artists, chefs, librarians, homemakers, landowners, students, realtors, musicians, even First Ladies – in roles nonexistent for women of color in America at the time of Harriet Tubman’s birth.
Call them liberators, revolutionaries, strategists, rainmakers and deep thinkers (as Tubman was), qualities considered “uncharacteristic” for Black women even a little more than a century ago at the time of her death in Auburn, NY in 1913.
The bronze Harriet Tubman sculpture by Alison Saar stands 10-feet-tall in Harlem on 122nd St and St. Nicholas as a symbol for freedom-taking.
Mrs. Tubman was this nation’s first nationally known woman leader, soldier, strategist, counselor, social worker. And beginning March 10, the 97th anniversary of her death, New Yorkers will join other groups throughout the nation in celebrating Tubman by honoring women of conviction.
Dr. Olivia Cousins, the artist/photographer/educator, comments: “In celebrating Harriet, we carry forth her legacy in the day-to-day work that we do to protect, nurture, advocate and uplift our people.” Following are March events that honor our journey and the Tubman legacy. See page 6.
Tuesday, March 9 at 7pm: The Spelman College Glee Club performs at Emmanuel Baptist Church, 279 Lafayette Ave. (corner of St. James Place). Concert is free and open to the public!!! Note to parents and guardians of young women: The Spelman College Glee Club has maintained a formal reputation of choral excellence since its inception in 1925. Its repertoire consists of secular choral literature for women’s voices with special emphasis on traditional spirituals, music by African-American composers, music from different cultures and other commissioned works. The Spelman legacy of song is inextricably entwined in the institution’s history. The founders of Spelman College, Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles, sought to establish and teach a curriculum that ensured a well-rounded educational experience. The beginnings of the Spelman College Glee Club can be traced back to 1882, just one year after the college opened.
Wednesday, March 10, 9:00am – 11:30am: The 7th Annual Harriet Tubman Day Celebration, In
, Brooklyn, hosted by Councilman Al Vann at Boys & Girls H.S., presents comments from Pauline Copes-Johnson of Auburn, NY and her sister, Geraldine Daniels of Rochester, NY, the great-great-grandnieces of “Aunt Harriet.” Brooklyn Public Library chief Dionne Mack-Harvin will keynote.
Wednesday, March 10, 10:00am: Wreath Laying in the Harriet Tubman Memorial Park at the base of the only statue in New York City of Harriet Tubman, a two-ton 10-foot-tall bronze sculpture designed by Alison Saar, at the intersection of Frederick Douglass Boulevard (formerly Eighth Avenue), St. Nicholas Avenue and 122nd Street. The event will include the participation of schoolchildren, City Government officials and the New York City Parks Department. Adrianne Riddick of Harlem, Ms. Tubman’s great-great-great-grandniece, will speak at the wreath-laying event. The statue is the brainchild of former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields. Omoye Cooper of Albany, NY and Elizabeth Fulcher-Rankin of Brooklyn are co-chairs of the Black Women’s Leadership Caucus, Inc. (BWLC) host organization which was formed in 1999 during a meeting at the Tubman Homestead in Auburn, NY of women and men involved in the history of the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman. Currently, the group is producing a short documentary about Harriet Tubman, featuring interviews with descendants, historians and and distinguished educators, including Adelaide Sanfor, former Vice Chancellor, NYS Board of Regents. Open to the public.
Thursday, March 11, 11a-2p: Network Journal’s “Influential Women in Business Awards” Publisher/CEO Aziz Adetimirin and editor Rosalind McLymont will honor business leaders at the “Twelfth Annual 25 Influential Black Women in Business Awards” luncheon at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel, 1535 Broadway (between 45th & 46th streets). Among the honorees: Jackie Carter, Vice President & Publisher, Nonfiction Books, Scholastic, Inc.; Susan E. Chapman, Global Head of Operations, Citi, Realty Service, Citi Inc.; Chrysa Chin, Vice President, Player Development, National Basketball Association (NBA); Denise Coley, Director, Global Supplier Diversity Business Development, Cisco Systems, Inc.; Michelle Drayton, President & Publisher, Today’s Child Communications; Angela E. Guy, Senior Vice President, General Manager, SoftSheen-Carson; Gale Stevens-Haynes, Esq., Provost, Long Island University, Bklyn Campus; Vy Higginsen, Executive Director, Mama Foundation for the Arts; Hilda Hutcherson, M.D., Associate Dean, Clinical Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons; and Mavis T. Thompson, Esq., President, National Bar Association; and others.
Saturday, March 20, 1p-4p: 2nd Women of Distinction Scholarship Luncheon at Boys & Girls H.S. The luncheon salutes distinguished women for their unwavering support of and service to the community and Boys & Girls High School and supports a great scholarship- creation opportunity for some of New York’s best and brightest graduating students. Money raised through ticket sales, a Silent Auction adn donations at the event go to the scholarships. As we see it, The Women of Distnction Awards refers to both the students and the distinguished honorees, who include Pamela Green, Weeksville Heritage Center; Crystal Bobb-Semple, founder and owner, Brownstone Books; educator Dr. Renee Young; guidance counselor Dorothy Harper, (celebrating 43 years in the education field); Miss Kelly Roberts, school safety agent; Dr. Sheila Evans-Tranumn, retired associate commissioner for the NYS Education Department; and Ms. Nebert Jackson, retired educator who taught for some 30 years at Boys & Girls H.S. The Boys & Girls H.S. graduating seniors who worked hard throughout the school year to raise funds for college needs, include: Alicia Rogers, Areya Cortes, Shatiqua Watson, Brittany George, Adana David, Melissa DeVore, Amandla McMillan, Shardei Lewis and Deborah Akinbowale. The event is the culminating activity of the year-long campaign, and anyone wanting to support the effort can donate items or services for the silent auction; food for the March 20 luncheon;and/or contributions to the students’ scholarship fund. Contact: Miss Andrea Toussaint of The Sisterhood.Tickets: $25. 718-467-1700.
Sunday, March 28: “Harriet’s Place: Underground Railroad and Beyond” at Magnolia – New exhibition of photographs capturing the essence of Harriet Tubman, the woman, by educator/artist/historian/preservationist Dr. Olivia Cousins, opens today at Magnolia Tree Earth Center of Bedford Stuyvesant. Details to be announced. Contact: Andrea Brathwaite at 718-387-2116 or Bernice Elizabeth Green at 718-599-6828. (See Cover)
Monday, March 29: Herbert Von King Park’s Third Phenomenal Women Awards Brunch: Culinary and Drama Teens at the Park, and Parks Administrator Lemuel Mial with volunteer instructor-wife Charlotte Mial, with community friends DBG Media and Legacy Ventures, at a closed, invitation-only event, will honor media women, the communicators, whose on-going good works keep positive stories and information about our communities at the forefront. Among the honorees: Mrs. Esther Jackson, Founder and Publisher, Freedomways; Nayaba Arinde, Editor, NY Amsterdam News; Freelance Journalist and Media Consultants Victoria Horsford and Fern Gillespie; Dr. Brenda Greene, Founder, National Black Writers Conference; Medgar Evers College, CUNY; Aminisha Black, columnist, Our Time Press; author-entrepreneur Monique Greenwood, now celebrating her popular Akwaaba Inns’ 15th year; writer Susan McHenry; Janel Gross, The Challenge Group; Jeanne Parnell, anchor, WHCR; Dr. Teresa Taylor-Williams, publisher, Trend Newspaper; and Gayle DeWees of the NY Daily News, also the former employer of the late Joyce Shelby, the adored journalist to whom this event is dedicated.
Mrs. Jackson and Tupper Thomas, head of the Prospect Park Alliance, will receive the Hattie Carthan Awards.
-Bernice Elizabeth Green
Governor David Paterson’s problems are entirely of his own making. Interfering with a woman protecting herself from a physical abuser? It was both an arrogance of power and a devaluing of women. It was also thoughtless, because his actions were just the open opportunity for any number of forces in the state to pounce on and that’s before you factor in the ever-present racism, which is always intertwined in there somewhere.
The upcoming redistricting, the allocation of the state budget, the private money that is made or lost based on relationships with who occupies the governor’s mansion, all involved are working their contacts and rumor makers to fill the atmosphere with their chatter in order to force the governor to resign before the investigation by the office of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo can run its course.
How long he and his family can withstand the strain of the constant questions is uncertain, but Paterson appears for now to feel he will be exonerated and is trying to hold on until the investgation completes but he may not have that long. As we go to press we see that the New York Times is reporting that “Gov. David A. Paterson falsely testified under oath during an ethics investigation into his acceptance of free World Series tickets last fall, according to the State Commission on Public Integrity, which announced on Wednesday that it had asked prosecutors to determine if criminal charges should be brought against the governor.” Things don’t look good at all for the governor.
They are looking good for probable candidate for governor Andrew Cuomo who must also see the downside of being under two microscopes: one looking at how his office handles the investigation of Governor Paterson and the other on where he stands on state issues such as state Senator Schneiderman’s legislation on where prisoners reside for redistricting purposes. And if he’s going to be the candidate for governor, he has to tell us his thoughts now, and not in May after he saw which way the wind blew.
The Democratic leadership may hate it but they’d better have a primary because there’s nothing like a good fight to see what arguments are out there and if your candidate can take the hit. And after Spitzer, Hevesi and Paterson, they may need to find a plan B, just in case plan A for Andy blows up in their face as all the others have.
Paterson’s holding on but Congressman Charlie Rangel has had to let go of the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee in the wake of a report from the House Ethics committee that admonished him for ethics violation in accepting corporate-sponsored trips.
Will this health care horror never end? The problem is that the simplicity of single-payer has not broken through the wall of health industry noise and their political contributions. It helps to remember that every time you see a health plan truck on the street with their insurance vendors stopping passers by, those are health care premiums at work. We’ve said it before and will again that it is the health premiums that pay for the district managers, the area managers the regional managers the vice-presidents, the presidents, and the stockholders. And this is for each insurance company. And at these insurance companies they use premiums to pay people to find reasons to override doctors, deny care and pay the doctors, technicians, nurses and hospitals from what’s left.
In a single-payer system, with no insurance company involvement, a patient goes to the health provider, receives treatment and uses a health card to confirm the visit and services. The provider informs the Medicare-like system, and is paid. By cutting out the health industry jobs program for managers and executives, there is finally money to pay decent fees for services because the entire population is in the insurance pool.
With a full-blown single-payer program, the insurance companies, except for high-end boutique providers, will go the way of the tuberculosis wards and the polio-equipment supply houses. This is an end they will rail against to the very end, but when it comes, the nation will be healthier and wealthier for it.
