Thumbs

THUMBS UP for corrections employees in the Seward chapter of the Alaska State Employees Association (ASEA)/AFSCME Local 52, who spent $1,500 of their dues money and volunteered their time to photograph some 250 kids on April 26, as part of a "KidCare ID" program. The program provides identification packets for children, so if a child should disappear, parents will have photos and information readily available for the police. Polaroid sponsors the program and provides film, cameras, backdrops and other supplies at cost.

THUMBS UP for Northern New England Council 93, which killed two birds with one stone when it helped persuade Maine’s state legislature to fund new programs that will alleviate overcrowding in state prisons and create union jobs. Under pressure from AFSCME, the legislature restored funding for 45 corrections positions slated to be cut — and funded new programs that will be staffed by Council 93 members. These programs include one that will give female inmates in pre-release facilities the same services now enjoyed by their male counterparts. Another will provide care for prisoners with acute mental health problems, who are nonetheless too well for placement at current facilities.

THUMBS UP for the Anchorage Daily News, whose March 31 editorial insisted: "The Legislature cannot continue snipping at Corrections’ budget and demand the same outcome — a safe, effective prison system." The paper cites the legislature’s passage of tougher laws resulting in an increase in the prison population, its cuts in prison funding — and its subsequent requests to privatize the state’s prisons. "Legislators have every right to advocate private prisons," the paper states. "But they must not hold the Corrections budget hostage while chanting the mantra ‘privatize, privatize.’"

THUMBS DOWN for the Supreme Court’s March ruling that an inmate released under a program to relieve prison overcrowding cannot be sent back to prison without getting a chance to show at a hearing that he has met the conditions of the program and is entitled to remain free. Doing so constitutes a violation of the parolee’s right to due process, the justices said in a unanimous decision.

THUMBS UP for the Supreme Court’s June decision that sexual predators judged to be dangerous though not mentally ill can be locked up even after they finish serving their sentences. Such imprisonment does not violate the constitutional right to due process and is not double punishment for the same crime, the justices said in a 5-4 ruling. The determination of which prisoners fit this description would be made by a judge or jury.

THUMBS UP for New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whose administration announced in May that it wants to charge city jail inmates a $3 per-visit fee for medical care. The fee would be waived for emergency care and for the indigent. New Jersey has seen a 60 percent decline in the number of inmates visiting its doctors since assessing a $5-per-visit fee last year.