Getting Back To Blogging

Hi, Everyone

I have been grossly neglectful in maintaining and keeping up this blog. So much life and transitions have happened since the last time I was on here. I've gotten older, my parents are now ancestors and I made the move from New York back down to the South, now here in Coastal Virginia for a fresh start, new chapter and more importantly peaceful living. 

I'm committing to doing and being better at blogging. Look for new content and fresh perspectives. Yes, I'll give my take on current events and issues but I'll be celebrating life's joys and successes too and I hope you'll join me. Thanks for rocking with me. Thanks for your patience and if you left, come back and bring folks with you and let's grow together. 

Peace & Blessings,

Bettine 

First Lady Michelle Obama Visits South Africa

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — First Lady Michelle Obama is beginning a goodwill visit to sub-Saharan Africa and Botswana, accompanied by her two daughters, a niece, a nephew and her mom.


Mrs. Obama received a warm welcome upon her arrival Monday night at the air force base in the capital of South Africa, Pretoria, after 18 hours and more than 1,800 miles of travel.


Throughout the week, the First Lady will promote youth leadership, education and HIV/AIDS prevention programs.


She'll also pay tribute to the legacy of Nelson Mandela and others like him whose struggles and sacrifices ultimately led to the undoing of South Africa's system of segregation.

Michelle Obama is fond of saying there's no magic to her being First Lady.


She didn't come from a wealthy or well-connected family. She came from the South Side of Chicago and is a descendant of slaves. But she says it's a passion for an education that she and President Barack Obama shared and a willingness to work hard that helped them become successful.


It's a message that young leaders in Africa soon will hear when Mrs. Obama makes her second solo trip abroad as first lady, visiting South Africa and Botswana this coming week.


"In so many ways, I see myself in you all. And I want you to see yourselves in me," she recently told Washington high school students, hoping to inspire them with her personal story.


The weeklong visit, beginning with the First Lady's arrival Monday in Johannesburg, is intended to improve relations between the U.S. and Africa and promote youth engagement, education, health and wellness. In the centerpiece speech of the trip, she will appear Wednesday before a U.S.-sponsored forum of young women leaders from sub-Saharan Africa.


The President is not going, but Mrs. Obama is being joined by her daughters, Malia and Sasha, as well as her mother, Marian Robinson, and a niece and nephew, Leslie and Avery Robinson. Her family will join her on most outings, probably exposing her daughters to more of the media spotlight than they're used to.


It was during her first solo trip outside the U.S., to Mexico in April 2010, that the first lady started an effort to encourage young people to become involved in their communities and countries and not shy away from trying to solve persistent global problems.


The youth population outside the U.S. is growing fast, with young people ages 15 to 24 making up 20 percent of the world's population.


"The fact is is that responsibility for meeting the defining challenges of our time will soon fall to all of you," Mrs. Obama told thousands of university students in Mexico City. "Soon, the world will be looking to your generation to make the discoveries and to build the industries that will fuel our prosperity and ensure our well-being for decades to come."


That message is likely to resonate in a place such as South Africa, where two of three residents are younger than 30, said Jennifer Cooke, an Africa scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.


Botswana is a regular stop for U.S. officials. Well governed, it is considered one of Africa's best functioning democracies, Cooke said.


Many of the stops on Mrs. Obama's trip will highlight South Africa's past under apartheid, the system of white-minority rule. She'll also pay tribute to the legacy of Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for his role in the anti-apartheid movement. He later became South Africa's first elected black president.


The size of Mrs. Obama's traveling party is sure to invite comparisons to her vacation last August in Spain with Sasha and friends. The five-day trip to Spain's Costa del Sol stoked a bit of a firestorm about the wisdom of taking a glamorous trip with such economic hurt at home and raised speculation about who was paying the bill.


Attempting to head off similar criticism this time, the White House said Mrs. Obama is allowed to bring guests with her on the plane because she's on official U.S. business, as the President is allowed on his official trips. All other costs regarding her family are to be paid for privately.


Mrs. Obama's visit opens Tuesday in Pretoria, the South African capital, at a meeting with Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, one of President Jacob Zuma's three wives, at his official residence. Zuma was scheduled to be out of the country. Back in Johannesburg, Mrs. Obama meets with Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, and tours the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Apartheid Museum.


A meeting between America's first black First Lady and the 92-year-old former president is hoped for but remained in doubt, given his fragile health. Mandela had an acute respiratory infection in late January that led to a two-day hospital stay. He retired from public life after leaving office in 1999 after one term, but remains a larger-than-life figure in his country and around the world.


Mrs. Obama delivers her speech Wednesday at the Regina Mundi Church in the black township of Soweto, one of many churches that became hubs of activity for political gatherings after such meetings were banned during the anti-apartheid movement. She'll also view a memorial honoring a 13-year-old boy shot and killed by government police during a June 1976 student uprising in Soweto.



In Cape Town on Thursday, Mrs. Obama and her family will ride a ferry to Robben Island for a moving visit to the closet-sized cell where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison.


She'll highlight education by inviting disadvantaged students to spend the day immersed at the University of Cape Town, before meeting with groups that work to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa, including by using soccer to teach children about the deadly disease. Between 5 million and 6 million South Africans live with HIV/AIDS.


Mrs. Obama also was scheduled to meet with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and key figure in the struggle against apartheid and in later helping South Africa overcome its past.


She heads to Botswana on Friday to call on President Ian Khama in Gaborone, the capital, and drop in at a combination clinic and center for teenagers that teaches about leadership and HIV/AIDS.


With the official business concluded by Saturday, the First Lady and her family will head off for private time, including a safari and an overnight stay in the animal park.

President Obama Unveils Plans For Troop Withdrawl From Afghanistan

The White House



Office of the Press Secretary


For Immediate Release June 22, 2011 Remarks by the President on the Way Forward in Afghanistan


East Room


8:01 P.M. EDT


THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Nearly 10 years ago, America suffered the worst attack on our shores since Pearl Harbor. This mass murder was planned by Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network in Afghanistan, and signaled a new threat to our security –- one in which the targets were no longer soldiers on a battlefield, but innocent men, women and children going about their daily lives.


In the days that followed, our nation was united as we struck at al Qaeda and routed the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then, our focus shifted. A second war was launched in Iraq, and we spent enormous blood and treasure to support a new government there. By the time I took office, the war in Afghanistan had entered its seventh year. But al Qaeda’s leaders had escaped into Pakistan and were plotting new attacks, while the Taliban had regrouped and gone on the offensive. Without a new strategy and decisive action, our military commanders warned that we could face a resurgent al Qaeda and a Taliban taking over large parts of Afghanistan.


For this reason, in one of the most difficult decisions that I’ve made as President, I ordered an additional 30,000 American troops into Afghanistan. When I announced this surge at West Point, we set clear objectives: to refocus on al Qaeda, to reverse the Taliban’s momentum, and train Afghan security forces to defend their own country. I also made it clear that our commitment would not be open-ended, and that we would begin to draw down our forces this July.


Tonight, I can tell you that we are fulfilling that commitment. Thanks to our extraordinary men and women in uniform, our civilian personnel, and our many coalition partners, we are meeting our goals. As a result, starting next month, we will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer, fully recovering the surge I announced at West Point. After this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.


We’re starting this drawdown from a position of strength. Al Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11. Together with the Pakistanis, we have taken out more than half of al Qaeda’s leadership. And thanks to our intelligence professionals and Special Forces, we killed Osama bin Laden, the only leader that al Qaeda had ever known. This was a victory for all who have served since 9/11. One soldier summed it up well. “The message,” he said, “is we don’t forget. You will be held accountable, no matter how long it takes.”


The information that we recovered from bin Laden’s compound shows al Qaeda under enormous strain. Bin Laden expressed concern that al Qaeda had been unable to effectively replace senior terrorists that had been killed, and that al Qaeda has failed in its effort to portray America as a nation at war with Islam -– thereby draining more widespread support. Al Qaeda remains dangerous, and we must be vigilant against attacks. But we have put al Qaeda on a path to defeat, and we will not relent until the job is done.


In Afghanistan, we’ve inflicted serious losses on the Taliban and taken a number of its strongholds. Along with our surge, our allies also increased their commitments, which helped stabilize more of the country. Afghan security forces have grown by over 100,000 troops, and in some provinces and municipalities we’ve already begun to transition responsibility for security to the Afghan people. In the face of violence and intimidation, Afghans are fighting and dying for their country, establishing local police forces, opening markets and schools, creating new opportunities for women and girls, and trying to turn the page on decades of war.


Of course, huge challenges remain. This is the beginning -- but not the end –- of our effort to wind down this war. We’ll have to do the hard work of keeping the gains that we’ve made, while we draw down our forces and transition responsibility for security to the Afghan government. And next May, in Chicago, we will host a summit with our NATO allies and partners to shape the next phase of this transition.


We do know that peace cannot come to a land that has known so much war without a political settlement. So as we strengthen the Afghan government and security forces, America will join initiatives that reconcile the Afghan people, including the Taliban. Our position on these talks is clear: They must be led by the Afghan government, and those who want to be a part of a peaceful Afghanistan must break from al Qaeda, abandon violence, and abide by the Afghan constitution. But, in part because of our military effort, we have reason to believe that progress can be made.


The goal that we seek is achievable, and can be expressed simply: No safe haven from which al Qaeda or its affiliates can launch attacks against our homeland or our allies. We won't try to make Afghanistan a perfect place. We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely. That is the responsibility of the Afghan government, which must step up its ability to protect its people, and move from an economy shaped by war to one that can sustain a lasting peace. What we can do, and will do, is build a partnership with the Afghan people that endures –- one that ensures that we will be able to continue targeting terrorists and supporting a sovereign Afghan government.


Of course, our efforts must also address terrorist safe havens in Pakistan. No country is more endangered by the presence of violent extremists, which is why we will continue to press Pakistan to expand its participation in securing a more peaceful future for this war-torn region. We'll work with the Pakistani government to root out the cancer of violent extremism, and we will insist that it keeps its commitments. For there should be no doubt that so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe haven for those who aim to kill us. They cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve.


My fellow Americans, this has been a difficult decade for our country. We've learned anew the profound cost of war -- a cost that's been paid by the nearly 4,500 Americans who have given their lives in Iraq, and the over 1,500 who have done so in Afghanistan -– men and women who will not live to enjoy the freedom that they defended. Thousands more have been wounded. Some have lost limbs on the battlefield, and others still battle the demons that have followed them home.


Yet tonight, we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding. Fewer of our sons and daughters are serving in harm’s way. We’ve ended our combat mission in Iraq, with 100,000 American troops already out of that country. And even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance. These long wars will come to a responsible end.


As they do, we must learn their lessons. Already this decade of war has caused many to question the nature of America’s engagement around the world. Some would have America retreat from our responsibility as an anchor of global security, and embrace an isolation that ignores the very real threats that we face. Others would have America over-extended, confronting every evil that can be found abroad.


We must chart a more centered course. Like generations before, we must embrace America’s singular role in the course of human events. But we must be as pragmatic as we are passionate; as strategic as we are resolute. When threatened, we must respond with force –- but when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas. When innocents are being slaughtered and global security endangered, we don’t have to choose between standing idly by or acting on our own. Instead, we must rally international action, which we’re doing in Libya, where we do not have a single soldier on the ground, but are supporting allies in protecting the Libyan people and giving them the chance to determine their own destiny.


In all that we do, we must remember that what sets America apart is not solely our power -– it is the principles upon which our union was founded. We’re a nation that brings our enemies to justice while adhering to the rule of law, and respecting the rights of all our citizens. We protect our own freedom and prosperity by extending it to others. We stand not for empire, but for self-determination. That is why we have a stake in the democratic aspirations that are now washing across the Arab world. We will support those revolutions with fidelity to our ideals, with the power of our example, and with an unwavering belief that all human beings deserve to live with freedom and dignity.


Above all, we are a nation whose strength abroad has been anchored in opportunity for our citizens here at home. Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource –- our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industries, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy. And most of all, after a decade of passionate debate, we must recapture the common purpose that we shared at the beginning of this time of war. For our nation draws strength from our differences, and when our union is strong no hill is too steep, no horizon is beyond our reach.


America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.


In this effort, we draw inspiration from our fellow Americans who have sacrificed so much on our behalf. To our troops, our veterans and their families, I speak for all Americans when I say that we will keep our sacred trust with you, and provide you with the care and benefits and opportunity that you deserve.


I met some of these patriotic Americans at Fort Campbell. A while back, I spoke to the 101st Airborne that has fought to turn the tide in Afghanistan, and to the team that took out Osama bin Laden. Standing in front of a model of bin Laden’s compound, the Navy SEAL who led that effort paid tribute to those who had been lost –- brothers and sisters in arms whose names are now written on bases where our troops stand guard overseas, and on headstones in quiet corners of our country where their memory will never be forgotten. This officer -- like so many others I’ve met on bases, in Baghdad and Bagram, and at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital -– spoke with humility about how his unit worked together as one, depending on each other, and trusting one another, as a family might do in a time of peril.


That’s a lesson worth remembering -– that we are all a part of one American family. Though we have known disagreement and division, we are bound together by the creed that is written into our founding documents, and a conviction that the United States of America is a country that can achieve whatever it sets out to accomplish. Now, let us finish the work at hand. Let us responsibly end these wars, and reclaim the American Dream that is at the center of our story. With confidence in our cause, with faith in our fellow citizens, and with hope in our hearts, let us go about the work of extending the promise of America -– for this generation, and the next.


May God bless our troops. And may God bless the United States of America.


END 8:16 P.M. EDT

JP Morgan Chase To Pay $153.6 Million To Settle Fraud Charges

WASHINGTON (AP) -- JPMorgan Chase Co. has agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled buyers of complex mortgage investments just as the housing market was collapsing.



J.P. Morgan Securities, a division of the powerful Wall Street bank, failed to tell investors that a hedge fund helped select the investment portfolio and then bet that the portfolio would fail, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.


Among the investors who lost money on the deal were autoworkers for General Motors, a Lutheran financial organization in Minneapolis and a retirement services company in Topeka, Kan.


The settlement announced Tuesday is one of the most significant legal actions targeting Wall Street's role in the 2008 financial crisis. It comes a year after Goldman Sachs & Co. paid $550 million to settle similar charges.


Still, the settlement amounts to less than 1 percent of the bank's 2010 net income of $17.4 billion -- or less than what JPMorgan earns in one week.


In its announcement, the SEC also said it had charged Edward Steffelin with misleading investors. Steffelin headed the team at GSCP, an investment firm that was supposed to have been selecting the portfolio of mortgage securities in the $1.1 billion deal.


The SEC alleged that Steffelin knew that hedge fund Magnetar Capital was directly involved in choosing the securities and was seeking a job with Magnetar at the time. Steffelin has not reached a settlement with regulators.


His lawyer, Alex Lipman, said the SEC was making Steffelin a scapegoat in its case against JPMorgan, "to attach a name and a face" to it.


As part of the JPMorgan settlement, investors who were harmed will get back all of their money, the SEC said. JPMorgan also agreed to improve the way it reviews and approves mortgage securities transactions.


JPMorgan neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing under the settlement. The bank released a statement saying it lost nearly $900 million on the investment. It also noted that it reviewed similar mortgage investments and voluntarily paid $56 million to compensate some investors in those deals.


The bank agreed to settle the charges two weeks after Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., complained to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that new financial regulations designed to prevent another financial crisis were too burdensome on banks.


In a related action Monday, another federal agency, the National Credit Union Administration, sued JPMorgan Securities seeking to recover $278 million in losses on securities tied to risky mortgages that were purchased by five wholesale credit unions that failed in 2009 and 2010. The NCUA also sued Royal Bank of Scotland PLC for $565 million in damages over the same issue.


Regulators have been investigating a number of major banks' actions ahead of the financial crisis. More charges are expected.


Magnetar wasn't charged in the SEC action. SEC enforcement chief Robert Khuzami said the hedge fund "was not responsible for those disclosures to investors." But he said such deals "remain a high priority for the SEC."


Magnetar essentially made a $600 million bet that the investments would fail once the deal closed in May 2007, the SEC said. Just one month earlier, JPMorgan had launched a "frantic global sales effort" going beyond its traditional customers to sell mortgage securities, according to the agency's suit.


Khuzami said the JPMorgan case, at its core, is about getting investors truthful information about their investment options.


"The appropriate disclosures would have been to inform investors that an entity with economic interests adverse to their own was involved in selecting the portfolio," he said.


JPMorgan sold about $150 million in those securities to more than a dozen financial institutions that lost nearly their entire investment, the SEC said. Under the settlement, nearly $126 million of the $153.6 million will be returned to investors. The rest will go to the U.S. Treasury.


The investors included Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a faith-based membership organization based in Minneapolis; Security Benefit Corp., an insurance and retirement services company based in Topeka, Kan.; General Motors Asset Management, which manages the automaker's pension plans; and several Asian financial institutions such as Tokyo Star Bank, Far Glory Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Taiwan Life Insurance Co. Ltd. and East Asia Asset Management Ltd.


The penalty is the biggest since Goldman Sachs & Co. settled civil fraud charges last summer. The $550 million that Goldman paid was the largest penalty against a Wall Street firm in SEC history. The Goldman settlement amounted to less than 5 percent of Goldman's 2009 net income of $12.2 billion after payment of dividends to preferred shareholders -- or a little more than two weeks of net income.


Goldman was accused of steering investors toward mortgage investments without telling the buyers that the securities had been crafted with input from a client that was betting on them to fail.

Congressman Alcee Hastings Investigated For Sexual Harrassment

Hours after Rep. Anthony Weiner's resignation became official, a sexual harassment case involving Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) resurfaced.


Gary Fields and Brody Mullins report for the Wall Street Journal that the independent Office of Congressional Ethics is now investigating a claim that Hastings sexually harassed a woman working on his staff.


Fields and Mullins write that the Office investigation was opened after conservative group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit in March as the legal counsel for Republican staffer Winsome Packer. Packer, who served on the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe--a group headed by the congressman--alleges that Hastings retaliated when Packer attempted to report the harassment, according to the paper. Judicial Watch has targeted Hastings in the past.


Accusations include "unwelcome sexual advances," and "unwelcome touching," according to March reports of the lawsuit. Packer had accused Hastings of offering her invitations to his hotel room, asking inappropriate questions in public including "What kind of underwear are you wearing?" as well as pressuring her to give him gifts and donate to his re-election campaign.


Hastings, a 74-year-old 10-term lawmaker, strongly denies all charges. He stated back in March when reports of the lawsuit became public that he "never sexually harassed anyone."


"That is a certainty: In a race with a lie, the truth always wins. And when the truth comes to light and the personal agendas of my accusers are exposed, I will be vindicated."


Democrats this week had hoped that Weiner's resignation, effective Tuesday, would finally end talk of sex scandals concerning their members and shift focus back to legislating, as well as campaign-based efforts to attack Republicans on Medicare and other issues. The Ethics Committee announced prior to Weiner's resignation that it had opened an investigation into Weiner's risque online communications.


The Office of Congressional Ethics is not the House Ethics Committee-- which investigates House members and metes out punishments (as it did for New York Democrat Charlie Rangel last winter). The Office was established by then- Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2008 to better connect the House Ethics Committee with the public and to process public complaints. The Office's investigation is a precursor to a formal Ethics Committee investigation, which would proceed largely on the recommendation of the Office.


The Wall Street Journal notes that even if the Office passes on recommending an Committee investigation, "its findings must be made public."


The House Ethics process has drawn heavy criticism for what detractors say is a persistent failure to effectively punish and police its members.

Man Robs Bank To Get Medical Care In Jail

Some people who need medical care but can't afford it go to the emergency room. Others just hope they'll get better. James Richard Verone robbed a bank.


Earlier this month, Verone (pictured), a 59-year-old convenience store clerk, walked into a Gastonia, N.C., bank and handed the cashier a note demanding $1 and medical attention. Then he waited calmly for police to show up.


He's now in jail and has an appointment with a doctor this week.


Verone's problems started when he lost the job he'd held for 17 years as a Coca Cola deliveryman, amid the economic downturn. He found new work driving a truck, but it didn't last. Eventually, he took a part-time position at the convenience store.


But Verone's body wasn't up to it. The bending and lifting made his back ache. He had problems with his left foot, making him limp. He also suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis.


Then he noticed a protrusion on his chest. "The pain was beyond the tolerance that I could accept," Verone told the Gaston Gazette. "I kind of hit a brick wall with everything."


Verone knew he needed help--and he didn't want to be a burden on his sister and brothers. He applied for food stamps, but they weren't enough either.


So he hatched a plan. On June 9, he woke up, showered, ironed his shirt. He mailed a letter to the Gazette, listing the return address as the Gaston County Jail.


"When you receive this a bank robbery will have been committed by me," Verone wrote in the letter. "This robbery is being committed by me for one dollar. I am of sound mind but not so much sound body."


Then Verone hailed a cab to take him to the RBC Bank. Inside, he handed the teller his $1 robbery demand.


"I didn't have any fears," said Verone. "I told the teller that I would sit over here and wait for police."


The teller was so frightened that she had to be taken to the hospital to be checked out. Verone, meanwhile, was taken to jail, just as he'd planned it.


Because he only asked for $1, Verone was charged with larceny, not bank robbery. But he said that if his punishment isn't severe enough, he plans to tell the judge that he'll do it again. His $100,000 bond has been reduced to $2,000, but he says he doesn't plan to pay it.


In jail, Verone said he skips dinner to avoid too much contact with the other inmates. He's already seen some nurses and is scheduled to see a doctor on Friday. He said he's hoping to receive back and foot surgery, and get the protrusion on his chest treated. Then he plans to spend a few years in jail, before getting out in time to collect Social Security and move to the beach.


Verone also presented the view that if the United States had a health-care system which offered people more government support, he wouldn't have had to make the choice he did.


"If you don't have your health you don't have anything," Verone said.


The Affordable Care Act, President Obama's health-care overhaul passed by Congress last year, was designed to make it easier for Americans in situations like Verone's to get health insurance. But most of its provisions don't go into effect until 2014.


As it is, Verone said he thinks he chose the best of a bunch of bad options. "I picked jail."

U.S. Supreme Court Orders California To Reduce Prison Overcrowding By 33,000 Inmates

LOS ANGELES- A U.S. Supreme Court order for California to reduce overcrowding in its prisons by 33,000 inmates over the next two years is long overdue but the lack of jobs and resources in communities awaiting them could have a devastating outcome, ex-offender advocates say.



The court's 5-4 decision issued May 23 has put California and the rest of the country on notice again about a serious problem.


“We're not prepared in the way that we need to be prepared,” said Roberta Meyers-Peeples, director of the National Helping Individuals with Criminal Records Re-enter through Employment Network.It is a litigation, services and policy advocacy clearinghouse based in New York and Washington, D.C.


People can stop short when they think about men and women returning home but their families are also affected and resources are limited for organizations committed to improving their lives, the advocate told The Final Call.


Funding opportunities are scarce, particularly because of the economic recession and because so many people are being routinely released from prisons and jails, she said.


Advocacy groups are seeking sophisticated and innovative ways to leverage resources and forge partnerships to meet re-entry needs while also tracking their progress.In California, a bill introduced by Assemblyman Sandre Swanson that would make non-violent drug offenders eligible for food stamps is pending a vote in the state Senate.


Ms. Meyers-Peeples called jobs as a key to re-entry success because employment is the link to self-sufficiency, being able to provide for self and family and avoid going back to prison.Another major problem is a lack of transitional housing and access to appropriate mental and medical care, said Dr. Ronald Beavers, a psychologist with the Positive Imagery Foundation, Inc. in South Los Angeles.


“If people are released without adequate safety nets, they will get frustrated and sadly, their natural reaction could be to do what they have to do to survive, but that can be averted,” whether it is for one inmate or thousands, Dr. Beavers said.


The court-ordered inmate reductions will not occur in a mass exodus from prison or in a way that threatens public safety, according to David Muhammad, newly-appointed chief probation officer for Alameda County. There actually could be no difference whatsoever in the number of returns people see in their communities, he added.


Non-violent, non-serious offenders would be released at their regularly-appointed time under probation supervision rather than parole under a plan introduced by Governor Jerry Brown.The plan has been adopted but currently lacks funding.The difference is parole's ability to immediately arrest and detain people, Mr. Muhammad said.


“This is a huge point because fear mongers will say, ‘Oh my God! All these violent and dangerous people will get out of jail,' but California's prison system is overburdened primarily because of technical violations of parole and probation and that's really who we're talking about,” Mr. Muhammad said.


California spends about $50,000 per year for an inmate but transferring a reasonable portion of that amount to local jurisdiction would move the process along appropriately, Mr. Muhammad said.He supports the plan and feels it is more effective for justice to be administered locally.


“Folks coming out of jail primarily need education and employment and we need to transfer the kind of gross amount of money that has been spent on ineffective incarceration to serving, supporting and supervising people at the local level,” Mr. Muhammad argued.


He explained that “ineffective incarceration” is imprisoning vast numbers of people from poor neighborhoods, with failing education systems, high unemployment, liquor stores on most corners and ready access to guns.


Prison officials recently reclassified approximately 3,000 women as low-level offenders and expect to release them to their South Los Angeles neighborhoods within about six weeks, according to Dr. Beavers, who said the women were prioritized because they are mothers.


“I think about the women, who, probably more than the men, have burned more bridges.Their families are not as sympathetic and their boyfriends or husbands are not standing there waiting for them to come home.Many of these mothers will come back without any connections to get on their feet and somebody has to plan for them,” Ms. Meyers-Peeples said.