WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. We're talking about the influence of money on politics. We've seen the mighty super PAC ad work in this presidential race with millionaires heaping mega bucks on GOP candidates extending the primary beyond its expiration date. The satirical super PAC of comedian Stephen called Bear and the earnest occupy superPAC demonstrate what unlimited spending means for political speech. With all this money flying around Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig said the best chance for campaign finance reform was Americans elect a platform that promised to get a candidate on the ballot a candidate who had no ties to major money. Last week Americans Elect failed to deliver a candidate well ask Lessig what this says about dollars and democracy. But first we look at how our prison system is coping with an aging prisoner population. Up next from prison to price tag politics. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying President Obama is delivering his final commencement address of the season to graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy in

Colorado Springs today the president said this year's graduating class will not have to bear the weight of two wars as their predecessors had done. You're the first class in nine years that will graduate into a world where there are no Americans fighting in Iraq and he says a gradual drawdown of troops in Afghanistan is under way since 2009 the president has delivered commencement speeches at the Naval Academy West Point and the Coast Guard Academy. Presumptive presidential nominee for the Republicans Mitt Romney is courting the vote of Latino business owners in Washington today Romney said one of the areas in desperate need of change in this country is education. Here we are in the most prosperous nation on earth but millions of our kids are getting a third world education and America's money. 40 children suffer the most. This is the civil rights issue of our era and it's the greatest challenge of our time. However it is unclear how Romney will be received based on his stance on

immigration. Patrick Fitzgerald the high profile U.S. attorney in Chicago whose investigations have ranged from Bin Ladan to two consecutive Illinois governors said today he plans to step down. His resignation will be effective June 30th in Egypt millions of voters are going to the polls to cast a ballot in the first free presidential election in their country's history. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Cairo that officials have reported few irregularities. Candidates like former secretary general of the Arab League Amr Mussa stood in line with other voters eager to cast their ballot in an election the interim government pledged will be free and fair. This is a great day every day of every size in the world to the book that I hope they will select. Correctly. Luce is a top contender among the 13 candidates running in a contest that would never have been possible under the rigged elections held by former President Hosni Mubarak. Many analysts expect it will be in next month's runoff poll with either one of the two top

Islamist candidates or his rival from the former Mubarak regime. A retired Air Force general named Ahmed Shafik Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson NPR News Cairo. In the U.S. some realtor's may have a spring in their step these days more homes are selling. Today the Commerce Department released data on new homes to show a three point three percent increase in sales in April. This comes a day after the National Association of Realtors announced an increase in sales of previously owned homes however we're seeing a slide in U.S. stocks at last check the Dow is off 157 points one and a quarter percent of twelve thousand three hundred forty six. You're listening to NPR News. Good afternoon from the WGBH radio newsroom in Boston I'm Christina Quinn with some of the local stories we're following. Massachusetts senators have passed a budget amendment that addresses prostitution. The Senate voted in favor of adopting the measure during a debate on the budget this morning. The amendment would create a pretrial diversion program to educate and deter first time offenders

caught soliciting or engaging in prostitution. Individuals charged with human trafficking are participating with an underage victim would not be eligible for the program. Charges would be dropped against individuals who successfully complete the program. The Massachusetts Democratic Party has released its lineup of speakers for its nominating convention including Governor Deval Patrick and U.S. Senate hopefuls Elizabeth Warren and Marisa DeFranco one noticeable no show at the June 2nd gathering in Springfield will be Attorney General Martha Coakley Coakley office said she'll be out of town and won't be available. The convention is expected to endorse Warren to take on Republican U.S. Senator Scott Brown while giving DeFranco the backing of enough convention goers to secure a place on the ballot. Rhode Island's governor is receiving high marks for his measured response to the financial troubles facing former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's video game company before he took office last year Governor Lincoln Chafee was a vocal critic of the plan to guarantee 75 million dollars in loans for 38 Studios. Now that the company's viability is in question Chafey says he's working to help it succeed and prevent Rhode Island from having to pay its debts.

He says he'll oppose giving 38 Studios additional taxpayer support. Several lawmakers have told the Associated Press they applaud Chafee's response. In sports the Red Sox wrap up their three game series in Baltimore tonight hoping to make up for last night's loss to the Orioles. Daniel Bard is pitching for the Sox and cloudy skies throughout the rest of the afternoon with a chance of showers here and there highs around 70 tonight mostly cloudy with overnight lows in the upper 50s Thursday will be mostly cloudy with patchy fog in the morning highs in the lower 70s right now 67 degrees in Boston. Support for NPR comes from Barnes and Noble maker of Nook Simple touch with glow light designed for reading with the lights on or off. Available at Barnes and Noble stores or dot com. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley. Today we're talking about what the state should do to handle its aging population of prisoners aging inmates often require special care which drives up the cost of incarceration. And with more prisoners getting older our prisons are starting to function as state supported nursing homes. Joining me to talk about this are Jamie

Fellner of Human Rights Watch and Beth Schwartz F.L. a Boston based journalist who covers the criminal justice system. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Jamie I want to start with you. You spent some time in many states and prisons examining the problem of aging prisoners. And I have to say I was quite startled by the statistics if you could just begin by letting us know how big the problem is. OK we're having a little problem getting Jamie. All right we'll move right on best here in the studio with me James on the phone. We're having a technical problem and she'll be in shortly. Beth you have one of the reasons I want to start with Jamie is because she looked nationally at the problem but you've been focused on Massachusetts which of course is one of our chief concerns here. What's your sense of how big the problem is here in Massachusetts.

Well if you're talking about absolute numbers the problem is relatively small. Elderly prisoners represent just six percent of inmates in Massachusetts. And I think the absolute number is somewhere in the range of 500 600 So considering that there's 24000 people in the correctional system in Massachusetts the absolute numbers are relatively small. That said the cost of caring for these folks is much much higher than the cost of keeping an inmate in general population. And not only that the numbers are set to just continue to grow at an exponential rate in the coming years. All right Jamie is back with us now. Jamie can you hear me. Yes I can't OK sorry about that and yeah ok. Technology is fabulous Beth just gave us a sense of the numbers here in Massachusetts and she's made the point that though the numbers the actual number seems small. It's the. Of course the cost of caring for these prisoners that makes this a problem we need to focus on. But I wanted to get a sense now we know what happened what's happening in Massachusetts. If you would give us the national scene how big is the problem nationally.

Oh I'm so sorry I was unable to hear the Massachusetts numbers. Nationally what we've seen in the last four years is that the population age 65 or older has grown by about 63 percent in the last four years. Even though the total prison population has grown by less than 1 percent. In other words the number of older prisoners is growing at a much much faster rate than. Other prisoners. And that's basically a reflection of the longer sentences they're serving and the decreased opportunities to Lee before sentence completion. You know the cutback in the use of parole in good time and everything. You have also more people coming in to prison at older ages but that doesn't seem to be driving this increase so much as just people are stacking up in prison. They're living longer. So if they have a 30 year sentence or a life sentence they're going to be growing old in prison. I don't know if Beth mentioned

but the data I have is that there are about there are over 900 people in Massachusetts serving life without parole sentences. In other words they've been sentenced to grow old and die behind bars. Yet someone from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security told me that a third of Dio's in Nate's in Massachusetts are lifers. So given that we're lifers is different. Life or life without parole. You can but you can be a lifer and have the possibility of parole. And you can have life without parole meaning you're not supposed to ever be released. So we know that at least I think it's probably now a thousand because it was 2008. Those people will all grow old and die in prison putting huge pressure on the Department of Corrections to take care of them. And then among the lifers those who've been sent who have a sense of life. How many of those will get out before they die.

I don't know I don't know if you've been given that but many of them if if Massachusetts is the same as in other places many of them aren't going to get out until they're quite old. So Jamie Fellner of Human Rights Watch as I mentioned by way of Intrade introducing you before your your mike went out that you had gone to many states and several prisons so this isn't I just want people to understand this isn't your making a pronouncement based on one state or not you know from Asia. I just people understand that that this is a really quite comprehensive report looking nationally at what is happening. Yes I didn't have I didn't go to Massachusetts but I went to Rhode Island. You know the little state that well are you in Connecticut. Right. We're among the states that I visit. But no it's and you know it's something. Corrections officials acknowledge is a huge problem. It may not be at a crisis level and bear in mind yet but they know it's coming. But if the numbers are just inexorable you

give people long sentences they're going to stack up in prison and they're going to grow. Well I have to say that this is not something you know I'm curious about the response to your report because maybe this is insider information between you and Beth of those who cover this area and look at this issue. I never even thought about aging prisoners and till the discussion about three strikes came up here in Massachusetts and a lot of the opponents to that potential legislation it still hung up in the legislature here are saying listen this this is going to increase the population. Why don't we at least consider letting out some of the older prisoners and I thought oh there's enough older prisoners to make a difference. Monetary early space wise all the rest of it. If if we were to consider doing that as a part of the if the three strikes goes through if it doesn't but at least consider that I really hadn't thought about it so to hear these kinds of statistics and see how intense this is across the country is quite something I want.

But I think in general I'd forgive me for interrupting but I think your your own thought process. There is quite similar to that of many many people including legislators. You know when legislators let up at the Senate you know it's always politically popular to increase that. They don't think about what that really means for people running the prison much less for the prisoners themselves. You know life in their third of their images I think you know the 35 year old people who've broken the law are not 75 year old people who've broken the law. Prisons are designed and operated with younger mostly men with younger men in mind. They're set up in ways that don't make sense. And the games the public safety of having somebody who's 75 or 80 or even younger but in terms you know those games don't exist. It's kind of symbolic. Gee we sent him away for 40 years but what is the public actually get from that. I can tell you that corrections people are

scratching their heads trying to figure out how do we keep prisoners safe provide the medical care. Need to provide decent conditions of confinement when we're looking at people pulling oxygen tanks behind them who have who are in wheelchairs who are bed ridden with that have very expensive and difficult proposition and legislators aren't thinking about that and in fact Jamie I wanted to just read a piece from the summary of your report. The report that you did for Human Rights Watch looking at the whole issue around aging prisoners to give people a sense because as you've said I didn't I wasn't clear about what we're talking about. You and Beth have made this clear so here specifically I think it is a good paragraph for people to hear. Prisons in the United States contain an ever growing number of aging men and women who cannot readily climb stairs haul themselves to the top bunk or walk long distances to meals or the pill line whose old bones suffer from thin mattresses and winter's cold who need wheelchairs walkers canes portable oxygen and hearing aids who cannot

get dressed go to the bathroom or bathe without help and who are incontinent forgetful suffering chronic illnesses extremely ill and dying. Now I wanted to put some specificity on the table for people to understand what we're talking about because I began having my images. Old guy in there you know pretty healthy. But just told the guard can watch him but now you're talking about a whole population of people. Better to get you to weigh in on this too. Who need care. We're talking nursing care not just guarding. Can you speak to that. Sure. In fact I visited the activities of daily living unit in in the North Folk correctional facility here in Massachusetts. And I spoke to the superintendent of that prison and he told me that this that ADL unit of daily living unit has a certified nursing assistant on staff 24 hours a day seven days a week. Every day there's an LPN who rounds. And there's a medical provider such as a nurse practitioner or an M.D.

who also makes daily rounds so we're talking about just the medical staff. And he called that not in the lab not an elaborate staff sufficient staff and I think that superintendent Rodin was very careful to stress that they're not this is just basic medical Not really no frills at all no special treatment no nothing. I mean literally These are guys who when I was there there was a guy who had his walker with him in the shower and there was a nurse in the shower helping him bathe. And everyone else was basically lying it was a big dormitory style room there were a bunch of beds arranged in one big room with a correctional officer at the door and mostly they were just kind of lying there. You know staring at the wall a few of them had little TVs. So so you know I remember reading The Boston Herald did a story about this and they called the they called these assisted living centers with bars for Golden Age or inmates to serve their time and comfort. And I got to say that's not what I saw. It was it was it was certainly not you

know the reason they were being mistreated but it was it wasn't a pleasant place to be. So Jamie given that now and just listening to all the services that Beth mentioned that are basic not frills we're talking that multiplied time many prisoners and we're looking at state legislators faced with cutting basic services for the rest of the population. And this is a big dream. It's a huge drain. And let me just first say that in addition to all the assistance with basic living skills which people need more and more they're also going to have. You know the last years of life are very expensive whether you live in a tent in the community or whether you live behind bars. Your medical needs tend to increase and they're very expensive. Having older prisoners behind bars increases the cost to the state because one they don't have the advantage of Medicaid Medicaid does not support cover people who are in prison too. You're paying for people who are let's say on life support or who are you know dying. There are no

public safety threat at that point but you're paying for all the security bells and whistles to keep them guarded so they're very expensive. The combination of the medical bills plus the security makes these very expensive prisoners and what the. I think the public needs to be asking itself is what do we get for this. I believe I work for a human rights organization. We believe people who injure others who deprive others of their human right should be held accountable. And that's you know and that's why people who commit serious crimes. Should be sent to prison. The question is for how long and to what stage of their life. I think age and illness change their calculation as to how long someone should stay in prison if you've been in prison for 15 or 20 years. A few more years in prison isn't going to. A few more years of punishment of being in prison doesn't it doesn't accomplish anything in terms of retribution or accountability. It doesn't accomplish

anything in public or public safety. It simply costs a lot. And I want to remind people that there are other forms of punishment. Prison is one home confinement could be another. So you're not just wandering free not that many of these people could wander free anyway given their condition. But you know this kind of knee jerk response and we don't want to let people out of prison. I think we need. To shift the conversation to how do we keep the public safe and ensure accountability but not censor fleeing needlessly. As a friend of mine said all these old codgers. OK can't go anywhere or do anything you know behind bars at great cost to the public. And as you say it costs you know depriving education of the money they need the whole range of other public services that are being starved for funds so that we can keep people needlessly in prison. Thank you very much Jamie Fellner I know you have to go but for giving us the

the essence of your report and us kicking off our conversation I'm Kelli Crossley we're talking the prison system and what needs to be done as more of our prisoners become elders behind bars I've been speaking with Jamie Filner of Human Rights Watch. We'll continue the conversation with Boston based reporter Beth Schwartz F.L. and Kathleen Dennehy the former commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston Public Radio. Funding for our programs comes from you. And the Boston Speaker Series 7 evenings at Symphony Hall with a lineup of speakers that includes two former presidents a New York Times best selling author a miracle survival story and much more Boston speakers series dot org. And Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates offering complete health care for you and your family with 21 locations across Greater Boston Harvard Vanguard welcomes new patients and accepts most insurance Care Made Easy dot org an affiliate of Atrios health. And from members of the Ralph Lowell society.

These most generous annual contributors lead the way in sustaining WGBH as a public media resource available and free to all. WGBH dot org slash Ralph lol. Next time on the world India's caste system has discrimination and exclusion built right in. But some Indians in America still see value in celebrating their caste Brahmins who are not only relieved to dispute it also with the scientists to know that I am connected to packed group of people keeps a lot upright. The persistence of caste. Next time on the world. Coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Saturday July 14th it's the WGBH fun. That's cool what are some of the best ice cream around. Like Ben and Jerrys Boston and families. Rock out to live performances from family favorites like Steve song. Then rugged. Looking in the beams. Recalling and other PBS Kids characters enjoyed

by game. And more. Tickets are going fast so don't delay. Get the whole story at WGBH dot org slash funfest. Great question what is a great question and that's a great question. It's a great question. Rick great question on FRESH AIR. You'll hear unexpected questions and unexpected answers this afternoon to toot your own eighty nine point seven WGBH. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're talking about our prison system and the aging population of prisoners. I'm joined by Beth Schwartz F.L. a Boston based journalist who covers the criminal justice system. She recently wrote a piece on this for Boston magazine. Also with us is Kathleen Dennehy the former commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. Thank you for joining us. You're welcome happy to be here. Kathleen let's start this way with you. How did we get here with the number of aging prisoners. Crowding really the prisons as we know that because we know that we have a chronic problem with

overcrowding as it is. Well you know I'm surprised that people are surprised that we got here because number one prisons reflect society and we've got the graying of America as a baby boomer myself. I see that in my own in my own sphere and prisoners reflects society as I said and that's exactly what's going on in prison. We have two things happening. We have people aging in place. We have people aging within the prison system and we also have people entering is new commitments at an older age than they have had entered before. Again it's the it's the baby boomer effect. And we had in addition of that Beth the 70s in the 80s with the war on drugs and three strikes legislation other than other places in the country that really put more people in prison earlier. Absolutely and that's a phenomenon that has repeated itself all across the country. And we see it in minatory minimums truth in sentencing which Massachusetts participates in. I also wanted to point out that Massachusetts of course is the home of Willie Horton

and it was Michael Dukakis who got you know bit by. Relatively progressive furlough and parole program that Massachusetts had. And of course Willie Horton was out on furlough when he committed some pretty heinous crimes and he was one of the main reasons that Dukakis lost the 1988 presidential election. So in 2010 when we had a Wilburn police officer killed by someone who was out on parole we see a similar reaction right Massachusetts calling for three strikes law now long after that was invoked for states to do. Now that this this officer was killed by someone on parole or seeing that kind of backlash here in Massachusetts so I think that it's kind of a two pronged thing that the aging the prison population is both reflective of the larger baby boomers and also these kind of harsh sentencing laws. Kathleen to Beth's point and also to Jamie's point who was on little

bit earlier talking about her report it seems that when people think about him putting in place these policies that will send more people to prison for longer they really are not thinking about what happens after. And now here's the after and nobody thought about this. I think you're quite right. It's some it's I think it's very easy in government to make policy decisions that the impact is deferred. Perhaps for generations it doesn't come home to roost and the there are so many issues associated with the growing number of elderly and frail inmates. But I want to stop and make one point. I always I always take a close look at how we're defining the population. How are we defining elderly. And you pick up a variety of reports some say 50 being over 50. I think I take exception to that 50 60 65. So I think the devil is in the details in terms of how we're defining it. Many years ago in Massachusetts the legislature directed the Department of

Corrections to do a study of just this very issue. What does that profile of the offender look like in terms of increasing medical needs. Is there a need to develop an assisted living unit for example. And what we found at the time and this was back in the in the early 2000s. What we found is that the most pressing need for assisted daily living quite frankly was within the ranks of the 30 and 40 year olds. So it is not a question of just elderly and infirm and increasingly you are seeing people in prison who have mobility issues who may be daft who may be cyclists. So I would I would expand the topic to include those that have physical or mental impairments that would require some degree of extra support. And I want to point out that when you were your expertise was in health care when you were part of the the department of correction system and something that I have read was

very interesting that I didn't know and I'm sure you do know is that. Being in prison itself ages you. So you're 30 and let's say you're not blind you're not deaf you don't come in with some other stuff but just the very fact of being imprisoned ages you so now you're maybe 30. Your real age but your actual physically physical age may be 45 so you can see how that adds up is the longer yours you're staying in. Kelly I'm glad you mentioned that because that's a point that the Human Rights Watch folks made in their report which is that they they used as their quota for elderly 55 and that again as as was done he said that doesn't seem old to those of us on the outside but the anxiety and stress of prison life the pretty limited caloric intake and nutritional you know spread that's available to people in prison. Limited access to medical care and generally the things that make us healthy make you age faster and I also want to say that the population in

prison is disproportionately drawn from folks of lower socioeconomic background who typically don't have good access to medical care even before they go into prison so a lot of times when people enter prison it's the first time they see a doctor. And so you're dealing with a population that is aging prematurely both before they get into prison and then once they're in prison they're also aging at a faster rate. So I don't think it's necessarily outlandish to consider 55 elderly when we're talking about this population. Well I think it's I mean it's generally accepted that those within correctional environments do have the for the very reasons that you've cited Beth do have. It's sort of an accelerated aging process but I have quite frankly I have seen lots of folks who are older who it's an individual situation there are some it's just as it is in the community certainly to some that age better than others. But I'm cautioning us not to discount those that are in their 30s and 40s that are presenting with the exact same scenario. And let's help them.

Since you were in the Department of Corrections maybe you can ballpark this for us. So let's say there's only three and we all agree that you know 75 is older. OK so let's say there's only three 75 year old prisoners somewhere. What is the cost of maintaining whatever the health concerns with got to be for that prisoner versus one that's I don't know 25 and in relatively good health. So distant people understand what we're talking about in terms of numbers of means of supporting these prisoners. I say I don't know what the current Massachusetts costs are in the car in the DNC or in the sheriff's department but looking nationally there are some interesting stats for an inmate aged 55 to 59. It's about $11000 a year for the medical costs for those that are 80 or older. It jumps to 40 thousand in here. And that's just the medical costs as well. Telling them how to go the cost of housing them feel a regular room and board so to speak and the retrofitting the retrofitting of cells of

showers to accommodate wheelchairs etc.. The physical plant the infrastructure has to be in place. The expansion of the medical services and also age appropriate programming idleness is never a good thing in and at any age in a prison environment. So there have to be age appropriate activities which is very staff intensive. So what you see here is the scenario of increased medical increased security costs because along with this expanded medical scope of service you can pretty much count on in optic and outside hospital trips. And with that comes an added expense as well. OK so for all of the people who have shut me off now I've been screaming before that you say you have to have this and then there are lots of people saying you don't have to have anything. You're in prison. Too bad for you you committed the crime. I want to hear the fact that you're old and I don't have a wheelchair or can't get you no better health care or whatever. I just don't care. So how do you deal with the fact that you have a

population of people for whom most people are completely unsympathetic about this aging process. Well the Supreme Court I mean first of all the Supreme Court has ruled that it's cruel and unusual punishment to not provide at least adequate medical care to prisoners so even if the D O C agreed with the theoretical people that you were my department of corrections. Yes they are under Constitutional mandate to provide at least adequate medical care. So they have no choice with regards to that. But but also you know their job is to keep to lock these folks up and to keep safe and secure place. And if you have people who are incontinent or who have dementia and they're in general population you know striking out at people because of this is a this is actually an example that the superintendent gave me of an inmate who had Huntington's Korea which can cause people to strike out. And that's a result of his medical condition you can't safely keep him in general population. Because a fight or a riot and

just from a safety perspective the Department of Corrections you know just from a hard hard nosed perspective has to has to do something with these people. A couple of questions. Is it would be cheaper for that kind of patient or one with other medical issues to be released and be at home getting services that are still paid for by the state. But it seems to me they might be cheaper outside. Am I wrong on this. Why aren't Jamie Fellner his comments earlier and I think she's absolutely right when you look at the share costs releasing someone in effect shifts the medical costs to either Medicare or Medicaid so that's that's an out and out cost shift. But you're right you would be saving certainly the security costs. But you know another cautionary note. It's I hate to sort of broad brush one category any subcategory of offenders. It's like anything in life you have to look at each individual case because sadly I mean I've been a superintendent in a male facility and in a female facility and higher custody and lower custody so I have seen the gamut.

And you know quite frankly there are lots of folks who reach that age in prison who have lived their support systems go where there's nowhere for them to be ours right. Frankly yes. So the piece we're not talking about is the re-entry of these individuals if their sentence should expire when they are well into their 80s or 90s. And the the issues that are attendant to that phenomenon I have to ask you Kathleen Dennehy former MIT Massachusetts Department of Corrections what happens to some of those who are OK so they're they're aging they've got some issues but we worry out here that they still if released to the public could cause them harm. I mean one of the concerns when Whitey Bulger was found was that he's not too all that he can call up all his buddies how roll they are to do harm to people if he's out here in the population. Should we not be concerned about that even though it would appear that most of these people are low risk. I mean you raise an absolutely. I think the question is right on target in the

sense that I think you have to look at each individual case. You cannot broad brush one group of offenders and in the aggregate say they are at increased risk. Frankly that's my opposition to a third strike bill because it denies the judge an opportunity to look at the mitigating factors and to have discretion based upon all the circumstances that are involved in the commission of the crime. And I apply that same principle when we're looking at releasing rather than in the aggregate releasing a group of offender simply because of an age or a medical condition. I think you have to look at all the circumstances. You know over the years I can remember without divulging names I can remember very very elderly offender who on paper would appear to be just the kind of person we'd be talking about who'd be appropriate for release long term sex offender and the professionals at the table felt strongly that he would re-offend again. And with an infant or a small child perhaps that would not be difficult. Even though he was wheelchair bound

So I think that given the stakes and given the information that the state has it's not difficult to make an individual decision and assess each case. There is a master plan that Massachusetts is considering to address the issue of elderly prisoners. What would you all say should be the number one thing you think should happen now as a way of perhaps saving some cause and addressing the population's needs. Beth I would say I know that when Governor Patrick proposed his crime bill which included the three strikes provision it also included a compassionate release component which as far as I know did not actually make it into the bill that's currently being debated. So I agree with Danny I think adding a compassionate release as one of a menu of options available to the Department of Corrections when they're dealing with elderly prisoners would certainly be helpful. I also want to point out that these are activities of daily living units well they provide

much more intensive services than general population. They're still cheaper than infirmary beds or hospital beds. They're they're actually a good cost saving middle ground because when there's no bends in the ADL these guys go to hospitals and that's much more expensive. Got it. Or or if they don't go to outside hospitals they're actually taking up acute care beds within prison infirmaries which really means you've now converting your infirmaries into housing units which from a national perspective really violate some very basic standards it's not the way to run health care in a correctional setting. So what would you suggest. I mean I apply I applaud the governor and secretary Halford and for the capital plan. I think it you know question it's a big question whether would ever be funded. But I think as a document that spells out a vision. I think it's a good first step by calling for regional facilities. Three of them as I recall roughly between 400 and 500 inmates

apiece. And it would address the combined medical and mental health supp acute. Case level caseload and number one it gives you a kind of scale. It lets you consolidate your medical staff and it also gives you an opportunity to take the correctional staff in do some specialized training just as any of us who have had some elders in our family as their circumstances change. We need to adjust the way we interact with them and learn about different conditions. So too did the staff who work in the prisons. This may come more easily to the medical staff but the correctional staff really needs to develop that specialty in terms of how do you deal with an elder who can no longer appropriately respond to a command. And because of all Simers or dementia and prisons like a lot of bureaucracies run on routines they don't run on exceptions. So I think there is quite a bit that can be done around training the staff the capital plan lays out the capital plan the infrastructure the

operating piece is what really makes that building come alive after it's built. How is the staff trained. What what are the credentials of the staff. What kinds of programming is offered for this population. I think it's it's a lot of first step. All right well it's been an eye opening conversation I know not just for myself because who knew. And you have to balance public safety versus the needs of these prisoners and where it's this population in general is aging so we know that this is going to come up again. Thank you both so much. Thanks for having us. Thank you. I'm Kelli Crossley we've been talking about our aging population of prisoners and what needs to be done to care for them. I've been speaking with Beth Schwartz Abbeville and Kathleen Dennehy. Beth Schwartz F.L. is a journalist who covers the criminal justice system. She recently wrote a piece on this for Boston magazine. Kathleen Dennehy is the former commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. Coming up we talk to Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig about the big price tag that's

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the spring auction the first place your auction WGBH dot org high tech biotech innovation is in Massachusetts. Friday during MORNING EDITION The partnership between X and eighty nine point seven. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show here with me in the studio is Lawrence Lessig. He's the director of the Edmond J Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University. He also teaches law at Harvard Law. He joins us today to talk about campaign finance reform super PACs and the effects of money on our political system. Lawrence Lessig welcome. You don't usually these days anyway put ethics and money and politics in the same sentence so here you are batting at windmills Bay perhaps. And having this kind of conversation I was impressed by the kinds of statistics that you have written about it most recently for The Atlantic magazine 196

and 80 percent stands out. Would you tell people what that means. Yes so of course in this presidential election cycle we've seen an explosion of super PACs and these super PACs have been funded primarily by rich individuals not really by corporations. And as a study that was published in the nation. Concluded one hundred ninety six Americans have contributed 80 percent of the superPAC money that has been spent in the presidential election cycle. At that point was about a month and a half ago. So one hundred ninety six people contributing 80 percent gives a pretty clear sense of the way in which we fund elections these days which is the tiniest slice of the 1 percent. That's point 0 0 0 0 0 6 3 percent of America has an enormous influence on the way that campaigns get run. I'm not certain that even those of us who are pretty cynical about how much money is being spent and we hear these particularly during the Republican GOP presidential primary here these huge numbers

tossed around understood this. I mean. This is less than 200 people with an enormous amount of control over who will end up in various seats. Yeah and I think it's important to distinguish between you know how much money is being spent and how the money is being collected and raised right because a lot of people are skeptical about whether money really works whether it has the determinative effect you know with the point where Santorum seemed like he might best run the people said see Santorum has no money and yet he's still winning. But the point is if you focus on how money is collected or raised or inspired we see there the obsessive attention the candidates give to those who would be giving the money because it's the only way they can excite excite them into giving the money. And you know I in my view the real problem is not really even at the presidential level it's at Congress's level where members spend between 30 and 70 percent of their time raising money to get back to Congress or to get their party back into power. They become extremely careful and well focused on the tiniest slice of the 1 percent of

America and they increasingly become detached from the rest of us. So you've said that money really doesn't buy influence but it buys access. To me that's the same thing explain why it's not. Well I mean there's a there's a very important debate in political science about whether we can show that money actually buys direct influence you know whether you can show money coming in and roll call votes coming out. And my point has been you know that debate is an interesting political scientists debate. One thing we can be absolutely certain of is that America looks at the way we fund our system and America believes money buys results in Congress. Seventy five percent according to a poll we ran from my book believe Money buys results in Congress. And this view leads people to be enormously cynical and have almost no trust or confidence in the institution last last at the end of last year. If you see a New York Times did a poll that found 9 percent of America had confidence in Congress you know 9 percent if you think just put that in

context. Certainly a higher percentage of Americans believed in the British crown at the time of the revolution than who believed in our Congress today. So the institution is if any institution can be a political institution and be politically bankrupt it doesn't have the confidence of the people. And one core reason is that we see them playing the games they can play in order to raise money and we believe they don't care about what they're supposed to be caring about which is serving the people. So here we are post Citizens United Supreme Court decision which allowed for the floodgates of money to the Super PACs and others and the situation that you describe with Congress people really trying to court the 1 percenters because they have to in order to stay and play the game. And you've written about your fear that we would get to we the public would get to the point of accepting this as the new normal. Are we not there yet. It feels like we are. Yeah it feels like especially with this presidential campaign because you know neither candidate neither Barack Obama or Mitt Romney is going to make money in

politics an issue. You know Mitt Romney believes in the current system he has defended the current system believes corporations are persons they ought to be able to spend whatever money they can. And though I don't think Barack Obama wishes for a world where money buys results in Congress after spending three years just wishing and not actually proposing one piece of legislation that would have changed the influence inside of inside of Washington. I think he's too embarrassed to raise the issue indeed it was reported that they're beginning to airbrush criticisms of citizens united from the web page because they're a little bit uncomfortable being so clear criticizing Citizens United but now building their own super PAC to to defend against Romney. So we're going to have a presidential election cycle where this issue is completely invisible and after the money that will be spent in this presidential cycle with nobody even talking about the issue it's going to be hard to get people to focus on it again or at least to get people inside the Beltway to focus on it. And I think that's the that's the character of where we are in American politics the insiders have one view

of American politics. You know where money is normal. We're raising as much money as you can from a tiny fraction of the 1 percent is the way to do it. And people on the outside this kind of outsider politics or exile politics are increasingly dire. Cynical and skeptical and detached from that and think that that system is just deeply corrupt and and how these two politics meet and whether they can actually do something productive I think is the challenge that we have over the next four years. And just to bring people up to what's current at least in the last couple of days Mitt Romney 77 million dollars. President Obama one hundred forty five million dollars at this moment. Something of a change in the last couple of days. So now let me to Americans elected that was the logical effort by some well-funded and well positioned people of both parties to really fund the candidate of a third party who would represent something other than the polarization that we've seen now and presumably get away from money as the

driving issue. But it didn't work. You had high hopes for it. Yeah I had high hopes for it in a certain sense when when they first launched this idea. Peter Ackerman who was one of the core. You know visionaries here and his son Elliot Ackerman came to visit me and Harvard at Harvard to describe their idea and their real focus was on the need to get a kind of centrist candidate into the presidential election. And I told them at that time you know my view was though I don't like the polarization. They were they were hacking at the wrong root here. That the the lack of a centrist candidate wasn't a problem it was the corruption of the political system that was the problem. It was the fact that regardless of who you had him in the presidency you're going to have a Congress that was constantly focused on how to keep the tiniest fraction of the 1 percent happy and therefore nothing can happen either on the left or on the right. You know people on the right want to simpler tax system they want to and the government bailouts they want to slow down government

spending. Those objectives cannot be achieved given the way we fund elections right now. And people on the left who want global global warming legislation or better health care or better financial reform will want get those things either because of the way we fund elections so that's about the corruption of our political system not about the lack of a centrist candidate. But over the course of this election as the only candidate in the Republican Party who is actually raising this issue Buddy Roemer got shifted out of any attention from the Republicans at all even though he was literally the most qualified candidate in the field he had more government experience than any of them. And when you added that to 20 years in private sector experience he was an extremely qualified candidate but because he had committed to taking no more than $100 from anybody everybody said you can't possibly win buddy so therefore we're not going to take you seriously you can't even be in a debate. When he failed so miserably in the Republican primary My view was well maybe Americans Elect is a place where this person a person could begin to

make this an issue in the campaign. And if 15 percent of the public had indicated in polls that they supported this candidate that person would have been on stage and if you had had a person on stage with Mitt Romney and Barack Obama saying this government is corrupted and how can you be free to lead when you're spending all of your time at cocktail parties trying to raise money from the richest of the rich. Then maybe we get some progress in this in this campaign. So there is a big push to get buddy. And there were other reform candidates like that too David Walker who was the comptroller general I think would have been a fantastic candidate too. The big push to try to get them but in the end there was just not enough attention not enough people participating to for any of them to get past the initial hurdles that Americans Elect itself set up and so they said nobody made it so therefore were shutting down for the year. And it seems to me I mean this was the first third party effort where there was really I thought structurally a good chance I did some work. We did conversations with folks

involved here on the show. But to get on the ballot everywhere first seem to be to make imminent sense. So I am just sort of at a loss with you as to why I didn't catch fire given the public distaste for what they say their distaste for the polarization the kind of stuff that's going on the money raising dollars all of the stuff that your computer talking about now. Yes so they were very good on a part that was you know easy to kind of spec out how to do and then execute which was go out and get enough signatures to get on the ballots everywhere and they were on a. Time to timetable that would get them on to 50 state ballots by the time of the election. But where it turned out they didn't execute as well was in getting enough people inside of the organization who were committed and eager to be verified as a voter and eager to participate in the primaries. You know it was easy it was not even possible for candidates who were declared candidates to send emails to other people in the

Americans elect a list like they tried to protect people from any of that kind of spam Well you know if you're a presidential candidate how do you campaign. The Americans Elect It's not like you know a New Hampshire primary where you can go to New Hampshire and go to the corners and meet people on the street with Americans Elect there was no place there was no people there were no people so. So in a certain sense I don't think that people have thought through carefully enough how hard it was going to be to connect to people who are interested in Americans Elect to get them to support you so that you know they have this initial hurdle they had to get for a credible candidate you have to get 10000 votes from a thousand in each of 10 states and. The non declared candidate. Ron Paul got more than 9000 and he came very close. But Buddy Roemer was also in the debates too and he was there as well. But Buddy Roemer who was the leading declared candidate got close to 7000 votes but it was a really difficult process in the end to get enough people to sign up and so since nobody made it they did what I think nobody expected them to do.

They said the rules have not been satisfied. Therefore we're shutting down everybody you know all the kind of cynical skeptical sorts out there and I understand the cynicism and skepticism all of them thought that this was a kind of ruse this whole rule based system and that at the end if it didn't work they were going to vote to say OK we get to pick our own candidate and we pick Bloomberg or something like that. But I think to their credit they held to their principles they held to their rules and they said nobody made it so therefore we're just going to shut down this time. And who knows you know this was a big pathway created so it's leads to something else perhaps. I don't conclude this conversation without your giving a real world example of someone who is actually governing at the moment who is trying to pay attention to the money issue in a very concerted way and then you mentioned John Sarbanes in one of your articles if you could talk about what he's doing so that somebody is responding. Yes it is John Sir John Sarbanes as you know he's the son of Paul Sarbanes who's response was an extraordinary senator from Maryland. John is a third term

congressman. And what what Sarbanes is really focused on is how does he get a large number of small donors to support his campaign because you know you run for president you can get millions of people as well. But when you're a regular congressman as he put it to me it just doesn't make sense to try to raise small dollar contributions when you can sit down with fat cats and get you know $5000 checks. So he committed himself. To a structure that forces him to raise small dollar contributions only and he did that by raising about three quarters of a million dollars and putting it into a trust and the trust says he's not allowed to touch that money until he raises a thousand small dollar contributions so that he is structurally driving his campaign to do the kind of small dollar funding that I think all candidates should be doing even though it doesn't make sense for them to do it he has I think the first person in the history of Congress to ever tie his hands in this way to force himself to try to make sure he's responsive to small dollar cunt contributors not big dollar contributors and

though I don't think many are going to follow his example voluntarily. You know Sarbanes has been a big pusher for the kind of citizen funded small dollar alternative to the way we currently fund. So it can happen. It could happen if Congress passed a law to support it and that's what Congress has got to do. Thirty seconds what do you care. Because I have children and our government can't begin to address the most fundamental issues it needs to address you know global warming health care financial reform a clean safe environment the debt all of these issues we will not address until we address this corruption first. And so I spent one hundred forty days in hotels last year not to kiss my wife was wanting me out of the house but because I'm out there trying to get people to think about this issue it is critical we find a way to get this back into the center of political debate. You think it's catching fire. I talk to people all the time we were normal sleep passion about it we were just out of Concord to the League of Women Voters or 400 women there who are screaming about this issue so yes outside the Beltway of Washington it's catching fire. But the question is now how do we take that fire and direct it

into Washington and get them to do something about it. Thank you very much Lawrence Lessig. We've been talking about big money and politics with Lawrence Lessig. Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at Harvard Law School. He's also the director of the Edmond J Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Thanks so much for coming in. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter and become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook. Today's show was engineered by Jane pic produced by Chelsea murders. Will Rose left an abbey Ruzicka. We are a production of WGBH Boston Public Radio.