WHY ARE WE SO STUCK?

While policymakers from both sides of the aisle in conservative states such as Texas, Mississippi and Kentucky, plus such red/blue states as Louisiana, are embracing sentencing reform and alternatives to incarceration, liberal California has somehow found serious reform impossible.

This week, Marisa Lagos of the San Francisco Chronicle has an excellent front page story on the “political paralysis” in the Democrat-dominated state legislature over incarceration policy reform.

Here are some clips:

As California deeply cut spending for public schools, social services and health programs in recent years, state leaders also found themselves grappling with a court order to reduce the prison population by tens of thousands of inmates.

Some civil rights groups and criminal justice experts are now seizing on this perfect storm of chronic deficits and crowded prisons to push for wide-ranging changes to the state’s sentencing laws that would transform California’s handling of crime and punishment. The California chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups want the state to reduce drug possession and low-level, nonviolent property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, and they want more community-based alternatives to incarceration.

Yet even modest changes have trouble getting legislative support from Republicans and Democrats alike in California – even as bipartisan groups of policymakers in conservative states such as Texas, Mississippi and Kentucky embrace sentencing reform and alternatives to incarceration.

“There’s a political paralysis here – people are afraid,” said former state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, whose 2007 bill to create an independent sentencing commission passed the Senate but failed in the Democratic-dominated Assembly. “I think it’s a false fear, but they are afraid of being labeled soft on crime, so they legislate by sound bite. They don’t take up the big issues, so years pass and we are in the same predicament.”

THE POWER OF THE PROSECUTORS

One of the more interesting points made in the story, is this one made by UC Berkeley’s Barry Krisberg, who is terrifically knowledgeable and does not pull punches;

Barry Krisberg, a criminal justice expert at UC Berkeley, said the California District Attorneys Association has enormous sway over lawmakers and opposes most sentencing changes. He noted that the federal government and 23 states have sentencing commissions, which tend to increase penalties for violent crimes and decrease penalties for nonviolent offenses.

“The question is, what’s wrong with us? Are we more conservative than Virginia? Are we more irrational than North Carolina?” he said. “It’s the politics, and it’s the dilemma of this state. … Unlike almost all the other states, we have been unable to get the two parties to sit down and cut a deal. It’s not the prison guards – they are not standing in the way. It’s not victims’ rights groups. It’s really the District Attorneys Association.”

The tide nationally, however, is clearly changing. The question is, will California get it together to be a front runner in reform? Or will we be the negative example that other states try to avoid?

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FIRST MEDICALLY INCAPACITATED INMATE TO BE RELEASED UNDER NEW CALIF. LAW

Marisa Lagos and the SF Chron appear to be on a roll as they also have this article about Craig Lemke, a 48 year old 3-striker who is so medically incapacitated that prison officials say he will be a threat to nobody. On Wednesday, a parole board decided to release Lemke with a savings of $750,000 a year in Lemke’s guarding costs alone. That’s before we count the cost of Lemke’s medical care.

Lemke is only one of a list of 40 inmates who are permanently incapacitated due to illness or injury to the point that they cannot engage in the basics of daily life.The CDCR incarcerates and cares for them at an estimated cost of $200 million.

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AND SPEAKING OF INMATES AND MEDICAL CARE, THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE HAS A THING OR TWO TO SAY

I’ve pasted a clip below, but the whole report is very much worth reading:

….Much of the increase in the prisoner census is a result of the “War on Drugs” and our country’s failure to treat addiction and mental illness as medical conditions. The natural history of these diseases often leads to behaviors that result in incarceration. The medical profession has the chance both to advocate for changes in the criminal justice system to reduce the number of people behind bars who would be better served in community-based treatment and to capitalize on the tremendous public health opportunities for diagnosing and treating disease and for linking patients to care after release.

Deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill over the past 50 years and severe punishment for drug users starting in the 1970s have shifted the burden of care for addiction and mental illness to jails and prisons. The largest facilities housing psychiatric patients in the United States are not hospitals but jails. More than half of inmates have symptoms of a psychiatric disorder as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), and major depression and psychotic disorders are four to eight times as prevalent among inmates as in the general population — yet only 22% of state prisoners and 7% of jail inmates receive mental health treatment while incarcerated.

Read on!

On Tuesday, the governor and the California Department of Corrections announced their collective plan to reduce the state’s prison population— and it comes down to one single word: REALIGNMENT.

The plan was, as most of you know, put forth in answer to last month’s Supreme Court ruling mandating that California lower its inmate numbers by 33,000.

Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate Matt Cate called realignment the “cornerstone” of the state’s proposed methods to solve a chronic and severe overcrowding problem that, according to the Supremes, produced “serious constitutional violations” and endangered both inmates and guards.

Realignment is just that—a realigning of which prisoners go to state prison, and which instead remain with the various counties.

Here’s how the CDCR explains it:

Under Realignment, the state will continue to incarcerate offenders who commit serious, violent, or sexual crimes and counties will supervise, rehabilitate and manage low-level offenders using a variety of tools. It is anticipated that realignment will reduce the prison population by tens of thousands of low-level offenders over the next three years.

A bill to authorize realignment was passed in Aprilbut has languished since then for lack of funding.

As the AP reports:

The shift cannot take effect unless local governments get the money to provide jail cells and rehabilitation services, and funding for that remains stalled in the Legislature. Republican lawmakers have blocked Brown’s proposal for an extension of temporary tax increases that are set to expire by the end of this month.

Renewing the recent increases in the vehicle, sales and personal income taxes is essential to funding Brown’s plan to shift low-level offenders to county jurisdiction.

Whether realignment gets funded or not, one thing that Cate made extremely clear was that, whatever California’s response to the ruling, it “does not include the early release of inmates.”

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OPERATION “BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY’ GANG CRACK DOWN

On Tuesday morning, a large federal law enforcement action targeted the Varrio Azusa 13 street gang. The action— literarily titled “Operation Bright Lights Big City”—marks “only the second time in history that federal civil rights laws have been used against members of a criminal street gang, ” said a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office.

LA Weekly’s Dennis Romero has more:

The indictment alleges the gang was run on the principle that members “will harass and use violence to drive African-Americans out of the City of Azusa and .. use violence in order to prevent African-Americans from moving into the city.”

How did they allegedly try to make their brown gang Utopia a reality? Graffiti, beatings, and robberies, prosecutors say. A black high school student was even beaten on his way home from school in last spring — just because he’s African American.

The U.S. Attorney in L.A., Andre Birotte Jr:

The Azusa 13 gang waged a campaign of hate during a two-decade crime spree in which African-Americans were harassed and attacked. We hope that this federal case will signal the end of this racist behavior and will help vindicate all of the victims who have suffered over the years.

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NOTE: LIGHT BLOGGING TODAY.

This week the Pew Center on the States delivered another of its large and important reports on the state of incarceration in America.

it’s called State of Recidivism: The Revolving Door of American Prisons.

(In the past, the Pew Center has looked at how many Americans are behind bars, and who those Americans were in terms of age and ethnicity.)

This time, Pew focused on the frequency with which those who are imprisoned and later released into American communities return to prison.

PEW broke out the figures state by state, in order to look at which states had the highest return rate.

The two winners—if you can call them that—are Minnesota and, of course, our own prison benighted state. But, while both Minnesota and California have return rates that hover around 60 percent, MN has a prison population of slightly over 5,000, we have close to 120,000 men and women behind bars.

Also, as Pew notes, the majority of those Californians who return to prison, don’t go back for a new crime, but for a technical violation of their parole.

It doesn’t help, said Adam Gelb, director of Pew’s Public Safety Performance Project, that many states, California among them, do not incentivize parolees making a successful transition from prison to becoming a productive community member.

Here’s what Gelb told CNN:

Right now, incentives are mostly backwards. When offenders are breaking rules, supervising agencies win by sending them back to prison and getting them off their caseloads. That needs to be flipped so agencies get rewarded with a share of savings when they reduce returns to prison,” Gelb said.

YES, BUT DOES IT MAKE US SAFER?

One of the things the PEW researchers looked at with this report is public safety. Are we safer because we send so many people back to prison over and over again? PEW says no. Those states like New York and Oregon that have worked to provide the kind of programs, interventions and alternative sentencing that decreases recidivism, have seen their crime rates drop.

And of course there is the money savings. According to PEW, if California cut its recidivism rate by 10 percent, it would save the state at least $233 million. (Likely the savings would be substantially more since PEWs was working with 2005 prison prices.)

Prisons are often the forgotten
element of the criminal justice
system until things go badly. Catching the
guy and prosecuting him is really important
work, but if we don’t do anything with that
individual after we’ve got him, then shame
on us. If all that effort goes to waste and
we just open the doors five years later, and
it’s the same guy walking out the door and
the same criminal thinking, we’ve failed in
our mission.”

Minnesota Commissioner of Corrections Tom Roy
April 7, 2011

CAN OREGON’S MODEL BE….WELL….A MODEL?

The PEW study points to Oregon as being one the states that has been the most successful at intelligently addressing the recidivism problem. But can methods used in a less populous, less diverse state like Oregon be re-tailored to fit places like Florida and California?

If our lawmakers had the will it would be nice to find out. In any case, here’s an overview of Oregon’s strategy:

Read the rest of this entry »

COULD THE COPS HAVE STOPPED FLOR MEDRANO’S KILLER?

In mid-November of 2009, Flor Medrano, a 30-year-old housekeeper and mother of a 3-year-old, sought protection from her murderous stalker boyfriend at the Wilshire Division of the LAPD. Two officers went home with her and watched her front door from an unmarked police car. But the killer was already inside Medrano’s apartment. He stabbed her repeatedly and fatally before the cops could reach her. [Go here for back story.]

The LA Times Joel Rubin has taken another look at the case, using police reports, DA’s office records, and police commission reports, official review findings and more

The result is a story that is both tragic and clarifying.

Rubin writes:

There seems to be no doubt that the officers tried to do right by a woman who had come to them for help. But a routine internal investigation led LAPD officials to soon question the decisions made that night. As the inquiry progressed, the early praise increasingly seemed misplaced.

Read the rest.

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THE SUPREMES DECIDED MONDAY’S CASES WHILE PRACTICING THEIR STAND UP ACTS?

The Supreme Court decided a bunch of things on Monday. For instance, they ruled that, the Citizens United case notwithstanding, corporations are not people too, at least when it comes to personal privacy rights.

They kinda backed away from ruling on the kids-and-the-fourth-amendment issue that I posted about yesterday. They ruled—mostly that they weren’t going to rule, that there was no necessity to do so. (Youth Today has perhaps the best rundown on that case.)

However, Slate’s refreshingly smart Dahlia Lithwick analyzes the day in terms of the mood among the justices—and the quality of Justice Roberts’ one liners.

When Loki, the god of constitutional mischief, is in the right frame of mind, the Supreme Court can be a fantastically fun place to be. With all the talk of judicial bitterness, anger, and recriminations, it’s easy to forget how much fun life tenure can be. Today is just one of those days.

Things get off to a warm and fuzzy start as the justices hand down three unanimous opinions. Unanimous! One is a ruling in favor of an Army reservist in his employment discrimination claim. The second hands a big win to a veteran who filed his benefits claim late. And the third involves AT&T’s claim that, for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act, it should be entitled to withhold information that might violate the company’s “personal privacy.”

Now, as you may recall, oral argument did not go all that well for the company that only really wanted to be treated like a real, live boy. And so it was, perhaps, no surprise that the Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that corporations do not have such a thing as “personal privacy” for the purposes of FOIA. What was surprising was Chief Justice John Roberts’ unanimous opinion for the court, which contains more laugh lines than Two and a Half Men—and half the coke.

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CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS MOVES MANY MILLIONS OUT OF PRISON REHAB PROGRAMS—BUT DOES SO, VERY, VERY QUIETLY

Michael Montgomery filed this report for California Watch over a month ago, but it largely flew under the radar. However, it deserves attention.

Here’s how it opens:

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation quietly transferred millions of dollars out of beleaguered rehabilitation programs last year to cover shortfalls in other areas like prison security.

In all, the department moved around $70 million from the adult programming budget, in addition to $250 million that was previously cut from education, drug rehabilitation and other programs, according to a report released by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

“The department frequently and purposely reduces program services — such as offender rehabilitation programs and prison maintenance — to ‘free up’ funding to support increased prison security costs,” the report states. “This means that CDCR is not performing critical functions for which funding was specifically provided in the budget.”

Yeah, that’s smart. Cut the programs that will help keep people OUT of prison, thus lower our prison costs at the root.

Meanwhile, as the LA Times reported Wednesday, we’re housing a pile of expensively sick and incapacitated inmates. Certainly wouldn’t want the legislature to straighten its spine and vote to save money by releasing them. (Why be logical.)

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AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE TOPIC OF STUCK-ON-STUPID BUDGETING…..HOUSE REPUBS CUT FUNDS FOR THE NATION’S MOST SUCCESSFUL VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS

This clip from Monday’s NY Times editorial speaks for itself:

House Republicans voted to eliminate the Corporation for National and Community Service and the $1.4 billion in federal funds it would provide to programs that encourage Americans to serve in their communities and around the nation, including AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Teach for America, City Year, Foster Grandparents and others.

If the federal funds are snatched away, some of these programs will lose matching private contributions from individuals, foundations and corporations, as well as money from localities. Some may have to close down.

Now there’s a great way to balance the budget: cut the small ticket item that actually lets us stretch our dollars. Brilliant.

BROWN WANTS TO SHUT DOWN THE STATE’S JUVENILE PRISONS, BUT SHOULD WE?

The short answer is YES. They’re preposterously expensive and they’re a mess that seems immune to fundamental reform.

However, shutting them down must be done wisely or it will simply result in more kids being tried as adults and so shoved instead into the adult prison system, as the Bakersfield Californian points out in an editorial.

The plan doesn’t appear to provide clear safeguards that would keep juveniles convicted of lesser crimes out of adult prisons. What if the counties, deep in their own budget problems, can’t accommodate them? Will these kids end up in adult facilities? Will counties lean toward prosecuting more youth offenders as adults to avoid having to house them? Will they be tempted to not prosecute them at all?

The NY Times also looks at some of the disagreement on the issue:

Joaquin E. DiazDeLeon, a former Fresno gang member, spent two years inside California’s juvenile prison system. What he found there, he said, was no better than the streets he came from.

Instead of rehabilitating young offenders, he said, correctional officers spent most of their time separating rival gangs. Violence was so pervasive, he said, that he kept his gang affiliation just to protect himself.

“Basically you’re being thrown in a box and expected to change,” said Mr. DiazDeLeon, 21, now a student at City College of San Francisco.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent proposal to eliminate California’s Division of Juvenile Justice was billed as a way to cut $242 million from the state budget. It was also the culmination of a decade-long effort to shut the state’s troubled youth prison system, which for years has been plagued by violence, abuse and decaying facilities.

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CLARENCE THOMAS FAILED TO DISCLOSE WIFE’S EARNINGS

The LA Times’ Kim Geiger has this head-shaker of a story. Here’s the opening:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report his wife’s income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday.

Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be disclosed.

Common Cause also says that Ginny Thomas was paid a salary in 2009 by a group called Liberty Central. But again in 2009, Justice Thomas checked the “NONE” box.

“Without disclosure, the public and litigants appearing before the court do not have adequate information to assess potential conflicts of interest, and disclosure is needed to promote the public’s interest in open, honest and accountable government,” Common Cause President Bob Edgar wrote in a letter to the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Do we think this is an oversight? Nope. Not really. One year maybe. But six? Although it’s admittedly hard to know what exactly Thomas was thinking with such a bone-headed move.

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THE CLEMENCY QUESTION OF HAMEDAH HASAN

Lisa Ruth, at the not normally bleeding-heart-liberal Washington Times, asks—quite rightly—why President Obama hasn’t given clemency to Hamedah Hasan, the mother and grandmother whose case typifies the nation’s War on Drugs sentencing madness.

Ruth writes that presidential commutations are rare, but that sometimes justice demands them:

One stand-out in the more than 3,000 requests for Presidential commutation is Hamedah Hasan, a mother and grandmother serving her 17th year of a 27 year federal prison sentence for non-violent crack cocaine conviction. She has no prior criminal record.

In 1991, Ms. Hasan was arrested for conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, after three other known drug traffickers implicated her as the “manager” of the conspiracy to sell 5.9 kilograms of crack cocaine. They received lighter sentences for their cooperation with authorities. Police never found any drugs on Ms. Hasan, nor did they find any drugs in her house. Despite repeated stake-outs, they did not observe her selling, using, or possessing drugs of any kind.

Mandatory federal sentencing guidelines put Ms. Hasan in jail for life. The requirements at the time included a 100:1 ratio for crack cocaine to regular cocaine. In other words, if you had one gram of crack, your punishment was equal to having 100 grams of cocaine.

Changes in the Sentencing Guidelines later reduced her sentence to 27 years.

Ms. Hasan has applied for Presidential commutation of her sentence, and has received an outpouring of support.

The ACLU now represents Ms. Hasan due to the strength of her argument. The application included more than 50 letters of support from community leaders, prison chaplains, advocates, friends and family.

One letter is from the federal judge who sentenced Ms. Hasan, the Honorable Richard G. Kopf, U.S. District of Nebraska. Part of his letter reads:

“…I can say, without equivocation, that Ms. Hasan is deserving of the President’s mercy. I have never supported such a request in the past, and I doubt that I will support another one in the future. That said, in this unique case, justice truly cries out for relief.”

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AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE TOPIC OF IMPRISONMENT, THE LATEST ON BRADLEY MANNING AND HIS SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

The Guardian has the story. As you read the clip below, remind yourself that Manning has been kept in solitary confinement for six months—although he has yet to be convicted of anything at all.

Supporters of Bradley Manning, the army private suspected of leaking confidential documents to WikiLeaks, were thwarted in an attempt to deliver a petition protesting his treatment when US Marines took a sudden interest in traffic law.

David House, a friend of Manning’s, and Jane Hamsher, founder of the Firedoglake blog, were stopped by guards at the Quantico Marine Corp base in Virginia where Manning is being held, on Sunday when House planned to make a regular visit to see Manning.

The pair also wanted to deliver a petition with 42,000 signatures protesting at the conditions Manning is being held under, including solitary confinement and round-the-clock watch which his lawyers describe as unfair and abusive.

But despite having visited the base to see Manning on several previous occasions, yesterday the pair were stopped by military police and Hamsher’s car impounded after guards found the vehicle’s license plates had expired and Hamsher was unable to produce insurance papers.

After nearly two hours the pair were released – but too late to see Manning during the military brig’s visiting hours, denying the prisoner of his sole weekly respite from solitary confinement.

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Last spring, in an excellent multi-part series, reporter Charles Piller of the Sacramento Bee, exposed evidence of abuse, racism and cruelty by guards at High Desert State Prison in Susanville. Piller’s investigative work also described an apparent cover-up of abuse allegations by corrections officials. In addition, he found strong evidence throughout the prison system of widespread suppression of inmates’ rights to contest allegations by guards or pursue claims of mistreatment.

(Here and here and here are links to Pillers earlier articles.)

The series was powerful enough and well-sourced enough, that it persuaded California state senate leaders to launch a 7 month probe of their own into how the CDCR treated allegations of misconduct.

That report was released on December 1 in the form of a letter addressed to CDCR director, Matthew Cate.

The senators investigation found that officials from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and from the Office of the Inspector General repeatedly failed to investigate and address claims of staff misconduct from multiple sources, even when those sources were corrections department researchers.

Here are some clips from Piller’s story on the senate report:

For example, the corrections Office of Internal Affairs received a complaint from Sacramento resident Brandy Frye in June 2007, accompanied by supporting letters from High Desert inmates. Frye alleged that guards pepper-sprayed and shackled inmates who failed to finish their meals within two minutes. She described inmate meals tainted with bird droppings, strip searches in the snow and other actions she regarded as dehumanizing.

High Desert officials promised to investigate and correct any staff misconduct discovered. Corrections executives later told legislators that guards had behaved properly. But the Senate inquiry found no such investigation had taken place.

“Legislators don’t like being misinformed in such a fashion,” Leno said in an interview. “These are the issues of greatest concern, and they didn’t even seem to have it on their radar.”

And there is this:

“….Several inmates described an incident when staff left one inmate on the floor with rectal bleeding and refused to take him to get medical attention,” according to the state researchers’ report. When guards arrived, according to inmate claims, they dismissed the prisoner with a racial epithet and said, ” ‘let him die.’ And they left him there.” The researchers reported the claims up the chain of command.

Steinberg and Leno said the researchers’ efforts to report the allegations were “frustrated by some department supervisors, and apparently not pursued by other department management staff.”

Behavior unit inmates at High Desert and elsewhere also said officers ignored written complaints.

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With a lousy economy, and a host of other problems to concern ourselves with, it is difficult for most Californians to think too much about the lives and rights of prisoners.

But as the Bee said in an earlier editorial, we ignore the trampling of prisoners’ rights at our own peril.

It’s not easy to be sympathetic to the plight of California’s prison inmates; many did horrible things to their victims and need to be locked up.

But in the long run, it does not protect the public to look the other way when prisoners are treated inhumanely; soon enough, most of them will be back in our neighborhoods and on our streets.

The kind of abuse documented in a Bee investigation will mean that the people walking out of prisons will be more damaged, almost certainly more prone to violence and assuredly less able to succeed, or just survive, on the outside….

Photo of High Desert State Prison, Susanville, by Ben Kutchins

(For additional High Desert State Prison photos by Ben Kuthins go here.)

NOTE: For the rest of the Thanksgiving week, there’ll be light posting for purposes of shopping, cooking, eating, (exercising after eating) loved-one hugging and puppy patting.

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CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS ISSUES ITS ANNUAL REPORT AND TECHNICAL VIOLATIONS OF PAROLE, ONCE AGAIN LEADS THE WAY IN WHY PEOPLE END UP BEHIND BARS EVERY YEAR

You can access a copy of the CDCR report and look at all those nice pie charts yourself.

Once again, the largest group of admissions to California prisons in 2009—66,185 people—was made up of parolees who had violated the technical terms of their parole, but who had committed no new crime. When it came to parolees committing new crimes, the number drops to 18,594.

And here’s another curious set of stats:

When the CDCR looked at who was most likely to go back to prison based on their original commitment offense (the crime that landed them in prison in the first place), the top of the heap when it comes to return guests are those who…..jacked cars. It seems that California car thieves not only keep thieving, they evidently keep getting caught.

Among the other top offenses that predict returners: receiving stolen property, hashish possession (Really??? Hashish? Um, why hashish?) and petty theft with a prior.

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CALIFORNIA STARTS CUTTING PRISON WASTE AND NOBODY NOTICES

The Ventura County Star has the story.

Here’s a clip that explains:

….That move came when lame-duck Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill called SB 1399, which may be only a start in cutting out some of the wasteful rules and practices of the state’s prison system.

In a day of budget deficits amounting to $25 billion or more, the $100 million a year or so in eventual savings here may not seem like much. But this measure can lead to much more.

Authored by Democratic state Sen. Mark Leno of San Francisco, the new law will allow medical paroles for convicts so disabled they cannot possibly pose any public danger — except to the public pocketbook. The law specifically excludes parole for criminals with death sentences or those serving life without possibility of parole.

Nor will this measure allow financially-pressed wardens to release prisoners willy-nilly. The chief physician of any prison where a disabled convict is confined would have to OK parole and that decision would then need to be verified by the state Parole Board.

So there’s plenty of concern for public safety in this cost-cutting measure, which should see at least 32 prisoners turned out of prison hospitals or other nearby medical facilities by the middle of next year. More will follow.

“Taxpayers should not be forced to bear the high cost of caring for prisoners who no longer threaten public safety,” Leno said in one legislative hearing. “Rather than continue wasting millions incarcerating these individuals, we could use the funds to keep our schoolteachers employed.”

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60% TO 80% OF CALIFORNIA’S NEW PAROLEES WILL BE OUT OF WORK A YEAR AFTER RELEASE, SAYS NEW REPORT. WHAT TO DO?

Berkely’s Center for Criminal Justice has just released a report that tells us that 60% to 80% of the tens of thousands of California residents who will be paroled from prison this year will be out of work a year later.

Fortunately, the report also looks at how we can better help parolees succeed in the job market after release—for our well being as well as theirs.

Among their suggestions are to emphasize skill development while men and women are locked up. (Duh! It saves money and heartache in the long run, people)

Most prisoners are less educated than the general public and have fewer marketable skills. Adult basic education, secondary education, and vocational training programs have proven effective if well-designed and led by properly trained staff, according to the report. Recommendations include:

* Remove barriers to educational and training programs in prisons and jails to allow more individuals to participate. Only 16% of prisoners are accepted into these programs; 23,000 are on a waiting list.

* Include both classroom learning and actual work experience to help prisoners transition from cell blocks to communities.

* Monitor and track the performance of state-funded education and training programs.

The Berkeley report has a whole section on job creation too.

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MUTUAL HEALING

The photo above is from one of the Pups and Wards programs (PAWS), which allows So Cal juvenile offenders to rehabilitated rescue dogs that are just short of being euthanized, readying the critters for adoption.

Here’s an article from earlier in the fall from the OC Register about the program.

UPDATE:

EVEN THE OC REGISTER IS ADMITTING THAT, ABSENT A FORCE MAJEURE, IT’S LIKELY STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR COOLEY TO BEAT HARRIS NOW

On Sunday, the Sacramento Bee broke it’s first story in a series detailing its own months-long investigation into prisoner abuse at High Desert’s behavior modification unit. (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

After more than 30 interviews with inmates, family, staff and experts, plus the review of studies, private memos, and assessments relating to the place, the Sac Bee’s Charles Pillar reported:

The Bee’s sources described strip-searches in a snow-covered exercise yard, as well as guards who assaulted inmates, tried to provoke attacks between inmates, and spread human excrement on cell doors. Prisoners depicted an environment of brutality, corruption and fear.

There was a whole section in the articles on suicides and suicide attempts at High Desert.

The rest of the details may be found here.

There will be more to come—both from the Bee and, down the line, from WLA, in an effort to determine if conditions are truly as bad as some of these reports suggest,

Meanwhile, the Bee reports that state prison officials have launched a “full investigation” that they “broadened” on Tuesday.

NOTE: Veteran investigative reporter Michael Montgomery at KQED has brief story here on the behavioral units in general.

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AND NOW A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE DREADED PRISON CELL PHONE PROBLEM…..ABOUT TO BE SOLVED BY PHONE SNIFFING DOGS?

The CDCR says that, since January alone, 2500 cell phones have been confiscated from California prisoners.

(As a matter of fact, I myself am occasionally startled by cell phone calls from correctional institutions made by people who used to phone only collect, but now sound like they’re calling from down the block.)

But now, reports KCRA, prison officials may have a new secret weapon to sniff out (literally) cell phone outlaws inside the state’s correctional facilities.

Here’s a clip from the KCRA story:

Deimos, a K-9 officer, is trained to find drugs. K-9 Nikki is an expert in finding tobacco.

These K-9 officers are taking on a new job to try to sniff out cell phones in prison cells and dorms.

“They know that if they come into a housing unit, they are going to find something one way or another,” said dog trainer Wayne Conrad.

They’re being put to the test at the Richard McGee Correctional Training Center in Galt. At the facility, a mock prison cell has been stocked with electronics.

“It was difficult finding out what substance made the phone unique. Once we discovered it, we were able to train for it,” Conrad said.

Read on.

Okay, comparative cost time:

The state of California spends 35 percent of its budget, or nearly $50 billion, on its 900,000 students in K-12 education.

Even after all the budget cuts made this past year or two, California spends 11 percent of its budget, or $8.6 billion, on state prisons in order to house approximately 166,000 prisoners. That’s $52,363 per prisoner per year.

And we spend 5 percent of our state budget on higher education —not even half our prison bill.

Sacramento’s CBS affiliate, KBET, has a tidy little report in which it looks at the newest versions of all these depressing numbers.

In the course of the report, the KBET folks played my favorite teeth gnashing game, which is to compare the yearly price tag of keeping someone in an overcrowded lock-up, with the cost of sending a student to a top university, including tuition room and board.

Here’s what they found:

Compare the cost of housing a prison inmate in California–$52,363 —to room, board, and tuition for one year at a college or university. Some examples:

Stanford: $50,576

University of Pacific: $42,346

Sacramento State University: $14,916

University of Davis, California: $25,580

Of course, at the end of a nice four years at, say, the California Institute for Men at Chino, an inmate will have $200 “gate money,” and little or nothing in the way of new job or academic or skills, and his or her psychological health is likely to be worse, not better.

While at the end of four years at Stanford University, a student will have……well, a degree from Stanford—-plus, one hopes and assumes, a list of new skills and capabilities.

So why do prisons cost so much? It ain’t the amenities, folks. Guys in prison aren’t given adequate soap much less anything truly useful.

KBET reports that 35 percent of the per-year cost goes to staff, and 50 percent goes to “operations.”

(Interestingly, California inmates who were shipped out-of-state to facilities in places like Mississippi in order to relieve overcrowding here, said they liked the out-of-state facilities much better—even though those states spend less per inmate per year. I leave you to draw your own conclusions about those seemingly discrepant facts.)

Sadly, in a brand new display of penny-wise-and-pound-foolishness, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has just proposed cutting another $250 million out of neither staff nor operations costs but, instead out of the rehabilitation and educational programs budget. So whatever programs were in existence that might have helped a man or woman stay out of prison upon release, are about to be vaporized.

But, hey, that’s much easier than delving into the CCPOA’s overtime figures. (Regular readers will know by now that the CCPOA refers to the correctional officers’ union.)

Anyway, I thought you’d all want to be kept up to date on these cheery stats.

Aren’t you glad we had this little chat?

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Like California, a number of budget-strapped states are crafting legislation that allows certain inmates to use rehabilitative programs to earn time off their prison and jail sentences.

And as in California, in other states, the very same usual suspects are freaking out and predicting a crime wave in reaction to the various earned early release programs that are being instituted.

Refreshingly, however, at Stateline.org, the online publication affiliated with the Pew Center on the States, there is a wonderfully impartial rundown of what the states are doing in the way of incentivized early release—and the reactions against such policies.

Here’re a couple of clips:

As to whether accelerated-release programs lead to more crime by those who are released, research shows otherwise. A review by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency of at least 12 studies, for example, found unchanged or lower recidivism rates among prisoners who benefited from accelerated-release programs in states including Illinois, Wisconsin and Florida.

[BIG SNIP]

“Length of stay has nothing to do with the recidivism rate,” Todd Clear, the incoming dean of the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University in New Jersey, says. “If I let someone out (early), I’m not increasing the chances of them committing a crime. I’m just changing the date.”

Despite the studies, politicians and corrections officials are keenly aware that a single, well-publicized crime by an inmate who has been granted accelerated release can call entire programs into question, virtually overnight. In California, for instance, outrage over the state’s good-time credits has been exacerbated by the early release of a Sacramento County inmate who was arrested in connection with an attempted rape less than 24 hours after walking free.

For that reason, Clear believes, early-release initiatives are a recipe for political disaster. “The minute you let a bunch of people out early, you own everything they do,” he says

Sadly, yes. You do.