Guards, Prisons, Education, and Prop 13: The Big Picture

Timothy Egan’s opinion piece on today’s New York Times places the recent CA vote on the budget proposition in context, and ties it to the prison crisis. On the guards, some of whom make $100,000 annually, he says —

The prison guard union, having swelled its well-paid ranks after voter mandates helped to produce a system where 750,000 Californians are either locked up, on parole or on probation, was upset at Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for balking at their demands.

And on the disastrous impact of the proposition system on our priorities list, particularly with regard to incarceration and education:

But I do blame the voters. They’re part-time citizens, and not very good at it. They shackled the tax system back in 1978 with Proposition 13, limiting how much government could take from a homeowner. It was a reasonable middle class revolt. But then, in succeeding years, voters passed laws that packed California’s prisons with criminals (many of them petty) but also mandated that the education system get a lion’s share of the budget. On top of that, the voters made it nearly impossible to pass a budget. Then they walked away from their car wreck.

It’s a good reminder that we have ourselves to thank, and to blame, for the situation.

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Props to my fabulous colleague Dorit Rubinstein-Reiss for alerting me to this.

Images Behind Bars: Prison Photography


Just a quick post to alert you to the terrific and eye-opening Prison Photography Blog, featuring images from prison around the world. The image in this post is Jacob Holdt’s Prison Meal on Toilet, taken in a California prison. 

The images from Siberia and Rio, among other places, raise difficult questions we have already struggled with elsewhere, regarding our attention to correctional practices in other countries. 

Released Inmates Might Commit “Sensational Crimes”?

I strongly recommend reading the commentary on Larry Corcoran’s panicked words on the Chron yesterday, from the good folks over at the Prison Movement Blog. Just to whet your appetite, Corcoran, spokesman for CCPOA, said yesterday:

“This short-term savings is going to have long-term costs, and the costs will be measured, unfortunately, in lives. . . I anticipate some incredibly sensational crime committed by an individual that should have been incarcerated.”

Now, granted, I entirely agree that mass releases are a very bad short-term solution for a big problem. Releasing people without skills or support programs into an abysmal job market is an extremely faulty strategy. Nevertheless, one would hope that the mass-released folks would not be the ones committing “sensational crimes”, nor is it ever a good idea to focus on those as the catalysts of public policy. Our pals at Prison Movement dissect this better than I could, pointing out inaccuracies, lack of logic, and moral hysteria, but I’ll just add this: at a time when public opinion is probably swaying away from moral panics toward cost-benefit analysis, I doubt this will win many hearts. Corcoran may be speaking the language of yesterday to an audience facing today’s budget shortages.

CDCR Layoffs: Related to Undocumented Inmates?

Everyone is having it rough in the correctional system, not least of all prison guards and correctional personnel. It seems that more than 3,600 of the 5,000 layoff notices were sent to CDCR employees (yesterday’s elections are not making it easy to balance the State checkbook). The lists have not been yet presented to the unions, but the decisions take into account seniority. These dire prospects fall on a fertile ground; CCPOA has been disgruntled with the administration for quite a while now. In an interview with the Sac Bee’s State Worker, CCPOA Acting President Chuck Alexander reflects on the problematic aspect of focusing most of the layoffs on prison guards, and brings up a surprising issue:

CA: Well, the layoffs assume you can move 19,000 illegals out of the system. But we’ve always had the ability to do that. We’ve advocated for the last three years a look at the undocumented aspect of the prison population and turn them over to the feds, or send back across the border.

TSW: The administration says it will release or transfer low-level offenders.

CA: The problem is that most of those 19,000 have already been rejected (for transfer out of the system) because they’re violent offenders. (The plan) is a sham. I would venture to guess that most of those 19,000 — if there are that many in the prison system — have an enhancement or serious violent felony.

The connection between these two problems is quite interesting; the problem of undocumented immigrant inmates, as it turns out, runs heavy and deep. At our conference in March, Angie Junck from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center discussed the challenges dealing with the situation, which involve inaccurate litmus tests based on the inmates’ last names; placing suspected undocumented immigrants on a “hold” that lengthens their imprisonment time; and facing not only less privileges while in prison, but also harsh conditions at the center for deportation following the prison experiences. Is this population really what would make a big difference for CCPOA? And are we sure that shipping them off to the feds would result in budget savings (gien the lengthier prison times)?

Three Graduations

The CDCR website features two news items about recent graduations. The first of these is the March 11 graduation of inmates with certificates in marine technology and carpentry. The marine technology graduates laugh as the speaker tells them that they are uniquely skilled for the profession, being more acclimated than others to live in small quarters. As the speakers congratulate the graduates for their newly acquired skills, they inform them, and the audience, that recidivism rates are significantly lower than for the general population (20% for carpentry graduates, and almost no recidivism at all for marine technology). Leonard Greenstone says, beaming with pride “I just hope you guys succeed in this program… every time a group of your leave, stay out of prison, aren’t coming back… really, it’s the most heartwarming, satisfactory feeling a human being can have… we all can take all kinds of credit, but this wouldn’t be here, or successful, without you. God bless you”. Secretary Cate said, “I have become a born again believer in these programs that provide our graduates… with the skills necessary to be successful on parole”, and mentioned that in budgetary constraint times, “this program pays for itself”. He adds, though, “[i]t’s not about politics or about the economy… this is about human beings… one life change impacts many others… one man who has the pride of a skill set and can support a family, can impact a generation”.

While CDCR is not currently accepting applications for guard positions, they feature the first 2009 Peace Officer Graduation streamlined video on their website. Prison guards are assigned to handle a variety of prison and parole operations, including transportations, escort, gang investigations, etc. The 16-week training takes place at theBasic Peace Officer Academy, located in Galt and Stockton.

Finally, my own students are graduating today. While I’m very sad to say goodbye to so many people I have such professional respect and personal affection for, I am proud and happy for them. They are not only exceptionally smart and hardworking people, but also imbued with a strong sense of social conscience and a commitment to making our society better. Many of today’s graduates played an important role in envisioning, organizing, and running our conference this March. While their opinions on law enforcement and corrections vary, they all have a healthy interest in doing their part in improving our criminal justice system. I hope that, despite the current job market situation, they will all be soon gainfully employed in places that allow those of them who wish to do so, to be part of the solution for the California Corrections Crisis. Congratulations, folks; I love you and believe in you.

Selling San Quentin

The Marin Independent Journal reported yesterday on the Governor’s intention to sell San Quentin. The piece is very good, and brings up a variety of angles on the merits and costs of this initiative, including the recent costly innovations at San Quentin (such as the lethal injection chamber and the improvement in medical services) and the issue of costs. Here are some tidbits:

Marin officials Thursday cheered a proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sell San Quentin State Prison, part of a plan to raise between $600 million and $1 billion to help close the state’s budget deficit.

But although local officials who have long fought planned construction of a new $356 million death row complex at San Quentin welcomed the governor’s change of heart, they stopped short of declaring victory.

…

The state recently spent more than $164 million on new medical facilities and $850,000 for a new lethal injection room to replace the cramped gas chamber that was deemed unacceptable by a federal judge.

California has also already spent $17 million toward the new complex for condemned inmates. San Quentin, which opened in 1852, has 639 inmates on death row.

State and Consumer Services Secretary Fred Aguiar said the governor has not decided where San Quentin’s 5,150 inmates should go if the prison were sold, or which other prison would perform executions.

Aguiar estimated it would cost more than $350 million to move death row alone, because that’s what the state plans to spend rebuilding the condemned unit at San Quentin.

…

Beyond the issues of feasibility and costs, this also seems to be a proposal of symbolic magnitude. San Quentin has been a fixture in the Bay Area scenery for a long time, and has more visibility in public discourse than many other correctional facilities.

Is this sale a good idea? What do you think?

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Props to Simon Grivet for alerting me to this.

More News on the Sentencing Commission Bill

Following the Appropriations Committee hearing of the Sentencing Commission bill, it has been moved to the Suspense File. I made some phonecalls to find out what that meant. As it turns out, any proposal above a certain amount – not a lot, these days – or any proposal that saves money above a certain amount – is placed in the Suspense File, and all proposals in the file are then dealt with by the CA State Assembly in a quick-firing session. Since budgeting is a major consideration these days, the proposals might we weighted one against the other.

What impact might this information have on the proposal’s chances? As you may recall, the proposal was amended and its text is now very vague on what the role of the commission might be. Sometimes, vague legislation is passed in hopes that later it will be amended by the Senate. There are some encouraging aspects to all this, which suggest that the proposal might not die a slow death in the suspense file:

1) The proposal comes from Karen Bass, the Assembly Speaker. The previous incarnations of sentencing bills came from a variety of lawmakers.

2) The analysis that accompanied the bill created a strong link between sentencing reform and avoidance of overcrowding. While the expenditures and savings that might result from what is currently a very vague bill are unclear, a strong argument in its favor might be that this is a much better, more organized, and more controlled, alternative to the arbitrary release of tens of thousands of prisoners, and is therefore a more palatable response to overcrowding. In that sense, ironically, the bill has perhaps a better chance to pass in times of scarcity than in times of plenty.

Sentencing Commission Bill Comes Before Assembly Committee on Appropriations

The Sentencing Commission Bill, A.B. 1376, will come today before the Assembly Committee on Appropriations. The Analyst’s review connects the Bill to the overcrowding crisis and to the tentative decision in the health care cases. Its comments about the fiscal effects of the new bill are particularly telling as to the shorter, vaguer, amended version of the bill we have discussed here and here:

1)Because this measure is in skeletal form, precise costs cannot be determined. Based, however, on earlier sentencing commission models, annual costs would be in the range of $2.5 million, depending on the authority of the body.

For example, this committee estimated costs for SB 110 (Romero, 2008) – which was charged with developing mandatory sentencing guidelines and significant tasks, such as preparing inmate population projections, developing recommendations on the state’s inmate population, providing training to criminal justice practitioners, conducting research, and developing materials, information systems and annual reports to the legislature – would be in the range of $2.5 million, with a staff of about 20.

2) Prospective costs/savings due to actions of the body cannot be determined, though it is likely a non-politicized sentencing commission, using evidence-based practices and models, could recommend a sentencing/parole scheme that results in significant net state savings.

In non-legislative language: Since we don’t know what is proposed, we don’t know how much it costs. But if this is a cover for the same thing that has been proposed time and time again, we’ve already estimated the cost of that. The initiative’s potential for savings depends on how well it does its job.

We’ll post an update as soon as we know what happened at the hearing.

Leadership Reorganization and a Hospice Program, reported on the Receiership Newsletter

The Receivership’s newsletter, Turnaround Lifeline, reports structural changes in the Receivership’s leadership structure. 

[T]he executive level structure of the California Prison Health Care Services has been reorganized.  This structure, staffed with state-employed civil servants, is designed so that CPHCS will be prepared to function as an entity within the State of California once the goal of improving prison health care services to a constitutionally acceptable and sustainable level has been met.


The newsletter contains some basic facts about the Receivership, as well as the fact that that it has recently received MCE (Medical Continuing Education) accreditation. There’s also an interesting piece about the Supportive Care Services – a hospice program at the California Men’s Colony, which, among other things, trains prisoners to offer spiritual comfort to their dying friends. It makes a fascinating read, particularly given the rising rates of aging and chronically ill inmates. It is also a good reminder that people not only live – but also die – within walls.

More Marijuana Humonetarianism: This time, from the Governor

Governor Schwarzenegger is open to the possibility of regulating marijuana, as the Sac Bee reported yesterday. If this is not humonetarianism, I don’t know what is:

…Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opened a new front for discussion this week, saying that while it’s not time to legalize pot, he’s willing to talk about it as a revenue-raising measure.

…

Schwarzenegger, who was filmed smoking a joint in the 1977 film, “Pumping Iron,” sparked headlines by responding to a reporter’s question about a Field Poll. The survey found that 56 percent of voters support taxing pot used for pleasure or partying.

“I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues – I’m always for an open debate on it. … But just because of raising revenues, we have to be very careful not to make mistakes at the same time,” Schwarzenegger said.

…

California would be the first to legalize recreational pot use under legislation introduced months ago by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, who has shelved it until next year.

The state Board of Equalization has estimated that legalizing marijuana would reduce its street price by 50 percent, increase consumption, and generate about $1.3 billon annually in taxes.