A MAN FREED BY DNA EVIDENCE:

And so Morton didn’t get to see Eric grow up. When Eric was 12, he stopped seeing his father in prison. When he was 18, he changed his last name from Morton. That broke his father’s spirit. Fourteen years into his life sentence, Morton hit absolute bottom.

“The things that I was hanging on to in the world, and he was it. When that was gone, I just cratered,” he says. “When you are completely without hope, when you are completely without any avenue of escape, when you’re not sure of any reason to go on, I cried out to God. I said, ‘OK, I’m done. I got nothing.’ “

How was Morton finally freed? His wife’s brother had found the bloody bandanna the police left later that day, and he turned it in. For years, Williamson County fought Morton’s requests to have the evidence in his case tested. Prosecutors ridiculed his efforts and taunted him, saying they’d consider DNA testing the evidence only if Morton would first take responsibility for the crime.

more; and more; comments on the framing of the story and, specifically, the coverage of religious conversion and faith, here, with good comments section as well

ROSS DOUTHAT ON CHUCK COLSON.

NEW RULES SLASHING CRACK COCAINE SENTENCES GO INTO EFFECT.

"YES, THAT IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT."

"THE BEATITUDES IN PRISON": A PRISONER'S RESPONSE.

"WHY BLACK MEN ARE WEARING PRISON JUMPSUITS IN CHINATOWN": The Museum of Crime & Punishment consistently has the most trivializing, jokey-worship-of-a-police-state advertising I've ever seen, so this is really not surprising. I suppose I've never seen them use a prison-rape joke so... that's something! But really, when a tacky tourist sinkhole like the Spy Museum outclasses you on a regular basis, you should rethink your choices.

Link via Racialicious.

DC VIGIL FOR VICTIMS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS. Organized by GW Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, it looks like; tomorrow, 6/17, 8 - 9 pm in Lafayette Park.

Since 2008, Mississippi has trimmed its corrections budget by about 5%, to $332 million. Reducing the prison population hasn't caused the state's violent crime rate to rise. In fact, the rate falling toward 1970s levels, and the state's recidivism rate has decreased to 30% in the last four years — well below the national average.

Mississippi's effort is being closely followed by other states. Ohio's Senate, for instance, is considering a potentially sweeping overhaul of the state's corrections system. There is, of course, the risk that the' inability of states to invest in rehabilitation programs for ex-offenders reentering a society that still bars them from jobs and housing will ultimately cause crime, and recidivism rates, to rise. Nevertheless, Epps believes his reforms will ultimately pay-off. "I'm proud to say we're moving Mississippi into the 21st century."

--Time, cited here, via WAWIV

THE REAL WORLD: CHINESE GULAG. Last night we stumbled upon the Laogai Research Foundation's Laogai Museum, a very quick walk north from Dupont Circle. LRF was founded by Harry Wu, the fearless man who exposed the Chinese gulag system. We're visiting the museum soon, and if you're in DC, you should too. I'll tell you more about it once we've been inside.

(Post title is because of the bizarre coincidence that the museum is housed in the former Real World: DC rowhouse.)

Our reasons, in short, do not always really involve a belief that a prisoner is dangerous to us or has committed some crime; sometimes (and this is more debased) we mostly think we might find him useful…Here are other signs, according to the files, that a prisoner is dangerous: attitude toward the Star Spangled Banner; having been caught wearing a Casio F91W watch (a common model); perceived support for fellow inmates who committed suicide (there have been five).And more: according to the Guardian, the “GTMO matrix of threat indicators for enemy combatants,” which runs to seventeen pages, also lists having a connection to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or I.S.I.; given how much money we’ve given Pakistan to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda, that detail alone is enough to make one’s head spin, if the Casio didn’t do it already…Is a Casio watch better than no reason at all? “It is undetermined as to why the detainee was transferred to GTMO,” the base commander wrote in a report on one of “three hapless Tajiks,” as the Guardian described them, who had been shipped there after being rounded up with others—not on what supporters of Guantánamo like to call the battlefield, but in the library at the University of Karachi, in Pakistan. They were held for two years.

more

UNTIL YOU KNOW MY HIDDEN SHAME, YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW ME: A speech at the Yale Political Union.

"BEYOND BARS."

I FORGOT TO POST THIS YESTERDAY, on her feast day, but here's the Jean Genet quote which is part of the reason I chose Elizabeth of Hungary as my patroness.

"THE EXAMINED LIFE BEHIND BARS."

IT'S THE FEAST OF ST. JOSEPH CAFASSO, patron of prisoners and those condemned to death.

"FIFTEEN TO LIFE": I see someone put my old Crisis magazine piece on fixing the criminal justice system online. This is really not the piece I would write today but I think there are still some good things in it....

GEORGIAN CONVICTS SWAP CELLS FOR MONASTERY:

...The main difference, though, is that Tariel is not a fully-fledged monk, but a prisoner now serving out his sentence at the Father Ambrosi Khelaia monastery near Tbilisi.

Having spent four years behind bars and barbed wire, he is now allowed to roam the calm surroundings of a pine forest on the outskirts of the city, as one of the first candidates in a government-led rehabilitation programme.

A devout Orthodox Christian, he shows me around the monastery, explaining his daily ritual.

"I start every day in prayer. Then I feed the chickens and sheep. During the afternoon I usually sit together with the other monks and we discuss our faith. At 2130 we rest."

He says he also takes part in Bible study, bee-keeping, gardening and playing with the monks' pet bear.

more (via Ratty)

MATCHMAKER MATCHMAKER: I got to thinking about my blogroll, and realized I would love to make connections between my readers and other bloggers. So this is an "If you like X, you might like Y" post, along the lines of my shilling for Love and Rockets. I'll try to match reader categories with blogs outside those categories. So be aware that "like" probably means, "be fruitfully challenged by," as vs. "often agree with."

If you read me for arts/comics/movie stuff, you might like the Cigarette Smoking Blog and Racialicious.

If you read me for Catholic stuff, you might like Thunderstruck.

If you read me for gay stuff, you might like CSB again if you're not reading her already; or Noli Irritare Leones; or the Disputed Mutability archives, seriously, try three posts and I will bet you'll get hooked even if you think this is the last blog you'd want to read.

If you read me for conservatism, you might like The Agitator and Hit & Run. The former is run by Radley Balko, who should be Man of the Year if you ask me--you know how Catholics use the phrase "social justice"? That's his job. (Mark Shea and Shea fans, seriously, check him out.)

The latter is the Reason magazine blog, so you might think that you know what to expect, but I'll just say that I've gone back to reading it daily because it has so much to offer for all of us who would critique the modern state--from the left, the right, or the Vatican.

If you're a libertarian for some reason, you might like Colby Cosh or Ta-Nehisi Coates.

If you're on the left, you might like Megan McArdle.

PROFILE OF NEW PRESIDENT OF THE NAACP INCLUDES THESE BITS:

...Only a few years out of college, Jealous quickly climbed the ranks of the nonprofit world. In 2005, he was named president of the Los Angeles–based Rosenberg Foundation, which grants money to groups working in low-income communities. Jealous whipped the foundation into fiscal and managerial shape and directed its money toward an emerging method of dealing with mass incarceration: re-entry programs that help former inmates readjust to society and find work. Jealous plans to prioritize these issues as president of the NAACP. "A hundred years from now we're going to be judged by our grandchildren," he says. "They're going to look back, and they're going to say, this country had the most incarcerated on Earth. Young black people were the most incarcerated in modern history. What did you do about it?" ...

For Jealous, mass incarceration is the civil-rights challenge of this generation. Addressing it, he says, requires more than just changing draconian drug laws; it also requires confronting poverty and a failing public-education system. Young black folks, particularly the urban poor who most need an organization like the NAACP to look out for them, are facing problems of violence, drugs, AIDS, and unequal education. ...

Jealous must figure out how to hold Obama accountable without drawing "the hate." Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton, is optimistic. The NAACP "could become the authentic supportive and yet challenging voice to the Obama administration," she says.

This is the role Jealous envisions. "It would be disrespectful not to criticize [Obama]," he says. "If we don't let the brother know when he's not living up to people's expectations, he's only going to be there four years."

more

(via Jack and Jill Politics)

GOD BLESS RADLEY BALKO.