Category: Policy

Leaked White House memos detail president’s pardon policy

USA Today has published a White House document detailing President Obama’s policy on granting clemency, including both sentence commutation and post-sentence pardons.  In a memorandum dated July 13, 2010 to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, White House Counsel Robert Bauer “convey[ed] the President’s views” on the exercise of his constitutional pardon power, affirming traditional standards but emphasizing that there are “certain offenses for which a pardon should very rarely, if ever, be granted absent truly exceptional circumstances.”  Among these were “large-scale drug trafficking” in which the applicant had “a significant role,” and financial fraud cases involving “substantial loss to the federal government or its programs.” The memo affirmed the five-year eligibility waiting period for a pardon, overriding a 2001 policy of the Bush Administration (also published for the first time) that imposed an informal 10-year waiting period.  At the same time, it emphasized that the passage of additional time may strengthen an applicant’s case for pardon:

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Collateral consequences and the transforming effect of the drug war

Amid last week’s torrent of commentary about the downstream effects of the punitive policies of the 1990s came this extraordinary interview with David Simon of the Wire, who attributes the breakdown of community in Baltimore to the aggressive abuse of official discretion in the drug war.  While Simon’s remarks are not directly related to collateral consequences, it is not hard to trace to the same source the regime of punitive laws and policies that now bars people with a criminal record from benefits and opportunities affecting literally every aspect of daily life. Case in point, from an NPR report aired last week: Tyrone Peake, trained as a drug counselor, is barred for life from working at a nursing home or long-term care facility in the State of Pennsylvania because of his 1981 teenage conviction for attempted car theft for which he received probation.  See Carrie Johnson, “Can’t Get A Job Because Of A Criminal Record? A Lawsuit Is Trying To Change That,” April 30, 2015. Dismantling what Jack Chin has called “the new civil death,” like rebuilding trust between police and community, is the work of the next decade.

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Vermont becomes the 16th state to ban the box!

On April 22 Vermont became the 16th state to remove the question about criminal record from most state employment applications.   By Executive Order of Governor Peter Shumlin, people applying for most state jobs will not be required to undergo a background check until after they have been deemed qualified and offered an interview.       “When we hire in-state, the first question will not be whether you’ve been convicted or arrested,” Shumlin said. “We will hold that question until the interview and give you a chance to qualify for the job for which you’ve applied.” About 8 percent of people seeking Vermont state jobs checked the criminal history box last year, according to the state Human Resources Commission.   Certain sensitive and law enforcement positions are excepted.

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Is suspension of driving privileges an effective way to collect unpaid fines?

No, according to a recent study of efforts to enforce monetary judgments in a Milwaukee municipal court and to a national organization with expertise in traffic safety. The Justice Initiative Institute reviewed non-criminal, municipal cases from 2008-2013 in which the Milwaukee court had ordered the detention of defendants for not having paid fines. Not surprisingly, the report shows that most people who fail to pay fines have little if any income (a majority of those detained were unemployed). Therefore, although the prospect of sanctions might encourage payment by a population with greater financial resources, the use of incarceration for non-payment ends up costing the City of Milwaukee more than any additional amount of fines collected.

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Federal fair chance hiring proposal advances

The following note was received today from the National Employment Law Project: We wanted to report back on the exciting progress in support of the federal fair chance hiring initiative, which builds on the momentum from the sign-on letter to the President that your organizations endorsed. On March 25th, representatives from NELP, All of Us or None, PICO National Network and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice met with White House and Labor Department officials to present the letter signed by nearly 200 organizations and urge immediate federal action.  The news about the sign-on letter and the White House meeting was covered in an excellent exclusive that appeared in Politico (check it out) the day of the meeting.  The sign-on letter was also featured in an op-ed by a Florida small business owner (and a member of our partners at the Main Street Alliance) in The Guardian, in an NNPA syndicated story picked up by several news outlets, as well as in a National Law Review story. In addition, thanks to the active engagement of your organizations, the social media around the initiative is also picking up steam. The Facebook image (attached) produced over 60,000 views, and it was shared […]

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