Adding Fuel to the Fire…..

Adding Fuel to the Fire......

Chino prison warden replies to allegations of inmate mistreatment

Photo by Michal Czerwonka/Getty Images

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) tours the California Institution for Men prison with Warden Aref Fakhoury (L) on August 19, 2009 in Chino, California. After touring the prison where a riot took place on August 8th, Schwarzenegger said that the prison system is collapsing and needs to be reformed.

Steven Cuevas | KPCC

Lt. Mark Hargrove slowly steers an SUV across Reception Center West at the California Institution for Men. Reception Center West features an open field lined with eight wooden barracks.

Those barracks were built about 50 years ago to house minimum security inmate workers. Four months after the August riot, civilian workers are still fixing broken windows and mending crumbled walls and cratered roofs.

• Video of Wardens response press conference

• What do you know of prison life? Tell KPCC.

Chino warden responds

Warden Fakhoury and California Governor Schwarzenegger discuss their immediate response to the August 2009 Chino Prison riots and the long-term issues that contributed to the disturbance 10 days after the violence erupted.

“We’re in a construction phase right now to rebuild these units,” says Hargrove, a spokesman for the Chino prison. “What we see right before us, you know, is they’ve removed all the siding. They’re going with a fire retardant siding made out of a composite that’s less flammable.”
On Aug. 8, fires were lit in two of the dorms. None of the buildings have ceiling sprinklers. Inmates kicked out barred windows and a security door to get out of one burning dorm. More than 200 inmates housed at Reception Center West were hurt.

Governor: Prisons ‘collapsing under own weight’

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger visited a week later.”California’s entire prison system is collapsing under its own weight,” he said. “Our prisons are overcrowded and endangering the staff and the inmates. California is quite literally losing control of our prisons.”
Those conditions may have spurred what happened in the days after the riot. Several former and current inmates say the prison kept dozens of men in outdoor enclosures all day and all night for several days as authorities tried to regain control of West yard.

Sterling Werner and his fiancée.

 

“You know at night, sleepin’ under the stars,” says Sterling Werner, who was one of those inmates. “Temperature drops, wind starts blowin’ and it’s cold. And you’re sleeping out on hard concrete. I’ve just been scorched by the sun and now I’m freezing myself off at night! Sleeping on hard concrete my lower back is hurtin’, my hips are hurtin’, my shoulders are hurtin’.”In October, a prison spokesman told KPCC that the prison did hold some inmates outside, but only on the night of the riot. But a guard said dozens of inmates stayed outdoors in small recreation cages for a couple of days and nights.

Held outside for more than 24 hours?

Acting Warden Aref Fakhoury admitted that inmates were held outside in an exercise recreation area, possibly for over 24 hours.“There’s a big possibility that, yes, that they were,” said Fakhoury during an interview in his office at CIM.
“Well, after the riot we did have inmates out in open area. It’s an exercise recreation area at the Center facility. So inmates were being held in that area until they were placed somewhere else.”
Many inmates held outside say they were stripped to their underwear and not given food for a day after the riot. Others claim they’re skin blistered in the August heat. A prison doctor confirmed that his staff treated several inmates for sunburn. But Warden Fakhoury says inmates were protected from the elements.
“I saw it with my own eyes that they had bedrolls and they had blankets,” Fakhoury said. “And they were clothed with the jumpsuits or boxers and T-shirts.”

High risks of outdoor detention

Holding prisoners outdoors for several days or even just a few hours poses risks. Last May, a female inmate at Perryville Prison in Arizona died after she was forced to spend four hours in an outdoor holding cell without shade. Arizona has stopped using most outdoor cells. Several states ban them outright.Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says keeping inmates outside for more than four hours at a time requires prior approval from department higher-ups.
“There should never have been an inmate living in that environment for longer than eight hours,” said Charles Carbone, a San Francisco attorney who specializes in prison law. He says what allegedly occurred in Chino after the riot amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
“They may be there in prison for a variety of reasons, some may be minor some may be serious,” Carbone said. “But surely none of them signed up to be placed in a cage for days on end. And the social cost of violating a prisoner’s constitutional rights is great.”

Lengthy outdoor detention is ‘emergency measure’

A California Institution for Men spokesman says inmates were held outdoors for long stretches as an emergency measure after rioters wiped out roughly one-quarter of the prison’s bunk space. But some inmates say not only does the practice of holding prisoners outdoors for extended periods continue, it started months before the riot.”When I first got there they put us out on the yard and we set out on the yard all day,” said Steven Morrissette.
The 24 year old ex-inmate from Hesperia was sent to CIM in March on a parole violation. He got out in August. Morrissette says prison staff had no bunk space for him and many other inmates when they arrived. He says the first week of his incarceration was spent alternating between indoor temporary holding cells and outdoor exercise cages. Neither is designed for long term inmate housing.
“They fed us out there. The only time we went indoors is if you had a medical slip to go see the doctor or nurse.”
And, says Morrissette, to sleep on the floor of indoor holding tanks with nine or ten other inmates.
Source: SCPR.org

Chino prison inmates complain of being incarcerated outdoors

AP Photo/Reed Saxon

Lavatory and dormitory facilities lay in ruins during a tour of the California Institution for Men in Chino, Calif., Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009. Blood-soaked mattresses, singed bedding and abandoned backboards and medical supplies littered the campus of the Chino prison, a testament to the violence of the riot that shut down part of the institution and injured nearly 200 inmates.

 

Rumors of violence swirled for days before the riot exploded inside the Chino prison’s Reception Center West.

Guards had taken to serving meals to small groups of inmates, rather than entire dorms.
Listen to the letters:

• Chino prison letters video montage
  

• What do you know of prison life? Tell KPCC.

“The tension, you can feel,” said former inmate Sterling Werner, who talked about the riot while he smoked hand-rolled cigarettes on the balcony of his Anaheim apartment recently. “And when officers are doing controlled feeding one building at a time two days prior to the riot, you know. Something is wrong.”

“You know, total chaos. We’re talking about window panes coming off and being thrown. Pieces of glass being used like Ninja stars. Kicking, fighting, punching. So much blood. So many people just trying to get out of the way.”
It took authorities until sunrise to contain the violence. More than 200 inmates at the California Institution for Men were injured. Two housing blocks were demolished, making the prison’s bad overcrowding problem even worse. Each dormitory was at double capacity. About 1,300 inmates were left without bunk space. Hundreds of prisoners were immediately moved to other institutions across the state.
In an interview in his office at the California Institution for Men, Acting Warden Aref Farkhoury defended his staff’s response to the riot.
“Both custodial and medically, response at CIM level was outstanding,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the training that we have provided our staff and all the tools we have available to them, this would have taken longer and we would have had a lot more seriously hurt people, and possibly death.”

‘They housed 10 of us per cage’

But dozens more inmates claim they were handcuffed with plastic zip-ties, separated by race and marched into outdoor recreation cages. The inmates say they remained in these cages all day and night, for up to four full days. Werner says most inmates were stripped to underwear, socks and shoes.”They housed 10 of us per cage,” he said. “We tried to cooperate. OK, we know it’s probably going to be maybe a few hours. Well, it extended to days and nights. Freezing cold. The only warmth I was able to get was from leaning my body against another inmate. They are only supposed to be used about two hours at most while the ad-seg people have rec time. They’re animal cages.”
Each enclosure is about 20-feet long and 10-feet wide, with a toilet and a sink. Werner says nobody fed the inmates for a day after the riot. They were given no soap, no blankets – and no complaint forms.

Guards non-commital about inmate treatment

When KPCC asked about the allegations over a month ago, a prison official denied them.But on a visit to the prison, two guards in the Chino prison’s administration segregation unit said that inmates were held outdoors for hours after the riot.
“As far as what I remember being in here, we would bring them out here during the day so we can do our daily process to try and get some of these guys out and try and give them medical,” said Lt. Eddie Hernandez. “And then at night, probably be around 9 at night when we would bring them inside.”
Lt. Gerard de los Santos said that initially, the inmates might have been held outside for up to two days in order to “let the dust settle and find out where we were gonna house inmates.”
“They were out here initially because we had no place else to put ‘em at,” De Los Santos said. “But we gave them blankets and everything else, jumpsuits so they can stay warm. They were not here with just boxers on and nothing else.”

Letters tell of post-riot treatment

After the riot, Chino’s daytime temperature soared into the upper 90s. The holding cages provided little shade. Some inmates were sunburned after hours in the outdoor rec cages.Werner says the skin on his back blistered and peeled. The prison’s chief physician confirmed his staff treated sunburned inmates after the riot.
“They stripped us down to our boxers and had us there for about three days,” said Charlie Padilla, reading a letter from a relative incarcerated at Chino at the time of the riot.
Sitting in her Los Angeles County home, Padilla reads the letter – one of dozens of letters sent to her by inmates at the Chino prison. Last month, she launched a Web site: www.intheriot.com. Padilla began corresponding with inmates after hearing her relative’s story.
“The sun burnt us during the day, at night it was real cold,” Padilla read. “I remember watching that movie ‘March of the Penguins.’ We all stood real close together like the penguins did. We looked dumb. But it worked.
“I have no idea what they’re going to do with us but I don’t see freedom getting any closer.”
Padilla said many prisoners talked about the riot as a “nightmare.”
That’s all anybody talked about,” she said. “He didn’t give me a lot of detail about blood and what he saw. I’ve gotten that from other people.
Five years ago, a group of Chino guards complained that some inmates were held in small holding tanks for days at a time. They called it “cruel and dangerous.”
Inmate complaints after the riot reflect a similar practice.
Source: SCPR.org

 

Governor's budget plan includes deep cuts for prisons, health and welfare programs, state workers' pay

By JIM MILLER
Sacramento Bureau SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released an $82.9 billion spending proposal Friday that calls for another round of deep cuts in health and welfare programs, reduces funding for the state's prison system and trims state workers' pay.
The governor's plan would reduce money for public transit. And it depends heavily on the state receiving $6.9 billion from the federal government to close a nearly $20 billion gap between spending and revenue.
There would be another $4.6 billion in cuts and shifts if the state fails to get the federal money, including the outright elimination of services for in-home care patients and people moving from welfare to work, plus $2.4 billion in additional measures to raise money.

The $8.5 billion in proposed reductions in Friday's plan largely spare public schools and universities following several years of deep cuts and fee hikes.
"For our economy, recovery is on the horizon. I wish I could say that about our budget, but I can't," Schwarzenegger said at a Friday news conference.
Schwarzenegger's proposal follows about $60 billion in cuts, tax hikes and other budget fixes last year as the recession caused a steep drop in revenue.
Schwarzenegger blamed much of the state government's worsening finances on a tax system that produces large swings in revenue, an expensive prison system and a U.S. government that, aside from last year's billions in stimulus aid, is treating the state unfairly.
The Legislature's majority Democrats sharply criticized the governor's proposal. They seized on what they claim is the administration's mismanagement of federal stimulus money following news this week that a state agency had a huge backlog of applications.
"They need to look inside and figure out how to manage the state first," said state Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny, D-San Diego, the vice-chairman of the Senate budget panel.
Republican lawmakers generally liked the plan.
"I think it's time to get serious about right-sizing government," said Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, the Senate's budget vice-chairman.
The new fiscal year begins July 1. Friday, Schwarzenegger ordered the Legislature into a special session to pass $8.9 billion in solutions in the coming weeks so savings take effect sooner.
INLAND IMPACT
Schwarzenegger's proposal does not include $10 million for a medical school at UC Riverside. The University of California has asked for the money since last year to continue planning the school. Planning costs would total an estimated $50 million.
The governor again called for a statewide surcharge on residential and commercial property insurance policies to help pay for fighting fires in the San Bernardino Mountains and elsewhere.
Since last summer, state employees have had been forced to take three unpaid days off a month, including about 7,700 full-time state workers in Riverside County and 10,800 in San Bernardino County. The furloughs have reduced workers' pay by 14 percent.
Employees unions have challenged the furloughs in court, with the cases destined for the California Supreme Court. Under Friday's plan, the furloughs would end June 30, to be replaced by 5 percent pay cuts and a 5 percent increase in the amount employees must contribute to their retirement plans.
Local officials in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, meanwhile, were alarmed to learn that the governor's budget plan calls for returning thousands of low-level prison inmates to jails in their home counties.
Riverside County Board of Supervisors Chairman Marion Ashley said many county jails already are crowded. The prison proposals could hurt public safety, he said.
Cindy Beavers, a spokeswoman for San Bernardino County Sheriff Rod Hoops, said the county cannot house any more inmates without more money to build larger jails.
Advocates for the poor and disabled, meanwhile, attacked the governor's plan to slash funding for the state program that provides in-home medical assistance to seniors and the disabled, part of $4.05 billion in proposed cuts to health and welfare programs.
Responding to the governor's demand for more federal money, Democrats criticized his linking additional cuts to the in-home care program and other services if the money doesn't come through.
"The governor is free to threaten people, if that's what he wants to do," said U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. Her office released figures contending that the state receives much more from Washington than the governor claimed.
Gas shakeup
Friday's plan would eliminate the 6-percent sales tax on gasoline purchases. Instead, the state would increase the excise tax on gasoline from 18 cents a gallon to almost 29 cents a gallon. The swap would save consumers about five cents a gallon, according to administration officials.
But the shift would hurt public transit agencies, which have successfully sued to block past attempts by the state to take their share of gas sales-tax revenue. Excise-tax revenue is off-limits to transit agencies.
Omnitrans CEO Durand Rall said the San Bernardino County bus system could lose between $3 million and $7 million if the proposal went through, leading to fare hikes and service cuts.
Schwarzenegger also proposed raising money for state courts by installing speed sensors on existing red light cameras. The cameras, already unpopular with critics who say local officials use them to raise money, would be outfitted with detection equipment to catch drivers speeding through intersections. The governor said the speed cameras would raise $296.9 million for state courts.

Positive Point: Jurisprudence and California corrections

Richard Mazzucchi

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Looking through the list of 176 persons held in the Tehama County Jail this New Year's Eve and the charges that they are there for was for me a lesson in judicial imprudence and corrections mismanagement see www.tehamaso.org.

Folks of all sorts are intermingled, some not yet charged or awaiting trial who may be guilty or innocent, others serving sentences for nonviolent drug or property crimes, along with some guilty of violent assaults and murder. Only one demographic group is not often found there the wealthy.

This is a dangerous and dysfunctional situation that puts the safety and rehabilitation of the inmates at risk, and makes one question the fairness and effectiveness of our judicial and corrections systems.

Some of the inmates will be found innocent of any misdoing but are exposed to hardened criminals with treacherous habits. It is not surprising that one inmate was nearly beaten to death in his cell by other inmates given the mix of personalities and the limited number of correction officers available to control them.

All this is due to unrealistic burdens California legislators have placed upon the police, prosecuting attorneys, judges, corrections officers and wardens of our jails and prisons.

No one wants to be seen as soft on crime, so ever stiffer and longer sentences are being prescribed, such as the three strikes law and other mandatory minimum sentences that overload our prisons and put immense pressures on correctional officers and prison support staff.

Prisons should be for those that are dangers to society, not non-violent drug offenders or those only guilty of property crimes.

For some jail or prison has become a home of last resort, given the lack of mental health services, half-way houses and diversion programs to offer a way out. Once a person is a convicted felon, which is not hard to do these days if one uses drugs or hangs around with the wrong types of people, it can be very difficult to regain employment and the trust of the community to excel leaving limited opportunities to overcome the allure of drugs to ease the pain and sense of loss, recover from underlying depression or other mental illnesses or otherwise avoid lives of crime.

So the cycle continues for many, and often spirals to greater levels of addiction, mental illness and criminality until they become institutionalized and a permanent burden on society.

What can we do about these unfortunate souls and realities? It would seem we have little alternative but to more carefully triage people that we introduce to our jails and prisons differentiating as well as possible among those that are violent threats to others that must be incarcerated, those that are guilty of property crimes or fraud that must be taught a lesson by facing consequences that may include extended time behind bars, and those that are in need of rehabilitation, counseling, training and other assistance to get back and stay on track.

By so classifying, housing and treating defendants and criminals we might avoid the exposure of these different breeds of cat to one another, and provide treatment and training programs targeted to minimize stereotyping and maximizing the chances of reentry into the general population as functional adults.

This may seem a simplistic solution to a complex problem but there are simply too many people being housed at great expense in our over-burdened prison system, and we have neither the revenues to support them, nor the will to do so.

I think we must strive to divert people from crime by using more carrots and fewer sticks, with progressive counseling, mental health services and training programs that help novice criminals improve their lot, rather than condemn them to lives in captivity. At least such investments can facilitate real change and individual progress, rather than continue apparently futile efforts to intimidate criminals into compliance.

It may sound trite and seem inappropriate, but a pinch of sugar may accomplish more than tons of salt when addressing the frailties and foibles of the human condition.

If you agree with any of what I have to say please tell your elected officials, so they might better defend not always being hard on crime and brave using more effective approaches to address the problem where warranted.

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Richard Mazzucchi is a retired research engineer specializing in energy efficiency and renewable energy. He has travelled extensively and now makes his home in Los Molinos, where he is striving to manifest a sustainable and spiritual lifestyle. He can be reached at living-green@att.net.

Elderly felons need a prison break

RICH PEDRONCELLI / Associated Press

Debbie Coluter, a certified nurses assistant, assists an elderly inmate, with Alzheimer's disease, to his cell at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

By DAVID FATHI

Sometime in the 1970s, the United States began a love affair with incarceration that continues to this day.

After holding nearly steady for decades, our prison population began to climb as criminal justice policy took a sharply punitive turn, with the massive criminalization of drug use, “three strikes” laws and other harsh sentencing practices. More people were going to prison and staying there longer. By 2005, the prison population was six times what it had been in 1975.
One little-known side effect of this population explosion has been a sharp increase in the number of elderly people behind bars.
According to the Justice Department, in 1980 the United States had about 9,500 prisoners age 55 and older; by 2008, the number had increased tenfold, to 94,800. That same year, the number of prisoners 50 and older was just shy of 200,000 — about the size of the entire U.S. prison population in the early 1970s.
People age 50 or 55 may seem a bit young to be classified as elderly. Because their lives have often been characterized by poverty, trauma and limited access to medical care and rehabilitative services, most prisoners are physiologically older than their chronological age would suggest, and more likely to have disabling medical conditions than the general population.
One study cited by Ronald H. Aday in his 1994 article in Federal Probation concluded that the average prisoner over 50 has a physiological age 11.5 years older than his chronological age.
With 1 in 11 U.S. prisoners serving a life sentence — in some states, the figure is 1 in 6 — it’s no surprise that the number of elderly prisoners is skyrocketing.
In 2007, The New York Times profiled Charles Friedgood, 89, a New York state prisoner who had served more than 30 years of a life sentence for second-degree murder. Although he had terminal cancer and had undergone several operations, including a colostomy, he had been denied parole five times before being released in 2007. Friedgood at least had the opportunity to apply for parole; in some states, parole has been abolished and a life sentence means exactly that.
Being in prison is hard on anyone, but elderly people face special dangers, particularly if they are ill or disabled. Some have complex medical and mental health needs that prisons are ill-equipped to handle. Many prisons are not accessible to persons with mobility impairments; for them, bathing, using the toilet or even getting in and out of their cells can be a difficult, dangerous challenge. And older prisoners are more likely to be robbed, assaulted or otherwise victimized.
Some states have so many elderly prisoners that they have built special facilities to house them. Several years ago, I visited the Ahtanum View Corrections Center, Washington state’s prison for the elderly. Everywhere I looked were aged, frail, disabled people, some of whom could barely move without assistance. The prison’s Web page helpfully points out that a volunteer clergy team is available to assist prisoners with “end-of-life issues.”
The main justification for incarceration is to protect public safety. But it’s hard to see the public safety rationale for keeping so many elderly people in prison.
It’s even harder to understand the economic justification.
Incarceration is expensive — about $24,000 per year for the average prisoner, according to a 2008 Pew Center on the States report. Keeping someone over 55 locked up costs about three times as much. Given that criminal behavior drops off dramatically with advancing age, this is a major investment for very little return.

Read More....

Report indicates rise in number of preventable California prison deaths since 2006

A federal receiver in charge of California’s prison health care released a report Monday on inmate mortality. It says the inmate death rate has declined for a second year in a row. But as KPCC’s Julie Small reports, the number of deaths prison doctors might have prevented is up.

The report says that between 2006 and 2008, the death rate among California inmates declined 13 percent. But during that same period, the number of deaths that might have been prevented had doctors diagnosed and treated inmates rose from 44 to 66.

Clark Kelso, the federal receiver who spent billions of state dollars purging bad doctors from prisons and replacing them with more and better qualified ones, says it's not the doctors' fault.
"It’s not that we’ve got bad clinicians," Kelso said. "It’s that they’re working in a third world environment."
Kelso says there’s only so much those clinicians can do to improve care when prisons are packed to near double capacity, and when the clerks who file paper medical records are backlogged by months.
Kelso said the problem isn't that he lacks enough prison doctors somewhere, it's systemic failure.
"I don’t have health records anywhere. I have overcrowding everywhere. I don’t have facilitates anywhere," Kelso said.
The receiver’s review determines inmate deaths were preventable by noting when prison medical staff failed to follow correct procedures. Federal receiver Clark Kelso says one reason the number of preventable deaths is up since 2006 is that his office is doing a better job of identifying gross lapses in prison medical care.
One example from the report tells of an inmate who was diagnosed with asthma at one prison, then was transferred to a different prison. But the medical record that noted the asthma diagnosis didn’t go with him. The inmate had to wait two weeks to see a doctor at the new prison. On the day of his appointment, prison guards found the inmate “unresponsive” in his cell.

Release Older Inmates To Save Money?

Click here for Video

SAN DIEGO — Elderly inmates are among the fastest growing segments of California’s prison population. Inmates over age 55 have doubled in number over the past 10 years and will more than double again by 2022, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Older inmates are two to three times more expensive to incarcerate then their younger counterparts because they require more health care services, according to the LAO.
Currently, California spends $10 billion a year on the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which makes up 10 percent of its general fund. If the state, under current sentencing laws, continues to send more people to prison longer, can it afford the costs of housing, health care, and eventually hospice care?
The state of California is under federal court order to reduce its prison population by 27 percent, or about 40,000 inmates, because prisons are so overcrowded they violate prisoners’ constitutional rights. Considering older inmates are statistically less likely to re-offend, the LAO suggests releasing older inmates to save money.
 
Would you consider releasing non-violent elderly inmates from California prisons?

Prison guards try to incite riots to keep their jobs

Nevada State Prison, is one of the nation’s oldest prisons, dating from 1862.


Editor’s note: The Bay View has been hearing from prisoners around the country that guards, fearing the loss of their jobs, are enraged by budget cuts and plans to release prisoners and close prisons. In some cases they are intensifying their harassment and torture of prisoners and in others they are trying to incite them to riot. That may be a factor in the Chino State Prison “race riot” and fire on Sunday, Aug. 9, just outside Los Angeles that injured more than 250 prisoners, destroyed one dorm and made most of the others uninhabitable. The Nevada prisons are generally considered some of the worst in the country. Here’s what’s happening there:

by Raymond Watison

Prisoners at Nevada State Prison are pleading for help. We truly believe that the administration is intentionally inflaming conflict. Not only are tensions between inmates rising, but those between correctional officers and inmates are at an all-time high.

Most importantly, we are starting to become angry because of an ugly rumor that is circulating in this institution. Word is we are deliberately being used for political gain due to the budget cuts.

We are starting to believe that we are, against our own will, being pushed to the edge so that the administration can make their case for more funds.

I have no choice but to reach out with this letter because other attempts to find assistance have been spoiled by what we call abuse of authority. The prison administration is abusing the disciplinary system that is designed for the safety and security of inmates’ rights.

The administration is trying to quiet our questions about their aggressive behavior. Not only the correctional officers but the administrators too are participants.

There is a grievance complaint system in place that we can no longer trust. This administration has given correctional officers the authority to either approve or deny inmate rights by doing away with the grievance procedure and to punish us for exercising our rights.

This is causing correctional officers to become very aggressive toward inmates. They refuse to obey their own rules and regulations without fear of consequences from any of the administrators.

We here at Nevada State Prison, like so many other prisoners around the globe, learn among ourselves that we are brothers in a never ending struggle. Seeking not to cause violence, we are trying hard to remain brothers because we recognize the administration’s motives in pushing us to cause destruction.

So I ask – no, I beg – you to intervene. You are our only hope. Is there any help for a widow’s son?
How you can help

Nevada State Prison is in Carson City, the state capital. Call, email, fax or write a letter today to Nevada Corrections Director Howard Skolnik, Nevada Department of Corrections, P.O. Box 7011, Carson City, NV 89702, phone (775) 887-3216, fax (775) 887-3253, email hskolnik@doc.nv.gov. He has responded before to pressure, and he will again.

Calls directly to the prison may also help. Call Warden Gregory Smith at (775) 882-8588.

Send our brother some love and light: Raymond Watison, 1031835, Nevada State Prison, P.O. Box 607, Carson City NV 89702.

A crooked sheriff is off to prison

Many, no doubt, will view the sentencing of Charlie Morris as the culmination of a great tragedy. A three-term sheriff being packed off to prison, they’ll say, is profoundly embarrassing for Okaloosa County. It brings shame upon the Sheriff’s Office. It is ruinous for his family.

Chin up, folks. The Morris mess is bad news all around, but it’s not a tragedy.

It’s not a tragedy when a crooked sheriff is removed from office and taken off the streets.

It’s not a tragedy when the bleeding of taxpayers’ money in a sleazy kickback scheme is finally stopped.

It’s not a tragedy when voters confront the abuse and lawlessness that reigned in a local government agency and swear they won’t let it happen again.

It’s not a tragedy when a community’s residents, even its youngest, see that a community’s leaders, even its most powerful, will be punished for breaking the law.

From those perspectives, Tuesday’s sentencing — indeed, the entire long, graceless fall of Charlie Morris, from his Feb. 27 arrest in Las Vegas onward — is a positive development. It is the righting of several years’ worth of wrongs.

Exactly how many years is unclear. But the modest 71-month sentence handed down in federal court roughly parallels the length of time Mr. Morris handed out ridiculously huge “performance bonuses” and then pocketed some of the cash as kickbacks. He is thought to have run this racket for five or six years.

Thus, the sentence provides a kind of closure.

Not everyone will see it that way. For some, Tuesday’s sentencing will be followed only by more grief.

Among the aggrieved, of course, will be the former Sheriff’s Office paper-pushers Mr. Morris is taking down with him. The latest count is four ex-administrators and, apparently, a fifth person the sheriff installed in a mostly imaginary “job.” They’re facing charges and possible jail time of their own.

There are also the Sheriff’s Office employees who accepted bonuses from Mr. Morris but who aren’t being charged. They’re still at work. If they’re unhappy with the way things have turned out, who can blame them? Some citizens now view them with suspicion for their roles, however innocent, in the kickback machine. And the Morris money spigot has been turned off.

As for members of the ex-sheriff’s family, our hearts and prayers are with them. But their problems with Charlie didn’t begin with Tuesday’s sentencing or even with his February arrest. Before the Sheriff’s Office scandal broke, according to investigators, Charlie Morris had a romantic relationship with a woman who wasn’t his wife. He gave her gifts bought with taxpayers’ money. He got her a high-paying, taxpayer-funded job with the county that didn’t require any real work.

Evidently, Mr. Morris’ commitment to his marriage was no firmer than his commitment to voters who had placed their trust in him.

Mr. Morris pleaded guilty to six federal charges back in May and could have been sentenced to 85 years. A pre-sentencing report recommended five to six. U.S. District Judge Lacey Collier gave him five years, 11 months, and told him to pay $212,000 in restitution.

Sure, we would rather have seen Mr. Morris receive a sentence closer to the max. But he still faces trial on state charges. More years may be added.

Today we’ll settle for the 71-month term. At least, for the duration, it’ll keep him away from money he could squander, voters he could hornswoggle, an office he could disgrace and taxpayers he could take to the cleaners. We hope he serves every day of it.