Plata: The County Jail Edition?

When people express support for the Realignment, it is because of the general perception that the state did such an abysmal job at housing inmates that counties would clearly do better. But is that really so?

Not according to the Prison Law Office, who has filed a health-care lawsuit in Fresno and contemplating another one in Riverside.

The nonprofit Prison Law Office and others are concerned that California’s realignment of prisons and jails – which has inmates serving time in county jails for crimes that in the past would have landed them in prison – may have simply shifted the state’s prison problems to the 58 counties and their jail systems. They warn there may be more suits to come.


“It’s not that these jails were doing well before; it’s just worse with realignment,” said Don Specter, Prison Law Office director. “In some ways, counties are worse than (state prisons) … and certainly the harm on prisoners who stay there longer is going to be greater.”

And then, of course, there are the counties who are doing a better job–“particularly those that have long made treatment, not prison time, a priority.” The story continues:


Marin County Sheriff Bob Doyle said not many people have been sentenced under realignment in that county, and those who have been have received relatively short, three- or four-year terms.


“The counties with the big problems with realignment, No. 1, already had space issues, and No. 2, have different sentencing practices,” Doyle said.


“We’re a county that since the 1980s has had a low incarceration rate,” he said, adding that Marin County developed programs in the 1990s as alternatives to locking people up. “We see realignment as an opportunity.”


Dr. Joe Goldenson, who directs San Francisco’s Jail Health Services, said the city also hasn’t seen overwhelming numbers of new inmates under realignment because it never sent many felons to state prisons in the first place. And, he said, leaders have consistently invested in jail health care “because they have always recognized the importance of providing care to this population.”

The only thing certain about the realignment is that nothing is certain; the counties’ different approaches will make or break this reform in terms of its impact on mass incarceration.

State Juvenile Program Profile

Photo credit Lea Suzuki for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Juvenile realignment is such a thorny issue these days, with so much talk about direct filing concerns and proper institutions. Here’s one more thing to consider: Some unique state programs, which are costly, but truly make a difference for juvenile state inmates convicted of serious crimes.

These programs are the focus of a story by Marisa Lagos on yesterday’s Chron (only available online as of this afternoon. Lagos visited two of these unique institutions, O.S. Close and N.A. Chaderjan, and brought back stories from the administrators and the wards.
Here’s a description of one of these facilities:
The facility is oriented around Chad’s sprawling central yard, a huge expanse of grass that includes football and soccer fields and an adjoining basketball court. In the early evenings, before dinner and nighttime treatment sessions, the yard fills with youths in matching outfits, playing sports and participating in other recreational activities. 


But during business hours, vocational programs are under way in the squat buildings that are the hallmark of these correctional facilities.


Inside one of those large rooms, various pieces of computer hardware rest in neat piles as five wards – dressed in polo shirts emblazoned with a “Merit Partners” logo – inspect open hard drives.
The youths are employees of the nonprofit Merit Inc., which was founded 14 years ago with the goal of training incarcerated youths in useful job skills. The Stockton facility is a registered Microsoft refurbisher, and the wards that work here are all trained in rebuilding and repairing dated equipment that is donated by corporations.


Unlike most prison jobs, they are paid well – starting at minimum wage, which is $8 an hour in California, and up to $10 an hour. They work up to 40 hours a week, money that goes toward restitution for victims of violent crimes, room and board at the facility, family support if appropriate, and a savings account in the worker’s name that will help them land on their feet when they are released.
The workers also learn “soft skills,” such as how to create a resume, apply for a job and dress for and conduct themselves during an interview.


“I’ve learned a lot – I never thought I’d be learning about fixing computers,” said Terrance Turner, a 21-year-old ward who grew up in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood. “And before I was scared to talk to groups of people. Now I am trying to overcome that.”

Would the counties be able to come up with comparable, and less expensive, rehabilitative options for their juvenile population?

Original Death Penalty Supporters Now Fight for Abolition

Several people sent me this recent New York Times story, which is the perfect example of the kind of cost-centered discourse that has come to dominate American corrections. First, here’s the gist of the story.

The year was 1978, and the California ballot bristled with initiatives for everything from banning gay teachers to cracking down on indoor smoking. Both lost. But one, Proposition 7, sailed through: expanding the state’s death penalty law to make it among the toughest and most far-reaching in the country.


The campaign was run by Ron Briggs, today a farmer and Republican member of the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors. It was championed by his father, John V. Briggs, a state senator. And it was written by Donald J. Heller, a former prosecutor in the New York district attorney’s office who had moved to Sacramento.


Thirty-four years later, another initiative is going on the California ballot, this time to repeal the death penalty and replace it with mandatory life without parole. And two of its biggest advocates are Ron Briggs and Mr. Heller, who are trying to reverse what they have come to view as one of the biggest mistakes of their lives.

This story has all the ingredients of humonetarianism: Cost-focused concerns, bipartisanism, and change of heart under the banner of fiscal prudence.

“But it’s not working,” [Briggs] said. “My dad always says, admit the obvious. We started with 300 on death row when we did Prop 7, and we now have over 720 — and it’s cost us $4 billion. I tell my Republican friends, ‘Close your eyes for a moment. If there was a state program that was costing $185 million a year and only gave the money to lawyers and criminals, what would you do with it?’ ”

Supporters of the death penalty are also willing to concede that the cost argument is the only one that would carry weight in the death penalty debate:

Kent Scheidegger, the legal director for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports the death penalty, said cost “is probably the only argument that has any chance. The people have heard all the other arguments for years, and it has never gotten any traction.”

_______________
Props to David Takacs, Colin Wood, and Morris Ratner, for the link.

The Religious Life of Inmates

A recent study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life surveyed prison chaplains in all 50 states.

Most of the chaplains surveyed  (71%) are Protestant Christians, so it is perhaps not surprising that Muslims top their list of concerns about religious extremism among inmates. But there are some other interesting things going on there. For example, look at the graphic to the left. Not only is there frequent change in inmates’ faith, but some religions are less stable than others in terms of their membership.

Also interesting is their assessment of inmates’ religious requests; requests for religious books and texts are usually approved, whereas requests for a religiously-related hairstyle are usually denied.

For a non-Christian take on the results of the survey, read Jason Pitzl-Waters’ lucid commentary in his blog, or some remarks from Pagan chaplain Patrick McCollum, whom we discussed here before.

Charles Manson’s Parole Hearing This Wednesday

Charles Manson, 2012.
Image courtesy L.A. Times, released at CNN request.

Notorious murderer Charles Manson comes up for parole this Wednesday. The L.A. Times reports:

Manson refused to participate in his last parole hearing, in 2007, describing himself as a “prisoner of the political system.” He also declined to participate in any psychological evaluations that were part of that process.


He and other members of his so-called family were convicted of killing actress Sharon Tate and six other people during a bloody rampage in the Los Angeles area during two August nights in 1969. He is housed in a special unit for inmates felt to be endangered by other inmates separated from the general prison population.


Twice in the last few years, guards at Corcoran State Prison said they found phones in the notorious killer’s possession. Manson called people in California, New Jersey and Florida with an LG flip phone found under his prison bunk in March 2009, The Times reported in 2011. A second cellphone was found a year later. Thirty days were added to his sentence for the first offense, officials said.


Earlier, a homemade weapon was found in his possession.
Despite the prospect that Manson will be absent, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office said it would vigorously oppose Manson’s release. “We consistently [opposed parole] and will continue to do so,” spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said.

The female members of Manson’s “family” have also been consistently denied parole, despite not presenting danger to the community even in the parole board’s view. We previously reported on the parole denial of Patricia Krenwinkel, who was repentant and is regarded a model prisoner, and of Susan Atkins, who died in prison following a long period of illness. There seems to be little doubt that Manson’s parole will also be denied.

De-Felonizing Drugs

Image courtesy ACLU of Northern CA.

SB 1506, a new bill introduced by Senator Mark Leno, aims at changing drug possession offense classification from felonies to misdemeanors.

Currently, the distinction between different types of drugs also yields a distinction between felonies and misdemeanors. Possession of cocaine, heroin, and Schedule III, IV and V narcotic drugs is a felony; possession of cannabis and Schedule III, IV and V nonnarcotic drugs, is a misdemeanor.

Should SB 1506 pass, possession offenses will become misdemeanors regardless of the type of drug, and moreover, they will not require registering with the police station for folks with convictions.

The ACLU of Northern California, as well as California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, Drug Policy Alliance, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the California NAACP, and William C. Velásquez Institute, support the bill, arguing that it will enable a considerable shortening of prison sentences for simple possession while focusing resources on policing and drug treatment.

What do our readers think? Is there a good reason to distinguish between simple possession of different types of drugs for sentencing purposes?

Recount and Felon Disenfranchisement

Movie poster courtesy Tampa Bay Times

Last night I finally saw the 2008 HBO movie Recount. It is a docudrama about the aftermath of the 2000 Bush/Gore election, from the first reports of the results up to the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore.

I arrived in the United States in July 2001, to a shell-shocked Berkeley, where the wall-to-wall consensus was that the election was stolen by Bush supporters and that Al Gore was the President-in-exile. The confusion and rage intensified shortly after my arrival by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I was a newcomer, and for the life of me, could not figure out who had voted for Bush; I was yet to realize how deep the rift was and how partisanship wrecked and hollowed American politics. So, it was a fascinating experience to see a retelling of the story of that election, with the last twelve years in mind; much of what we experience politically today can date back to that fateful election.

What stuck out for me, though, was not so much the righteousness of one side or other; I entirely believed Ted Olson’s integrity when he said, with a straight face, to a room full of Bush supporters, that Bush had won each and every one of the recounts. Instead, what filled me with rage was the cynical use the Florida state apparatus made of felon disenfranchisement laws.

In the film, a Democratic party volunteer knocks on a door. A guarded, sad man opens the door. The volunteer asks for his name. “Yeah?” says the man. “You were turned away at the ballots this election, right?” The man replies in the affirmative, his face ashen and disaffected. “I’m Jeremy Bash from the Democratic party. Can we talk?” Says the volunteer, and the man lets him in.

It turns out that, in Florida’s enthusiasm to deny the vote to its formerly incarcerated citizens, the list makers included many non-felons in the list. The outrage among the ranks is palpable.

But the strongest scene, for me, is the ending scene of the movie. Bush’s acceptance speech is shown on TV, and as he addresses the people who did not vote for him, he promises to be their president, too, and to earn their respect. The camera moves around the room, showing the man turned away at the ballots on wrong information of his being a felon. His face is hard to read, but it seems to betray a web of complex emotions: Rage? Disbelief? The first seeds of disaffection, disengagement, dissent? The deep realization that he was locked out of his country’s political process, robbed of the choice to vote for either of the candidates?

This scene speaks volumes for me as we’re getting ready for a hearing before the California Court of Appeals with regard to the right to vote for post-realignment inmates in California jails, and for folks on community post-release supervision. And it is gaining importance as we begin to experience the 2012 presidential campaign. We think that the California bureaucratic apparatus has wrongly interpreted the California constitution to deny felons, whether they are in prison or in jail, the right to vote. Not only does this interpretation fly in the face of the intent behind realignment–a new world of community corrections–but by denying civic integration, it is a barrier to re-entry and a successful welcoming back to society.

Inmates have an important voice of their own and important insights into the criminal process and public expenditure. Some of you may recall a series of posts, like this one and this one, that appeared on the SF Bay Guardian by Just A Guy, an inmate with a keen eye for big-picture politics and economics. This is an important voice that needs to be heard. And, as Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen have repeatedly proven, this voice can make or break an election (and would, indeed, have reversed the 2000 election, as well as another Presidential election and eight Congressional elections.) Thinking about yesterday’s film reinforced my conviction that I would fight for enfranchisement no matter what direction the projected vote would go; it’s no coincidence, however, that inmates and parolees, disproportionately poor and of color, would vote against the regime that subjected them to lengthy, punitive, dehumanizing and unnecessary prison sentences under abysmal conditions.

Florida no longer uses the flawed list that played such an important part in 2000, and that had such disturbing racial implications.

The movie, regardless of your political stance and sentiments about the 2000 elections, is terrific and highly recommended.

Sending the Incarceration Bill to Inmates

Image courtesy http://inmade.deviantart.com. 

The most marked feature of the fiscal crisis on the correctional landscape has been a decline in the overall punitive discourse, policies, and technologies. States are giving up the death penalty; California is realigning justice with a focus on the community; and issues that were not considered viable, such as drug legalization, are now on the public agenda.


But the fiscal crisis didn’t only bring punitivism reversals and silver linings. With the good, we got some bad and ugly. And the ugly is the topic of tonight’s post.


Three recent bills on the Assembly and Senate Public Safety Committee agendas are all about rolling the costs of incarceration on… you guessed it… the inmates themselves. Here are some of the particulars.

SB 1124 (Canella) Cost of Incarceration

Remember the little theatre of the absurd from Riverside County, expecting inmates to pay $140 per night for their incarceration? Well, this beauty is in the same vein. Penal Code section 1203.1m currently authorizes the court to order reimbursement for the cost of incarceration if it finds the defendant has the ability to pay. This new bill would require the court hold a hearing for each and every defendant sentenced to state prison to determine his or her ability to pay all or some of the costs of incarceration.

Keep in mind that defendants make very little money, if any, during incarceration, have very little by way of financial support from friends and family members, and most if not all lose their jobs as a consequence of incarceration. It is exceedingly difficult for a formerly incarcerated person to find a job after release. It’s therefore likely that many of these hearings would result in the unsurprising determination that a defendant would not be able to pay for his or her incarceration. This process then would result in an unnecessary expenditure of funds.

AB 2261 (Valadao) Cost of Medical Visits

Remember Brown v. Plata? Why didn’t all these wise judges think of the simple solution for the medical crisis in California prisons–charging the inmates themselves for their care? This bill removes the cap of the $3 fee a sheriff is allowed to charge for an inmate-initiated medical visit and would authorize a sheriff to establish an unlimited standardized fee. As opposed to the other travesties, this bill would require the defendants to pay while they’re in prison, where they make the princely sum of between 8 cents and 95 cents an hour. It’s rather likely, therefore, that this bill would discourage inmates from reporting illness, which has a number of costly and dangerous ramifications.
First, this bill is likely to provoke a lawsuit, and I’ll be first in line to volunteer my help. Readers from Prison Law Office or from Rosen, Bien and Galvan: If this becomes reality I’m happy to put together an amicus brief. This, of course, means that additional resources will be spent on a costly, lengthy lawsuit, which will undoubtedly end in a federal court finding this travesty unconstitutional. Why not save us all the cost and hassle?

Second, this bill poses an immediate public health danger to inmates, correctional staff, and the communities that will receive formerly incarcerated people upon their release. There is currently an epidemic (WC) of AIDS and Hepatitis C infections in state prisons and in poor communities to which formerly incarcerated people often return. California prisons have a Hepatitis C Virus infection rate of 40%.

Third, this bill may disproportionally impact people with chronic health conditions or mentally challenged inmates.


incidentally, if you’re wondering why you have to pay for health care and have your health care questioned by the Supreme Court while inmates enjoy free health services, you might want to read this. 

AB 2357 (Galgiani) Cost of Assisting Law Enforcement Investigation

Finally, this bill would authorize CDCR to require an inmate be temporarily removed from a facility to assist with the gathering of evidence and impose a fee for the removal. Current law allows for inmates to be temporarily removed from their cells to attend college classes, but this bill would replace that opportunity for mandatory assistance with an investigation.

The scenario in which an inmate may be assisting law enforcement with the unveiling of potential suspects could put an inmate at risk of retaliation. This is a significant burden to place on inmates, who will likely not be willing to participate, let alone contribute their own meager funds to the investigation.

Incidentally, the CCPOA is all over this already. 

These are all exceedingly disturbing scenarios. There can be a debate about which aspects of incarceration constitute cruel and unusual punishment, but asking you to pay for punishment, even if it’s kind and usual, is absurd.

Gruel and Unusual Punishment

Photo courtesy Andy Duback for the Associated Press

The curious item in the picture to the left is Nutraloaf, a meal served in prisons and jails around the nation. Time Ideas has a piece today about a recent 7th Circuit case, in which Judge Posner thought that a Milwaukee inmate might have an 8th Amendment claim based on this meal.

A culinary review in Chicago Magazine reads as follows:

The mushy, disturbingly uniform innards recalled the thick, pulpy aftermath of something you dissected in biology class: so intrinsically disagreeable that my throat nearly closed up reflexively. But the funny thing about Nutraloaf is the taste. It’s not awful, nor is it especially good. I kept trying to detect any individual element—carrot? egg?—and failing. Nutraloaf tastes blank, as though someone physically removed all hints of flavor. “That’s the goal,” says Mike Anderson, Aramark’s district manager. “Not to make it taste bad but to make it taste neutral.” By those standards, Nutraloaf is a culinary triumph; any recipe that renders all 13 of its ingredients completely mute is some kind of miracle.


I ate two-thirds and gave up, longing for any hint of flavor, even a bad one. That night, my stomach’s rebellion against the loaf was anything but neutral. I felt so full and lethargic that I skipped dinner and the following breakfast. And let’s just say I finally had a lot of time alone to catch up on my New Yorker reading.

In the fall, we hosted a day about food deserts, and our panel included a CDCR nutritionist. The meals we were shown on the slide show looked a lot better than Nutraloaf, albeit our guest admitted they might not be representative meals. We also had a chance to talk about the importance of food for pleasure and comfort, not just a requisite for health. Have incarcerated Californians experienced Nutraloaf or anything like it? Tell us.

Reversing the Punitive Pendulum?

A while ago we discussed the question whether Californians were punitive, and offered a slew of sources that suggested that, when people are aware of the costs involved in the correctional monster, their level of punitivism decreases considerably.

Pew Center on the States’ new report offers encouraging news to anyone who, like me, believes that the financial crisis has changed the landscape of American corrections in fundamental ways.

Some key findings:

  1. American voters believe too many people are in prison and the nation spends too much on imprisonment.
  2. Voters overwhelmingly support a variety of policy changes that shift non-violent offenders from prison to more effective, less expensive alternatives.
  3. Support for sentencing and corrections reforms (including reduced prison terms) is strong across political parties, regions, age, gender, and racial/ethnic groups. 

These is no coincidence. I maintain that the financial crisis, and the growing public attention to fiscal prudence, is impacting public opinion like never before. Brown v. Plata and an increased media focus on prison expenditures increased the visibility of prisons, who had been invisible to the public eye prior to the crisis. The discourse is changing; policies are changing; and now, public opinion is changing, too.