The California Senate passed the governor’s prison reform package on Thursday then, on Friday, the state Assembly spent the day watering down the bill by at least $200 million dollars, but still the state’s spineless lawmakers couldn’t manage to pass the thing. This weekend, various newspapers up and down the state ran furious editorials about the legislature’s collective lack of courage to do what their jobs—and California—requires.
For example, San Jose Mercury News had this to say:
California is obsessed with being tough on crime. It’s time to start getting smart on crime.
Lawmakers can do that today by approving Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to trim the state’s prison population by 37,000 inmates over the next two years, saving taxpayers $1.2 billion. The Senate is on board. The Assembly needs to concur.
California is facing financial ruin. Its schools are making devastating cuts that could put a whole generation of children at a competitive disadvantage — and at higher risk of turning to crime. Yet it spends 10 percent of its general fund on prisons, about the same amount as on higher education but still not nearly enough to adequately house its 167,000 prisoners. That would take billions more.
Here is some of what the LA Times said:
What else has to go wrong before California lawmakers will solve the state’s prison crisis? Solid advice issued over the course of more than a decade by blue-ribbon commissions has been ignored; directives from federal judges to reduce the population of our overcrowded prisons are challenged in court rather than obeyed; and even when the state is faced with a wrenching income shortfall that demands $1.2 billion in cuts to the corrections budget, the Legislature seems incapable of doing the right thing.
They will be back to equivocating, watering down and grandstanding again today.
Let’s hope instead a few lawmakers decide to grow some…um…backbone.
Even as we’re being forced to release (hopefully) the least violent and potentially dangerous inmates due to overcrowding our new city attorney is launching an initiative to make it illegal for any two kids who just MIGHT tag to fall under new interpretations of gang injunctions.
Sounds to me like some kid who even unknowingly talks to a neighborhood kid who is in a gang can be swept up in this, even if they’ve done nothing at all (not talking about someone who goes on a joyride with someone who commits a violent act) and certainly it includes two kids who might walk to school together.
I’m all FOR penalizing taggers and even for making their parents responsible for damages, hauling them in for “a talk” about responsible parenting, whatever it takes, and making the families of real gangbangers who violate parole or commit certain offenses subject to forfeiting their automobiles, homes, property and even being tossed out of their apts. Nothing like putting some family pressure on them. (Isn’t this already a local, city and/or city-county measure announced last year — has it been implemented?)
Trutanich says something true to form like “I want to paint an end of the earth doomsday scenario for them.” Seems to be counterproductive to the progress LAPD has made in distinguishing between real gangbangers and kids who live in the hood and are “saveable,” vital to their soaring approval rates in the hoods, and sure goes against his promises and fancy talk about prevention programs during the election. More cliched bromides and tough talk to appease his base. Who are commented on blogs that the ACLU can go to (name your hot place), their usual stuff. But seems to me that Trutanich is just inviting a plethora of lawsuits and hasn’t considered the constitutional issues — nor the adverse impacts on LAPD’s recent history and successes. Nor the absurdity of trying to fill the prisons with kids who’ll become more hardcore as others are released.
Maybe you can give us a more thoughtful view of all this later?
Well said, WBC. You realize that statements like Trutanich’s “doomsday scenario” are just more pap issued by a fatmouth politician trying to grease his own wheels? Of course you do. That realization will manifest tenfold with the financial squeeze going on and the ultimate prisoner early release. I personally don’t feel that cracking down on taggers will refill the prisons and indoctrinate a new generation of criminals. Nope! The taxpayers and voters, the folks who fund these redundant exercises are becoming more aware of what works and what doesn’t in a timely manner. Your vigilance and that of others like you will make it happen.
Thanks, I think – although one of my central objections to this “doomsday scenario” isn’t just that it’s cracking down on taggers to re-fill jails with, but on anyone SEEN with someone who MIGHT BE a tagger or just might become a tagger. I.e. a totally innocent kid especially in baggy pants – the kind of clothes even suburban kids wear also to be cool, that many teens wear. And treating them as though they were gangbangers or actual taggers. That’s nuts. AND of course totally contrary to the spin he gave during the election and which a lot of people bought without question, just going for anything “different” to shake up city hall. Well, he’s been doing it, but not in a smart (to use Celeste’s fave word), ethical OR fiscally responsible way, seems to me.
I catch your drift, WBC. What I’m trying to convey is merely that I really believe we’re at a brand new precipice where financial stress along with the repetition these politicos have churned out in the past is coming back to bite them in the butts. Attitudes and solutions are transitioning hopefully towards a more fiscally responsible and humanely responsible antidote for what are no more than trends. Fads and trends cycle. If the so-called movers and shakers don’t keep pace they need to fall under the wheels, or as in the case of your City Attorney appear strangely out of touch.
I’m madly working on something unrelated, but am tracking—and enjoying—the discussion.
WBC, some tagging crews are as well armed and dangerous as some gangs, not all but some. They are responsible for many murders in the southland. Tagging is a quality of life issue in many neighborhoods, and the destruction of private and public property by vandals is part of the deterioration of the inner city especially, has been for years.
When businesses are tagged, same as when they are constantly victimized by theft the costs to the business to fix damage or replace property is passed on to the consumer, you and me. For those living in poverty conditions it hurts even more.
That said I don’t have a problem with probation terms being set that doesn’t allow taggers to hang with other known taggers same as gangsters and parolees have restrictions on who they can associate with. Do we need to send all of them marching off to the joint, not off the bat and some of your recommendations do sound sound good for a start. At what point though do we take someone to the next level that never changes their ways?
The below article shows who runs the prisons and who in some ways are responsible for at least part of the problem, gangster inmates. Why should they have any say in where they do their time?
The third paragraph is really telling and yet here we are three years later giving them what they wanted and partially orchestrated. The ACLU and prison rights groups would have tossed lawsuit after lawsuit if prisoners were sent unwilingly to other states and now will get what they wanted.
How incredibly sad.
**************************
Gang intimidation threatens Schwarzenegger’s prison plan
Few inmates volunteer to move to other states
Mark Martin, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Friday, December 22, 2006 16:55 PST Sacramento — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to ship thousands of California inmates to prisons in other states to reduce overcrowding is faltering because few prisoners – some intimidated by powerful gangs — have volunteered to move.
Well entrenched prison gangs worried about losing numbers, and control, have ordered inmates not to cooperate with corrections officials looking for volunteers to go to prisons in states like Tennessee and Arizona, according to sources familiar with the prison system.
Rumors are also spreading throughout the state’s 33 prisons that federal judges are poised to take over the jam-packed system and release thousands of inmates, leaving many unwilling to ship out now and potentially miss out on going free.
The shortage of volunteers threatens the only short-term proposal the administration has come up with to handle overcrowding so severe that the system is on the verge of running out of room. It may lead to corrections officials forcing unwilling inmates to leave the state, something that would likely draw lawsuits and potentially spark violence.
To help drum up interest, the administration is showing a 20-minute video in prisons across the state featuring interviews with a handful of inmates that have moved to a Tennessee lockup. The video includes prisoners praising their new home for amenities like cable television and better hot meals, as well as access to educational classes that are largely unavailable in California prisons.
“We have ESPN,” says one inmate with a tattoo of barbed wire running around his neck as he looks into the camera.
With nearly 173,000 inmates crammed into a system designed to hold about 100,000, Schwarzenegger in October declared a state of emergency as he acknowledged that overcrowding was at dangerous levels. More than 16,000 inmates are sleeping on bunk beds in dayrooms and other areas not intended as living quarters, and secretary of corrections Jim Tilton has predicted even those spaces will be filled by next summer.
Schwarzenegger this week announced proposals to deal with overcrowding, but virtually all of his plan is long-term: building facilities with 78,000 new beds, as he has called for, will take years. The governor also called for a commission to study ways to change sentencing and parole policies that might cut the inmate population, but that too is years away.
The only short-term solution was announced in October, when the administration entered into contracts with two private prison companies to send inmates to out-of-state facilities. At the time, Tilton said he hoped to ship 5,000 inmates out of state and that a preliminary survey of inmates indicated 19,000 were interested in leaving their cramped quarters for less-crowded facilities.
Now, however, the department acknowledges it is having difficulty finding volunteers.
So far, only 118 inmates have left the state, with 80 going to a Tennessee prison last month and 38 to an Arizona prison this week.
The department lost out on an opportunity this month to send as many as 1,200 inmates to an Indiana prison run by the company Geo Group because it couldn’t round up enough willing inmates. The company got an offer from the state of Arizona to fill the prison with Arizona inmates. The company’s CEO flew out to Sacramento to tell the state it was going to make a deal with Arizona.
“There’s no question that it’s been harder than we thought,” said Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Sessa said the department was preparing to send about 500 more inmates to Arizona within the next six weeks, but “peer pressure and gang pressure are factors” in discouraging inmates from leaving.
California’s prison system is dominated by ethnically based gangs that wield tremendous power in each yard.
At Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, for example, orders from gang leaders – referred to as shot-callers – of two Latino gangs instructing members to fight each other immediately upon crossing paths has led the prison to keep every gang member locked in their cell for months. A prison near Sacramento dispersed thousands of members of one prison gang to other prisons in the state last year because officials believed they had too much control over the prison. Prison officials in each lockup must consider gang affiliations when assigning inmates to cellblocks.
Sources familiar with prison operations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on behalf of the department say that gang leaders have instructed members not to take the offer of moving out-of-state because it will upset balances of power in prisons and leave gang members left vulnerable due to reduced numbers.
“The last thing they want is to have their lines of communication broken, which is what would happen if they have gang members move out of state,” noted Joan Petersilia, a UC Irvine professor of criminology who has studied the California corrections system extensively. “The resistance of gangs was predictable to the transfer plan.”
Along with the gang resistance, rumors are swirling among prisoners that overcrowding will soon lead to a federal takeover of the system.
One source who asked not to be named because he is in frequent contact with inmates said he had been to three separate prisons in the last few weeks and heard the same rumor at each prison: a judge would soon control the corrections department and release 40,000 inmates.
Inmates fear they will not be among those chosen to go free if they are in another state.
While lawyers representing inmates have asked three federal judges to impose a population cap on the system, it is improbable that any judge would order mass releases.
Other factors are also affecting the state’s plan.
Maximum-security prisoners and those with medical or mental-health problems are not eligible to go, limiting the pool.
The inability to find volunteer inmates could lead to involuntary transfers. The governor’s emergency declaration in October calls for waiving a state law requiring the permission of an inmate to send him outside the state.
While the department has had internal discussions about forcing inmates to leave California, Sessa said the goal was still to find volunteers.
“We still believe if you’re the middle guy in the middle bunk in the middle of a dayroom you will find it appealing to leave,” he said.
Sessa noted the department hopes that inmates who are trying to leave a gang situation might be tempted to leave the state, noting that the 80 inmates who moved to Tennessee apparently agreed on the plane ride to their new home to disregard the gang and race issues that are an integral part of California prisons.
The inmates in Tennessee are housed two to a cell and have racially integrated cells, something that is uncommon in California.
Forced transfers would bring scrutiny from the Prison Law Office, which represents inmates.
“We have very serious questions about the legality of forcing someone to go thousands of miles from their families and from the area where they will ultimately parole,” said Steve Fama, whose group has sued the state countless times over poor conditions in state prisons.
And a spokesman for the state’s prison guards union warned that moving unwilling inmates to other states would be dangerous.
“We have a lot of concern over being asked to wrestle someone out of their cell and force them on to a bus to Louisiana or someplace,” said Chuck Alexander, an executive vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
It is not complicated. Prison system problems and solutions are obvious if you simply view prisons as a part of the state/local corrections system.
There are three actual correctional system problems –the jail bed shortage, the broken technical parole violation system, and the influence of the correctional employees union, the CCPOA. The long term jail bed shortage caused the shift of about half of the county jail bed population (parole violators and wobblers) to prison, resulting in overcrowding.
Only 23% of California parolees discharge compared to 60% for the other states and 50% of the county felon probationers. The high violation rate can be eliminated by passage of a law allowing the state to contract with counties for parole supervision and the courts dealing with violations. Under the courts, violation rates would return to standard levels, resulting in annual savings of $750 million. Such legislation has always been defeated in the Legislature due to union opposition.
In the short term, counties and the state should increase correctional contract beds to eliminate overcrowding. Each prison contract bed saves $30,000 annually due to lower operating costs. There would probably also be savings with county contract beds.
A matter that needs investigated
On case#VA107160
People Vs buddy lee George
Norwalk superior court norwalk California division S
Judge the Honorable Roger Ito
Los Angeles county district attorney Kang.
A case that can be proved as unconstitutional due to the following
1.) I was denied my due process rights.
2.) the district attorney had me charged with prison priors and strikes that I did not have and it was not until after the verdict did she admit her mistakes.
3.) I was denied to confront witnesses I supoened 5 officers and only one showed up.
4.) the only witness that showed up was detective hakala from Whittier police department he was the lead detective and expert witness.
5.) the was bias with the processing of evidence he used his own lab.
6.) he lied under oath by saying he removed the drugs before the pre search video because he had a dog.
7.) the evidence in the case had been destroyed before the trial
Evidence was destroyed 5-29-09
The verdict was read on 8-15-09
8.) the attorney that represented me right before the trial caused a conflict of interest by violating attorney client privilege by having a meeting with the city of la mirada without my permission nor knowledge were he discussed my case were he was convinced by the city saying I should take a deal under the condition I move out of la mirada when I get out of prison.
9.) Henry salcido also told me at one point he didn’t care If I was innocent or guilty I should take a deal.
10.) he also told me at one point he was best friends with steve Cooley and if I gave him $180.000 and sign over the deed to our home he could make the case disappear.
11.) their was two retired district attorneys that were working for Henry salcidos law firm that were also over familiar with sheriffs and narcotics department that were involved in my case.
12.) through the whole case the la mirada mayor and council members had law enforcement harassing me their was about 300 or more calls made to law enforcement with the intent to have me harassed
13.) I can also prove false imprisonment.
14.) I was charged with possession for sales when no drugs were ever found to be in my possessing neither was any money ever recovered and according to the detective he found $13 dollars worth of drugs in our home all together in separate bags and only one had been tested the second one was never tested.
15.) it was unconstitutional for detective hakala to target me when their was 5 occupants living in our home at the time.
16.) the search warrant he used to get in our home the day he supposedly found the drugs was stamped denied.
17.) the second search warrant had a type -o- error and the name on the search warrant was Walter Eugene Farris a guy that I don’t know and neither did any one els that lived in our home and he had never been in our home.
18.)The attorney that represented me during the trial had not been given enough to to familiarize her self with my case the judge refused to give her time to overlook the case.
19.) after we picked the jurors one of the jurors was prejudice he said no matter what he would find me guilty because he hates drug dealers the judge still allowed juror # 19 to hang out with all the other jurors until he was replaced.
The following needs to be investigated
1.) violation of due process rights
2.) my state and federal rights were violated.
3.) false imprisonment
4.) harassment
5.) negligent
6.) malpractice
7.) wrongful conviction
8.) officer misconduct
9.) judicial misconduct
10.) cruel and unusual punishment. Email below evidence when the evidence had been destroyed a email from detective hakala to district attorney kang.
11.) the city of la mirada offered to buy our home at cost saying under the condition I couldn’t live in la mirada nor Whittier.
12.)la mirada law enforcement was raiding our home practically daily.
13.) before this case started detective jerry Reyes told me as he handed me his card with his hand writing on it that if I dident help him he would screw me.
14.) detective hakala and district attorney kang kept inflicting lies on the jury.
15.) I was not on probation or parole when this case started.
16.) our car had also been impounded 3 to 4 times every time officers said just tell us were the drugs are we won’t impound the vehicle and every time I was honest by saying I don’t have any drugs they impounded it any way.
17.) detective hakala went through my confidential legal mail violating my constitutional rights instead of using normal mail he used a 42 u.s.c 1983 to identify me as living here during The trial mentioning a law suite involving Copley
18.) during the proceedings of the case no one had any idea I studied law I even represented my self in the federal courts I studied criminal and civil for about five years including 42 u.s.c $1983″s torts writs civic codes ethics even the CCR title 15 rules and regulations.
19.) I’m hoping to resolve this with out filing in the federal courts I’m exhausting all remedies if the matter is not resolved then I’m given not much choice because I was wronged
Sorry but this is frustrating I just want this matter looked into.
20.) I can prove the following.
1.)deformation of character.
2.) false imprisonment.
3.) negligence.
4.) harassment.
5.) malpractice.
6.) wrongful conviction.
7.) constitutional violations with my civil rights.
8.) including $10.000 dollars of damage to our home.
9.)reckless disregard.
10.) coaxing
11.) including due process rights involved in a criminal court proceeding involving corruption.
12.) the situation that escalated
Into this case was a incident involving a parole officer mr verimontes he worked for la mirada public safety and the Santa fe springs parole department in the year 2001
He was contracted by both at the same time their was a incident involved with are daughters boy friend driving a vehicle in a irate speed going to autozone test driving a 1997 ford explorer some car was parked 3 ft out from the curb
And some kids were playing in the middle of the street they moved out of the street as he was driving up hill and swerved to miss the car when we got back a neighbor showed up cussing and yelling in a violent manner as I got out of the passenger side he was trying to provoke me I asked him to calm down he told me fuck you I said I have kids and theirs no need for this he stated bull I ignored him and went next door and eventually went to the store with our cousin next door not knowing while we were gone the neighbor had called the sheriffs by time I got home their was no law enforcement around but when I reported to parole I was giving him the heads up about possible call made to law enforcement with our address he asked did you have any police contact I stated no he said don’t worry about it then that nite shows up with law enforcement to arrest me for driving with out a license I was in jail double the normal time waiting for my bpt hearing mean while I hired a attorney for ADA issues he had no idea that the attorney representing me at board had investigated his wrong doing because he went to every neighbor showing first my whole criminal past then mug shots asking if they seen me driving the attorney caught him lying under oath at least 12 times the commissioner let me go home when I had got out mr verimontes told me pack up your shit your moving back to Sacramento in such a irate manner to were other people eventually had to get him he told me that if I appealed him he would get a petition with our neighbors so I reported to parole in Sacramento and while I was there I filed a 602 inmate appeal demanding It to be exhausted so I could file a 42 u.s.c $1983 I charged him with the following
1.) racial profiling
2.) negligence
3.) harassment
4.) deformation of character
5.) false imprisonment
6.) I filed to a copy of the bpt hearing tape only to find out it had been damaged 3 days after the hearing when it was not suppose to be damaged for 120 days were I was entitled to a copy of it only to be denied eventually the 602 complaint allowed me to come home after he was involuntarily moved from both jobs.
7.) the city mayor and council members had sheriffs going through any lengths to get me for anything just to send me to prison also to force me to move from la mirada.
8.) we had a 2002 ford explorer literally torn apart to the point it was not worth having the interior completely destroyed.
9.) our home was stalked by sheriffs to the point our kids moved out.
10.) their are witnesses to two sheriff deputies named Morris and tousey that work for the city of la mirada telling every drug addict that I am a kingpin and a drug dealer.
11.) we even called the sheriffs about some one driving a car into our garage door they showed no interest in the damage done to our home.
12.) the sheriffs also known our home had been broken into and vandalized on numerous occasions.
13.) Morris and tousey also were telling people say his name you go free Morris and tousey are Los Angeles county sheriffs.
THIS ALL ADDS UP WASTEFUL
SPENDING
Buddy George – VA107160From: joanne alberry
View Contact To: LAURIE YTARTE —————–
————————————————————-
— Laurie,here is the email from the Detective
telling the court that all the property was
destroyed. Sorry about all of it. Feel free to mail
me any payments you can at my office address
4229 Main St Suite 4 Riverside CA 92501 I will
let you know when I find an attorney who will
take on a governemtn entity. good luck to you
and Buddy,Joanne ———- Forwarded message
———-From: Date: Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:23
AMSubject: Fw: Buddy George – VA107160To:
joannealberry@gmail.com Hi Joanne, Per our
conversation, here is the email from Detective
Hakala confirming that the evidence was
destroyed. I will request that our matter be taken
off calendar today. Thanks. ———————-
Forwarded by Miriam Kang/DAUsers/NLADA on
09/25/2009 07:22 AM ————————— To:
cc: Subject: RE: Buddy George – VA107160 I
contacted our central property and the items
seized in the Buddy George case (408-15814-
0460-184) were dispoed on 05-29-09. Any other
questions just let me know. Eric ———————
———————————————————–
From: MKang@da.lacounty.gov
[mailto:MKang@da.lacounty.gov]Sent: Thu
9/24/2009 2:49 PMTo: Hakala, Eric J.Subject:
Buddy George – VA107160 Hi Detective Hakala,
Just as a reminder, please email me a letter
confirming that the the property booked into
evidence for this case has been disposed of and
the date of disposal. Thanks so much!
Sincerely,Miriam KangDeputy District
AttorneyTel: 562-807-7211