News from the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons

One year ago, members of Vera's Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Corrections and Rehabilitation on our then-newly published report, Confronting Confinement.

This June, on the first anniversary of that Senate hearing, Senators Richard Durbin and Tom Coburn, M.D., sent a letter to their colleagues urging them to re-read our report, saying, "the information and recommendations of the Commission are no less relevant than at their release." You can read their entire letter here.

Today, the Commission is continuing to assist government leaders, corrections administrators, and advocates in taking steps to improve the lives of those who work and live in correctional facilities across the nation.

Here are some highlights of recent developments:

• Citing the Commission's recommendations, the New Mexico House passed a memorial directing the state's attorney general to convene a task force to consider the creation of an independent entity to oversee the status and conditions of New Mexico's correctional facilities.
  
  
• Three Commissioners testified in April before the Pennsylvania House & Senate Judiciary Committees about the importance of creating safe and healthy correctional facilities.
  
  
• The Commission submitted a letter in support of a bill to create an Office of Corrections Ombudsman in the Washington State Senate.
  
  
• The Commission sponsored two roundtable discussions in Washington, DC, focusing on strategies for implementing the Commission's recommendation to extend Medicaid and Medicare to eligible prisoners, and on the Prison Litigation Reform Act.
  
  
• In April, the Commission's final report, Confronting Confinement, was favorably reviewed by the New York Review of Books.
  

What was true last year remains true today: what happens in jail and prison doesn't stay there. It is in the interest of everyone's safety and health—not only those who work in prisons, but also those who are sent to prison and the communities they return to upon release—that we continue to present these important issues and recommendations to decision makers in Washington, DC, and around the country.

Thank you for your support—past, present, and future—which helps to make this possible.

Sincerely,


Alexander Busansky
Executive Director, Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons
Director, Washington DC Office, Vera Institute of Justice

Confronting Confinement is available at the Commission's web site, www.prisoncommission.org.