18th June 2004

Convention Report:

CURE/FedCURE Convention, Washington, DC. 05th through 09th June 2004

FedCURE's Executive Committee was led by Kenny Linn, J.D., L.L.M. The following are selected highlights of what transpired at the convention:

1. United States Probation Officer Use of the "Association" rule:

The CURE national board adopted the position of CURE?s Executive Committee writing a letter directed to Chairman Edward F. Reilly, Jr., of the U. S. Parole Commission and the current head of Federal Probation Services to clarify their recent use of a condition of post-incarceration supervision that states: [O]ne cannot 'have contact' or 'associate' with those who have a criminal record without the permission of the probation/parole officer. The use of this regulation in this manner prevents persons on supervision (i.e., parole or supervised release) from interacting with others with a criminal record while dealing with the incidental day-to-day business of inmate reentry and prison rights organizations, as in the matter of the recent resignations of FedCURE's, two, most senior officers. Specifically, CURE will do whatever is necessary to end the use of this rule from being applied in this context, including litigation, if necessary. Mr. Tom Hutchison, Chief of Staff, of the United States Parole Commission, and Mr. Alvin Bronstein of National Prison Project were both consulted personally on this matter and are looking into it. We await the outcome. The letter is in draft stages.

2. H.R. 4036---A Bill to Revive Federal Parole:

FedCURE spent about 90 minutes with Rep. Danny Davis and his point person on legislative affairs to discus FedCURE's amendments to H.R. 4036, the bill to Revive Federal Parole and Increase Good Time Allowances. All of FedCURE's amendments were accepted and the bill was sent on to legislative counsel for rewrite by Rep. Davis the same day. H.R. 4036, as amended, will be presented for resubmission to the next Congress.

The rewrite is to amend H.R. 4036 as follows:

a) the bill will apply to everyone presently in the system whether they are parole eligible or ineligible, old law or new law, violent or non-violent. It will call for presumptive parole on the record.
b) it will include a second segment that has the old good time statutes for statutory good time plus a new portion that will add extra good time days for what we are calling ?superior program achievement.? This means that everyone will be eligible for extra good time whether they excel in reading or not, so long as they do something to deserve it.
c) the reinstitution of PELL grants was yanked from this bill because its inclusion would have meant a need to go to two Congressional subcommittees instead of one without it. We expect to try to get a separate small bill submitted to include PELL grants.
d) As of 12th June 2004, FedCURE has added a compassionate release provision that would grant release at age 65 after serving 25 years incarceration without institutional violence.

Both the Director of the BOP and the Chief of Staff of the USPC have reviewed FedCURE's new bill and we had no objections from either.

When H.R. 4036 is re-submitted (and not before), FedCURE has promised Rep. Davis that there will be a ground swell from the community like he has never seen and we must keep our word if this bill has any chance of passing. We are working with the Mr. Allan Beck, head of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, to see how many inmates would walk out the door if the old parole guidelines were put in place. Mr. Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project is to ascertain this information for FedCURE. This statistic will be extremely important in determining the total dollar savings per year as a result a reduced inmate population. This is the key to conservative support for H.R. 4036. Stay tuned!

3. Other Inmate-related Legislation:

FedCURE met with the legislative affairs directors for Rep. Young of FL (head of the House Appropriations Committee) and Sen. Nelson (D-FL) to advise them of who we are and what we stand for. They were both amazed at what legislation was actually out there pending in the area of criminal justice reform and promised that they would bring these items to their respective boss' attention and requested that we keep them heads up on what FedCURE is seeking to accomplish in this area.

4. Federal Bureau of Prisons:

FedCURE met with Mr. Harley G. Lappin, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and five of his staff members from the Central Office, the head nurse, the head medical policy chief, the corrections manager, the religious affairs manager and the general policy manager. Attending also were Mr. Charles Sullivan from CURE National and FedCURE's board member, Fred Mosely, J.D., L.L.M. We would be understating the results if we were to say it went well. Mr. Lappin was quite impressive and was well briefed on the five policy areas FedCURE raised, which were: a) the ion spectrometer issue, b) the one year in SHU policy for violations at USPs, c) starting visitor processing at 8:00 A.M., d) medical emergencies and e) ex-felon facility entry for program presentations.

As for (a), the program statement is being written now and is their first priority. Visitors will be notified what will set the machines off and the calibrations will be raised. Consensual searches will not take place because of concerns over lawsuits that could develop. They will be more sympathetic to false positives and will try to randomly choose other than 80 year old grandmothers.

As for (b), this policy statement is also being written and we hope it will include FedCURE's suggestion to codify who it applies to, namely only those who are trying to manipulate transfers.

As for (c), they will try to put earlier visitor processing into place, which will call for pressure on the local level.

As for (d), they are currently processing over 100 medical BP 11s at Central Office every month. We know that they are strapped financially, but we must also realize that equivalent medications are going to be used in place of whatever meds were being used on the street and that medically "unnecessary" operations will not be done either. They will try to get answers to FedCURE in two days about particular emergencies.

As to (e), Fred Mosely will be allowed to develop a program for the Director to promote nationally, so that ex-felons do not have to seek individual warden approval.

The Bureau is going to respond to FedCURE in writing item by item on every complaint that we presented. We await their response and feel that a rapport has been established which is extraordinary and that FedCURE has a level of communication with the Federal Bureau of Prisons that, to some, would never have foreseen as possible.

We at FedCURE want to thank those of you that have contributed to our cause thus far and as we work ahead in these next months, we plead for your continued support. If you are not a member, please join. If you have not made a donation, please donate. Donate $ Join Now! Traveling to Washington DC is not cheap and we depend upon our own personal resources and contributions from those that care about what we are doing. This trip kept us all very busy with many other convention items keeping us going non-stop from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM for five days, way too much to write about here.

Other items on the CURE convention agenda dealt with private prisons, telephones, DC prisoners, international criminal justice issues and individual chapter issues.

Kenny Linn, J. D., L.L.M.
Executive Committee
FedCURE
P.O. Box 15667
Plantation, Florida 33318-5667

Fax: (408) 549-8935 or (413) 702-6301
E-mail: Information@FedCURE.org
Web Site: http://www.FedCURE.org
Donate & Join @: http://www.fedcure.org/join.shtml

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"Serving Federal Prisoners and Their Families"

Working to Reinstate Parole;
to Increase Good Time Allowances;
and to Restore PELL Grants, for all Federal Offenders.

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