Time for Pa. to Re-examine Life Without Parole

February 20, 2016 | Angus Love, Esq. | The Legal Intelligencer

The national mood on criminal justice issues has dramatically changed in the past few years. Fear of crime and personal safety are no longer leading political concerns as the economy and terrorism have taken their place. This past July, President Obama became the first U.S. president to visit a federal prison when he went to the El Reno Federal Prison in Oklahoma. In September, Pope Francis visited the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia during his first visit to the United States. He addressed the inmates and staff and called for more empathy and compassion in our sentencing practices. Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder instituted several significant reforms at the U.S. Department of Justice aimed increasing police accountability, reducing the harsh consequences of the drug war and minimizing racial disparities in sentencing.

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Want to save money, Gov.-elect Wolf? You can start by trimming prison costs

January 13, 2015 | Angus Love and Ann Schwartzman | PennLive

The great French novelist, Victor Hugo, once observed that "to open a school is to close a prison." Gov.- elect Tom Wolf's campaign promised to replace the funding cut in education by Gov. Tom Corbett. He should heed Hugo's words in his quest for more school funding and balancing a budget with a predicted $2 billion deficit.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections has been the single largest growth area of the Commonwealth budget for many years perhaps decades.

It is time to rein it in as other states and the country have done without compromising public safety. It is one area where a bi-partisan consensus can be reached and money can be saved.

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It Is Time to Reform Laws on Marijuana Use

December 22, 2014 | Angus Love | The Legal Intelligencer

In 1934, Harry Anslinger, the nation’s first drug czar, led a campaign to outlaw marijuana. Previously, it had been used for a variety of medicinal purposes and was subject to local ordinances. Anslinger mounted a public relations campaign to achieve his goal of criminalizing the drug. Some suggested the campaign had racial overtones, especially Mexican Americans who were often portrayed as menaces to society when indulging in marijuana. Others suggested the campaign was bankrolled and publicized by William Randolph Hearst to eliminate hemp as an industrial competitor to his considerable timber/paper holdings. The movie “Reefer Madness” symbolized the campaign of fear and distortion.

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'The New Jim Crow' to Be Explored at Annual CLE Day

November 24, 2014 | Su Ming Yeh | The Legal Intelligencer

The Public Interest Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association is set to present its Annual Public Interest Law Day CLE Program on Dec. 10 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, CLE Conference Center, Wanamaker Building, 10th floor, Philadelphia. This CLE program will offer six substantive and two ethics CLE credits and will present a wide array of hot topics in public interest law. It will be followed by the Public Interest Section's Annual Awards Ceremony and Reception at the Marriott at 1201 Market St., Philadelphia, in the Independence Ballroom, where the Hon. Louis H. Pollak Award will be presented to retired Judge Edmund Spaeth. The Andrew Hamilton Award will also be presented.

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PILP Hosts Russian Activists

June 4, 2014 | Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project

On June 4, 2014, the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project met with 5 Russian Human Rights Activists at the behest of the US Department of State International Visitor Leadership Program. The group was interested in learning about best practices of nonprofit organizations such as the PILP. They also were interested in exchanging ideas and techniques that increased self-sufficiency and sustainability.

They also expressed an interested in joint international projects between the PILP and themselves. Finally they were interested in our sources of funding.

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The Struggle to Slow Mass Incarceration Movement In PA

September 23, 2013 | Angus Love, Esq. | The Legal Intelligencer

During last year's annual opportunity to pontificate on institutional issues in this respected venue, I mentioned the possibility of groundbreaking legislation in Harrisburg that would address prison overcrowding. The bill, titled SB 100, did pass into law and became Act 122. This year, I will examine the final legislative product and offer my thoughts on its effectiveness and provide context on the struggle to slow the mass incarceration movement in Pennsylvania.

In my capacity as the executive director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, I frequently tour our prisons and jails. Recently, I looked out over the recreational yard at the State Correctional Institution in Dallas, Pa., and saw hundreds of predominately young African-American men milling around and participating in several recreational activities. It brought to mind an old joke by Richard Pryor who had gone to a prison and was expecting to see the fruit of our justice system but saw only "just us," meaning a huge number of African-Americans. A similar experience in the Philadelphia Prison System was even more striking as individuals other than African-American were few and far between.

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Advocacy for Prisoners' Rights: Civil Litigation in the Criminal Justice World

Fall 2013 | Angus Love, Esq. | Management Information Exchange Journal

The long trek from arrest to release from confinement or supervision poses some interesting challenges for the civil and criminal legal organizations that represent indigent persons. More and more individuals are caught up in the ever expanding criminal justice system, especially people of color. Currently there are almost seven million persons or 2.9% of the American population under correctional supervision, including 2.5 million people in prisons. In a nation that houses 25% of the world's prison population, the need for legal assistance is enormous. This rapid expansion of the prison population, ongoing since 1980, is unprecedented in our nation's history. Curiously, the expansion occurred at the same time as and at a similar rate to the expansion in our country's income gap.

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A Consensus Is Building for Sentencing Reform

July 2, 2012 | Angus Love | The Legal Intelligencer

Pennsylvania, as well as the rest of the nation, has undergone a tremendous change in sentencing practices for the past 30 years. Policy decisions such as the introduction of the sentencing guidelines, mandatory sentences and the war on drugs have resulted in a major shift of thinking and reallocation of resources toward the increased reliance on incarceration to solve many social ills.

Legislatures and executives have taken away much of the discretion of judges and transferred much of the sentencing practices to the domain of the legislatures. They have declared the scourge of drug addiction to be a criminal problem rather than a disease and passed laws emphasizing punishment rather than treatment for addicts.

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