Political Chowder's NUMBER OF THE WEEK - Sponsored by www.no-deal.org



November 04, 2007
NUMBER OF THE WEEK
 1300
Source: October 31, 2007
From: Counter Punch

The Screams of the Besieged

New Orleans' Broken Criminal Justice System

By BILL QUIGLEY

"We are faced with the daily reality of an imminent collapse of our criminal justice institutions."

New Orleans Police Chief Warren Riley

Some say crime causes a city to be under siege; others say crime is the symptom of a city under siege. Either way, New Orleans is in serious trouble. Our criminal justice system is in unprecedented crisis.

Thursday there were four murders in 24 hours in New Orleans. Over the weekend three more people died from gunshots. So far this year, 170 people have been murdered in New Orleans--a rate seven times the national average.

The District Attorney of New Orleans just resigned at the insistence of the Mayor, the Attorney General and several legislators. His office owes a group of discharged employees a federal civil rights judgment of over $3 million--and neither the City nor State was willing to pay unless he resigned. There is high turnover in the office and thousands of people arrested have been released because the office could not timely decide whether to charge them with crimes or not. His resignation will not make New Orleans any safer.

Katrina severely damaged an already dysfunctional criminal justice in New Orleans. In fact, what has occurred and is happening now in New Orleans is really neither "justice" nor a "system

Before Katrina, New Orleans averaged 1000 violent crimes each quarter. In the second quarter of 2007, New Orleans reported over 1300 violent crimes--despite the fact that not many more than half the people of New Orleans are back.

Black on black crime continues to dominate. Of the 161 homicide victims in 2006, 131 were black men, along with most of the suspects. Many victims and the suspects were teenagers. About two-thirds of the deaths of 2006 have gone unsolved.

Police work out of trailers, including the brass. During the summer, officers filled out paperwork in their cars because there was no working air conditioning in their temporary trailer offices. Not until spring 2007 was there a working crime lab.

New Orleans has a post-Katrina police force over 80% as large as before the storm--nearly half are new officers. At the end of 2006, seven police officers were indicted on murder charges--and then hailed as "heroes" by many fellow officers as they reported to court. The police force is supplemented by hundreds of National Guard members patrolling the city in camouflaged humvees, and, on special occasions, members of the state police as well.

The public defender system is starting to improve but remains unable to represent all those facing charges. Recently, Orleans Criminal Court Judge Arthur Hunter mailed over 450 letters to attorneys in New Orleans ordering them to report to his courtroom to start defending poor defendants. Most declined.

Jail is not the answer to our crime problems because Louisiana already leads all 50 states in the percentage of our people in jail, and New Orleans leads Louisiana. A report on those in the New Orleans jail show that the majority are awaiting trial and many of those in jail could easily be released. A third are in on bonds of $5000 or less--the only reason they remain in jail is because of their poverty. Over half are only facing minor charges and nearly three-quarters have no other outstanding warrants for their arrest.

Addressing crime takes a functioning criminal justice system--and New Orleans is working on that by increasing communication between the various agencies and enacting some new programs. But, like the resignation of the District Attorney, this is not likely to dramatically reduce crime.

Three recent reports help show the way for New Orleans to improve the criminal system. They stress earlier and better communication between the police and prosecutors; a wider range of pre-trial release options; and greater use of alternatives to prison.

The August 2007 report of the Urban Institute, "Washed Away? Justice in New Orleans," documents past and present challenges for criminal justice. Available online at: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411530_washed_away.pdf.

The VERA Institute of Justice report, "Proposals for New Orleans' Criminal Justice System: Best Practices to Advance Public Safety and Justice" gives four concrete ways that the system can be improved in the short run. Their report is available at: http://www.vera.org/publication_pdf/399_770.pdf

The community-based Safe Streets Strong Communities organization has put out several recommendations about how New Orleans can fight crime without criminalizing or alienating the people in the neighborhoods. See: http://www.safestreetsnola.org

But even if all these changes are started, most leaders acknowledge what Criminal Judge Calvin Johnson, who has presided in criminal court for nearly 20 years, says over and over "We cannot arrest our way out of this problem."

Crime is not an isolated action. It is impossible to fix the crime problem if the rest of the institutions that people rely on remain deeply broken.

The head of the local FBI suggested to the Christian Science Monitor that criminals in New Orleans "are products of an educational system that didn't educate, a state judicial system that failed to mete out consequences for criminal activity, and an economic landscape devoid of meaningful jobs."

Katrina and its aftermath place enormous daily stresses on all people, particularly those already disadvantaged by race, gender and class systems. Treatment facilities report much more substance abuse, suicide and domestic violence. Yet, the mental and physical health systems are only a shell of what they were before the storm. Affordable housing is scarce and families are separated. Public education is not working for the poorest children. There is only so much the criminal justice system can do.

The number of doctors and social workers and nurses who treat mental health is down dramatically. Beds are down nearly 80%. Hospitals turn troubled people away every day. Doctors report people who cannot be turned away are chemically restrained on gurneys in the hall or kept in dimmed emergency waiting rooms until they can be released. The system is backed up around the state.

Even regular medical treatment is a challenge for uninsured and insured both as many hospitals remain closed. Drug and substance abuse treatment are scarce.

The extreme lack of affordable rental housing means many older family members have not returned to New Orleans. Many teenagers have returned on their own--living alone or with other relatives and friends.

Public education for those not in charter schools continues to be quite an uphill battle for the children--often in highly policed public schools that illustrate the school to prison pipeline.

Before Katrina, New Orleans had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation a couple of times. The police arrested few people for violent crimes and prosecutors and judges and juries convicted less. Police, prosecutors and public defenders were overworked and underpaid--often losing their most experienced people to the suburbs and other cities where the work was calmer and the pay better.

After Katrina it is all worse. There is much more stress on the streets. There is much less counseling and treatment available. There are fewer extended families to provide a supportive environment. The police are less experienced. The police do not communicate well with the prosecutors, who do not work well with the victims and witnesses, while the judges feud with the public defenders, and on and on.

After Katrina, there is even less of a system and certainly less justice for everyone--the public, victims, the accused, law enforcement and people working in the institutions. Only when the criminal justice system is supported by a good public education available to all children, sufficient affordable housing for families, accessible healthcare (especially mental healthcare), and jobs that pay living wages, can the community expect the crime rate to go down.

The District Attorney has resigned. But New Orleans and the Gulf Coast remain in serious trouble on all fronts. Our criminal justice system is but one illustration of our institutions melting down. For us, crime is not the cause of our community being under siege; crime is the scream of our community under siege.

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. You can reach him at Quigley@loyno.edu

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Verizon witness under fire at PUC's FairPoint hearing

By DENIS PAISTE
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff

CONCORD – Who pays for tree trimming and maintaining utility poles and wires became a flash point yesterday in the continuing state Public Utilities Commission hearing into FairPoint Communications attempt to acquire Verizon's land line business here.

Electric utilities Public Service of New Hampshire and Unitil are demanding Verizon pay about $850,000 the utilities claim Verizon owes them for maintenance tree trimming.

And Public Utilities Commissioner Graham Morrison, growing impatient with a Verizon witness under cross-examination, accused the company of abusive treatment of the state and the witness of confusing and clouding the issue.

Public Service of New Hampshire asserts that Verizon owes it $566,000 for tree trimming for 2006, while Unitil says the phone company owes it about $300,000 for the years...

Commissioner Graham Morrison questioned Verizon witness John F. Nestor III, who is in charge of government relations for Verizon in New Hampshire, about how it came to be that there are 7,000 double poles in the state.

"I don't know exactly how it all happened, commissioner," Nestor testified. "...the telephone company is always the last one usually on the pole, so that if a pole has been set and the electric has transferred wires and then cable, and the telephone is the last one, there is a notice process. I won't get into all the details here."

"I want you to get into all the details," Commissioner Morrison retorted. "I really want to understand this because this is, this is extraordinary.

"My understanding is that there is a notice process of being notified if it's a Verizon pole, we are directed to have to come off it, the other parties come off it, then Verizon is supposed to come off...

"It's a very complex area," Nestor said.

Morrison said, "I've got 7,000 poles. I've got FairPoint committing to clean up about 194 poles a month. That's a heck of a legacy."

"In what way?" Nestor asked the commissioner.

"The volume of work," Morrison said.

"If you want to get rid of double poles, yes," Nestor came back.

"Double poles are not supposed to be out there," Morrison said.

"I don't know what that's based on; I've never heard of that," Nestor said.

"Towns consider double poles to be a problem; is that a generally good statement?" Morrison asked.

"I would say towns as a general proposition from the esthetic reasons don't prefer them," Nestor said. "But just as towns do not, for example, want to see telephone wires going through town if they're not on double poles."

"How many double poles has Verizon removed in 2007," Morrison asked Nestor.

"I don't know," Nestor said.

Morrison said Verizon must provide the commission data on double pole removal back to 2000.

"This is a public utility being abusive to the state," Morrison said.

Morrison then asked Nestor how many poles Verizon workers set in place on an average day.

"I don't know," Nestor said.

"I'd like to have a record request someone go back on maintenance records for that same period and I'd like to see how many poles are set on an average day," Morrison said.

"I now understand how there are 7,000 poles out there. Everything is obfuscation," Morrison said.

Robert T. Hybsch, PSNH's director of customer operations, and Thomas P. Meissner, Unitil's chief operating officer, testified to Verizon's obligations for tree trimming.

Unitil's chief regulatory counsel, Gary Epler, said, "As part of our normal operations and maintenance of our poles and wires, we trim trees in order to make sure that their lines are not affected by storms and so on. We have an agreement between Verizon and Unitil whereby we share in the allocation of the costs of that. It's our position that Verizon has to pay their 25 percent share of those activities that we undertake. Verizon does not do tree trimming, maintenance tree trimming, that's something that Unitil does exclusively in its service territory."

Unitil is seeking to recover approximately $340,000 from Verizon and to have the PUC condition the sale to FairPoint on Verizon meeting its obligation.

Gerald M. Eaton, senior counsel for Northeast Utilities System, the parent company of PSNH, said the Manchester-based utility is seeking to recover $506,000. "PSNH is requesting Verizon reimburse PSNH for maintenance trimming as a condition of allowing them to discontinue service in New Hampshire," Eaton said.

"This is something that they owe PSNH and they should not be allowed to leave New Hampshire without paying part of their obligation to PSNH and its customers," he said.

Charlotte, N.C.-based FairPoint reached an agreement with Public Service of New Hampshire earlier this month to manage poles that should avoid the kinds of problems being argued with Verizon in the future.

"Our commitment to our customers is good customer service, and we wanted to be assured that a new owner ... would deliver the type of customer service that we provide and that we expect our partners to provide," PSNH spokesman Martin Murray said at the time.

"Our support of FairPoint's acquisition is based on our belief after talking with them that they will be a very strong partner in this effort going forward," he said.



There are many, many more issues that need to be examined. This is just a snippet of what's wrong with this deal. For more in depth details, please go on-line to www.no-deal.org. This is a bad deal for consumers, tax payers, rate payers, our communities and for the economic growth of New Hampshire.