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Freedom's just a start
Thursday, 27 October 2005
How right this article is about people being freed from prison after being wrongfully convicted. There is little help for people in this situation. Imagine having to deal with freedom after 20 years in almost solitary confinement.The anger at all the injustice. The loss of freedom and all for what? Not even a sorry. Dealing with someone coming out of prison is a momentous task under "normal" circumstances. This is something else totally!!
By MARC H. SIMON, New York Daily News
America is home to a small, little-known community of survivors whose lives have been shattered by tragedy - a man-made disaster known as wrongful conviction
New York is no stranger to this disaster. America's most recently exoneree prisoner, Barry Gibbs, was freed from a New York prison on Sept. 29 - after spending 19 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
At 57, Gibbs reentered society without money, without family (his mother
and ex-wife both died while he was incarcerated), and without a home or
livelihood. His cruel, yet heroic struggle, is shared by other innocent
men wrongfully convicted and later proven innocent after years of unjust
incarceration.
Since 1989, approximately 400 people have been exonerated across the U.S., including 121 from Death Row.
While the guilty typically leave prison supported by an array of reentry
programs, including the parole system, the exonerated receive little or no
assistance to enable them to transition back into society. In fact, with
the exception of Massachusetts, no state provides government-supported
health care, counseling, job training or housing assistance for these
individuals.
Most states don't even offer financial compensation to the wrongfully
convicted.
Consider the fate of the seven exonerees featured in "After Innocence," a
newly released film I produced and directed. Only one, from Massachusetts, has received compensation from his state government.
The others won't receive a penny under their states' existing laws. New
York is one of the few states that provide compensation without a maximum cap, but compensation requires a cumbersome hearing process to prove damages.
By contrast, the federal government last year passed the Justice For All
Act, which provides those convicted of a federal crime $50,000 for each
year of unjust incarceration, with $100,000 for those who served on Death Row. State governments should follow Washington's lead.
The public has recently begun to recognize the plight of the exonerated,
but two fundamental steps must be taken to help make these broken lives whole again: First, all states need to enact meaningful compensation
statutes that will enable the innocent to handle the financial realities
of reentering society upon their release.
Secondly, the federal and/or state governments must immediately fund a
program to provide the exonerated with reentry services similar to those
provided to the guilty by the parole model.
The private, nonprofit group, Life After Exoneration Program, is the nation's only organization offering job training and other help to a network of exonerees nationwide.
The program needs funding to bring this model to all 50 states - something that could happen soon if only the federal and state governments, foundations and the public come to recognize society's moral obligation to assist the exonerated.
The exonerated number only in the hundreds, and remain largely overlooked. This needs to change immediately or society will have failed the exonerated twice - first, by incarcerating them unjustly, and again by
failing to support their reentry into society.
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Source : New York Daily News (Simon is an attorney at Dreier LLP in New
York City and is the writer and producer of "After Innocence." )
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/358485p-305488c.html