Arkansas - ATAT: Training for Justice Advocacy

NEWS RELEASE: Advocacy group endorses justice reform, hosts training for support groups.

“It is heartening to see the intelligent, fact-based discussion about our criminal justice system and sex-crime issues that is taking place,” Robert Kim Combs, Executive Director of Arkansas Time After Time (ATAT), an independent legislative advocacy group dedicated to making communities safer by reducing recidivism, referenced a slurry of news reports, in-depth investigations, scientific studies and criminal justice experts building momentum for pragmatism, sanity, common-sense and therapeutic intervention.

Recent research into two -- what some would call diametrically opposed – inmate transition and community reentry models is scrutinizing ideas about the 'how tos' of empowering ex-offenders to become successful, contributing, self-reliant and law-abiding members of society.

The “Good Life” Model employs strategies for 'restorative justice' with a focus on connecting ex-offenders with job-training, employment opportunities, affordable housing, education, transportation and other critical resources to help them lead successful lives in their communities and is based on the idea that in order to be effective, our justice system needs to build capabilities and strengths in people in order to reduce their risk of re-offending.

The “Containment” Model, which is much more typical in today's mainstream, relies on 'punishment' as a deterrent to future crime. Designed to protect communities by placing a strict controlling cordon of supervised compliance around each ex-offender, this model tends to leave ex-offenders to their own devices, demanding that certain performance standards (ie: housing, employment, payment of fines) be maintained as a condition of release with little or no concern for how the ex-offender will be able to satisfy these criteria, effectively mandating a life-sentence to recidivism.

 “I believe we need to combine these two models with a focus on the restoration of lives as the best means of protecting everyone in the community,” Combs elaborated, noting that the United States has the highest documented per-capita rate of incarceration in the world. “Every time someone goes back to prison, it hurts all of us. And not just in the public pocketbook. It destroys what could be productive lives and devastates families.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) 2,266,800 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2010 — about 7% of adults in the U.S. resident population.  Additionally, 4,933,667 adults at year-end 2009 were on probation or on parole.  In total, 7,225,800 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2009 — about 3.1% of adults in the U.S. resident population.

According to the National Institute for Corrections in 2010, over the past 20 years, Arkansas’s population has increased by slightly more than 10 percent, but the state's prison population has increased by more than 100 percent.  More than 1-in-4 Arkansans are either in prison, on parole, probation or somehow otherwise caught-up in 'the system'.  Of these, nearly 11,000 are listed on the Arkansas Sex Offender Registry which has grave carry-over consequences to their 11,000 families and those of the nearly 750,000 registrants nationwide.

“Just his past weekend,' Combs continued, “there were substantive articles in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, referencing sources in the Boston Globe, New York Times, Bloomberg News, San Jose Mercury News and others, all addressing strong concerns and grave apprehensions about the powerfully detrimental and completely unintended effects of our current criminal justice system.”

Combs, who worked with Satori Barnes of the U.S. Probation Department and Jeff Spry of City Connections to co-coordinate the “Re-Entry Resource Fair” sponsored by the Central Arkansas Re-Entry Coalition which brought together 37 rehabilitation, housing, training, legal, employment, financial and other support-service providers with 300 people deserving of assistance, said that to forward collaborative initiatives, ATAT is hosting a special program on April 15.

“Training for the Trainers,” being held Sunday, April 15, 2012, 2pm / 4pm, at the main branch of the Little Rock Public Library, 100 N. Rock Street (1st floor, West Room), is facilitated by Mary Sue Molnar, co-founder of the fast-growing group Texas Voices For Reason & Justice.

Among the nation's leading and most outspoken advocates for the reform of sex-crime laws Molnar is a powerful advocate for hands-on activism, cohesive actions and the critical importance fostering systematic change through public education and collaborative networking.

Hosted as a public service by Arkansas Time After Time (ATAT), an independent legislative advocacy group dedicated to making communities safer by reducing recidivism, Molnar's program offers a step-by-step 'participatory' education in the how-tos of starting and networking a state-wide affiliation of support groups. For more info contact Robert Kim Combs, 501-563-2197 or visit www.ArkansasTimeAfterTime.org

Then program is open to the public free of charge, however seating is limited and advance reservations are strongly encouraged. Contact Combs, 501-563-2197 or visit www.ArkansasTimeAfterTime.org for details.

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NEWS RELEASE authored and distributed copyright-free by Christine Beems, editor/publisher gozarks.com, 223 Primrose Lane, Shirley, AR 72153; 501-745-4153 as a public service. Questions about content or distribution may be emailed to gozarks@gmail.com  DISCLOSURE: The author is affiliated as a volunteer communications director with ArkansasTimeAfterTime.org  Thanks!

You mean I can vote?!?!” - Arkansas Time After Time (ATAT)

 The question forged to Robert Kim Combs, Executive Director of Arkansas Time After Time (ATAT), came as many do: After the weekly broadcast of "It Could Be You," the talk-radio show he hosts.
 
 The caller, an ex-offender still classified by legal definition as a felon, was amazed and happy to learn from Combs' interview guest -- the internationally esteemed civil rights and criminal defense attorney Jeff Rosenzweig -- that here in Arkansas, after release from prison and completion of parole or probation, convicted felons may reclaim the right to vote with a simple trip to the county clerk's office.
 
 A graduate of Princeton University who earned his Juris Doctorate at Southern Methodist University, Rosenzweig started accruing professional gravitas in Little Rock in 1977 and has, since 1989, served as a legislative liaison for the Arkansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (AACDL).
 
 Comprised of many if not most of the defense attorneys in the state, the AACDL, in affiliation with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), works to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crimes or other misconduct.
 
 Under the AACDL banner, Rosenzweig, working together with other preeminent attorneys like Patrick Benca of West Memphis Three acclaim, Didi Sallings, Executive Director of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission, various members of Sallings staff and others with AACDL, monitors legislative issues and makes recommendations to elected officials regarding the constitutionality or potential legal ramifications of proposed or enacted laws.
 
 “There are problems particularly dealing with the investigation of these alleged offenses in several ways,” Rosenzweig said about sex crime issues in Arkansas. “One is that a number of investigators, especially in some of the smaller areas, are ill-trained. A second is that a number of these investigations are outsourced to groups like the so-called child advocacy centers which unfortunately are infested with ideologues who are unable to concede that a number of these cases are ill-founded; that they arise from messy divorces or other family antagonisms, or in the case of very young children from literal misunderstandings.
 
 “Consequently,” Rosenzweig continued, “they will tend to find 'crimes' that don't exist and there are several things that are going to need to happen to fix the problem. One is that you're going to have to have somewhat more leadership in DHS and the State Police. You're going to have to require more training than what is being done,” he elaborated. “The idea of outsourcing investigations to private entities is a horrible idea. If there is anything that needs to be done by a governmental agency, it needs to be the investigation of alleged crimes.”
 
 Of particularly problematic concern to Rosenzweig, the Arkansas Child Maltreatment Registry is a 'private' Department of Human Services (DHS) black-list which, once a person's name is on it, can prevent him or her from being employed in occupations which involve routine interactions with children.
 
 While this seems like a good idea, Rosenzweig explained that even when there is no criminal accusation or when the accused is found not guilty or the allegations of sex-crime or child abuse are dropped, DHS can an often does pursue Child Maltreatment Registry proceedings.
 
 Unlike criminal proceedings which play out in a court of law and may, upon conviction, compel registration as a sex offender, “These (DHS) hearings used to be a complete joke,” said Rosenzweig. “But they are better now in some respects,” he added. “And their rulings can be appealed to the circuit court.”
 
 Rosenzweig also discussed how registered sex offenders may, after a period of time stipulated by law, petition to be removed from the sex offender registry, but noted that once a person is on the DHS maltreatment list, it is nearly impossible to get his or her name removed. Thus, Rosenzweig stressed, whenever anyone is accused or suspected of being a perpetrator – no matter if it is by an officer of the law or by a DHS employee and even when they are innocent – they should immediately contact an attorney who is conversant with these issues.
 
 A grassroots legislative advocacy group dedicated to making communities safer and reducing recidivism with effective common-sense laws, Combs said the overarching mission of the volunteer organization he serves and the radio program they produce is to “develop a cooperative sense of community rather than take an adversarial approach among people on the sex-offender registry, victim's advocacy groups and the authorities in the state.”
 
 “It Could Be You” airs weekly, noon to 1pm, on Little Rock's “Voice of the People” KABF, 88.3 FM. An audio recording of Rosenzweig's full radio interview is available online at the ATAT website.
 
 ATAT meets the third Sunday of each month, 2pm to 4pm, in the West Room on the 1st floor of the Main branch of the Central Arkansas Library, 100 Rock St., in downtown Little Rock. Meetings are open to the general public.
 
 For more information, visit www.ArkansasTimeAfterTime.org or contact Robert Kim Combs, executive director, 501-563-2197.
 
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 PDF of this release on ATAT letterhead:
 http://www.arkansastimeaftertime.org/pdf/atat_nwerls_ltrhd110111.pdf
 
 More about “It Could Be You”:
 http://www.arkansastimeaftertime.org/radio/index.htm