Expanding Operation Boo: Thoughts on the Place of Sex Offenders in a Financially-Strapped System

Today’s news from CDCR are provoking a sigh and a head shake, as we’ve already discussed, ad nauseam, the ridiculous love affair the parole authorities have with Operation Boo here and here. Doesn’t the Division of Adult Operations grow tired of this festival of spook? Is no one critical of the fact that there have been ZERO recorded incidents of molestation during trick-or-treating?

My only comment for this year’s gloomy shaming ritual is this: Sex offenders are the only population who I believe will not benefit from the cost argument. Their lobbying power is, well, nil, and the fact that these baseless operations go on year after year are an indication that the public wants to continue believing that they are all, uniformly, monsters to be monitored and controlled in the face of no evidence whatsoever. We can turn around several important punitive trend, but it’ll be a long time before we reassess the devastation our excessive policies toward a population with extremely low recidivism rates has wreaked on released inmates and their families.

New Study: Decline in Support for the Death Penalty Among Californians

Souce: Gallup. Graph depicts national trends.

A new study conducted by Craig Haney of UC Santa Cruz finds that, while a majority of Californians still support the death penalty, there is a marked decline in the percentage of supporters compared with the previous extensive survey, conducted in 1989: Support has declined from 79% in 1989 to 66% in 2011. This trend is in step with the national trend (see Gallup graphic to the left). From the UC Santa Cruz website:

The proportion of adult Californians who view themselves as “strong” supporters of the death penalty has dropped from 50 percent in 1989 to 38 percent today. Conversely, fewer than 9 percent were “strongly opposed” to capital punishment 20 years ago, compared to 21 percent today.


“These changes appear to be related to changes in the way Californians view the system of death sentencing, rather than just the punishment itself,” said Haney.


For example, the poll revealed much greater concern about the possibility of executing innocent people: 44 percent expressed concern this year, compared to only 23 percent in 1989. In addition, the number of respondents who believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder dropped from 74 percent in 1989 to only 44 percent today. Similarly, the number of people who did not believe that prisoners sentenced to life without parole would actually stay in prison until they died dropped to about 40 percent, compared to 66 percent who held that belief in 1989.

These findings suggest a series of political implications for the supporters of SB490, a voter initiative to abolish the death penalty in California expected to be placed on the ballot in 2012.

First, it appears that, as we have said before, criminal justice reform is often incremental. It is difficult to get a broad coalition of death penalty opponents on a platform of human rights, and the support of several parties, including, possibly, victim families and law enforcement personnel, depends on maintaining a strong option of life without parole. Doug Berman has recently made a strong argument that the strong push against the death penalty has the unsavory effect of bolstering life without parole. Berman’s 2008 paper on the topic masterfully argues that the Supreme Court devotes a disproportionate percentage of its energy to the minutes of the “machinery of death” rather than dealing with more other important criminal justice issues on its docket.

Second, Haney’s study confirms our observations about the change in persuasive anti-death-penalty rhetoric over time. Concerns about innocence and deterrence, rather than humanitarian concerns, drive much of the trend.

And third, humonetarianism has the potential of converting even more Californians to the opponents’ cause. Haney found, disturbingly, that

nearly half the respondents in the 2009 survey, compared to 54 percent in 1989, thought the death penalty is cheaper to implement than life without parole, although the reverse is true.

This misconception can be easily corrected by a well-designed campaign. If costs are, indeed, a springboard to reform in California, a solid argument comparing the costs of the death penalty to life without parole would go a long way toward broadening public support for SB490.

Fees for Inmate Visits in Arizona?

Here’s a twist on the cost savings angle that left me stunned and speechless this morning: The Arizona Department of Corrections plans on charging $25 for visiting inmates in its correctional institutions.

Yes, I know. I had to do a double-take as well. But here it is, large as life, in the New York Times:

New legislation allows the department to impose a $25 fee on adults who wish to visit inmates at any of the 15 prison complexes that house state prisoners. The one-time “background check fee” for visitors, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, has angered prisoner advocacy groups and family members of inmates, who in many cases already shoulder the expense of traveling long distances to the remote areas where many prisons are located.

Beyond the obvious commentary – what a mind-boggling limitation on the budget of already impoverished families and friends of inmates, what an imposition on top of travel to distant locations, what a hindrance to rehabilitation and reentry by way of alienating inmates from their support system – this makes one think of Mona Lynch’s excellent Sunbelt Justice, which we reviewed here a while ago. Arizona has always been big on doing things on the tough-and-cheap. Like Texas, and unlike California, Arizona prisons were originally fashioned like farms and produced revenue based on inmate labor; both Texas and Arizona correctional officials used to mock the cumbersome, expensive rehabilitative apparatus ran in California.

Of course, since those days, the Arizona apparatus has grown large and cumbersome, and as opposed to California, very much enmeshed with Correctional Corporation of America. But the heritage is still there, which explains how the legislature can even come up with such ideas. As disturbing as the state of incarceration is in California, I doubt our legislators would initiate this idea. Mass hysteria, unmitigated punitivism, case-specific sentencing laws following redball crimes, yes. Cynical savings of this ilk, no.  

Activist Humonetarianism: Californians United for a Responsible Budget

More on utilizing the cost argument to fight for the cause of prison reform: Californians United for a Responsible Budget are an Oakland-based organization formed in 2003 to fight overcrowding. Among their activities is fierce opposition to AB 900 and staunch support of SB 9.

I really recommend spending some time on the CURB website. It’s a prime example of marshaling the cost argument as the rhetorical spearhead in the fight against overcrowding.

Legislative Effort Against the Death Penalty Revived!

The Sac Bee reports:

Opponents of the state’s death penalty announced a new effort Monday aimed at getting an initiative before voters next year that would abolish the death penalty and replace it with life without parole.


The effort uses the enormous costs of California’s death penalty as a sales point with voters, and organizers said this morning that roughly $4 billion has been spent since 1978 to execute only 13 inmates.

Usually, one would predict that such an initiative had better odds at the legislature than among the public, who has consistently supported the death penalty, and given its failure earlier this week, odds would look rather grim. But with the budget crisis what it is, the public is less likely to be held hostage by victim groups. We will be following this up closely.

Death Penalty Bill Will Not Go Forward

SB490, the proposition to abolish the death penalty in CA, will not move forward. The Chronicle reports:

A bill that would have let California voters decide whether to repeal the death penalty will not move forward because of a lack of support in the Legislature, the measure’s author announced Thursday.


SB490 by Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, was introduced in June following the release of a study that found the state is paying $184 million more a year to keep people on death row than it would if inmates were simply left in prison for life.

But look at the statement from Hancock:

“The votes were not there to support reforming California’s expensive and dysfunctional death penalty system,” Hancock said in a written statement Thursday. “I had hoped we would take the opportunity to save hundreds of millions of dollars that could be used to support our schools and universities, keep police on our streets and fund essential public institutions like the courts. Study after study has demonstrated that the cost of maintaining the death penalty when so many basic needs are going unmet has become an expense we can no longer afford.”

If this is not humonetarianism, I don’t know what is.

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Props to David Takacs for alerting me to this.

Medical Parole Law in Action: The State Focuses on Expensive Inmates

SB1399, recently passed by the legislature, allows the state to grant inmates medical parole. It confirms sections already in the existing penal code, but note the cost-related rationale:

The California state prison health system has identified 21 inmates whose average annual health care and guard costs total more than $1.97 million apiece. This is approximately $41.4 million a year for the care of 21 prisoners. These inmates are located in off-site nursing facilities or hospitals which require paying guard time, even though these prisoners are severely incapacitated. Eleven other inmates are inside prison health centers, where their annual medical bills average $114,395 each. There are currently 1,300 California state inmates whose health care costs exceed $100,000 a year. Inmates released on medical parole would shift the cost of their health care from the state to the federal government as prisoners cannot enroll in Medi-Cal or Medicare, but paroles [sic] can.

CDCR news has reported granting medical parole to the 7th inmate since the passage of the law.

As I’ve said elsewhere, humonetarianism is not unlike the risk management regime that has permeated corrections in that it is busy conducting selective incapacitation and grouping people into categories. But note the shift in focus: Rather than focusing on risk as the dominant category for classification, we are now focusing on cost.  The cost-centered discourse and practice are shifting the way we look at the prison population. Rather than focusing on the high-risk inmates, we are focusing on the expensive ones as targets for reform and legislation.

Oh, and apropos costs: I’m working on a book that examines the impact of the financial crisis on the American correctional landscape, focusing particularly on California. Basically, it would be a book about humonetarianism. Your thoughts and contributions about this fascinating phenomenon, which I’ve been documenting here for the last two and a half years, are most welcome.

Moving from Tough and Cheap to Lenient and Cheap: Why Conservative States are Ahead of the Curve

Emily Luhrs from the CJCJ posted a really great think piece today. Taking on the ACLU point on the bipartisanism of criminal justice reform, they point out that conservative states have had a much easier time closing down prisons and decrowding institutions than, say, California.

Texas prisons, for example, went from a projected increase of 17,000 new prison beds in 2007 to below capacity in 2011, paving the way for an unprecedented state prison closure this year. The reforms have not only reduced system-swelling, but have led to the desired goal of increased safety. In the years following the reform efforts, crime rates have continued to drop more than the year before. In fact, research proves longer sentences have no effect on deterring future crime.


. . .


While California often leads the country with progressive reform efforts, it is not leading the way on the issue of incarceration. The same issues that are bloating California’s prison population were identified in previously prison-reliant states like Texas, providing hope that California can seek effective rehabilitative options as the state begins to reduce its prison population. CJCJ has long advocated for smart alternatives to incarceration and if Texas can close prisons, maybe California can too.

Here’s my take on the phenomenon Luhrs highlights: This is all about humanitarianism. Clearly, the dominant, if not only, factor at operation here is the wish to cut costs, and it’s the only factor that has succeeded in reversing the punitive pendulum. Conservative states like Texas and Arizona have a distinct edge over California in doing so, because traditionally, both of these penal systems have operated on the cheap. In fact, as Mona Lynch explains in her terrific book Sunbelt Justice, during the big Rehabilitation Years in California (before the 1970s brought disillusionment with that ideal), Texas and Arizona boasted farm/plantation models that were self-sufficient and did things on the tough and cheap. So, operating on the cheap is not a new consideration in these states. They’ve always done corrections with less. They are simply doing less with less. Here in CA, on the other hand, savings and corrections are not concepts that have traditionally gone hand in hand. We’ve done everything–incarceration, parole, probation, death row–on a mammoth scale and are used to decades of immense expenditure on corrections. That mindset may be even more difficult to change than the punitive mindset. The approach that corrections, by definition, have to be expensive, has always been part of the Californian paradigm, and has always been alien to the Texan and Arizonian paradigms.

So, as Californians, we need to learn how to be two things that we haven’t traditionally excelled at: Being lenient and being thrifty. Ironically, despite Three Strikes and Marsy’s Law and determinate sentencing and all that, we have a better track record with the former than with the latter. But reality is forcing us to acknowledge that and seeking more financial wisdom with corrections, and this will guide us on the right path with regard to punitivism.

Rise of the Non-Punitive Victim

An op-ed in the local San Gabriel Valley tribune is a strong testament to the changing sentiments of victims’ families, a growing number of whom are not adequately represented by punitive organizations such as Crime Victims United of California and the like. Judy Kerr’s op-ed eloquently provides a humonetarian critique of the death penalty from the perspective of the family of a murder victim.

In California, in the last ten years, 46 percent of murders went unsolved. This means over 25,000 murders remain unsolved, and 25,000 other families are waiting, like mine, to know who killed their loved ones. And it means as many as 25,000 killers roam freely on our streets. In the midst of this crisis of unsolved murders, we are also facing the biggest budget crisis in our state’s history. While people literally get away with murder, the public safety network in California has unraveled. Police officers in every county in the state are being laid off. And, in every county, we are cutting back on homicide investigations and eliminating victims’ services.


As thousands of family members wait for justice only to be told there is not enough money to fund an investigation, we watch as hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on the death penalty each year. Death penalty appeals, special housing for death row inmates, additional corrections officers to monitor them, a double-trial system which separates guilt and penalty phases – the costs associated with the death penalty are endless.


Many hear this and ask: Can’t we just speed up the execution process? Reports from respected judges and criminal justice experts, both for and against the death penalty, have shown that the only way to make the system move faster while still preventing the execution of an innocent person is to spend even more money.

This local op-ed is notable for various reasons – its invocation of a humonetarian discourse, its disavowal of the traditional victim sentiments – but it is particularly important because a legislative proposal to abolish the death penalty in California is on the agenda, advanced and advertised for humonetarian reasons.