Word: veras
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Interview Through Bars. It all started 31 years ago when Schweitzer, now 65, met New York City Prison Commissioner Anna Kross, who took him to visit a Brooklyn detention prison. He was shocked by the large number of pre-trial prisoners and donated $70,000 to set up the Vera Foundation, which he named for his mother (because "I thought she would have liked what I was doing"). In cooperation with the New York University Law School, Schweitzer's foundation set up the Manhattan Bail Project, which has been operating for 31 months on a trial basis in Manhattan...
...project's early months, Vera staffers cautiously recommended the release of only 30% of the prisoners interviewed; now they intercede for 60%. At first the judges followed the foundation's advice in only half of the cases, but now they turn loose 70% of the prisoners for whom Vera vouches. This remarkable trend is based on equally remarkable results. Of the 2,300 prisoners-ranging from muggers to embezzlers-that Vera has recommended for release, less than 1% have failed to show up for trial v. a 3% no-show rate in Manhattan for defendants who were free...
Beautiful & Unbutchered. Even Vera's most enthusiastic supporters do not claim that the new system will work in all cases, and Vera itself avoids homicide, sex and narcotics offenses as too risky to handle. But the success of the project strongly suggests that many indigent defendants can be turned loose by sidestepping the old concept of money bail and substituting character checks and supervision (Vera sends special letters and makes telephone calls to remind the defendants to show up for trial). The Vera system would not only greatly reduce the cost of jailing pre-trial prisoners-$10 million annually...
...characterize Mrs. Hudd. Slowly her voluble good spirits curdle into nervousness and sorrow. Ed Finnegan also gives an outstanding performance, musing and whining with great finesse as the elderly Mr. Kidd. Dustin Hoffman plays Mr. Hudd with realistic stolidness. The other parts are handled skillfully by Paul Benedicts, Vera Lee, and Lester Gilmore...
Ostensibly, Hallelujah has a plot, but I can't say I felt like puzzling it out. So let me refer to a printed synopsis: Vera is a lovely girl who has been courted by two men for seven years--Leo (Marty Greenbaum), who is quiet and awkward, and Jack (Peter H. Beard), who is handsome and unpredictable. Since each suitor sees the girl differently, Vera is played by two actresses (Sheila Finn and Peggy Steffans). This is clever. In the eighth year Vera marries Gideon, who never appears; and Jack and Leo go off on a camping trip...