See Photos: Chino Valley Now blog
CHINO - Among the traces of mayhem from the weekend's violent prison riot, the blood on rags and mattresses at the California Institution for Men spoke volumes Tuesday.
The acrid stench of burned wood and scorched building materials still hung in the air at the prison on Tuesday when reporters were able to tour Reception Center West, where the racially divided riot on Saturday night injured 175 prisoners.
Six of the center's eight long wooden dorm buildings, that each house about 200 inmates and encircle a sprawling recreation yard, are uninhabitable after extensive damage caused by the melee.
"They literally tore the buildings apart," said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation.
The entire reception center, which houses about 1,300 incoming prisoners for an evaluation period of about 45 days, is empty, officials said.
Hundreds of items of prisoner belongings lay strewn throughout the dorm area, a scene reminiscent of tornado damage footage from the Midwest. A mattress lying among tossed belongings had words written in large letters: "CIM RCW (Reception Center West) 8-8-09 History!"
Swastikas were scrawled across one burned-out dorm, street gang graffiti tags lined the wall of another, and gaping holes could be seen in the roof and walls of the burned unit. Shoes and orange jumpsuits, even prisoner information cards with photos on them, lay everywhere.
Corrections officers Tuesday made a line side-by-side to comb through the recreation yard in search of additional weapons. Many makeshift weapons could be seen surrounding the damaged dorms.
The weapons were pieces broken from bed frames, glass, and anything potentially harmful that inmates could get their hands on, said Lt. Mark Hargrove, CIM spokesman. Local fire officials who responded to the incident said there were numerous stabbings, and multiple lacerations and bruised inmates.
Officials said about 10 inmates still were being treated at local hospitals for serious injuries.
The inmates at Reception Center West were housed in units that according to law are not racially segregated, though each double-bunk inside the dorms was assigned to two inmates by race. The dorms had been on lockdown since Thursday after prison officials got wind of possible impending violence at the prison.
The riot began at around 8:20 p.m. - a time when some inmates where being fed and the majority were locked away inside their dorms. Rioters who began fighting in their dorms eventually forced their way out of the locked buildings, prompting dorm guards to flee for safety and to regroup, said Hargrove.
The riot was quelled after four hours when corrections officers used tear gas and pepper spray to put down the uprising, Hargrove said. The reception center was finally secured at around 7 a.m. on Sunday. A Department of Corrections investigation into the causes of the riot is ongoing.
"Hopefully the (ringleaders) will be prosecuted and get additional time and be housed in a more appropriate security level," he said.
Thornton said about 1,155 inmates from Reception Center West were sent to other prisons including 735 sent to a separate housing unit at the nearby Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility.
Critics of CIM infrastructure, including Chino Valley city officials, have said they were not surprised by the riot considering the deteriorating and overcrowded conditions at CIM. Thornton said overcrowding did not lead to the riot, though she said it did hamper efforts to quell the incident.
"There were about 1,300 inmates in (RCW), and it's a lot easier to deal with half that amount," Thornton said. "Overcrowding didn't cause the incident but it's no secret that overcrowded inmates impacts every single thing we do."
The sides of the 1940s-era dorms are made of block and the roofs are made of wood. There is no sprinkler system inside the buildings. CIM holds 5,900 men but was designed for 3,160.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
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.
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.
The big prison duck
California incarcerates 170,000 people in facilities designed for less than half that number.
Guardian Editorial
EDITORIAL A panel of federal judges has ordered the release of 44,000 California prisoners, sending politicians of both parties scrambling for cover and throwing a crucial issue into the heart of the Democratic campaign for governor.
And so far, both major candidates are ducking, badly.
The state prison system is a mess; any sane person knows that. California incarcerates 170,000 people in facilities designed for less than half that number. Sick inmates don't get to see doctors; mentally ill or drug-addicted inmates often get no treatment at all. It's so bad that a federal monitor appointed by the courts has demanded that the state spend $8 billion building new medical facilities for prisoners.
Meanwhile, inmates are crowded into makeshift bunks in gymnasiums and dayrooms. The few modest rehabilitative programs California offers are stretched so thin that many inmates get no job training or violence-prevention skills at all. The parole system is overburdened and focuses far too heavily on people with minor, nonviolent offenses.
And politicians wonder why the state has a recidivism rate of 70 percent.
The solutions aren't rocket science, either. There's a clear reason why incarceration rates have jumped so high: harsh sentencing laws, passed by the Legislature and the voters with no concern for the costs of implementation. The state's three-strikes law is so draconian that thousands of people are serving 25 years to life for nonviolent felonies that typically would carry a sentence of a few years. So the first thing the Legislature and the governor need to do is change the sentencing laws (and give back discretion to judges).
Then there's a drug problem. California prisons are packed with people serving sentences for drug possession — and most of these people, and society in general, would be better served, at less than half the cost, with treatment programs.
And frankly it wouldn't be hard to release 44,000 inmates without any new threats to public safety. The vast majority of the inmates in California prisons are going to be released at some point anyway; in fact, the state now releases about 10,000 people a month. The early releases envisioned by the federal courts could simply mean allowing people who have served, say, three years of a four-year sentence to leave prison and shift to the custody of the parole system a few months earlier than scheduled. Many of those people are nonviolent offenders, particularly drug offenders.
With the state in a catastrophic fiscal condition, the cost of corrections ought to be a huge issue for the candidates for governor, particularly the Democrats. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Jerry Brown ought to be promoting a plan that would end the insanity of "three strikes," offer alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders and drug addicts, and allow early releases to bring down the current unsustainable incarcerated population.
So what are these candidates, supposedly alternatives to the Republican agenda, saying?
Here's Brown, quoted in the Los Angeles Times: "Government is established to protect the safety and security of its citizens, and these wholesale releases are totally incompatible with that." Where's Newsom? We called his campaign press office for comment, and haven't heard back.
This is unacceptable.
It's typical for Republicans to use scare tactics and talk about crime as a cheap way to win votes. But Newsom and Brown ought to know better. This is no time for demagoguery — the prison crisis is serious, festering, and a major factor in the state's financial mess. If the two leading Democrats can't come up with honest answers, it's time for someone else to enter the race. *
Tuesday August 11, 2009
Guardian Editorial
EDITORIAL A panel of federal judges has ordered the release of 44,000 California prisoners, sending politicians of both parties scrambling for cover and throwing a crucial issue into the heart of the Democratic campaign for governor.
And so far, both major candidates are ducking, badly.
The state prison system is a mess; any sane person knows that. California incarcerates 170,000 people in facilities designed for less than half that number. Sick inmates don't get to see doctors; mentally ill or drug-addicted inmates often get no treatment at all. It's so bad that a federal monitor appointed by the courts has demanded that the state spend $8 billion building new medical facilities for prisoners.
Meanwhile, inmates are crowded into makeshift bunks in gymnasiums and dayrooms. The few modest rehabilitative programs California offers are stretched so thin that many inmates get no job training or violence-prevention skills at all. The parole system is overburdened and focuses far too heavily on people with minor, nonviolent offenses.
And politicians wonder why the state has a recidivism rate of 70 percent.
The solutions aren't rocket science, either. There's a clear reason why incarceration rates have jumped so high: harsh sentencing laws, passed by the Legislature and the voters with no concern for the costs of implementation. The state's three-strikes law is so draconian that thousands of people are serving 25 years to life for nonviolent felonies that typically would carry a sentence of a few years. So the first thing the Legislature and the governor need to do is change the sentencing laws (and give back discretion to judges).
Then there's a drug problem. California prisons are packed with people serving sentences for drug possession — and most of these people, and society in general, would be better served, at less than half the cost, with treatment programs.
And frankly it wouldn't be hard to release 44,000 inmates without any new threats to public safety. The vast majority of the inmates in California prisons are going to be released at some point anyway; in fact, the state now releases about 10,000 people a month. The early releases envisioned by the federal courts could simply mean allowing people who have served, say, three years of a four-year sentence to leave prison and shift to the custody of the parole system a few months earlier than scheduled. Many of those people are nonviolent offenders, particularly drug offenders.
With the state in a catastrophic fiscal condition, the cost of corrections ought to be a huge issue for the candidates for governor, particularly the Democrats. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Jerry Brown ought to be promoting a plan that would end the insanity of "three strikes," offer alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders and drug addicts, and allow early releases to bring down the current unsustainable incarcerated population.
So what are these candidates, supposedly alternatives to the Republican agenda, saying?
Here's Brown, quoted in the Los Angeles Times: "Government is established to protect the safety and security of its citizens, and these wholesale releases are totally incompatible with that." Where's Newsom? We called his campaign press office for comment, and haven't heard back.
This is unacceptable.
It's typical for Republicans to use scare tactics and talk about crime as a cheap way to win votes. But Newsom and Brown ought to know better. This is no time for demagoguery — the prison crisis is serious, festering, and a major factor in the state's financial mess. If the two leading Democrats can't come up with honest answers, it's time for someone else to enter the race. *
Tuesday August 11, 2009
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.
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.
Revisiting Three-Strikes Laws
The pendulum is swinging on mass incarceration, and the notorious and ineffective three-strikes laws could fall across the country in the months and years ahead. States are broke, and they're looking at their corrections budgets (see the absurd spending numbers in yesterday's post) and realizing that locking people up for life for smoking crack might not have been the best idea.
Prosecutors in Washington State are bringing clemency petitions for people who served a decade or more under three-strikes laws and have never committed a violent crime. At least 100 people were sentenced to life without parole in the 1990s in Washington for three nonviolent crimes.
The L.A. Times reports today on the unusual steps being taken by Washington prosecutors, and highlights the case of Stevan Dozier (above), who was the first non-violent lifer in the nation granted clemency when he was freed in May.Today, Dozier is married and works at a Seattle nonprofit.
Twenty-four states still have three-strikes laws, despite a move toward judicial discretion over the last decade. These laws are applied more cautiously now than they were during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, but they need to be fully erased to guarantee that defendants are sentenced based on their crime and not outdated legislation.
Earlier this year, Washington three-strikes lifer Al-Kareem Shadeed wrote on Washblog about his life sentence for three street robberies, all without weapons.
Hopefully, one day I can be a contributor to society and make a difference in someone's life. Hopefully, someday I wall be able to see my mother and bothers and sisters again and hold them in my arms. My life s salvageable! I can make a difference. People always speak of accountability. Well, hold me accountable. I can and will be a productive contributor to society, and no longer will such unlawful behavior be magnified and reflected by me again. You can trust in that!
The state's board of pardons and parole has recommended freeing Shadeed.
Prosecutors in Washington State are bringing clemency petitions for people who served a decade or more under three-strikes laws and have never committed a violent crime. At least 100 people were sentenced to life without parole in the 1990s in Washington for three nonviolent crimes.
The L.A. Times reports today on the unusual steps being taken by Washington prosecutors, and highlights the case of Stevan Dozier (above), who was the first non-violent lifer in the nation granted clemency when he was freed in May.Today, Dozier is married and works at a Seattle nonprofit.
Twenty-four states still have three-strikes laws, despite a move toward judicial discretion over the last decade. These laws are applied more cautiously now than they were during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, but they need to be fully erased to guarantee that defendants are sentenced based on their crime and not outdated legislation.
Earlier this year, Washington three-strikes lifer Al-Kareem Shadeed wrote on Washblog about his life sentence for three street robberies, all without weapons.
Hopefully, one day I can be a contributor to society and make a difference in someone's life. Hopefully, someday I wall be able to see my mother and bothers and sisters again and hold them in my arms. My life s salvageable! I can make a difference. People always speak of accountability. Well, hold me accountable. I can and will be a productive contributor to society, and no longer will such unlawful behavior be magnified and reflected by me again. You can trust in that!
The state's board of pardons and parole has recommended freeing Shadeed.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Devastation marks scene of California prison riot
CHINO, Calif. — Blood-soaked mattresses, singed bedding and abandoned medical supplies littered the campus of a Southern California prison Tuesday, a testament to the mayhem and violence of a weekend riot that shut down part of the institution and injured about 175 inmates, some critically.
Prison officials staged a tour of the devastation at the California Institution for Men in Chino to reveal the extent of the racially motivated riot that broke out Saturday evening and raged for four hours before guards could bring it under control.
Seven of the eight units in the prison's Reception Center West, one of several housing areas, were left uninhabitable, and more than 1,100 inmates have been moved to other facilities. One of the dorms was completely gutted by flames.
Eleven inmates remained hospitalized Tuesday, state prisons spokesman Terry Thornton said.
The area where the riot broke out was eerily empty and silent, with only a skeleton staff of corrections officers staffing checkpoints. A half-dozen officers scanned the exercise yard with metal detectors, searching for homemade weapons that inmates might have buried.
The riot began in a dorm during dinner hour and quickly spread, temporarily overwhelming staff, said Lt. Mark Hargrove, a prison spokesman.
Prisoners pried heavy metal grates from windows to escape and scrambled up and over the dorm roofs to get around 10-foot-tall hurricane fencing intended to keep them from the main exercise yard. The fence was installed after a previous riot in 2006.
"Hundreds were out of the units. Once they began rioting and breaking out, once they left, they created a situation where ... telling them to remain in the dorms was no longer in effect," Hargrove said. "They had decided not to follow that rule."
The prison was built in 1941 to house 3,000 inmates but held 5,900 men at the time of the riot. Each dorm holds 198 inmates and is assigned two guards, with a third guard who roams between every two dorms.
The prison serves as a reception and triage center for inmates from the four-counties around Los Angeles. About 95 percent of the prisoners are parole violators. Most are released or reassigned to another prison within 90 days, with exceptions for those who require special protection, such as sexual predators and gang dropouts.
The prison had been on a modified lockdown since Thursday after receiving reports that inmates were planning some violence, but none of the information indicated the problem would be in Reception Center West, Hargrove said.
Even in lockdown, the medium-security inmates can mingle freely in their dorms, where they are separated by race in two-man bunks. That puts men of different races in bunks next to each other, with just a few feet between them.
Outside the dorms, a narrow strip of grass separating the long, barracks-style housing units and an asphalt entrance area was still littered with debris. The chaotic tapestry featured discarded alcohol swabs, plastic handcuffs and latex medical gloves, filthy, bloodstained bedding and piles of abandoned clothes.
Two emergency plastic stretchers sat where they were left by paramedics who had treated inmates. One metal bunk had been ripped from its bolts and thrown into the yard.
An inmate had scrawled "8-08-09 HISTORY" on one mattress in black ink to mark the date of the riot.
Dominoes, cards, religious books, packs of crushed instant noodles and dozens of inmate identification cards fluttered in a warm breeze that still smelled of smoke next to the dorm gutted by fire.
Nearly every window was shattered inside the dorms that didn't burn. In one, the metal legs of a dismantled bunk had been used to pry large pieces of wood from the walls to use as weapons. Gang graffiti covered the beams and walls.
Amid the chaos, were signs of personal lives interrupted.
A black-and-white photo from an ultrasound of a fetus — age 21 weeks — lay at the foot of a bunk draped with a mattress coated in dried blood.
Next to bunk No. 193, a prisoner had left behind reminders of life on the outside: a magazine photo of a fawn standing in a snowy forest, pinned next to a religious card labeled "Path to Salvation."
By another bunk, an inmate had pinned a calendar with the days of August crossed out until the date of the riot.
Prison officials staged a tour of the devastation at the California Institution for Men in Chino to reveal the extent of the racially motivated riot that broke out Saturday evening and raged for four hours before guards could bring it under control.
Seven of the eight units in the prison's Reception Center West, one of several housing areas, were left uninhabitable, and more than 1,100 inmates have been moved to other facilities. One of the dorms was completely gutted by flames.
Eleven inmates remained hospitalized Tuesday, state prisons spokesman Terry Thornton said.
The area where the riot broke out was eerily empty and silent, with only a skeleton staff of corrections officers staffing checkpoints. A half-dozen officers scanned the exercise yard with metal detectors, searching for homemade weapons that inmates might have buried.
The riot began in a dorm during dinner hour and quickly spread, temporarily overwhelming staff, said Lt. Mark Hargrove, a prison spokesman.
Prisoners pried heavy metal grates from windows to escape and scrambled up and over the dorm roofs to get around 10-foot-tall hurricane fencing intended to keep them from the main exercise yard. The fence was installed after a previous riot in 2006.
"Hundreds were out of the units. Once they began rioting and breaking out, once they left, they created a situation where ... telling them to remain in the dorms was no longer in effect," Hargrove said. "They had decided not to follow that rule."
The prison was built in 1941 to house 3,000 inmates but held 5,900 men at the time of the riot. Each dorm holds 198 inmates and is assigned two guards, with a third guard who roams between every two dorms.
The prison serves as a reception and triage center for inmates from the four-counties around Los Angeles. About 95 percent of the prisoners are parole violators. Most are released or reassigned to another prison within 90 days, with exceptions for those who require special protection, such as sexual predators and gang dropouts.
The prison had been on a modified lockdown since Thursday after receiving reports that inmates were planning some violence, but none of the information indicated the problem would be in Reception Center West, Hargrove said.
Even in lockdown, the medium-security inmates can mingle freely in their dorms, where they are separated by race in two-man bunks. That puts men of different races in bunks next to each other, with just a few feet between them.
Outside the dorms, a narrow strip of grass separating the long, barracks-style housing units and an asphalt entrance area was still littered with debris. The chaotic tapestry featured discarded alcohol swabs, plastic handcuffs and latex medical gloves, filthy, bloodstained bedding and piles of abandoned clothes.
Two emergency plastic stretchers sat where they were left by paramedics who had treated inmates. One metal bunk had been ripped from its bolts and thrown into the yard.
An inmate had scrawled "8-08-09 HISTORY" on one mattress in black ink to mark the date of the riot.
Dominoes, cards, religious books, packs of crushed instant noodles and dozens of inmate identification cards fluttered in a warm breeze that still smelled of smoke next to the dorm gutted by fire.
Nearly every window was shattered inside the dorms that didn't burn. In one, the metal legs of a dismantled bunk had been used to pry large pieces of wood from the walls to use as weapons. Gang graffiti covered the beams and walls.
Amid the chaos, were signs of personal lives interrupted.
A black-and-white photo from an ultrasound of a fetus — age 21 weeks — lay at the foot of a bunk draped with a mattress coated in dried blood.
Next to bunk No. 193, a prisoner had left behind reminders of life on the outside: a magazine photo of a fawn standing in a snowy forest, pinned next to a religious card labeled "Path to Salvation."
By another bunk, an inmate had pinned a calendar with the days of August crossed out until the date of the riot.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Critical Resistance fights to abolish prisons
Critical Resistance fights to abolish prisons
By Gloria Rubac
Oakland, Calif.
Published Oct 10, 2008 11:28 PM
At a massive, well-organized and politically radical conference
called CR10, some 3,000 prison abolitionists from coast to coast
gathered in Oakland, Calif., for three days of reflecting,
strategizing, collaborating and organizing around abolishing the
prison-industrial complex (PIC).
Soffiyah Elijah listens as Green
Party's presidential candidate
Cynthia McKinney speaks on
Cointelpro.
WW photos: Gloria Rubac
The conference was held on the 10th anniversary of the founding of
Critical Resistance, an organization formed in 1998 to launch a
movement to eliminate prisons, detention, policing and surveillance
used by the PIC to "solve" problems brought on by poverty, racism,
homelessness and sex and gender oppression.
CR10 included hundreds of workshops, a film series, performances,
meetings, strategy sessions, regional meetings and cultural
expressions from dance to drama, from spoken word to drumming.
The atmosphere in the opening plenary session was electric as it
opened with Native drumming. Then the Welfare Poets brought the house
down with their sharp-edged hip-hop dedicated to Hassan Shakur,
unjustly executed in Texas in 2006. From San Francisco 8 member Hank
Jones to former political prisoner Linda Evans to INCITE! Women of
Color Against Violence leader Andrea Smith to Palestinian- American
poet and activist Suheir Hammad, the speakers set the high political
tone for the weekend.
Second from left, Pam Africa, fourth
from left, Ramona Africa.
A standing ovation followed Miss Major, an elder, African American,
formerly incarcerated transgender activist of 35 years, who spoke of
her love and concern and activism for transgender women of color
locked in U.S. prisons.
The evening ended with Angela Davis igniting the crowd when she
called for an end to prisons in the United States. She was swarmed
afterward, particularly by youth of color who wanted photos and
autographs from a hero that they had read about and admired and were
now meeting in person.
During the entire conference the California Prison Focus and the
Prison Activist Resource Center had thousands of letters from
prisoners and a space where participants would read, answer and
process prisoners' mail.
A striking character of the conference was the large number of youth,
people of color and lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people who not only
attended CR10 in large numbers but who led and participated in
workshops, plenary sessions, security and entertainment.
At a workshop called "Live from Death Row," Barbara Becnel mesmerized
the large crowd by telling her story of friendship with California
death row prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams until she witnessed his
execution in 2005. She has just released a documentary on Williams
entitled "TRIBUTE: Stanley Tookie Williams, 1953-2005."
A death row prisoner from San Quentin called in live via telephone to
the workshop and spoke to the crowd.
Family members, journalists and activists involved in the Jena Six
case did a workshop organized by Jesse Muhammad with the Final Call
newspaper.
The Jericho Movement, which is holding activities at the United
Nations in New York the weekend of October 10-12, ran a workshop on
political prisoners along with the National Boricua Human Rights
Network.
Actors read parts from a new and graphic drama called "Lucasville:
the Untold Story of a Prison Uprising," which exposed how the state
of Ohio framed up five innocent men and put them on death row after a
1993 prison uprising.
Ramona Africa of the Move Organization and Pam Africa of
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal held a
workshop on Abu-Jamal. They later held a community meeting at the New
Black World, a West Oakland social club, which featured Chairman Fred
Hampton Jr. of the Prisoners of Consciousness Committee and Julia
Wright, journalist, activist and daughter of author Richard Wright,
as well as music by the Welfare Poets.
There were several workshops on long-term isolation in prison, which
is usually referred to with expressions like solitary confinement,
Special Housing Units, supermaximum prisons, and supersegregation by
different departments of correction but which the men and women who
have to live under these conditions call "torture."
From the Angola 3 to the San Francisco 8, from Mumia Abu-Jamal and
Leonard Peltier to the Puerto Rican independentistas, political
prisoners were discussed all throughout the conference. A taped
message from political prisoner Sundiata Acoli, driven underground by
Cointelpro and one of the three Black Liberation Army members
ambushed by state police on the New Jersey turnpike in 1973, was part
of the closing plenary.
In a workshop on Cointelpro, Green Party presidential candidate
Cynthia McKinney told the standing-room- only crowd, "Our government
has been wrong since the founding of our country. ... This government
would stoop to the lowest level possible to achieve their goals.
Through Cointelpro, a heinous U.S. government program, they would
destroy families by locking people up, they would kill, they would
incarcerate. They do this with the help of the corporations and the
media, from the New York Times to the New Orleans Times Picayune.
This needs an open hearing!"
The three days invigorated, educated and inspired the thousands of
activists attending to carry on the struggle from county jails, to
ICE detention centers, to state and federal and military prisons.
As Ramona Africa told a crowd: "Do whatever you can for Mumia and for
all prisoners. Victory is never giving in. We must think strong and
be strong. We will win!"
By Gloria Rubac
Oakland, Calif.
Published Oct 10, 2008 11:28 PM
At a massive, well-organized and politically radical conference
called CR10, some 3,000 prison abolitionists from coast to coast
gathered in Oakland, Calif., for three days of reflecting,
strategizing, collaborating and organizing around abolishing the
prison-industrial complex (PIC).
Soffiyah Elijah listens as Green
Party's presidential candidate
Cynthia McKinney speaks on
Cointelpro.
WW photos: Gloria Rubac
The conference was held on the 10th anniversary of the founding of
Critical Resistance, an organization formed in 1998 to launch a
movement to eliminate prisons, detention, policing and surveillance
used by the PIC to "solve" problems brought on by poverty, racism,
homelessness and sex and gender oppression.
CR10 included hundreds of workshops, a film series, performances,
meetings, strategy sessions, regional meetings and cultural
expressions from dance to drama, from spoken word to drumming.
The atmosphere in the opening plenary session was electric as it
opened with Native drumming. Then the Welfare Poets brought the house
down with their sharp-edged hip-hop dedicated to Hassan Shakur,
unjustly executed in Texas in 2006. From San Francisco 8 member Hank
Jones to former political prisoner Linda Evans to INCITE! Women of
Color Against Violence leader Andrea Smith to Palestinian- American
poet and activist Suheir Hammad, the speakers set the high political
tone for the weekend.
Second from left, Pam Africa, fourth
from left, Ramona Africa.
A standing ovation followed Miss Major, an elder, African American,
formerly incarcerated transgender activist of 35 years, who spoke of
her love and concern and activism for transgender women of color
locked in U.S. prisons.
The evening ended with Angela Davis igniting the crowd when she
called for an end to prisons in the United States. She was swarmed
afterward, particularly by youth of color who wanted photos and
autographs from a hero that they had read about and admired and were
now meeting in person.
During the entire conference the California Prison Focus and the
Prison Activist Resource Center had thousands of letters from
prisoners and a space where participants would read, answer and
process prisoners' mail.
A striking character of the conference was the large number of youth,
people of color and lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people who not only
attended CR10 in large numbers but who led and participated in
workshops, plenary sessions, security and entertainment.
At a workshop called "Live from Death Row," Barbara Becnel mesmerized
the large crowd by telling her story of friendship with California
death row prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams until she witnessed his
execution in 2005. She has just released a documentary on Williams
entitled "TRIBUTE: Stanley Tookie Williams, 1953-2005."
A death row prisoner from San Quentin called in live via telephone to
the workshop and spoke to the crowd.
Family members, journalists and activists involved in the Jena Six
case did a workshop organized by Jesse Muhammad with the Final Call
newspaper.
The Jericho Movement, which is holding activities at the United
Nations in New York the weekend of October 10-12, ran a workshop on
political prisoners along with the National Boricua Human Rights
Network.
Actors read parts from a new and graphic drama called "Lucasville:
the Untold Story of a Prison Uprising," which exposed how the state
of Ohio framed up five innocent men and put them on death row after a
1993 prison uprising.
Ramona Africa of the Move Organization and Pam Africa of
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal held a
workshop on Abu-Jamal. They later held a community meeting at the New
Black World, a West Oakland social club, which featured Chairman Fred
Hampton Jr. of the Prisoners of Consciousness Committee and Julia
Wright, journalist, activist and daughter of author Richard Wright,
as well as music by the Welfare Poets.
There were several workshops on long-term isolation in prison, which
is usually referred to with expressions like solitary confinement,
Special Housing Units, supermaximum prisons, and supersegregation by
different departments of correction but which the men and women who
have to live under these conditions call "torture."
From the Angola 3 to the San Francisco 8, from Mumia Abu-Jamal and
Leonard Peltier to the Puerto Rican independentistas, political
prisoners were discussed all throughout the conference. A taped
message from political prisoner Sundiata Acoli, driven underground by
Cointelpro and one of the three Black Liberation Army members
ambushed by state police on the New Jersey turnpike in 1973, was part
of the closing plenary.
In a workshop on Cointelpro, Green Party presidential candidate
Cynthia McKinney told the standing-room- only crowd, "Our government
has been wrong since the founding of our country. ... This government
would stoop to the lowest level possible to achieve their goals.
Through Cointelpro, a heinous U.S. government program, they would
destroy families by locking people up, they would kill, they would
incarcerate. They do this with the help of the corporations and the
media, from the New York Times to the New Orleans Times Picayune.
This needs an open hearing!"
The three days invigorated, educated and inspired the thousands of
activists attending to carry on the struggle from county jails, to
ICE detention centers, to state and federal and military prisons.
As Ramona Africa told a crowd: "Do whatever you can for Mumia and for
all prisoners. Victory is never giving in. We must think strong and
be strong. We will win!"
Prop. 5 calls for expanding drug-crime rehabilitation
Prop. 5 calls for expanding drug-crime rehabilitation
By Don Thompson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 11, 2008
SACRAMENTO – Eight years ago, 61 percent of California voters passed a novel initiative requiring treatment instead of jail or prison for tens of thousands of drug offenders.
Supporters of that initiative are back with a follow-up measure that would require even greater leniency.
Billionaire investor and liberal activist George Soros is helping fund Proposition 5 on the Nov. 4 ballot. The measure would prohibit sending paroled drug offenders back to prison for parole violations unless they commit a new felony, have a violent or serious record or are considered high risk by prison officials.
The initiative would shorten parole for most drug and property crimes, while lengthening it for violent and serious felons. It also would require the state to put hundreds of millions of dollars into treatment and rehabilitation programs for nonviolent drug offenders and parolees.
To opponents, it's another step down a dangerous path that fails to make drug users accountable for their actions and lets drug dealers off the hook. Without the threat of jail or prison time, offenders won't get serious about true rehabilitation, opponents contend.
At issue:
Proposition 5
Requires treatment instead of prison or jail for most drug offenders, including those on parole or probation. Costs $610 million through mid-2010 followed by annual increases. Prohibits sending drug offenders back to prison for parole violations unless they commit a new felony, have a violent or serious record or are considered high risk by prison officials.
Pro: Rehabilitation is more effective than jail for getting nonviolent offenders off drugs. Relieves prison overcrowding and saves the state money.
Con: Fails to make drug users accountable for their actions and lets drug dealers off the hook. Without the threat of jail or prison time, offenders won't get serious about rehabilitation.
Actor Martin Sheen, whose son Charlie nearly died of a drug overdose in 1998 but received court-ordered rehabilitation, is the initiative's most prominent opponent.
Sheen argues that it would discourage drug treatment by steering most addicts away from jail, even if they keep using drugs or refuse to attend rehabilitation programs.
“You have to be given a stern proposition. The judge will say to you, 'You're either facing jail or you're facing rehab.' That's the program that we've found to work,” Sheen said in a telephone interview.
The star of “The West Wing” also opposed Proposition 36, the 2000 initiative that required treatment for nonviolent first-and second-time drug offenders.
Supporters of that initiative developed Proposition 5 after seeing money for drug rehabilitation programs dwindle, from $145 million in the 2006-07 fiscal year to $108 million this year.
Last year, a University of California Los Angeles study recommended that the state increase money for Proposition 36 programs to about $228 million a year.
Nearly 20 percent of California's 171,000 inmates are imprisoned for drug offenses, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“This is about treatment, and it's about breaking cycles of crime that are driven by a completely treatable condition,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy California director of the Drug Policy Alliance Network and a campaign manager for Yes on 5. “The fact that we provide so little treatment is unconscionable.”
Penny Sheridan of Sacramento has first-hand experience with rehabilitation programs and believes Proposition 5 is another step toward helping addicts. She cycled through county jail and prison for eight years because of a methamphetamine addiction she developed as a teenager.
The last time she tested positive for drugs, her parole officer sent her to inpatient rehabilitation for 90 days instead of back to prison. That was two years ago. Now she is off parole, has a steady job and is going back to college.
“I'm not a liability to society anymore,” said Sheridan, 34.
Proposition 5 would not come without a price to California taxpayers if voters approve it.
The initiative would trigger $610 million in new state spending for treatment through mid-2010, followed by annual increases that would track the state's population growth and cost of living. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office projected that state spending required by the measure eventually could top $1 billion a year.
Supporters say the cost would be offset by reducing the prison population 17 percent over four years because more drug offenders and parolees would be sent to diversion programs. The analysis says that could save $1 billion in annual prison costs and $2.5 billion for new prisons.
Former state corrections secretary Jeanne Woodford supports the initiative as a responsible way to ease prison crowding. At its core, the debate is over finding a balance between incarceration and treatment, she said.
Law enforcement officials say the initiative dangerously broadens diversion programs established under Proposition 36.
For example, those convicted of property crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, and auto and identity theft could get treatment instead of jail if they convince a judge that their crimes were related to drug use.
San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, a former drug court judge who is now president of the state prosecutors' association, calls it the “drugs made me do it” defense.
Additionally, parole would be shortened from three years to six months for nonviolent drug or drug-related property offenders, including dealers caught with up to $50,000 worth of methamphetamine. Marijuana possession would be reduced from a misdemeanor to an infraction, similar to a traffic ticket. Inmates could earn more time off their sentences by completing treatment programs.
Opponents also object that Proposition 5 would give drug users five tries at rehabilitation programs before they could be jailed, up from three in Proposition 36.
Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer, president of the state chiefs' association, said the initiative amounts to a “drug dealers' bill of rights.”
Some former drug addicts aren't convinced the proposition would work.
Wesley Williams Jr. of Culver City said he never would have kicked a cocaine habit that cost him his home, his family and his law career had a Los Angeles judge not sent him to jail for a week for flunking out of a rehabilitation program.
“With addicts, unless there are consequences to their actions, they are going to continue to use,” said Williams, 55, now a business owner.
By Don Thompson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 11, 2008
SACRAMENTO – Eight years ago, 61 percent of California voters passed a novel initiative requiring treatment instead of jail or prison for tens of thousands of drug offenders.
Supporters of that initiative are back with a follow-up measure that would require even greater leniency.
Billionaire investor and liberal activist George Soros is helping fund Proposition 5 on the Nov. 4 ballot. The measure would prohibit sending paroled drug offenders back to prison for parole violations unless they commit a new felony, have a violent or serious record or are considered high risk by prison officials.
The initiative would shorten parole for most drug and property crimes, while lengthening it for violent and serious felons. It also would require the state to put hundreds of millions of dollars into treatment and rehabilitation programs for nonviolent drug offenders and parolees.
To opponents, it's another step down a dangerous path that fails to make drug users accountable for their actions and lets drug dealers off the hook. Without the threat of jail or prison time, offenders won't get serious about true rehabilitation, opponents contend.
At issue:
Proposition 5
Requires treatment instead of prison or jail for most drug offenders, including those on parole or probation. Costs $610 million through mid-2010 followed by annual increases. Prohibits sending drug offenders back to prison for parole violations unless they commit a new felony, have a violent or serious record or are considered high risk by prison officials.
Pro: Rehabilitation is more effective than jail for getting nonviolent offenders off drugs. Relieves prison overcrowding and saves the state money.
Con: Fails to make drug users accountable for their actions and lets drug dealers off the hook. Without the threat of jail or prison time, offenders won't get serious about rehabilitation.
Actor Martin Sheen, whose son Charlie nearly died of a drug overdose in 1998 but received court-ordered rehabilitation, is the initiative's most prominent opponent.
Sheen argues that it would discourage drug treatment by steering most addicts away from jail, even if they keep using drugs or refuse to attend rehabilitation programs.
“You have to be given a stern proposition. The judge will say to you, 'You're either facing jail or you're facing rehab.' That's the program that we've found to work,” Sheen said in a telephone interview.
The star of “The West Wing” also opposed Proposition 36, the 2000 initiative that required treatment for nonviolent first-and second-time drug offenders.
Supporters of that initiative developed Proposition 5 after seeing money for drug rehabilitation programs dwindle, from $145 million in the 2006-07 fiscal year to $108 million this year.
Last year, a University of California Los Angeles study recommended that the state increase money for Proposition 36 programs to about $228 million a year.
Nearly 20 percent of California's 171,000 inmates are imprisoned for drug offenses, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“This is about treatment, and it's about breaking cycles of crime that are driven by a completely treatable condition,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy California director of the Drug Policy Alliance Network and a campaign manager for Yes on 5. “The fact that we provide so little treatment is unconscionable.”
Penny Sheridan of Sacramento has first-hand experience with rehabilitation programs and believes Proposition 5 is another step toward helping addicts. She cycled through county jail and prison for eight years because of a methamphetamine addiction she developed as a teenager.
The last time she tested positive for drugs, her parole officer sent her to inpatient rehabilitation for 90 days instead of back to prison. That was two years ago. Now she is off parole, has a steady job and is going back to college.
“I'm not a liability to society anymore,” said Sheridan, 34.
Proposition 5 would not come without a price to California taxpayers if voters approve it.
The initiative would trigger $610 million in new state spending for treatment through mid-2010, followed by annual increases that would track the state's population growth and cost of living. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office projected that state spending required by the measure eventually could top $1 billion a year.
Supporters say the cost would be offset by reducing the prison population 17 percent over four years because more drug offenders and parolees would be sent to diversion programs. The analysis says that could save $1 billion in annual prison costs and $2.5 billion for new prisons.
Former state corrections secretary Jeanne Woodford supports the initiative as a responsible way to ease prison crowding. At its core, the debate is over finding a balance between incarceration and treatment, she said.
Law enforcement officials say the initiative dangerously broadens diversion programs established under Proposition 36.
For example, those convicted of property crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, and auto and identity theft could get treatment instead of jail if they convince a judge that their crimes were related to drug use.
San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, a former drug court judge who is now president of the state prosecutors' association, calls it the “drugs made me do it” defense.
Additionally, parole would be shortened from three years to six months for nonviolent drug or drug-related property offenders, including dealers caught with up to $50,000 worth of methamphetamine. Marijuana possession would be reduced from a misdemeanor to an infraction, similar to a traffic ticket. Inmates could earn more time off their sentences by completing treatment programs.
Opponents also object that Proposition 5 would give drug users five tries at rehabilitation programs before they could be jailed, up from three in Proposition 36.
Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer, president of the state chiefs' association, said the initiative amounts to a “drug dealers' bill of rights.”
Some former drug addicts aren't convinced the proposition would work.
Wesley Williams Jr. of Culver City said he never would have kicked a cocaine habit that cost him his home, his family and his law career had a Los Angeles judge not sent him to jail for a week for flunking out of a rehabilitation program.
“With addicts, unless there are consequences to their actions, they are going to continue to use,” said Williams, 55, now a business owner.
Report: 1 in 3 inmates will offend again
Back to web version Saturday, Oct 11, 2008
Report: 1 in 3 inmates will offend again
The Associated Press
A report to Kentucky lawmakers says one in three state prison inmates
will be back behind bars within two years.
The Lexington Herald-Leader said a report requested last year by the
legislature' s Program Review and Investigations Committee was
presented Thursday.
The committee wanted an examination of programs that teach prison
inmates how to find jobs and housing after their release.
The report also said the re-entry programs vary widely from prison to
prison and are nonexistent for state inmates held in county jails,
where about one-third of them are housed.
The report was prepared by the Legislative Research Commission.
Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky .com
Report: 1 in 3 inmates will offend again
The Associated Press
A report to Kentucky lawmakers says one in three state prison inmates
will be back behind bars within two years.
The Lexington Herald-Leader said a report requested last year by the
legislature' s Program Review and Investigations Committee was
presented Thursday.
The committee wanted an examination of programs that teach prison
inmates how to find jobs and housing after their release.
The report also said the re-entry programs vary widely from prison to
prison and are nonexistent for state inmates held in county jails,
where about one-third of them are housed.
The report was prepared by the Legislative Research Commission.
Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky .com
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Death penalty cases piling up
Death penalty cases piling up
Chief justice says it's time to open review process to lower courts.
By Crystal Carreon - ccarreon@sacbee. com
Published 12:00 am PST Friday, January 11, 2008
Despite legal challenges to the death penalty, California's chief justice on Thursday pressed ahead with plans to alter how courts will vet the largest number of capital cases in the country.
Citing decades-long appeals and a backlog that threatens to overwhelm the high court, Chief Justice Ronald George told state commissioners that now is the time to relinquish the state Supreme Court's exclusive review of death penalty cases and open the process to the lower courts.
George, who addressed the Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice at a Capitol hearing, proposes amending the state Constitution to help fix a process he calls "dysfunctional. " He hopes to have the proposal on the 2008 general ballot or to find a legislator to sponsor the measure.
"The existing system for handing capital appeals in California is dysfunctional and needs reform," the chief justice told commissioners. "…(T)he current system is not functioning effectively. "
But skeptics suggested that spreading out capital cases to the appellate courts could add another layer to an already notoriously slow appeals process. A law professor at Thursday's hearing likened George's proposal to just "rearranging furniture."
With a surge in the death row population over the years – currently more than 660 inmates are awaiting execution – George told commissioners that death penalty reviews alone consume about 20 percent to 25 percent of the high court's caseload, up from about 5 percent to 10 percent about two decades ago.
He pointed out that the number of Supreme Court justices – seven – has remained the same since 1879, while there are 105 state Court of Appeal justices.
George said the state Supreme Court – even if it devoted itself exclusively to capital cases – would take about three to four years to chip away and process the existing backlog. About 400 death penalty appeals are pending in the Supreme Court.
He used words such as "peril," "critical" and "disadvantage" to describe how the high court's responsibility to litigate and set case law in crucial civil and criminal matters could be compromised by the massive death penalty caseload.
"If the Supreme Court cannot fulfill that role, California – its people, its government, its economy, its public safety – all would suffer," George said.
But Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Marshall later told commissioners that the proposal could, in effect, just add another tier of lengthy legal review.
"I understand the impetus," the professor said. "But, on some level, they are rearranging the furniture … ."
Under the current system, after a death sentence is handed down, an automatic appeal process begins in the state Supreme Court. If the court denies all relief, as it almost always does, the case then moves to the federal system.
The appeal then goes to the U.S. Supreme Court with a request for review. The constitutional case, known as "habeas corpus," goes to federal district court, then the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, before making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Under the proposal, George said the high court will continue to be "hands-on" and will ultimately review the lower court's opinion. He recommended sending 30 capital cases to the lower courts initially.
Marshall, who had been influential in commuting death sentences in Illinois, said the state's unprecedented backlog stems from its breadth of more than 30 death penalty offenses, a range of special circumstances that include killing an officer in the line of duty to lying in wait.
Marshall proposed narrowing the scope of death penalty cases to only the "worst of the worst." That, he said, would greatly diminish the number of inmates at San Quentin's death row.
Earlier versions of capital punishment in California had fewer special circumstances, but voters in 1978 changed that, according to Sacramento attorney Donald H. Heller, who drafted the state's death penalty initiative.
"It's something the people wanted," Heller said. "The initiative was very broad in its scope."
Heller said at the time, he believed the Supreme Court's careful review of death penalty appeals would take about 10 years – not the 17 1/2-year average cited by legal scholars, the slowest process in the country.
He called George's proposal reasonable, saying it would not undermine rights to due process and fair hearings. Although Heller has since become a critic of capital punishment, he said if the state is to continue its practice, it needs to diminish the backlog.
"If you believe in the law, then you need to take into account what is clearly an unreasonable delay between sentence of death and a final decision of the California Supreme Court," he said after the hearing. "It's a process fraught with delay because no one wants to make a decision that could result in the death of an innocent person."
For the mother of Terri Lynn Winchell, a Lodi teen murdered in 1981, the time afforded to inmates is a luxury.
"It just wears you out; you want justice," said Barbara Christian, whose daughter's body was found in a vineyard 27 years ago this week. "Knowing that he's alive and well just keeps the pain alive."
Jurors convicted Michael Angelo Morales of the murder in 1983, and his execution was to be carried out in February 2006 before a last-minute legal challenge plucked Morales from the death chamber. The state's death penalty has been in limbo since then, pending legal challenges.
The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice will hold two more public hearings on the death penalty over the next two months. The commission was created by the state Senate to examine what leads to wrongful convictions.
http://www.sacbee. com/111/story/ 626308.html
Chief justice says it's time to open review process to lower courts.
By Crystal Carreon - ccarreon@sacbee. com
Published 12:00 am PST Friday, January 11, 2008
Despite legal challenges to the death penalty, California's chief justice on Thursday pressed ahead with plans to alter how courts will vet the largest number of capital cases in the country.
Citing decades-long appeals and a backlog that threatens to overwhelm the high court, Chief Justice Ronald George told state commissioners that now is the time to relinquish the state Supreme Court's exclusive review of death penalty cases and open the process to the lower courts.
George, who addressed the Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice at a Capitol hearing, proposes amending the state Constitution to help fix a process he calls "dysfunctional. " He hopes to have the proposal on the 2008 general ballot or to find a legislator to sponsor the measure.
"The existing system for handing capital appeals in California is dysfunctional and needs reform," the chief justice told commissioners. "…(T)he current system is not functioning effectively. "
But skeptics suggested that spreading out capital cases to the appellate courts could add another layer to an already notoriously slow appeals process. A law professor at Thursday's hearing likened George's proposal to just "rearranging furniture."
With a surge in the death row population over the years – currently more than 660 inmates are awaiting execution – George told commissioners that death penalty reviews alone consume about 20 percent to 25 percent of the high court's caseload, up from about 5 percent to 10 percent about two decades ago.
He pointed out that the number of Supreme Court justices – seven – has remained the same since 1879, while there are 105 state Court of Appeal justices.
George said the state Supreme Court – even if it devoted itself exclusively to capital cases – would take about three to four years to chip away and process the existing backlog. About 400 death penalty appeals are pending in the Supreme Court.
He used words such as "peril," "critical" and "disadvantage" to describe how the high court's responsibility to litigate and set case law in crucial civil and criminal matters could be compromised by the massive death penalty caseload.
"If the Supreme Court cannot fulfill that role, California – its people, its government, its economy, its public safety – all would suffer," George said.
But Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Marshall later told commissioners that the proposal could, in effect, just add another tier of lengthy legal review.
"I understand the impetus," the professor said. "But, on some level, they are rearranging the furniture … ."
Under the current system, after a death sentence is handed down, an automatic appeal process begins in the state Supreme Court. If the court denies all relief, as it almost always does, the case then moves to the federal system.
The appeal then goes to the U.S. Supreme Court with a request for review. The constitutional case, known as "habeas corpus," goes to federal district court, then the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, before making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Under the proposal, George said the high court will continue to be "hands-on" and will ultimately review the lower court's opinion. He recommended sending 30 capital cases to the lower courts initially.
Marshall, who had been influential in commuting death sentences in Illinois, said the state's unprecedented backlog stems from its breadth of more than 30 death penalty offenses, a range of special circumstances that include killing an officer in the line of duty to lying in wait.
Marshall proposed narrowing the scope of death penalty cases to only the "worst of the worst." That, he said, would greatly diminish the number of inmates at San Quentin's death row.
Earlier versions of capital punishment in California had fewer special circumstances, but voters in 1978 changed that, according to Sacramento attorney Donald H. Heller, who drafted the state's death penalty initiative.
"It's something the people wanted," Heller said. "The initiative was very broad in its scope."
Heller said at the time, he believed the Supreme Court's careful review of death penalty appeals would take about 10 years – not the 17 1/2-year average cited by legal scholars, the slowest process in the country.
He called George's proposal reasonable, saying it would not undermine rights to due process and fair hearings. Although Heller has since become a critic of capital punishment, he said if the state is to continue its practice, it needs to diminish the backlog.
"If you believe in the law, then you need to take into account what is clearly an unreasonable delay between sentence of death and a final decision of the California Supreme Court," he said after the hearing. "It's a process fraught with delay because no one wants to make a decision that could result in the death of an innocent person."
For the mother of Terri Lynn Winchell, a Lodi teen murdered in 1981, the time afforded to inmates is a luxury.
"It just wears you out; you want justice," said Barbara Christian, whose daughter's body was found in a vineyard 27 years ago this week. "Knowing that he's alive and well just keeps the pain alive."
Jurors convicted Michael Angelo Morales of the murder in 1983, and his execution was to be carried out in February 2006 before a last-minute legal challenge plucked Morales from the death chamber. The state's death penalty has been in limbo since then, pending legal challenges.
The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice will hold two more public hearings on the death penalty over the next two months. The commission was created by the state Senate to examine what leads to wrongful convictions.
http://www.sacbee. com/111/story/ 626308.html
Inmates have a right to protest at Solano?
Inmates exercising rights
Strike follows change in CSP, Solano yard scheduling
By Kimberly K. Fu/The Reporter
An estimated 2,200 inmates at California State Prison, Solano are exercising their right to peaceful protest and sitting out work-related and other duties...The strike, initiated Monday...reportedly is linked to a recent change in yard scheduling.
"They're not happy about it, but at least they're doing something nonviolent in protest," said Lt. Tim Wamble, prison spokesman. "We're hoping and trying to get it to end any minute."
At issue is inmate access to the outdoors. At present, anywhere from 800 to 1,000 inmates can be on the yard at one time. The numbers pose a safety risk for both inmates and staff...prison officials implemented a plan which has no more than 600 inmates on the yard at one time...Inmates, however, apparently disagree and, since Monday, have refused to attend scheduled classes and programs or go to work.(TheReporter. com)
Gee. Paco could have sworn inmates are prohibited from demonstrations, strikes and protests. Now, according to the idiots at CSP Solano, inmates have a right to disrupt operations?
"They're not happy...at least they are doing something non-violent. ..we're hoping and trying to get it to end?"
Now, THERE'S some 'public information' that should REALLY inspire confidence among the populace. The casual, almost whimsical statement conjures up the image of Lt. Wamble, sitting barefooted on a porch swing with a straw protruding from his tobacco-juice moistened lips.
Insofar as Solano officials have decided to let the population strike, Paco wonders how their time cards will be documented. Under the law, each and every one of those 'stikers' must be assessed an unexcused absence and be docked 1 day (not to mention the disciplinary assessments they SHOULD receive for conducting an illegal strike). And yet, it is a forgone conclusion NOTHING WILL HAPPEN.
Paco recommends the immediate termination of Solano's warden for GROSS INCOMPETENCE. Lt. Wamble (see also Wamble), who apparently lateraled from CalTrans a hot second ago, should be reassigned to a position where he may benefit from some actual custody experience.
Posted by pacovilla at 04:59
http://ccpoa. blogspot. com
Strike follows change in CSP, Solano yard scheduling
By Kimberly K. Fu/The Reporter
An estimated 2,200 inmates at California State Prison, Solano are exercising their right to peaceful protest and sitting out work-related and other duties...The strike, initiated Monday...reportedly is linked to a recent change in yard scheduling.
"They're not happy about it, but at least they're doing something nonviolent in protest," said Lt. Tim Wamble, prison spokesman. "We're hoping and trying to get it to end any minute."
At issue is inmate access to the outdoors. At present, anywhere from 800 to 1,000 inmates can be on the yard at one time. The numbers pose a safety risk for both inmates and staff...prison officials implemented a plan which has no more than 600 inmates on the yard at one time...Inmates, however, apparently disagree and, since Monday, have refused to attend scheduled classes and programs or go to work.(TheReporter. com)
Gee. Paco could have sworn inmates are prohibited from demonstrations, strikes and protests. Now, according to the idiots at CSP Solano, inmates have a right to disrupt operations?
"They're not happy...at least they are doing something non-violent. ..we're hoping and trying to get it to end?"
Now, THERE'S some 'public information' that should REALLY inspire confidence among the populace. The casual, almost whimsical statement conjures up the image of Lt. Wamble, sitting barefooted on a porch swing with a straw protruding from his tobacco-juice moistened lips.
Insofar as Solano officials have decided to let the population strike, Paco wonders how their time cards will be documented. Under the law, each and every one of those 'stikers' must be assessed an unexcused absence and be docked 1 day (not to mention the disciplinary assessments they SHOULD receive for conducting an illegal strike). And yet, it is a forgone conclusion NOTHING WILL HAPPEN.
Paco recommends the immediate termination of Solano's warden for GROSS INCOMPETENCE. Lt. Wamble (see also Wamble), who apparently lateraled from CalTrans a hot second ago, should be reassigned to a position where he may benefit from some actual custody experience.
Posted by pacovilla at 04:59
http://ccpoa. blogspot. com
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Valley Fever
__._,_.___
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ 2/contaminated- in-california- valley-fever- at-pvsp
Pleasant Valley State prison is located in rural Coalinga, California. The State Prison provides long-term housing and services for minimum, medium and maximum custody inmates.PVSP was opened in November 1994, and covers 640 acres. Number of custody staff =730; total number of prisoners=5188. With an annual operating budget of $173 million. The soil that this prison was built on is contaminated with the fungus known as Coccidiodomycosis.The technical name for Valley Fever is Coccidioidomycosis, or "Cocci" for short. It is caused by Coddidioides immitis, a fungus somewhat like yeast or mildew which lives in the soil. The tiny seeds, or spores, become wind-borne and are inhaled into the lungs, where the infection starts. Valley Fever is not contagious from person to person. It appears that after one exposure, the body develops immunity.Valley Fever is a sickness of degree. About 60 percent of the people who breathe the spores do not get sick at all. For some, it may feel like a cold or flu. For those sick enough to go to the doctor, it can be serious, with pneumonia-like symtoms, requiring medication and bed rest.Of all the people infected with Valley Fever, one or more out of 200 will develop the disseminated form, which is devastating, and can be fatal. These are the cases in which the disease spreads beyond the lungs through the bloodstream - typically to the skin, bones, and the membranes surrounding the brain, causing meningitis.I have numerous reports/medical records that indicate several state prisoners have been infected with Valley Fever and they are NOT getting proper treatment. Somehave died due to suffering complications from this disease. The state of California has done nothing to remedy this very serious and life threatening situation. I feel it is my responsibility to call attention to this. Please help me and others to spread the word in regards to whats going on there.I have been working on this issue now for over a year. In that time, I personally know of two men who have died due to Valley Fever, which can be prevented and treated. There are more that have been infected as everytime the soil is disturbed, the fungus becomes airborne. Here is a letter from a prisoner dated August 2006-I am currently being housed at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, CA. I guess I don't make enough money to live in a luxurious cell suite so I am one of many stuck on the E-beds. Living on the E-beds really sucks but it's much better than living in the gym day-care center. We have had our hands full with our shower program as well as staff. Staff hates us so bad, most of us just want to do our time and go home but there are a few kunckleheads here who don't belong here and staff knows that.I want the public and media to know whats going on at Pleasant Valley State Prison and I would like to see some action to prevent the spread of Valley Fever.
We have been reading in the newspapers statewide that the prison system is under investigation. I am so glad somebody has finally taken an interest in our well being. Since this has all been happening we are getting less and less program and showers are harder to come by. It almost makes no sense to go to school or vocation because getting a shower right away is a thing of the past. The quality of food is at its all time low. I really doubt it has any if at all nutritional value. Our lunches are ridiculous.
We have a warden who was run off at Corcoran state prison for corrupt activities and now he is allowing it over here. How the hell do they get away with this? We have a tower Corrections Officer who has been run off everywhere he has been and now he is doing the same things here. This man is a real idiot. Everything they can possibly do to us to mentally abuse us they do. The Green Wall is alive here. These people are criminals and they get paid to be.
Many people here have got Valley Fever, some have died from it, it's in the soil and they know it. We have tried to contact people on the outside but everybody is afraid of CCPOA. This is a mafia that needs to be stopped.
- a California prison, August 2006
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Prison Reform is NOT soft on crimeCarol Leonard
"If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people."--Tony Benn in Sicko
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Sunday, December 23, 2007
Prison releases 'DOA,' foe says
Prison releases 'DOA,' foe says
Dems, Republicans blast governor's inmate budget cut.
By Andy Furillo - _afuri...@sacbee.com_ (mailto:afuri...@sacbee.com)
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, December 22, 2007
A Democratic legislative leader and a firebrand Republican promised tough
going Friday for a Schwarzenegger administration proposal to cut the state's
prison population by 28,000 over the next two years.
Early releases are "DOA" with Assembly Republicans, said Jose Solorio,
D-Santa Ana, chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. He said Democrats'
reaction would range from raising questions to outright opposition of the
administration's budget proposal.
"Many of us are going to have some very strong concerns about whether it's
the direction we want to begin taking," Solorio said.
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, one of his party's leaders on
criminal justice issues, said the proposal to release the so-called
nonviolent, nonserious, non-sex offenders in the final 20 months of their terms would
undermine Assembly Bill 900. The $7.9 billion measure was enacted this year
to add 53,000 prison and jail beds and more fully establish rehabilitation as
the philosophical underpinning of California's correctional system.
"By letting people out 20 months early, which is supposed to be when they get
their re-entry skills, they're not going to get them at all, so recidivism
is going to get worse," Spitzer said. "This budget plan is a forfeiture of AB
900 principles, which was supposed to change how we treat criminality in
California."
Gubernatorial spokesman Adam Mendelsohn said Friday that the administration
still has not made a final decision on the budget proposal that would save the
state $1.112 billion over the next two fiscal years. The governor has called
for 10 percent spending cuts in every agency, which in the $9.9 billion
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, almost certainly would require
substantial reductions in the inmate population of about 172,000 and the parolee
population of 127,000, and in a labor force of 64,000.
Mendelsohn said that, with the state facing a $14 billion deficit, the
governor faces difficult decisions as he prepares to unveil his budget proposal
Jan. 10.
"With raising taxes not being an option," Mendelsohn said, "you have to look
at very severe cuts."
Schwarzenegger was re-elected to office last year on a campaign that included
a no-new-taxes pledge. Republicans in the Legislature have vowed – and have
the numbers – to block any tax increases, which require two-thirds support of
lawmakers.
Also on Friday, Schwarzenegger's office announced that the state is $3.3
billion in the hole in the current fiscal year and that the governor is calling
for a special legislative session to begin Jan. 10 to address what he has
declared a "fiscal emergency."
According to details of the corrections budget proposal made available to The
Bee, the administration's plan calls for the release of lower-risk offenders
in the final 20 months of their terms to reduce the prison population by
22,159 in the 2008-09 fiscal year.
Schwarzenegger's budget writers also are proposing a shift to a "summary"
parole system that would result in far fewer offenders being sent back to prison
on technical violations and criminal infractions, but still would subject
them to searches by local police. That plan would reduce the prison population
by another 6,249 inmates.
Combined, the two proposals would reduce the payroll in the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation by 5,854 employees. The two proposals
would require legislative approval. The budget bill requires a two-thirds
vote.
Under the state Penal Code, about 35 crimes are listed as "serious" or
"violent" for the purposes of the state's "three-strikes" law. Those offenders –
convicted on charges ranging from murder to rape, robbery, burglary or sex or
firearm offenses – would be excluded from the early releases.
Victims' advocates say that the exclusions aren't wide enough and that other
convicts serving time for elder, child and spousal abuse, stalking, false
imprisonment, weapons and other charges could still get out before their
statutory time is up.
San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos said local law
enforcement leaders have demanded that the administration "add exclusions" to the
definition of a lower-risk offender. As for early releases, Ramos said they
"won't happen without a fight" from county sheriffs and district attorneys.
Republican political consultant Ray McNally said that if the proposals go
through, Schwarzenegger's political career will be all but over.
"It's pretty clear, the governor has decided not to run for U.S. Senate or
other political office," said McNally, whose clients include the California
Correctional Peace Officers Association. "You can't release 22,000 people from
prison and expect to ever get elected to another office again. I think he's
made his decision to retire from politics."
The budget proposal came amid motions filed in two federal class-action cases
to cap the prison population because overcrowding is hindering the state's
effort to provide inmates with constitutionally adequate medical and mental
health care.
Inmates' rights lawyer Don Specter of the Prison Law Office, who is
representing plaintiffs in both suits, said the proposed early releases amount to
"nothing" as far as the federal cases are concerned.
"If and when it's part of the budget, we'll deal with it at that point,"
Specter said.
Trial on the motions had been scheduled for February, but the date was
vacated last week by a three-judge court that first must decide whether to order
the state to turn over thousands of documents to the plaintiffs.
Dems, Republicans blast governor's inmate budget cut.
By Andy Furillo - _afuri...@sacbee.com_ (mailto:afuri...@sacbee.com)
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, December 22, 2007
A Democratic legislative leader and a firebrand Republican promised tough
going Friday for a Schwarzenegger administration proposal to cut the state's
prison population by 28,000 over the next two years.
Early releases are "DOA" with Assembly Republicans, said Jose Solorio,
D-Santa Ana, chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. He said Democrats'
reaction would range from raising questions to outright opposition of the
administration's budget proposal.
"Many of us are going to have some very strong concerns about whether it's
the direction we want to begin taking," Solorio said.
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, one of his party's leaders on
criminal justice issues, said the proposal to release the so-called
nonviolent, nonserious, non-sex offenders in the final 20 months of their terms would
undermine Assembly Bill 900. The $7.9 billion measure was enacted this year
to add 53,000 prison and jail beds and more fully establish rehabilitation as
the philosophical underpinning of California's correctional system.
"By letting people out 20 months early, which is supposed to be when they get
their re-entry skills, they're not going to get them at all, so recidivism
is going to get worse," Spitzer said. "This budget plan is a forfeiture of AB
900 principles, which was supposed to change how we treat criminality in
California."
Gubernatorial spokesman Adam Mendelsohn said Friday that the administration
still has not made a final decision on the budget proposal that would save the
state $1.112 billion over the next two fiscal years. The governor has called
for 10 percent spending cuts in every agency, which in the $9.9 billion
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, almost certainly would require
substantial reductions in the inmate population of about 172,000 and the parolee
population of 127,000, and in a labor force of 64,000.
Mendelsohn said that, with the state facing a $14 billion deficit, the
governor faces difficult decisions as he prepares to unveil his budget proposal
Jan. 10.
"With raising taxes not being an option," Mendelsohn said, "you have to look
at very severe cuts."
Schwarzenegger was re-elected to office last year on a campaign that included
a no-new-taxes pledge. Republicans in the Legislature have vowed – and have
the numbers – to block any tax increases, which require two-thirds support of
lawmakers.
Also on Friday, Schwarzenegger's office announced that the state is $3.3
billion in the hole in the current fiscal year and that the governor is calling
for a special legislative session to begin Jan. 10 to address what he has
declared a "fiscal emergency."
According to details of the corrections budget proposal made available to The
Bee, the administration's plan calls for the release of lower-risk offenders
in the final 20 months of their terms to reduce the prison population by
22,159 in the 2008-09 fiscal year.
Schwarzenegger's budget writers also are proposing a shift to a "summary"
parole system that would result in far fewer offenders being sent back to prison
on technical violations and criminal infractions, but still would subject
them to searches by local police. That plan would reduce the prison population
by another 6,249 inmates.
Combined, the two proposals would reduce the payroll in the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation by 5,854 employees. The two proposals
would require legislative approval. The budget bill requires a two-thirds
vote.
Under the state Penal Code, about 35 crimes are listed as "serious" or
"violent" for the purposes of the state's "three-strikes" law. Those offenders –
convicted on charges ranging from murder to rape, robbery, burglary or sex or
firearm offenses – would be excluded from the early releases.
Victims' advocates say that the exclusions aren't wide enough and that other
convicts serving time for elder, child and spousal abuse, stalking, false
imprisonment, weapons and other charges could still get out before their
statutory time is up.
San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos said local law
enforcement leaders have demanded that the administration "add exclusions" to the
definition of a lower-risk offender. As for early releases, Ramos said they
"won't happen without a fight" from county sheriffs and district attorneys.
Republican political consultant Ray McNally said that if the proposals go
through, Schwarzenegger's political career will be all but over.
"It's pretty clear, the governor has decided not to run for U.S. Senate or
other political office," said McNally, whose clients include the California
Correctional Peace Officers Association. "You can't release 22,000 people from
prison and expect to ever get elected to another office again. I think he's
made his decision to retire from politics."
The budget proposal came amid motions filed in two federal class-action cases
to cap the prison population because overcrowding is hindering the state's
effort to provide inmates with constitutionally adequate medical and mental
health care.
Inmates' rights lawyer Don Specter of the Prison Law Office, who is
representing plaintiffs in both suits, said the proposed early releases amount to
"nothing" as far as the federal cases are concerned.
"If and when it's part of the budget, we'll deal with it at that point,"
Specter said.
Trial on the motions had been scheduled for February, but the date was
vacated last week by a three-judge court that first must decide whether to order
the state to turn over thousands of documents to the plaintiffs.
Schwarzenegger proposes to release 22,000 prisoners
Schwarzenegger proposes to release 22,000 prisoners
By Andy Furillo - afurillo@sacbee.com
Published 6:22 pm PST Thursday, December 20, 2007
In what may be the largest early release of inmates in United States history, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is proposing to open the prison gates next year to some 22,000 low-risk offenders.
According to details of a budget proposal made available to The Bee, the administration will ask the Legislature to authorize the release of certain non-serious, non-violent, non-sex offenders who have less than 20 months to go on their terms.
The proposal would cut the prison population by 22,159 inmates and save the cash-strapped state $256 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1 and more than $780 million through June 30, 2010. Besides reducing the inmate population, the proposal also calls for a reduction in more than 4,000 prison jobs, most of which would involve correctional officers.
A gubernatorial spokesman said no final decisions have been made.
The administration, which is looking at across the board budget cuts to stem a budget deficit pegged as high as $14 billion, is looking for more savings in prison spending by shifting all lower-risk parolees into what officials are describing as a "summary" system. The shift also would require legislative approval.
Under "summary" parole, offenders would remain on supervised release and still be subject to searches by local law enforcement at any time, but they would not be returned to prison on a technical violation. It would take a new crime prosecuted by local law enforcement officials to return the offenders to prison.
A summary parole system would cut the daily average population of released offenders by 18,522 in the next fiscal year and result in a further prison population reduction of 6,249, according to the proposal. It would save the state $98 million in the 2008-09 fiscal year and $329 million through 2009-10. The number of job cuts in the parole proposal will hit 1,660.
Gubernatorial spokesman Adam Mendelsohn declined to confirm the proposal outlined to The Bee, but reaffirmed the administration's belief that all departments need to cut spending across the board by 10 percent next year. Schwarzenegger "has not made any decisions" on where the cuts will take place, Mendelsohn said, including whether they will involve the early release of inmates or staff cuts.
"He has not made any final determination on what his January budget will look like, but there are many, many scenarios that have been presented to the governor, and he is working extremely hard to figure out how we manage this budget situation through cuts and reduced spending," Mendelsohn.
The corrections budget proposal outlined Thursday would not cut any of the prison department's bond funding, including the recently enacted, $7.9 billion Assembly Bill 900 spending, nor would it affect the expenditures of the federal medical receiver, who is in charge of $1.5 billion of the agency's total portfolio. The Corrections Standards Authority and the Division of Juvenile Justice would also be excluded from the proposed cuts.
By Andy Furillo - afurillo@sacbee.com
Published 6:22 pm PST Thursday, December 20, 2007
In what may be the largest early release of inmates in United States history, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is proposing to open the prison gates next year to some 22,000 low-risk offenders.
According to details of a budget proposal made available to The Bee, the administration will ask the Legislature to authorize the release of certain non-serious, non-violent, non-sex offenders who have less than 20 months to go on their terms.
The proposal would cut the prison population by 22,159 inmates and save the cash-strapped state $256 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1 and more than $780 million through June 30, 2010. Besides reducing the inmate population, the proposal also calls for a reduction in more than 4,000 prison jobs, most of which would involve correctional officers.
A gubernatorial spokesman said no final decisions have been made.
The administration, which is looking at across the board budget cuts to stem a budget deficit pegged as high as $14 billion, is looking for more savings in prison spending by shifting all lower-risk parolees into what officials are describing as a "summary" system. The shift also would require legislative approval.
Under "summary" parole, offenders would remain on supervised release and still be subject to searches by local law enforcement at any time, but they would not be returned to prison on a technical violation. It would take a new crime prosecuted by local law enforcement officials to return the offenders to prison.
A summary parole system would cut the daily average population of released offenders by 18,522 in the next fiscal year and result in a further prison population reduction of 6,249, according to the proposal. It would save the state $98 million in the 2008-09 fiscal year and $329 million through 2009-10. The number of job cuts in the parole proposal will hit 1,660.
Gubernatorial spokesman Adam Mendelsohn declined to confirm the proposal outlined to The Bee, but reaffirmed the administration's belief that all departments need to cut spending across the board by 10 percent next year. Schwarzenegger "has not made any decisions" on where the cuts will take place, Mendelsohn said, including whether they will involve the early release of inmates or staff cuts.
"He has not made any final determination on what his January budget will look like, but there are many, many scenarios that have been presented to the governor, and he is working extremely hard to figure out how we manage this budget situation through cuts and reduced spending," Mendelsohn.
The corrections budget proposal outlined Thursday would not cut any of the prison department's bond funding, including the recently enacted, $7.9 billion Assembly Bill 900 spending, nor would it affect the expenditures of the federal medical receiver, who is in charge of $1.5 billion of the agency's total portfolio. The Corrections Standards Authority and the Division of Juvenile Justice would also be excluded from the proposed cuts.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Comprehensive Prison Reform
Fact Sheet: More Rehabilitation, Fewer Victims
More than 97 percent of inmates in California’s prisons will be eligible for parole someday, meaning almost everyone who goes into prison eventually gets out. California’s 70 percent recidivism rate means that thousands of offenders return to our already overcrowded prisons—and that thousands of individuals and communities are victimized and revictimized every year. Rehabilitation is the key to ending this criminal cycle. The historic prison agreement (AB 900) struck on April 25, 2007 by legislative leaders and Governor Schwarzenegger significantly expands rehabilitation services to increase public safety and reduce crime.
This agreement ties rehabilitation to all 53,000 beds.
The $7.7 ($7.4 bonds/$350 General Fund) billion prison reform agreement will provide 53,000 prison and jail beds in two phases. Rehabilitation services—like substance abuse treatment, mental health services and vocational education—will accompany all new bed construction.
16,000 beds provide intensive rehabilitation just before parole.
Secure Re-Entry Facilities, small correctional centers built in local communities, are the legislation’s rehabilitation centerpiece. The legislation funds 16,000 new beds in these centers to provide focused rehabilitation in the critical few months just before offenders are paroled. Programs will include: job training and placement; GED coursework; anger management classes; family counseling; and housing placement.
* Currently 60,000 California inmates are serving the final 0-3 years of their sentences. Without rehabilitation, these offenders will leave prison with nothing more than $200 and a bus ticket.
* Re-entry is about accountability. Offenders considered for re-entry facilities must demonstrate commitment to becoming a productive citizen. Offenders will be offered specific counseling, programs and services to support this choice. Failure to participate will result in removal from the program.
* Re-entry facilities won’t bring offenders to our communities—because they’re already here. By law, inmates are already returned to their county of last legal residence. These offenders are coming back to our cities and towns whether they’re rehabilitated or not.
* Re-entry facilities will help inmates succeed after prison. Every re-entry facility will be designed to reduce recidivism, and every participating offender will have an individual plan to maximize their chances for parole success.
* Communities will be involved in every stage. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is already in negotiations with more than 20 counties and cities that are interested in housing re-entry facilities. These agreements will be negotiated by county sheriffs and county administrative officers, and are subject to board of supervisor approval. Counties that agree to house re-entry facilities will receive preference in funding to expand and improve local jails.
16,000 “infill” beds make room for rehabilitation in our prisons.
The legislation adds 16,000 beds inside of existing prisons. This expansion will let CDCR move inmates out of bad beds and into permanent housing, enhancing staff safety. “Bad beds” are bunks housed, as a result of overcrowding, in prison gymnasiums, dayrooms, libraries and other spaces that once provided rehabilitation services.
* Infill beds are a top priority. All 16,000 new infill beds are scheduled to be constructed within the next 18 to 24 months.
* 4,000 beds (2,000 in prison and 2,000 aftercare beds) will be devoted to drug treatment. CDCR’s Division of Substance Abuse Programs serves over 10,000 inmates and parolees. These programs reduce drug and alcohol addiction and the massive costs associated with drug-related crime.
National experts are helping CDCR build the most effective programs.
A panel of national experts is currently working with CDCR to strengthen the agency’s rehabilitation programs. The panel will issue recommendations early this summer to help CDCR lower recidivism, access current efforts, and identify best practices and evidence-based programs to lower recidivism rates. The panel also will assist local government and law enforcement deal with paroled offenders. CDCR will use these recommendations to develop more effective programs and strengthen collaboration with local communities.
© 2006 State of California
http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/fact-sheet/6089/
More than 97 percent of inmates in California’s prisons will be eligible for parole someday, meaning almost everyone who goes into prison eventually gets out. California’s 70 percent recidivism rate means that thousands of offenders return to our already overcrowded prisons—and that thousands of individuals and communities are victimized and revictimized every year. Rehabilitation is the key to ending this criminal cycle. The historic prison agreement (AB 900) struck on April 25, 2007 by legislative leaders and Governor Schwarzenegger significantly expands rehabilitation services to increase public safety and reduce crime.
This agreement ties rehabilitation to all 53,000 beds.
The $7.7 ($7.4 bonds/$350 General Fund) billion prison reform agreement will provide 53,000 prison and jail beds in two phases. Rehabilitation services—like substance abuse treatment, mental health services and vocational education—will accompany all new bed construction.
16,000 beds provide intensive rehabilitation just before parole.
Secure Re-Entry Facilities, small correctional centers built in local communities, are the legislation’s rehabilitation centerpiece. The legislation funds 16,000 new beds in these centers to provide focused rehabilitation in the critical few months just before offenders are paroled. Programs will include: job training and placement; GED coursework; anger management classes; family counseling; and housing placement.
* Currently 60,000 California inmates are serving the final 0-3 years of their sentences. Without rehabilitation, these offenders will leave prison with nothing more than $200 and a bus ticket.
* Re-entry is about accountability. Offenders considered for re-entry facilities must demonstrate commitment to becoming a productive citizen. Offenders will be offered specific counseling, programs and services to support this choice. Failure to participate will result in removal from the program.
* Re-entry facilities won’t bring offenders to our communities—because they’re already here. By law, inmates are already returned to their county of last legal residence. These offenders are coming back to our cities and towns whether they’re rehabilitated or not.
* Re-entry facilities will help inmates succeed after prison. Every re-entry facility will be designed to reduce recidivism, and every participating offender will have an individual plan to maximize their chances for parole success.
* Communities will be involved in every stage. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is already in negotiations with more than 20 counties and cities that are interested in housing re-entry facilities. These agreements will be negotiated by county sheriffs and county administrative officers, and are subject to board of supervisor approval. Counties that agree to house re-entry facilities will receive preference in funding to expand and improve local jails.
16,000 “infill” beds make room for rehabilitation in our prisons.
The legislation adds 16,000 beds inside of existing prisons. This expansion will let CDCR move inmates out of bad beds and into permanent housing, enhancing staff safety. “Bad beds” are bunks housed, as a result of overcrowding, in prison gymnasiums, dayrooms, libraries and other spaces that once provided rehabilitation services.
* Infill beds are a top priority. All 16,000 new infill beds are scheduled to be constructed within the next 18 to 24 months.
* 4,000 beds (2,000 in prison and 2,000 aftercare beds) will be devoted to drug treatment. CDCR’s Division of Substance Abuse Programs serves over 10,000 inmates and parolees. These programs reduce drug and alcohol addiction and the massive costs associated with drug-related crime.
National experts are helping CDCR build the most effective programs.
A panel of national experts is currently working with CDCR to strengthen the agency’s rehabilitation programs. The panel will issue recommendations early this summer to help CDCR lower recidivism, access current efforts, and identify best practices and evidence-based programs to lower recidivism rates. The panel also will assist local government and law enforcement deal with paroled offenders. CDCR will use these recommendations to develop more effective programs and strengthen collaboration with local communities.
© 2006 State of California
http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/fact-sheet/6089/
CDCR working to remove collect call connection fee's
Taxpayers for Improving Public Safety wrote:
You will be happy to know that due to ongoing discussions with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, they have agreed to (and are advocating for), the removal of connection fees presently collected on every collect phone call from an institution.
This means several dollars will be saved on every inmate collect call.
While it is not yet final, the request has been submitted to the Senate Budget Committee, Sub-Committee 4, to be considered with all other budget items. The competition for dollars is fierce, and many lawmakers will not like giving up millions of dollars (especially for inmate families), but this request is a substantial positive step foward and TiPS will do all it can to keep this issue alive.
You will be happy to know that due to ongoing discussions with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, they have agreed to (and are advocating for), the removal of connection fees presently collected on every collect phone call from an institution.
This means several dollars will be saved on every inmate collect call.
While it is not yet final, the request has been submitted to the Senate Budget Committee, Sub-Committee 4, to be considered with all other budget items. The competition for dollars is fierce, and many lawmakers will not like giving up millions of dollars (especially for inmate families), but this request is a substantial positive step foward and TiPS will do all it can to keep this issue alive.
Judges consider prison population cap
SACRAMENTO
Judges consider prison population cap
Tom Chorneau, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Thursday, June 28, 2007
(06-28) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- A pair of federal judges considered imposing a population cap on the state's troubled prison system on Wednesday -- an order that could result in the early release of thousands of California's 170,000 prisoners.
In a joint hearing, U.S. District Judges Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento and Thelton Henderson of San Francisco heard arguments on the proposal, which has been offered as a means of solving the state's overcrowded prison system.
The judges, who are presiding over separate, long-running cases involving inmate abuse, both seemed at times to embrace the population cap idea although they did not issue a ruling Wednesday. A written order is expected in the coming days or weeks.
Karlton, who is overseeing a decadelong lawsuit over the state's failure to provide care to mentally ill inmates, was critical of the Legislature and the Schwarzenegger administration for their inability to address the overcrowding problem. But he also said the idea of a population cap was "very radical" and may not be acceptable given the number of inmates it could affect.
"There's been no evidence of change," he said. "At some point something has got to change."
At issue is control over the state's prison system, which has an inmate population nearly double the capacity it originally was designed for. Inmate advocates have argued that overcrowding makes it almost impossible for prisons to adequately provide health care to the general population and provide services to inmates who have mental health problems.
In some prisons, inmates sleep outside or on floors. Attorneys for inmates have said that California inmates have a suicide rate twice that of the rest of the nation, due in part to overcrowding.
In response, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders passed a $7.4 billion prison expansion program in May that will add 40,000 new prison beds and 13,000 new county jail beds.
Attorneys representing the state at Wednesday's court hearing told the judges that they needed more time to put the building program into motion.
Bill Maile, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, said the governor remains optimistic that the judges will not order a population cap -- which the administration believes will result in the early release of inmates.
"The governor has consistently said that releasing dangerous prisoners early is not a solution to prison overcrowding, " Maile said. "A prison cap will not solve the problems identified by the plaintiffs in these cases."
Don Specter, director of the Prison Law Office in Marin County and who represents clients in the case, said a population cap will not necessarily result in early inmate release.
"You can also prevent more people from coming into the system -- a lot of the inmates are from parole violations," he said. "There's a lot of discretion about who you send to prison."
Specter noted that other states, including Texas and New York, are decreasing their prison populations without creating public safety problems.
A study that Schwarzenegger commissioned in 2004, and which was conducted by a committee headed by former Gov. George Deukmejian, found that the state's prison system could safely hold about 137,000 inmates.
Some analysts have suggested that a population cap would result in the release of about 35,000 inmates.
E-mail Tom Chorneau at tchorneau@sfchronic le.com.
http://sfgate. com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi? f=/c/a/2007/ 06/28/BAGQKQN7FC 1.DTL
Judges consider prison population cap
Tom Chorneau, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Thursday, June 28, 2007
(06-28) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- A pair of federal judges considered imposing a population cap on the state's troubled prison system on Wednesday -- an order that could result in the early release of thousands of California's 170,000 prisoners.
In a joint hearing, U.S. District Judges Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento and Thelton Henderson of San Francisco heard arguments on the proposal, which has been offered as a means of solving the state's overcrowded prison system.
The judges, who are presiding over separate, long-running cases involving inmate abuse, both seemed at times to embrace the population cap idea although they did not issue a ruling Wednesday. A written order is expected in the coming days or weeks.
Karlton, who is overseeing a decadelong lawsuit over the state's failure to provide care to mentally ill inmates, was critical of the Legislature and the Schwarzenegger administration for their inability to address the overcrowding problem. But he also said the idea of a population cap was "very radical" and may not be acceptable given the number of inmates it could affect.
"There's been no evidence of change," he said. "At some point something has got to change."
At issue is control over the state's prison system, which has an inmate population nearly double the capacity it originally was designed for. Inmate advocates have argued that overcrowding makes it almost impossible for prisons to adequately provide health care to the general population and provide services to inmates who have mental health problems.
In some prisons, inmates sleep outside or on floors. Attorneys for inmates have said that California inmates have a suicide rate twice that of the rest of the nation, due in part to overcrowding.
In response, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders passed a $7.4 billion prison expansion program in May that will add 40,000 new prison beds and 13,000 new county jail beds.
Attorneys representing the state at Wednesday's court hearing told the judges that they needed more time to put the building program into motion.
Bill Maile, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, said the governor remains optimistic that the judges will not order a population cap -- which the administration believes will result in the early release of inmates.
"The governor has consistently said that releasing dangerous prisoners early is not a solution to prison overcrowding, " Maile said. "A prison cap will not solve the problems identified by the plaintiffs in these cases."
Don Specter, director of the Prison Law Office in Marin County and who represents clients in the case, said a population cap will not necessarily result in early inmate release.
"You can also prevent more people from coming into the system -- a lot of the inmates are from parole violations," he said. "There's a lot of discretion about who you send to prison."
Specter noted that other states, including Texas and New York, are decreasing their prison populations without creating public safety problems.
A study that Schwarzenegger commissioned in 2004, and which was conducted by a committee headed by former Gov. George Deukmejian, found that the state's prison system could safely hold about 137,000 inmates.
Some analysts have suggested that a population cap would result in the release of about 35,000 inmates.
E-mail Tom Chorneau at tchorneau@sfchronic le.com.
http://sfgate. com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi? f=/c/a/2007/ 06/28/BAGQKQN7FC 1.DTL
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