Kids Behind Bars: John Jay/Tow Foundation National Symposium for Journalists

Why does the U.S. lead the world in youth imprisonment?  What should a truly effective juvenile justice system look like?  How can the media stay ahead of the story?

On April 23-24, 2012, 30 journalists from around the nation joined some of the country's most prominent juvenile justice experts, practitioners and advocates to explore those questions at a special symposium at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, organized by John Jay's Center on Media, Crime and Justice with the support of the Tow Foundation and in cooperation with John Jay's Center for Research and Evaluation.

The 30 journalists, selected as Reporting Fellows, examined current sentencing and detention practices, the impact of race, treatment of mental health and substance abuse, and the role of police, courts, schools (and parents) in the so-called "school to prison pipeline."  The year-long fellowship also includes the establishment of a "juvenile justice news network" for reporters to assist them in following trends in this area, and new research--with the aim of providing the tools that can help foster informed public debate at local and national levels in 2012 and beyond.

The symposium entitled  Kids Behind Bars: Where's the Justice in  America's Juvenile Justice System, Covering the Juvenile Justice Reform Debate in 2012 featured keynote speeches from Gail Garinger, The Child Advocate of the State of Massachusetts;  attorney Bryan Stevenson who argued the Supreme Court case related to juvenile Life Without Parole;  and Mike Bocian, Pollster & Founding Partner, GBA Strategies.

Panelists included: Vincent N. Schiraldi, Commissioner, New York City Department of Probation, James Bell, Founder and Executive Director, W. Haywood Burns Institute, C. Jama Adams, Professor and Chair of John Jay College's Africana Studies Department and Joseph Gaudett, Chief of Police, Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Proceedings of the conference, including podcasts,  research materials provided by speakers, are covered below. For a full list of speakers, panelists and the agenda click here.

NOTE: this page will be updated regularly with articles by Fellows and other information as it becomes available.

Some U.S. Mandatory Minimums Called "Excessively Severe"

Some federal mandatory minimum penalties "apply too broadly, are excessively severe, and are applied inconsistently across the country," the U.S. Sentencing Commission said in a report to Congress. The panel recommended that lawmakers "consider possible tailoring of the 'safety
valve' relief mechanism to other low-level, non-violent offenders convicted of other offenses carrying mandatory minimum penalties." It called on Congress to reevaluate the “stacking” of mandatory minimum penalties for certain federal firearms offenses because some of the resulting penalties "can be excessively severe and unjust, particularly in circumstances where there is no physical harm or threat of physical harm."

The commission said mandatory minimum penalties have contributed to a federal prison population that is 37 percent over capacity. As of September 30, 2010, about 39 percent of federal prisoners were  subject to a mandatory minimum penalty at sentencing. Drug offenses accounted for 75 percent of mandatory minimum terms.

ACLU: 6 States Reduced Inmate Count Without Crime Increases

Six states that reduced incarceration rates by focusing on parole or probation instead of prison time have cut costs without increasing crime rates, according to an ACLU report released on Tuesday. The report highlights Texas, Mississippi, Kansas, South Carolina, Kentucky and Ohio as traditionally "tough-on-crime" states that benefited from reducing incarceration rates, reports Reuters.

Four more states -- California, Louisiana, Maryland and Indiana -- are in the midst of reform, said the report by the ACLU's Center for Justice, an advocacy group that supports less-stringent penalties for nonviolent offenses. "The costs of using incarceration as an option of first -- rather than last -- resort far outweighs any benefit to public safety," ACLU advocacy and policy counsel Inimai Chettiar said in a statement accompanying the report. State and federal governments spend about $70 billion annually on prisons and corrections, and state corrections spending has skyrocketed 674 percent over the last 25 years, according to the ACLU.

Holder Proposal Would Limit Effect of Crack Term Change to 5,500

The Obama administration's support for making crack cocaine sentence changes retroactive is limited, says the New York Times. Attorney General Eric Holder...

Some FL Pols Want to Cut Mandatory Minimums; Gov Opposes Change

Sentencing Panel Study Of Mandatory Minimums A Year Off

The U.S. Sentencing Commission won't issue its pending study on mandatory minimum sentences for another year, reports Ohio State University law. Prof. Doug Berman. In October 2009, Congress directed the panel to report a year later. Berman says he learned at an American Bar Association seminar on sentencing this past week that the commission got an extension on its due date.

Says Berman: "Though I am somewhat disappointed we all now have to wait another year to get the USSC's wisdom on the wisdom of mandatory minimum sentencing provisions [ ], I am somewhat hopeful that we might get some data from the USSC on this front sooner rather than later."

Indiana the Latest State to Grapple With Costs of 'Tough on Crime'

For decades, Indiana's answer to crime has been to adopt tough new laws and strict sentencing policies to keep more offenders behind bars. Since 2000, the legislature has passed 117 criminal laws or penalty enhancements. The result, says the Indianapolis Star: Indiana's prison population has jumped by more than 40 percent, and the cost of running the prisons has soared by 76 percent, to $679 million a year. By 2017, the cost will balloon to more than $1 billion.

At a time when Indiana faces ever-deepening budget problems, building more prisons isn't the answer, said DOC Commissioner Ed Buss. He is leading a push by the administration of Gov. Mitch Daniels to rein in the cost of the state's prison system by changing the way felons are dealt with after sentencing. Among the options: increase the number of felons on probation; creating more programs such as home monitoring and work-release, and increase drug and alcohol counseling.

Magazine Cites Three Flaws In Prison-Happy American Justice

In a package of stories, The Economist magazine concludes that justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. About 2.4 million Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed.

The system has three big flaws, say criminologists. First, it puts too many people away for too long. Second, it criminalises acts that need not be criminalised. Third, it is unpredictable. Many laws, especially federal ones, are so vaguely written that people cannot easily tell whether they have broken them. In 1970 the proportion of Americans behind bars was below one in 400, compared with today’s one in 100. Since then, the voters, alarmed at a surge in violent crime, have demanded fiercer sentences. Politicians have obliged. New laws have removed from judges much of their discretion to set a sentence that takes full account of the circumstances of the offence. Since no politician wants to be tarred as soft on crime, such laws, mandating minimum sentences, are seldom softened. On the contrary, they tend to get harder.

MA Newspaper: The Time Has Come For Sentencing Reform

In an editorial, the Fall River, Mass., Herald News criticizes the Massachusetts House for its failure to adopt "modest" criminal sentencing reforms approved by the Senate. The paper says, "Mandatory minimum sentences enacted in the 1990s were driven by politics, not smart criminal justice policy. Getting 'tough on crime' and clamping down on soft judges seemed like a good idea at the time, but in practice, it has meant drug addicts get little or no post-release supervision. Their addictions go untreated; they are ineligible for work release programs that help them get a fresh, legal start on the rest of their lives. They finish their sentences and are dropped back into the same neighborhoods they left — and too often fall into the same old patterns of crime and substance abuse."

The paper continues, "If the goal is to reduce crime, the state should go back to practices that work. Give treatment to drug addicts. Give education to prisoners who have no means to earn an honest living. Release prisoners on parole, with officers keeping track of them after release and a sentence still in place so they can be put back behind bars the first time they break a rule. It costs taxpayers more than $40,000 a year to keep a convicted criminal in prison. Even states that pride themselves on being tough on crime are reforming their sentencing laws to save money through effective alternatives to long sentences. South Carolina recently became the 17th state to reform mandatory minimums. Massachusetts should join them."

Tennessee Moving To Extend Sentences For Armed Robbers

Tennessee armed-robbery convicts will be locked behind prison bars more than twice as long — nearly 6 years — as they are now under a bill approved by the state legislature, reports the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Said Shelby County District Attorney General Bill Gibbons: "Our communities will be safer. This is the type of legislation DAs and other law officials have been pushing for many years."

The bill mandates that those convicted of aggravated robbery (commonly known as armed robbery) serve at least 70 percent of their prison sentences — up from the current minimum of 30 percent — before they are eligible for parole. It sets minimum incarceration at 85 percent but allows good-behavior credits to reduce parole eligibility to no less than 70 percent of the sentence. The new bill is the fourth "Crooks with Guns" laws pushed by a coalition of prosecutors led by Gibbons, police chiefs and sheriffs and gradually enacted in recent years to enhance jail terms for crimes involving firearms.

California AG Race Seen As Bellwether For "Three Strikes"

Under District Attorney Steve Cooley, Los Angeles prosecutors seek life sentences in "three strikes" cases only if the third-strike crime is violent or serious, says the New York Times. Petty thieves and most drug offenders are presumed to merit a double sentence, the penalty for a second strike, unless their previous record includes a hard-core crime like murder, armed robbery, sexual assault or possession of large quantities of drugs. During Cooley’s first year in office, three-strikes convictions in Los Angeles County triggering life sentences dropped 39 percent.

Cooley could once again pay a price for his three-strikes record. This spring, he announced his candidacy for California attorney general. His Republican rivals have hammered him for his moderate stance. “He’s acting as an enabler for habitual offenders,” says State Senator Tom Harman. “I think that’s wrong. I want to put them in prison.” The race has developed into a litmus test: for 15 years, no serious candidate for major statewide office has dared to criticize three strikes, says the Times. If Cooley makes it through his party’s primary on June 8 — and especially if he goes on to win in November — the law no longer will seem untouchable. If he loses, three strikes will be all the more difficult to dislodge.

Strange Bedfellows

Unlikely allies are changing the politics of crime in America.

If anyone had told Ana Yáñez-Correa, a blunt-talking campaigner for prison reform in Texas, that she would some day find common cause with Marc Levin, she would have cut short the conversation with a skeptical laugh.

Levin heads the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin, Texas-based think tank known for its staunch advocacy of free-market solutions to policy challenges. On the surface, a more unlikely meeting of political minds is hard to imagine.

“A lot of the positions that (Levin’s) group holds are things that I don't subscribe to,” admits Yáñez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, an organization that defends the rights of offenders and their families.

But for the past five years, the working alliance between the two has helped changed the face of crime and punishment in Texas―once one of the country’s most hard-line “lock’em-up-and throw-away-the key” states.

Their joint lobbying in the Texas capital convinced state legislators to pass a set of reforms over the past five years that have expanded substance abuse treatment programs, bolstered community-passed mental health programs for felons and increased services for people on parole—all of which were once derided by hard-liners as efforts to coddle criminals.

“She's just obviously a great advocate, but also a wonderful person,” said Levin. “We may come from different ideological backgrounds, but we both have the same goals in terms of public safety, reforming offenders, restoring victims and controlling costs.”

What’s even more remarkable is that such strange-bedfellow partnerships are no longer exceptions.

Common Cause

Across the nation, people who once stood firmly on opposing sides of the “tough-on-crime/soft-on-crime” argument are finding they have a lot more in common than they once assumed. And these new alliances may prove the key to a long-overdue change in how the country deals with crime.

A bill proposed by Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb to reform America’s criminal justice system is winning bipartisan backing in the Senate and House of Representatives. The bill would create a bipartisan commission to examine every aspect of the U.S. criminal justice system and, where necessary, recommend reforms.  It’s picking up strong support from an eclectic mix of liberals, conservatives, libertarians and the religious right.

"Criminal justice reform is increasingly not a right or left issue, or a conservative or liberal issue," said Mary Price, general counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), a D.C.-based organization that has been working for sentencing reform almost 20 years. "That's because some of the excesses we are all concerned about in the system are equal-opportunity offenders."

Perhaps. But what may really be driving the change is something even more fundamental: money.

As the high costs of the nation’s corrections systems begin to squeeze states already reeling from the fiscal crisis, a number of conservatives and their Republican business allies have been taking a second look at anti-crime policies that were once popular with their constituents.

Money, for instance, was key to the turnaround in Texas. In 2007, the state’s Legislative Budget Board projected that the state’s Department of Criminal Justice would need to build at least 17,000 new prison beds over the next five years to keep pace with a projected increase of prisoners---at a staggering cost of $1.3 billion.

That was not only unacceptable to fiscal conservatives, but made little rational sense to the “anti-big government” crowd. Levin was able to demonstrate to his allies that an increasing body of criminological research suggested that locking more offenders behind bars has not only been a waste of taxpayer money but has had little effect on public safety.

Indeed, according to a recent report issued by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, from 2007 to 2008, Texas’ incarceration rate fell 4.5 percent, while the state saw a 5 percent drop in murders, a 4.3 percent drop in robberies and a 6.8 percent decline in forcible rapes. The number of parolees convicted of a new crime, meanwhile, declined by 7.6 percent, despite an increase in the number of parolees.

One in 100 Americans Behind Bars

Nonetheless, so-called “tough on crime” policies are still the status quo across the country, and have  turned America into a symbol both of the ineffectiveness of mass incarceration and deep racial disparities in the treatment of offenders.  With five percent of the world’s population, U.S. jails hold 25 percent of the world’s inmates.  According to a 2008 report by the Pew Center on the States, one in 100 American adults are behind bars—about 1.6 million people. For African-Americans adults, the ratio, starkly, increases to one in 15.

That has in turn helped drive groups as diverse as Focus on the Family, Prison Fellowship Ministries, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union into unexpected allies on the issue of criminal justice reform.

In 2009, the presidents of two national groups with long and deep roots in the conservative movement, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and David Keene of the American Conservative Union, publicly announced their opposition to mandatory sentencing laws, reinstated by Congressional leaders in 1984, as a key component of former President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs. Although Keene and Norquist maintained they spoke for themselves, and not their organizations, it was clear that something new was afoot.

In an interview, Norquist – a former Reagan adviser -- explained that the criminal justice system’s ability to prevent crime through programs that reduce recidivism should concern taxpayers as much as the rising costs.  “At the end of the day,” he observes. “(Taxpayers) live in the same society that people returning from prison live in.”

And there is also a larger, moral, question about whether our justice system itself provides “justice. ” That question has preoccupied an increasing number of those on the religious right, who believe the current system’s emphasis on punishment leaves little room for redemption.

“Offense to Christian Morality”

Pat Nolan, Vice President of Prison Fellowship Ministries, a prisoner support and advocacy organization founded by Charles Colson, a former aide to President Richard Nixon who was imprisoned following the Watergate scandal, argues that the current treatment of prisoners “offends our Christian morality.”

Nolan, a former California legislator who served 25 months in federal prison on racketeering charges during the 1990s, has become a key lobbyist for sentencing and prison reform.  “All human beings have worth and are created by God with human dignity that needs to be respected,” says Nolan who, like Colson, considers himself a born-again Christian.

The support of groups like the Prison Fellowship has been crucial to passage of landmark federal legislation, such as the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 and the Second Chance Act of 2008. Both bills represented a break with the hardline stance that had been a cornerstone of U.S. polices for more than two decades.

On the state level, criminal justice reform continues to remain an uphill battle. In many states, efforts to change sentencing law or reduce prison populations can be―and often are—derailed by a headline-grabbing crime that fuels public outrage.

That’s why the third leg of this emerging coalition—the business community―has become increasingly crucial.

In Illinois, where “soft on crime” accusations threaten to derail the current governor’s bid for re-election, Metropolis 2020, an arm of the Commercial Club of Chicago, which brings together Chicago’s political and economic elite, has lent its funding and political clout to a growing movement for criminal justice reform. The organization and its allies have already succeeded in opening the country’s first comprehensive drug treatment prison, overhauling the state’s risk assessment and re-entry system and enacting Redeploy Illinois, a program that is transferring state monies away from juvenile prisons and into smaller, community-based treatment programs. By providing local organizations with funding to keep kids in their home communities, judges have a way to provide them with treatment without shipping them off to a state juvenile prison. Already, about 400 young people have stayed out of prison through the program.

Paula Wolff, senior executive at Metropolis 2020 who served as administration program director to former Republican Governor James Thompson, says that the business community’s involvement has been key to the program’s success.

"(Business leaders) bring….discipline to thinking about the policy solutions and how to  change behaviors by using financial incentives," she said in an interview with The Crime Report. "I don't think that in most kinds of public policy there is that business discipline."

Business and Crime

Wolff credits a number of economic arguments with getting business leaders in Chicago on board. For one thing, businesses find it hard to thrive when urban crime rates go up. . Making matters worse, she said, Illinois’ 51 per cent recidivism rate has turned the state's prison system into "a giant, platinum revolving door," squandering money that could otherwise be spent on more productive programs, including education and employment training for prisoners.

The result, she argues, is that re-entering prisoners become a “drag on the economy and work force" instead of contributing to the tax base.

Similar coalitions of fiscal conservatives and business leaders are building in states such as Florida, Kentucky and California.  "The conversation is starting, but its gong to be an ongoing process," said Bryan T. Sunderland, spokesperson for the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. "It's going to take more study and hopefully we'll be able to address it in 2011, which will be a non-election year for legislators."

"There's not just the emotional argument of prisoner rights activists or victims rights groups,” said Sarah Hubbard, vice president of Government Relations at the Detroit Regional Chamber. “There is a legitimate need to be business-like about this question because it has a significant cost and a significant impact on state spending and the state culture.”

Meanwhile, Texas’ experience has gone a long way towards convincing other states to take the political risk of criminal justice reform. The savings achieved by the abandonment of expensive new prison-building projects have converted Texas legislators into effective national champions for reform.

State Representative Jerry Madden (R-Plano), the former chair of the Texas’ House Committee on Corrections and a close ally of Levin and Yáñez-Correa, has been traveling the country speaking to other legislators and conservative groups about Texas’ success.

“Nobody can say Texas is soft on crime – ever,” says Yáñez-Correa. “(But) because of the leadership of Rep. Madden and others, we have a list of people who get it now, who ….are putting their careers on the line because they understand that it's not only the right thing to do;  it is going to save money and it’s going to save lives.”

Michigan Parole Reform

Meanwhile, business-supported reforms in Michigan have helped to reverse decades of continued prison growth.  The state’s prison population has declined by more than 6,000 in the past three years, thanks in large part to an overhaul of the parole system that has increased the number of parole board members and ensured fairer hearings for prisoners, as well as provided new support for re-entry programs to stem the state’s high recidivism rate.  Most observers credit the support of prominent Michigan business and civic associations for helping Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm to push through the changes.

According to Craig Theil of the Citizen's Research Council of Michigan, the impetus was provided by the state's budget crisis, which struck long before many other states due to the decline of the auto industry, which in turn sharply cut state revenues.

"As long as the budget could support [a large corrections budget], there wasn't much scrutiny of the policies driving the growth," he says. But when increased corrections spending forced cuts in education, human services and other programs vital to rebuilding the state’s economy, business groups in particular “saw the writing on the wall,” Theil added.

Some academics remain skeptical about business motives for supporting change. Alan Mobley, a public affairs and criminal justice professor at San Diego State University believes the business community's newfound interest in criminal justice reform might be a harbinger of calls for increased privatization of prisons.

"Having the private sector taking an interest now, on a larger scale, would suggest that they are wearing two hats―one as concerned citizens and another as people looking to make a profit," says Mobley.

Indeed, many of the proposals on criminal justice issues advanced by chambers of commerce and other business groups around the country include recommendations that are sure to find opposition on the left. Prison privatization, for instance, is a key element of proposals submitted by chambers in Kentucky and Michigan.

Meanwhile, the new alliance of strange bedfellows continues to gather momentum―and recruits. This month, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, jointly published with the National Association of Criminal Defense lawyers, a professional association that works for the protection of civil rights and is considered to be left-leaning, a scathing report criticizing the “over-criminalization” of federal law.

And in Virginia, one of the state's most "tough on crime" legislators, Republican Rep. Robert Bell, recently pushed through a bill that is likely to revolutionize that state's parole system. Modeled after Hawaii’s Project HOPE, which sends low-level parole violators to jail for two to three days rather than sending them back to prison for months or even years, the program has reduced the number of parole violators in prison in as well as cut the overall recidivism rate. It will go into effect in Virginia in July.

Bell’s support is significant because it shows that many hardliners have become skeptical of current criminal justice practices, and are paying increasing attention to alternatives, says Michael Thompson, president of the Thomas Jefferson Institute, a Virginia-based, free-market think tank. “We've created a system that doesn't accomplish what we hope to accomplish."

Mary Price of FAMM welcomes the fact that minds on both sides are starting to open up.

But she recognizes that it will still require heavy political lifting.  More work needs to be done, she says to convince legislators “that they can be smarter on criminal justice practices without sacrificing their jobs.“

Will it be enough?

As the U.S. heads into what looks like an even more rancorous-than-usual period of electioneering this fall, with issues ranging from health care to tax policy and war-fighting high on the agenda,  specialists and observers will be watching closely to see whether the crime issue that polarized American politics for so many years serves as a new force for consensus.

Jessica Pupovac is a Chicago-based freelance reporter.

Photo by Richard.Asia via Flickr.

This piece is one of a series of original criminal justice journalism projects around the country produced by 2010 John Jay/H.F. Guggenheim Fellows. They were coordinated with editorial input by Joe Domanick, Associate Director of the John Jay College Center on Media, Crime and Justice. We thank the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation for their generous support of this project.

Will House Will Compromise On Crack-Powder Penalties?

The sponsor of House legislation to eliminate the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences said he and House colleagues are unsure about whether they will proceed with the Senate’s version of the bill, reports MainJustice.com. Rep. Robert Scott (D-Va.), chairman of the House crime subcommittee, who introduced the House measure last July and has long championed the change, said he is keeping all options open and a final decision should come in “a week or so.”

“The only thing that can really be justified is a total elimination of the disparity,” Scott said. “But the [Senate] bill is better than what we’ve got.” The Senate passed the Fair Sentencing Act by voice vote last week. It would establish a 18-to-1 sentencing ratio for crack and powder cocaine offenses. By contrast, the House version would eliminate the current decades-old sentencing law that sets a 100-to-1 ratio. That law requires the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence for the possession of five grams of crack cocaine as it does for the possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine.

Senate Passes Bill To Reduce Crack-Powder Sentencing Disparity

In unusually quick action, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to change the punishment for possession of crack cocaine just a week after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved it. For 24 years, the law has punished crack users 100 times more heavily than powder cocaine users, the new Senate bill brings the 100-to-1 ratio down to 18-to-1. Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums says it was the the first time since the Nixon administration that the Senate  voted to repeal a mandatory minimum sentence.

Cynthia Orr, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense lawyers, told National Public Radio how the 100-to-1 ratio plays out in real life: "The penalty for possession of a saccharin package worth of crack cocaine is a five-year mandatory minimum. And it goes up from there astronomically to where you're at a life sentence before you can bat an eye with crack cocaine. Whereas you have to have 5 kilos of powder cocaine, so it's literally 100 times more severe penalty for the same amount of drug." A House committee has approved a bill that treats crack and powder identically. The full House could adopt the Senate's 18-to-1 sentencing ratio or push for a 1-to-1 ratio.

Oaksterdam: California's Experiment with Medical Marijuana

Welcome to the Bay Area, where Grape Diesel is on sale and the police call pot shops “good neighbors.” Part Two of a Special Report.

The Harborside Health Center occupies one end of a low stucco building in a small office park overlooking Oakland’s Embarcadero Cove. Sailboats sway on slight waves on one side of the street, and on the other side, a steady stream of men and women (black, white, Hispanic; old and young; dapper and down-trodden) step up to the front entrance.

“Is this your first visit?” John, a burly twenty-something in shorts who checks ID at the front door, asks an African American woman in nursing scrubs. He’s wearing a baseball cap with the California bear and a pot leaf on it. The woman nods her head.

John hands her ID back with a smile. “Welcome back, ma’am.”

The woman climbs a short staircase and steps through a metal detector — where her ID is checked again, this time by a Filipino man in a Cheech & Chong T-shirt. Inside, Harborside feels like a yoga studio or new-age herbal medicine store. With big windows facing the harbor, the center is flooded with natural light; and the shop smells faintly of marijuana.

As it should. This is one of Oakland’s central dispensaries for medical marijuana, legal since 1996, in the state of California. Although Los Angeles has more dispensaries than the Bay Area, the city of Oakland last July became the first place in the U.S. to levy a tax on the drug: for every $1,000 of marijuana sold here and at the three other dispensaries in the city, $18 goes to the city. I visited what marijuana activists wryly call “Oaksterdam” as part of The Crime Report’s two-part investigation into the status of the nationwide movement for legalization of the drug.

Kronic Krispies

At Harborside, patients check in at the front counter, then step into a long, open room with five glass cases that display dozens of varieties of marijuana buds, as well as tinctures, pot-infused honey and oils, and other “edibles,” including “Kronic Krispies” and ginger snaps by a company called Butter Brothers. Across from the display cases is a corner with nearly a hundred small potted pot plants. A very pregnant woman works behind the counter, dispensing growing advice along with the clones.

My tour guide, a young woman named Dani Geen, tells me that all 80 employees are “patients.”  That’s mainly defined by the fact that they have a physician’s recommendation for medical marijuana which in California you can obtain from a doctor for dozens of ailments from anxiety to migraines to sinusitis.

Many patients use that recommendation to get a medical marijuana ID card, which is issued by both the state and individual counties and looks a little like a drivers license: typically it displays the patient’s name, address and photograph, an expiration date and a seal to make it more difficult to counterfeit. According to Stephen DeAngelo, executive director of Harborside, some patients choose not to get the card because it can cost up to $150, which is why most dispensaries also accept a copy of a doctor’s recommendation (which they then verify with the prescribing physician).

Dani tells me she got her medical marijuana card four years ago to obtain relief from fibromyalgia. She rarely uses the word marijuana; instead, it’s “medicine.”  And patients don’t smoke or get high, they “medicate.”

Harborside sees 600 to 800 patients a day, of whom as many as 80 are new ones. According to DeAngelo, the dispensary last year grossed $20 million, $2 million of which went back to the government in sales taxes. The clinic is open seven days a week, between 11am and 8pm. A sister store recently opened 40 miles south in San Jose.

I remark on how airy and inviting the place feels, and Dani smiles, flashing a silver tongue stud: “We’re definitely out of the shadows.”

In addition to pot, Harborside offers Reiki, massage, substance abuse counseling and acupuncture. But politics is not forgotten: there’s a computer terminal in the waiting area which patients are encouraged to use to write letters to their political representatives supporting medical marijuana, as well as correspond with the movement’s “prisoners of war” – those behind bars for marijuana offenses. One hour of such volunteer time earns a free gram of medicine.

DeAngelo says the employees, most of whom are full-time, start at $14 an hour; they also receive health insurance, a 401K plan, and a free gram of medicine for each shift they work. To work at Harborside, you have to be a patient.

After showing me the small library, where books about how to roll a joint, the history of the marijuana movement, and cannabis horticulture can be checked out by patients, Dani takes me to a counter manned by Seth Rogers, a young man with shaggy brown hair, who sports a hemp necklace and tortoise shell eyeglasses.

Seth walks me though the wares in the display case, where each “strain,” which is how the dispensary refers to the different varieties, is carefully marked with prices, item numbers and bar codes. Harborside sells marijuana by the gram and the ounce. Prices vary, but typically an eighth of an ounce costs between $45 and $55, with some as low as $20. On the day I visited, there was a sale on Grape Diesel.

Patients are limited to buying two ounces per week. According to DeAngelo, Harborside sells about eight pounds of medical marijuana each day, and keeps about a week’s worth in storage. Security is tight: to get to the back room, you need to pass through a fingerprint identification system.

Oakland’s dispensaries consider themselves upstanding members of their city’s business community. The pathbreaking municipal decision to levy taxes on medical marijuana sales was the result of lobbying by DeAngelo and other dispensary directors. “We saw that the city was struggling, and looking at closing institutions we care about, like the Children’s Hospital,” says DeAngelo. “We thought we could assist.”

Checking for Quality

According to DeAngelo, Harborside gets its marijuana from between 300 and 400 “vendors,” all of whom are patients, which allows them to grow a certain amount of the weed legally. Typically, these vendors bring about one pound per month each to Harborside.

In Oakland, according to the non-profit marijuana advocacy group NORML, the law permits patients to grow 20 plants outdoors and 72 inside. But in late January the California Supreme Court affirmed a district court ruling that such limits were an unconstitutional amendment of the 1996 Compassionate Use Act, so private marijuana growing may soon expand.

DeAngelo concedes that the system is imperfect. Vendors with grow rooms have had house fires and been the victims of armed robbery. But he argues that it is necessary, because federal law levies stiff mandatory minimum sentences on people who are found growing more than 100 plants. Currently, DeAngelo is working with the city of Oakland to develop a larger scale grow operation which Harborside can run on its own.

After the marijuana is brought to Harborside, a sample of it is sent to the Steep Hill Medical Collective, a lab based in Oakland that tests for mold and other imperfections. DeAngelo tells me that the collective is currently trying to develop marijuana strains with more anti-cancer properties, in response to requests from many of their gravely ill patients.

I ask Dani what her parents think of her working with pot for a living. “My dad just left (the center),” she says, laughing. “He’s a patient, too. And my mom smoked while she was pregnant with me. So they’re cool with it.”

Smoking (excuse me, medicating) and cell phone use are not permitted inside Harborside, and Dani scolds me a bit when mine rings. DeAngelo tells me that, while they are not allowed to medicate in the clinic, employees can come to work medicated. If their state hinders their job performance—which DeAngelo says is rare—they’ll be pulled aside and asked to adjust their dose.

After the tour, I sit outside on one of the benches in the parking lot for a few minutes and watch the steady flow of patients exiting—each with their medicine inside a plain white paper bag. One man makes the mistake of placing a joint between his lips and flicking his lighter as he steps outside.

“I’m sorry, sir,” says John, the ID checker. ”There’s no smoking right here.”

He directs the patient across the parking lot to a wooded median where another patient is sitting on a bench, enjoying the sunny day with his skinny cigarette. There isn’t a uniformed cop in sight. But even if there were, it’s unlikely he or she would make much fuss. In theory at least, if a patient with pot can is also in possession of a valid medical marijuana ID or doctor’s recommendation, he or she shouldn't be subject to arrest.

I ask John about other medical marijuana dispensaries in the Bay Area. Are they all this…nice? He says that Harborside is high end, and tells me to check out a smaller place in San Francisco called HopeNet.

The 420 Room

HopeNet is a small dispensary located in a railroad-style floor-through on a low-rent block in the city’s SOMA district. Steel bars cover the display window and front door. A light-skinned man of indeterminate race greets patients and checks for medical marijuana ID.

I have no such ID, and unlike at Harborside, had no appointment. So the man (who I soon learn is called Silver) is skeptical when I say I’m a reporter and would like to look around. He pulls up a stool and tells me to wait a minute near the front desk in a small room that, like the rest of the place, is swirling with marijuana smoke.

After a few minutes, a middle-aged woman, followed by a German Shepherd, comes out to greet me. The woman is owner Cathy Smith, a former Bangor, Maine policewoman- turned-cannabis activist whom the patrons refer to as “mom.” The dog, Sugar, is part of the security team.

Like Dani and Seth, Cathy refers to pot as “medicine” and her clients as “patients.” But unlike the earnest young people at Harborside, Cathy has a healthy sense of humor about the new lingo.

“We’ve had to re-educate ourselves,” says Cathy. “We’re our own spin doctors.”

Cathy leads me into what she calls “the 420 Room,” where patients are encouraged to medicate. With a giant bud leaf tapestry on one wall and two low couches and a coffee table opposite, the room feels like the basement of that kid in high school whose parents didn’t have rules. Just off the 420 room is a tiny atrium with (non-medical) plants, a bench and an open sky light so patients can smoke “outside.”

On one of the couches, a man with deep brown circles beneath his eyes holds a two-foot glass bong on his lap. As Cathy tells me about the events they sponsor through HopeNet—Bingo, movie night, open mike, homeless outreach—the man listens, and chimes in.

“I want you to know,” he says slowly, “that this woman here is probably the kindest person to veterans in the whole city.” The man pulls a long suck of smoke from his bong. Next to him, a younger woman smokes a blunt and watches us silently.

Cathy smiles at the compliment. Others apparently agree. On the wall of the back room where the medication is sold is an award from the National Association of Professional Women, honoring Cathy for her work in the community. Among the civic contributions the association had in mind may be HopeNet’s policy of providing free marijuana to about 100 patients in hospice care nearby, including some veterans.

The plastic bins of buds in the back room are neatly marked. As Cathy shows me the microscope used to check for mold, an employee and patient light up. “Whoa, that’s some real Sour Diesel,” says the patient, sounding just like stoner-icon Jeff Spicoli, of the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” “That’s better than the Sour Diesel at some other clubs.”

I ask Cathy if there are drawbacks to smoking on the job and she shrugs. “Most everyone here is stoned and everyone is working,” she says. And indeed, the employees, while somewhat glassy eyed, are alert, friendly, and seem to be engaged in their tasks. “I was high when I was working in Maine,” she continues, prompting one male employee to pipe up: “It’s better than being all pilled out.”

That was Cathy’s motivation as well. She obtained her medical marijuana card 11 years ago to relieve the chronic pain suffered as a result of a major car accident when she was a teenager (she’s now 54). “I used to be addicted to Percodan,” she says. “I tried everything, but finally found that marijuana worked best. I know it sounds hokey, but getting my medical prescription was life-changing.”

Though San Francisco technically allows some dispensaries to remain open 24 hours a day, Cathy closes up shop at 7 pm. “I don’t want my clients wandering the street here at night,” she says, adding with no apparent irony, “In this neighborhood, there’s a lot of drug use.”

Policing Pot

After visiting both dispensaries, I call the San Francisco Police Department and speak with Public Information Officer Boaz Mariles.

“The police culture has changed in terms of understanding that [for some people] it’s not just weed, it’s medicine,” explains Mariles. “The public has spoken and it’s our job to work with the marijuana dispensary clubs to keep them and the community safe.”

Mariles says there has been no spike in thefts or violent crime—or even in DUI arrests—in the areas surrounding the city’s 26 dispensaries: “It’s just the opposite,” he says. “People are taking ownership. Now they’re stakeholders in the community. If we do our job right and they do theirs, crime should go down.”

He adds that dispensary owners and employees have “done their part” by keeping the sidewalks outside their businesses clean, discouraging loitering, and generally acting as friendly neighbors.

That sounds familiar.  Rick Holman, Chief of Police in the ski resort of Breckenridge, Colorado, where locals passed a bill last year legalizing pot for adults, told me during a telephone interview that he had seen “very little negative impact” from the law.

“We haven’t seen an increase in criminal activity around dispensaries and haven’t seen a real impact from decriminalization.” Holman went on: “We don’t see people walking around in a stupor.”

But Holman is still a cop. During our conversation, he admitted that he was having a hard time accepting the notion of legalized marijuana. “(But) whether I agree or not, the will of the people of Breckenridge is that private possession is not a municipal crime,” he said.

Still, having been in law enforcement for more than 30 years, he says he “doesn’t associate” with people who smoke pot—as far as he knows.

Back in California, voters are now being asked to take an even more dramatic step than tiny Breckenridge by approving The Regulate Control and Tax Cannabis Act, an upcoming referendum that would legalize and tax the drug. Even if it wins passage, Holman’s unease illustrates how difficult it may be to duplicate California’s laissez-faire attitude about marijuana in the rest of the country.

HopeNet’s Cathy Smith says she thinks the movement will have a tough slog nationally. Indeed, in Washington State, a man was killed last week when he tried to protect his pot plants from theft, and a marijuana activist who grows pot at home is under arrest for shooting intruders. And in Canada, often considered more socially progressive than the U.S., the prime minister recently shot down hopes of legalizing the drug.

“I see this as a civil rights fight,” Smith says, comparing the marijuana movement to the gay marriage movement. “But just like Proposition 8, I worry that at the last minute the conservative forces will come out and crush [the cannabis act].”

Harborside’s DeAngelo believes that the key to keeping the movement growing is to make sure that regulation, including “reasonable” caps on the number of dispensaries and a rigorous screening process for owners, is built into new laws. He observes there is a vast difference between Oakland’s four tightly regulated dispensaries, and the sea of cannabis outlets on “virtually every corner” in Los Angeles.

“There are all sorts of nefarious characters running those places,” says DeAngelo. “Hopefully, the rest of the country can learn from Oakland’s example.”

Both Smith and DeAngelo think that, eventually, medical marijuana will be legal and accessible nationwide. Smith estimates that within ten years, two-thirds of the states will have passed laws allowing medical marijuana, which she hopes will spur the federal government to action.

“Sometimes the government lags behind what the people want,” she says. “But they’ll come around—it’s a domino effect.”

If she’s right, that will mean an historic transformation of the country’s attitude towards marijuana—and perhaps of some of the underlying concepts of the long (and ineffective) war on drugs.

Julia Dahl is contributing editor of The Crime Report