More on Out-of-State Incarceration


California currently houses over 8,000 prisoners in privately-operated, out-of-state facilities. Contracting with private prison companies raises concerns about providing economic incentives for incarceration. I first read of American Police Force here on this blog, last week.

The Talking Points Memo Muckraker has been following this story all along. In particular, check out their excellent post from Monday, telling a fuller version of convicted felon and “‘low-level card shark” Michael Hilton bringing American Police Force into impoverished Hardin, MT.

Regulation of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Coming to CA?


Today the New York Times has a good story on state regulation of medical marijuana dispensaries. This debate has a renewed impact on California this week, as Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley told reporters yesterday he will resume targeting medical cannabis dispensaries for prosecution. Explicit state regulation of medical cannabis dispensaries would save California’s criminal justice system the costs of arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating people who fall into the cracks opened by the vagueness of this state law.

When California passed the original state medical marijuana law in 1996, no specific regulations were included for state regulation or licensure of medical marijuana sales, supply, or distribution. Since then, three digits’ worth of Californians have been prosecuted over this ambiguity (partial list here). 13 states now have medical marijuana laws (comparative guide here). In 2009 New Mexico became the first state to have its Department of Health license and regulate a non-profit medical marijuana distributor, a delivery service. This June, Rhode Island became the first state to legislate that its Department of Health will license and regulate a non-profit retail Compassion Center.

Before coming to Hastings this fall, I worked for several years as the executive director of the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, RI’s medical marijuana community. Besides educating professionals, organizing patients, and forming a coalition, we lobbied for the 2006, 2007, and 2009 state laws authorizing and amending the Medical Marijuana Program. Throughout our successful efforts to regulate statewide distribution of this therapeutically beneficial substance, we faced the obstacle of the argument that we would make RI “like California, like the Wild West.” Now that New Mexico and especially Rhode Island have established regulatory models, California should model medical marijuana dispensary rules on other states’ effective programs.

Oscar Grant Aftermath: Scathing Review of BART Police

Since our main focus is the correctional system, we haven’t blogged in depth about the Oscar Grant shooting and its aftermath. However, the broad nature of our correctional crisis makes all stages of the criminal process – including policing – inexorably linked to each other. Therefore, we thought that some updates may be interesting to our readers.

Today, NOBLE (the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives) published its scathing review of BART police management, training and procedures. The full report can be downloaded here.

Among other things, the report points out to antiquated policing techniques, such as an emphasis on car patrols and very low visibility on the trains, tracks, and parking lots. Training is abysmal, there are no specialized units such as a SWAT team, and the protocols for use of force are sorely deficient.

If anyone is interested in hearing more, the report will be the subject of a public meeting at 9 a.m. Thursday in the BART board room, Kaiser Center 20th Street Mall, Third Floor, 344 20th St., Oakland. I called NOBLE this morning, and they seem to be interested in helping make things better.

Drug Dealing in The TL: A Presentation

Tonight the Tenderloin Station held a meeting at the Community Room at 301 Eddy St where guest speakers ADA Sharon Woo (head of narcotics unit) and Judge Ron Albers (Head of the Community Justice Center Court) had a chance to address about 50 members of the TL community regarding concerns about how drug dealing is dealt with in the TL.

An officer (I am a poor reporter) started the presentation stating that, although police chief Gascon could not make it, the recent sweeps of drug dealers in the TL (reported in other articles here on the blog) had been such a success that the Sheriff pods are too full and the police have been asked to back off from making so many arrests. However that moratorium on drug sweeps is likely to end as there are three major police operations scheduled for October 1st(!)

Sharon Woo then began her portion of the talk with a presentation of statistics that she had run regarding arrests made in the TL and the subsequent actions taken by the DA’s office. Woo stated that 81% of the cases that had come to the DA’s office for felony drug sales and possession had been charged by the DA and an additional 10% of cases resulted in probation violations, meaning that 91% of those types of cases had sort of action taken on them by the DA. Woo added that most of those offenders were kept in custody and if they were released on OR they were given stay away orders to stay away from the area where they were picked up. Woo also rebutted the presumption that most of the dealing that occurred in the TL was the result of people from outside the County by giving a statistic that 67% of those picked up for dealing in the TL were from SF County. Woo stated that she was very pleased with these numbers.
Judge Albers then gave a presentation regarding the CJC wherein he outlined the purposes of the CJC (to address the concerns of the community by looking at the root causes of the types of crime committed in the TL and address the behavioral issues of the persons committing those crimes) and how the CJC is designed to treat those individuals (increased emphasis on social services and addiction treatment programs, and uniquely tailored strategic plans for different types of offenders). Judge Albers placed emphasis on the fact that about 2/3 of the people that he sees in the CJC have addiction issues, about 50% have mental health issues, and overall about 80% have one or the other, or both. The emphasis in the presentation given by Judge Albers seemed to be on letting the community know exactly what the CJC was doing and that the concerns of the community about rampant drug dealing and use are being addressed
The members of the community present reflected many different points of view from “I have seen no difference whatsoever since the drug sweeps” to “the new enforcement scheme seems to be making a big difference.” Some people were frustrated with the inability to go into their homes without being harassed by drug dealers and users and seemed to be advocating for a more strict enforcement scheme. Others felt that the CJC was a good approach to dealing with drug problems: “You need to combat the demand, and when you get rid of the demand for drugs you will see the suppliers leave” one woman said, turning to Ms. Woo “Do you want some crack?” Though asking an Assistant DA if they want any crack seems rather odd, the point seemed to support the position of the CJC: If you treat the addiction you will get rid of the crime that goes along with it.

More on Policing the Tenderloin

The new SFPD chief, George Gascon, is a man on a mission. Having been shocked by drug trafficking in the Tenderloin , he has announced a mission of aggressive policing in the area in an attempt to curb the drug trade. The SFPD enforcement efforts have Today’s paper focuses on mass arrests conducted near schools as a result of buy-bust operations.

While some believe this attention is necessary, others are less optimistic. The Public Defender’s office wonders about the effect massive arrests (300 by Sep. 3 and counting!) will have on the court system. Others are cynical about the possible outcomes. I’m mostly reminded of the fourth season of David Simon’s masterpiece series The Wire, in which police commanders are subject to inquiries and humiliation in their weekly COMPSTAT meetings. Much as they try to juke the stats, crime rates don’t go down. Until Bunny Colvin decides to quietly and clandestinely legalize drugs in his district.

The experiment is successful on many levels, though it does have some ill effects. The new district, affectionately called “Hamsterdam” by its inhabitants, mostly regulates itself, the occasional act of violence notwithstanding. Social service providers appear on the scene with condoms, syringes and medication. And everything seems to work, more or less, until the secret is revealed, and the giant machine of the War on Drugs is unable to contain and accept it.

Less arrests, less trials, and the drugs move away from the community. But even if Chief Gascon was willing to consider a Hamsterdam alternative, is there any area in the city which we would feel comfortable ceding to the drug trade?

Some folks are considering other possible regimes for legalization. One group of advocates for such solutions includes LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition). Last night I had a chance to hear Norm Stamper, former Chief of Police in Seattle, speak about the harms of the war on drugs and the need to end it. Rather than advocating a free drug market, Stamper advocates a state monopoly on growth, manufacturing and sales, and taxation. I’m not sure a state monopoly system is realistic, but his ideas are interesting.

Your thoughts and comments appreciated.

CCC Blog 1st Birthday

This week, the California Correctional Crisis Blog celebrates its first birthday. It is a good occasion to look back on the past year and the main issues we have discussed, and perhaps to offer some thoughts on what might happen in the future.

It has certainly been a dramatic year for corrections, and the main issues on our agenda were the most pressing ones: overcrowding and the medical system. These two issues became inexorably linked with each other as the year progressed. Early this year we followed on the struggles between the CDCR and the federally-appointed Receivership around issues of quality of care, and, of course, money. These struggles, and the continued deterioration of the system, led eventually to the three-judge-panel’s Plata/Coleman decision, ordering population reduction as the primary means to remedy the health system. And we have seen the state’s reluctance not only to comply with the order, but also to comprehend the necessity for change: appealing the order, violating its requirements, and, in the legislative arena, severe limitations on the ability to transcend party lines and slogans to provide an effective solution.

A complicating factor has been the financial crisis, which exposed the cost of relying on a mammoth correctional apparatus as the primary means to solve social problems. Hidden from the public eye, hundreds of millions of dollars are poured in through taxes paid for by Californians to imprison their fellow Californians. The exposure of the frightening impact of these expenditures has led our criminal justice system to pursue some techniques that were not in use, and were certainly not publicly propagated, since the emergence of the new law-and-order paradigm in the Nixon days. We have seen the revival of the marijuana decriminalization debate; prosecutorial prioritizing of charging; sentencing reform ideas; jurisdiction stat-juking; critique of broad parole practices; a National Crime Commission; and even, perhaps, discourse heralding a questioning of the death penalty (though, perhaps, premature in CA). While we still pay tribute to the discourse of public safety, and advocate these changes using a discourse of scarcity, this may be an opportunity–so far only partly utilized–to challenge the status quo and engage the public imagination in designing better alternatives.

We were also following various agents of change and their struggles about the appropriate models of justice. We saw the Public Defense coping with cuts, and the Community Justice Center take its first controversial steps. We witnessed an increasing reliance on technology-based non-custodial alternatives and discussed their promise and pitfalls.

During the 2008 elections, and the months that followed, we had an opportunity to examine our patchwork sentencing structure, as well as our approaches to drug crime and to victim involvement in the criminal process. These provided a lens through which the partisan politics of corrections could be examined.

We read and reported on some new, and less new, books documenting and discussing different aspects of the correctional process.

Oh, and we had a major conference at UC Hastings, in which the major actors in the political and economic drama that is CA corrections came together to discuss different aspects of the problems we face.

Finally, we occasionally glanced beyond state lines to frame the crisis in national, and sometimes international, terms, seeing the idiosyncrasies of California, but also its role within the broader American correctional malady.

The blog has given us an opportunity to reach a broad audience of parties to the correctional enterprise. We hear often, by email or by phone, from CDCR employees, inmate advocates, victim organizations, lawyers, activists, and of course the population who is most affected by the crisis–inmates and their families. You have contacted us; brought our work to the attention of the mainstream media; sent us books and materials; informed us about the realities of living affected by the California prison system; involved us in your efforts for reform; and have been honest, forthright, and generous, in sharing your experiences, even when they left you uncomfortable or pained. This blog is for you, and it would not exist without you. Thank you.

We invite you to stay with us for another year, as we continue bringing to light one of the weak and shameful links in our social chain: how we treat each other when we transgress. Please keep emailing and commenting; what we know is up to us, and understanding is the first step toward systematic, evidence-based reform.

Playing Baseball in San Quentin, by Alex Casnocha

(image of pitcher for San Quentin Giants courtesy prisonphotography.wordpress.com)

Alex Casnocha is a Hastings student who has had the unique experience of playing baseball in San Quentin, and has kindly volunteered to share his experiences with the blog readers. Enjoy!
And, for a documentary on baseball in San Quentin, watch Bad Boys of Summer.

**************
San Quentin Baseball

As a San Francisco native and current law student at UC Hastings, I had heard about the San Quentin baseball program years ago. After my own baseball career ended after college, I hoped to find a way to join an adult team that would play against the prisoners, and my opportunity finally arrived this past spring and summer. In exchange for missing an hour of my Criminal Law class last spring, my Professor required that I write a summary of my experience in the prison, and so I’ve put together some notes and stories from my experiences.

During the summer, the prison fields two teams, and they each play two home games each week, not against themselves, but against outsiders, made up of different adult teams from across the Bay Area. The outsiders’ team name is always “The Willing.” The San Quentin Giants (the prison’s “A” team) wear jerseys and equipment all donated by the San Francisco Giants. Their “B” team is called the Pirates.

Nearly all the prisoners on the Giants are serving life sentences. Some of them were victims of the Three Strikes Law, but many of them are also serving life for murder. Their best pitcher, Chris Rich – or “Stretch” as he’s called because he’s 6’8, who pitched St. John’s to the College World Series twice in the 70’s, “lost his cool one night” and killed his wife with a bat. Their catcher had murdered someone. Their outfielder in a recent interview “just asked for forgiveness from the victim’s family.” So clearly many of these guys did something very bad to end up there. The rules of the prison are that you cannot wear anything blue, because that is the color of prisoners clothing and in case anything “goes down,” they want to be able to distinguish the non-prisoners from the prisoners. They also announce as you walk in that they will not negotiate for hostages. I wore bright red socks, a red belt, and a red shirt.

Anyways, with that backdrop, we entered the prison at a little after 8:30 am on beautiful and sunny Saturday. We had to go through a number of security checkpoints, but finally ended up inside the prison yard. I was kind of caught off guard because there are so many things that catch your eye immediately upon entering, including the brand new hospital that is almost completed. For some reason I thought we would be funneled into the field and that the field would be enclosed by a chain link fence that separated us from the prisoners, but I was way off with that assumption. We got in and immediately a group of huge prisoners walked by us and asked us to “beat the sh-t outta the Giants today.” We then walked down this narrow alleyway and all of a sudden the general rec yard opens up in front of you. It was a pretty surreal moment for me. It was exactly how you see it on MSNBC Lockup. There were hundreds of prisoners milling around, mostly separated by race. Some were doing calisthenics, pushups, pull-ups, some were jogging around the outside lap, some were just hanging out against the wall, dealing cigarettes – and probably some other things as well. Clearly (hopefully?) these guys must have had very clean records while in prison to earn the privilege to be out there, because we literally walked right through them all to get to the field.

But we got to the field, put on our spikes, and got ready to play. While I was standing around warming up, an Asian prisoner came up to me and drew a diagram into the dirt to show me how small their cells were. Suffice it to say that they were incredibly tiny. It was ridiculous. A bunch of other prisoners came by to agree with the diagram and emphasize how small their cells were. I talked with the umpire for a little while (the umps are all prisoners as well) and he talked about how the three strikes law had ‘screwed’ some of the guys on the team. He was pretty smart and knowledgeable about the law and other things. (At one point during the game, he was standing there and another HUGE 50 year old guy came by and was like “Yo dude! You were at Chino back in ’99 weren’t you? Yeah man I recognize you, Cell Block H! What up man, I was doing three years back then.”) But he was also incredibly nice guy. (I learned during my second game that he in fact was in prison because of the Three Strikes Law. He told me had did two things when he was 19 years old and a ‘fool’ and then got caught for petty theft 30 years later – his third strike – and is now serving life. He also played two years in the NFL before coming to prison.)

I was playing first base so I got to chat with a bunch of the prisoners as they came down the line. They were cracking jokes about this and that, they are all older about 30-50 in age, and all pretty solid players as well. We got up big to start the game, so that took the air out of them a little, but when they scored their first run the entire yard went nuts. There were about 750 guys out there, and a lot of them were watching the game. Probably the largest crowd I’ve ever played in front of.

A couple of mini-stories:

My first at bat, I hit a line drive hard straight back to the pitcher, and drilled him right in the groin. I was afraid he was going to come high and tight on me next at bat. Thank god that didn’t happen.

At the beginning of the game, our coach comes up to us and says “Alright guys, this umpire is notoriously sh-tty. Just terrible, so don’t let his bad calls shake you.” (Yeah coach…not planning on arguing with a prisoner who is umping our game anyways.)

My buddy the umpire told me that when all TVs went from analog to digital they all got paid the price. Nearly every tv in prison was analog, so they basically have no channels now to watch on TV.

It was also a little tricky to figure out what you want to talk with these guys about. I obviously wasn’t going to start grilling each prisoner as to why they are in prison, what they did, etc. So mostly we just stuck to baseball chat. We discussed the game, discussed the players, cracked jokes, and really there was never an awkward moment.

Another thing was that there were about 30 prisoners standing right behind the backstop chatting and heckling you for most of the game. They were all really good sports, and since we were winning by a lot, they wanted to know who we were and where we came from, but for my last at bat, I stepped to the plate, and one of the dudes is like “yeah, this kid’s not a nice little swing. Alright big man, where you gonna hit it, call your shot.” I didn’t want to show that guy up, so I pointed my bat towards left field. (It was a short porch out to left field so I figured I could maybe poke one out of the park.) The whole group of prisoners starts laughing and cheering. The pitcher was this guy with long blonde hair, like Fabio, and everyone called him Fabio. So the group behind the backstop starts shouting “alright Fabio throw him a fastball, man vs. man, man up Fabio and throw this kid a fastball.” (with a few other choice words interspersed. First pitch – fastball, right down the plate. I swung as hard as I could and swung right through it. Whole backstop starts cheering. I ended up weakly grounding out to the pitcher. It was an exciting moment though, and Fabio was pretty pumped up as well.

But all in all, I’d say the biggest thing I walked away with was knowing how truly great all these guys were. Obviously, at some point in their lives they did something very bad. But for a lot of them, that was 10, 20, 30 years ago, and they’ve been in there their whole life. Clearly, some of them seemed to be pretty hardcore guys on outside. Their catcher for example, was no joke. Tattoos all over the place, all over his neck, broken left thumb, definitely a ‘balls to the wall’ kind of player. During my second at bat he was telling me how the pitcher was throwing too slow for us, so I mentioned that “yeah the pitches look pretty good” which kinda seemed to tick him off. He immediately says “Yeah, but he’s my F-CKING boy, and I’d do anything for him.” Message sent. But even all the prisoners who were watching would come up and chat, cheer us and them on. I think they just really appreciate getting the chance to play every week. Frankly, the field was nice, the weather was beautiful, and it was legit baseball. To be serving a life sentence in prison, and be able to play like that, must be something truly special for these prisoners. After the game, each one made a point to come up, shake our hands, hug us, and thank us for coming out.

Afterwards, and even during the game, I tried to imagine what some of these guys would do if they got released today. For some of the guys, especially the older ones, they seemed to be perfectly rehabilitated. Obviously I was only privy to this little glimpse into their daily lives, but I couldn’t help but think that many of these guys had been in there for a long time, and their crime was so long ago, that they were no longer a danger to society. Yet in class, when we did hypothetical scenarios involving a murder, I almost always raised my hand for a life sentence. I think my attitude now has definitely changed. Maybe I would still vote for a life sentence, but I would at least provide an opportunity for parole after 20, 30, 40 years. The pitcher who killed his wife with a bat, was maybe the nicest of the bunch, and was genuinely grateful for the opportunity to play us. I’m sure he’s seen a lot of very bad things in his time in prison, but I could only imagine him getting out of prison and being able to help and coach other youth baseball teams.

In fact, during my second game at the prison, he opened up a little about his view on the prison system. Years ago, he had requested to be transferred to San Quentin when he heard about their baseball program. He stood behind our dugout for the entire second game chatting with us about this and that. As we got to talking, he mentioned “You will find very few people in here, who believe that most of the guys here should really not be in prison. We all look around and realize that there are a lot of people in here that belong in here, and not on the outside. They are just too dangerous to be out in the real world, and nearly all of us acknowledge that. But for some of us, it kills me that I am costing the taxpayers of California forty-thousand dollars a year, or whatever it is, to be in here, when I could be on the outside, working, contributing to society.” I think that is a very revealing look into the minds of some of these prisoners, how they understand their continuing burden to society.

Maybe these were just my idealized visions, but they all went through my mind while playing on the field. More than anything, it opened my eyes to how difficult it is to sentence people who have committed murder. You want to be able to sentence people on an individualized basis, taking into account their personalities, and perhaps leaving the option open for them to get out later in life, and yet, that is simply not realistic. There needs to be some standards and guidelines. And generally the one our society has created is a life sentence, if not worse.

When I tell some of my friends and their parents about my experience, they all almost unilaterally can not believe that I would put myself into that situation with those “monsters” and “murderers.” I now get a little defensive when I try to explain to them that most of the guys were really nice, and you could never imagine them doing something that horrific. And yet, at some point in most of their lives, they did commit a crime that was bad enough that they probably could be called “monsters.” It is just hard having to know that that reality exists when you meet them on a personal level on a baseball field on a beautiful Saturday morning or Thursday evening.

Back in CA

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your patience with the recent scant posting. I’ve been away, backpacking through China (and, incidentally, learning a bit about the Hong Kong correctional system). We’re returning to a regular posting schedule and look forward to informing you and being informed by your comments and emails.

Best, HA