Wednesday, Governor Schwarzenegger will be holding a 10 a.m. press conference at the California Institute for Men at Chino, the site of last Saturday’s 1300 inmate, eleven-hour riot.
One presumes that, using the spectre of the riot as a background, he will to make a pitch for passing his much argued over $1.2 billion corrections cuts package.
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UPDATE:
The full video and text of the press conference may be found here.
Here are a few highlights:
Now, the riot here at Chino was a single incident. However, it is a terrible symptom of a much larger problem, a much larger illness. The reality is that California’s entire prison system is in a state of crisis. It is collapsing under its own weight. Spending on prisons has nearly doubled in the last five years. We spend here in our state nearly $49,000 per inmate per year, where the national average is $32,000.
And it’s hard to argue that the money is spent wisely and efficiently. We have one of the highest rates of recidivism in the nation. Our prisons are overcrowded and endangering the staff and the inmates. Here in Chino nearly 6,000 inmates are in these facilities and the facilities were built only for 3,000.
And the politicians in Sacramento have swept the problem under the rug for so long California is quite literally losing control of our prisons. A federal judge has taken over the healthcare system already. Two weeks ago the federal court imposed a cap that will force the early release of 40,000 inmates.
And all of this is happening in the midst of an economic crisis that has forced us to make tough cuts also right here, not only in government but in our prisons. The budget that I signed just a month ago includes $1.2 billion in cuts and the legislature right now is debating on how to achieve those kind of savings.
[THEN HE ADDS SOME DETAILS, WHICH YOU CAN FIND HERE.]
All in all, Arnold sounded good—which is the cause of much of my frustration with his governorship. I honestly think he gets the big picture on corrections. But he has not been a strong enough administrator to get the warring factions and the special interests—-(cough) CCCPOA (cough)—together to make anything resembling reform into practice.
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ORIGINAL POST: Arnold is certainly not fully responsible for the mess that is the California prison and parole system. Things started to go awry when the state instituted determinate sentencing in the 1980s and the prison population metastasized while rehabilitative programs were cut or withered. (Prior to that California was considered to be a model for other states to emulate. The prison at Chino in particular was a model.)
But, despite multiple promises of reform, Schwarzenegger has repeatedly caved in to demands made by the CCPOA, the prison guards union, and other special interest factions, while running through new Department of Corrections directors like they were Kleenex. The result is what we have now, 33 prisons overcrowded to double capacity, with extended periods of lock down—meaning that men get little time out of cells or dorms at all. Add in prison gangs and racial issues to the tension already produced by cramming too many people into confined and inadequate spaces for too long a period of time, with nothing constructive to occupy their hours—and you have pressure cooker writ large..
Years of critical assessments—like that found in a 2007 report by former head of Texas Corrections, Doyle Wayne Scott—suggest that Chino is only one among many California prisons that are accidents waiting to happen.
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Recently, NPR did a story on Folsom prison that touches on many of these issues and more. It is truly worth your time to listen as it will provide a context for the legislative battle over corrections cuts that will begin to unfold very shortly.
Here are some clips:
[LARGE SNIP]
The morning that [Johnny] Cash played [at Folsom] may have been the high-water mark for Folsom — and for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.The men in the cafeteria lived alone in their own prison cells. Almost every one of them was in school or learning a professional trade. The cost of housing them barely registered on the state budget. And when these men walked out of Folsom free, the majority of them never returned to prison.
It was a record no other state could match.
Things have changed. California’s prisons are all in a state of crisis. And nowhere is this more visible than at Folsom today.
Folsom was built to hold 1,800 inmates. It now houses 4,427.
It’s once-vaunted education and work programs have been cut to just a few classes, with waiting lists more than 1,000 inmates long.Officers are on furlough. Its medical facility is under federal receivership. And like every other prison in the state, 75 percent of the inmates who are released from Folsom today will be back behind bars within three years.
California’s prison system costs $10 billion a year. Its crumbling, overcrowded facilities are home to the highest recidivism rate in the country. And the state that was once was the national model in corrections has become the model every state is now trying to avoid.
[Former head of the California Department of Corrections], Jeanne Woodford, says she stepped down as secretary of the corrections department when she found out that the union had been going on behind her back to negotiate directly with the governor’s office.
“The union is incredibly powerful,” Woodford says.
Former Secretary Roderick Hickman resigned for the same reason in February 2006.
“The biggest problem that I had was the relationship that I had with the union,” Hickman says.
Hickman says the union was able to control the department’s policy decisions, including undermining efforts to divert offenders from prison and reduce the prison population.
“Maybe I was just impatient,” he says, “or it wasn’t going to go fast enough, but [the department] is still in the same place I left it, with an over $8 billion budget. Now it’s over $10 billion.”
Today, 70 percent of that budget goes to pay salaries and benefits to the union and staff. Just 5 percent of the budget goes to education and vocational programs — the kind of programs that study after study in the past 10 years has found will keep inmates from returning to prison….
There’s much more to be found here.….. and it’s excellent.
I keep telling you folks that the unions are the problem. Same with schools. It sure is nice to live in a “right-to-work” state. Change that rule in your state and allow private companies to build prisons for the overflow.
If prisoners need to be outside and need to let off steam, then start back with chain gangs and leasing them to employers.
I audit some cities in Georgia, and they always have low-risk prisoners doing work around city hall, and those prisoners are glad to be out during the day for a few weeks to see others and be productive.
There is still no mention of the prisoners killed during the Chino riot, the cover-up continues !!! The pictures proves how draconian the prisons really are.
We need to tax the rich white gavachos and provide money and free opportunities to the victims of the cops and prison guards who are all part of the xenophobic prison industrial complex.
Woody is making racist comments again, why do you think blacks should be outdoors, is that a reference to the cotton fields of the old south? Or is Woody making a reference to Nazi Germany?
Blame the Unions. That is becoming the standard, overly simplified kneejerk reaction to every problem in government institutions. And the media and the public with no attention span just repeat it over and over.
As the school principal at Folsom said, “I have 1,797 inmates who read below the 9th grade level; 394 of those read below the 4th grade level,” Bracy says. “When we put them back out on the streets, they’re not employable.”
Illiteracy, drugs, gang culture, violence (all widely glamorized through popular media). The guard Unions didn’t create those problems.
And on racism, gangmembers are probably the biggest racists in this country today. Deal with it.
Until “we” the people are willing to elect representatives who hold the view that the public interest and well-being is paramount, as opposed to lackeys whose prime motivation is sucking up to moneyed interests and their lobbyists, positioning themselves for lucrative opportunities as lobbyists themselves after they are term limited out of office, then the horrible dystopian situation we are witnessing in the prisons, the justice system, with education, health care, ect, will continue on a downhill route.
It seems we as a society are becoming more and more divided based on economic, racial, religious and ethnic considerations, a house divided cannot stand for long.
It seems we as a society are becoming more and more divided based on economic, racial, religious and ethnic considerations.
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That is right it’s all about race, those pinche gavachos, minutemen, xenophobes and “ect who” scream when a mexican moves into “thier” area. Mary Cummins and Walter Moore opps almost forgot about Woody, we are watching you.
I said absolutely nothing about race in my comment, but TortillaQuemada says that I was referencing blacks when I actually used the word prisoners. What’s that tell you?
A. Smithson: Blame the Unions. That is becoming the standard, overly simplified kneejerk reaction
Even though it’s true, we’re not supposed to mention it because it’s overused? Just tell California guards that they’ll get the same pay as guards in bordering states and see how that goes.
Not until you fill in the shoes of those California guards – can you really say anything negative about their pay.
I’ve seen hundreds of new hires drop themselves out of the job on the first day at work. At times, they just dont came back after their lunch or restroom breaks. CDC does not fire you – you fire yourself.
California’s prison system has been and will be the most violent correctional system in the history of the United States. The problem is that Californians in general just dont see the violence first hand – the stabbings, the assaults, the drugs, the threats or the everyday manipulations…….
All you 1960s “love and peach brother” idiots that are now all grown up and think that putting your two peace fingers in front of a person’s face will save the world – not going to happen.
Then you have this idiot wannabe Gov. politician that thinks his entire life is just a big block buster hit movie, change the name from CDC to CDCR. Rehabilitation? Come on – Sentencing and Punishment has no word stating Rehab to be included with your sentencing package. Rehabiliation does not work for adults in a prison system.
An individual will only change his behavior because he -himself wants to make that change.
I have never never heard one adult gang member or criminal EVER EVER tell me that a certain program within CDC changed their life or behavior.
I caught a clip of Arnold at the prison dormitory, saying it looked like a scene from one of his movies: crowded chaos. Releasing all those prisoners into the streets doesn’t seem to be the solution, however.
This IS one case where the prisons’ union is a big part of the problem: remember how they threatened to launch a recall of Arnold because he wanted to cut their generous pensions and benefits, the same problem critically wounding our city. The prison guard union has WAY too much power — how else would they get the nerve to threaten to recall the Governor, especially one with a name like Arnold — and controls Lee Baca and hence the county prison budget and priorities far more than they should.
The Police Protective League under conservative Paul Weber also is throwing its political weight around WAY too much, controls new City Attorney Trutanich who owes his election to them, and is beholden to them and Dennis Zine now. The PPL is also using its publicity machine, like the e-blasts it sends to 400,000+ people and radio shows, to try to scare people into lobbying officials to oppose prisoner releases for “nonviolent” criminals. Weber often argues on the blog that these non-violent offenders are the very ones who go on to commit bigger crimes or just haven’t been caught committing them yet.
Today’s PPL “Newswatch” includes another article which makes it clear where they put the blame for the rising crime in our city and society. They reprint an article by Sen. Bob Dutton, “Lily Burke and the Liberal Love Affair with Criminals,” starts: “Everyone knows that liberals have a soft spot for criminals, but few seem to realize that what was once a relatively harmless crush is now becoming a full-blown love affair.” Doesn’t mention you, but those “criminal loving liberals” sure share your views.
While the PPL didn’t write this, the half-dozen or so articles it chooses daily reflect the conservative spectrum and views of Weber himself, who’s editor and blogmaster. Yesterday, for example, they had a Bratton-bash that WAS written by LAPD’s own pseudonymous “Jack Dunphy” plus another critical of Bratton. However, anything remotely favorable or at least not critical of their boy Trutanich is featured, and they’re throwing him a dinner next month although he’s done less than nothing so far but promise to do their bidding and join them in attacking Bratton’s handling of the Jackson events etc.
Weber has long wanted to make the Chief’s post an elected one so they can throw money at a candidate (Trutanich’s campaign advisor is touting Zine on talk radio) they can better control, which even the Times echoed by Roderick noted is “cynical and corrupt.” Insofar as the hostile atmosphere these three along with Smith and Parks, Perry etc., even Rosendahl, created for Bratton, with their success in outnumbering Bratton’s friend and ally Weiss, may have helped push him out, it’s just another way the PPL and prison guards’ union have a harmful influence on this dialogue.
What is so strange to me is that the very “criminal loving liberals” they blame for our problems (uh-hmmm) like you, in fact support these unions BECAUSE they are unions of any kind. I know you HATE being called naive, who doesn’t, but when you call these guys “very smart” with no hint of irony, I have to wonder. (I see this in a somewhat different way in your post supporting the LAFD union so staunchly over the Mayor, when they’re using a negotiating ploy and manipulating the same set of opportunistic politicians to shill for them, notably Zine.) A case of my enemy’s (Antonio’s) enemy is my friend, maybe? For once Antonio is trying to do the right thing, and is more in sync with Arnold than the union-first no matter what crowd, and his administration is being bashed by BOTH liberals and Republican-controlled police and prison guards unions?
WTC,
Good stuff. A few clarifications, in no particular order.
1. Thanks (I think) for flagging the Dutton thing. I sometimes miss reading through the Newswatch list. Columns like this give me a headache. Dutton takes partial facts and spins them in such a way that they sound reasonable, but are in fact, ultimately false—yet they play on people’s fears.
For other readers: http://www.inlandempire.us/rss/article.php?client=redfusion&id=20090818125753
2. The Antonio/LAFD union thing was Alan M., not me. So You’ll have to take that up with him.
3. I neither whole-heartedly support nor condemn unions. They have an important place. And some of them wield WAY too much power, which drives me nuts.
I think my posts consistently reflect that split perception.
4. Last month, I had one very good, very long conversation with Paul Weber, where we agreed to disagree on certain things, yet found areas of agreement. In an effort to be fair, I posted some time back in a manner that reflected the truth of that conversation.
Yet when he speaks publicly, he trends much more, mouth-frothingly hard right. Pity.
5. The whole Arnold press conference, while a little meandering, is good. I’ll post a link—or embed if their site will let me.
WBC is right and wrong. The problem I always had with the bigger police unions was their endorsements of Democrats because they always were ready to give us a bigger slice of the pie. I had way to many objections to their soft on crime votes to sell my vote for a few dollars more and I was very active in state wide union politics for most of my career.
I also had to recognize though that I was raising a family and wanted to live in a city where the schools were highly rated and it the liberals who afforded me the ability to relax when not working by opening the states coffers. It was a Democrat controlled legislature that passed 3%@50 and they did that recognizing the fact that for officers to obtain 90% of their pay at retirement they had to do 30 years on the job.
Those representatives recognized that 30 years on the street is much different than just about anything else you can compare it to except 30 years walking a yard. Check the history of that bill and you’ll see conversations saying just that. When we received 3%@50 we gave up pay raises for two years for the enhanced benefit, it wasn’t just a gift.
That being said, I have no problem with the PPL flexing their muscle like any other union does, or are they supposed to be limited in what they do to better their own members benefits and pay simply because their cops?
When Ron Settles died at Signal Hill the idiot Harry Edwards said cops shouldn’t have 5th Amendment rights. Like it or not they have every right any other citizen has and will use their unions to make sure people know that and hear their voices.
“Harmful influence on dialogue” WBC? I don’t think so, not any more than any other union, just flexing their muscles a bit.
Celeste, sorry, I missed that it was Alan’s piece supporting the LAFD/ McClosker over Villaraigosa, I should’ve known. He and “blogfather” Marc Cooper even supported a rightwing Republican like Trutanich over Weiss just because he was associated with Villaraigosa and was “elitist” or something.
Sure Fire must be smoking something to say that the Police Union’s had a history of supporting liberals — like Gates? Even the Times opinion section which is very erratic these days has a feature “A look back before Bratton,” detailing just how conservative and resistant to change the PPL’s always been. Bratton’s critics abound on talk radio and blogosphere, arguing he threw the rank and file under the bus after May Day for example — when in fact, it was holding LAPD leadership accountable and being transparent is what contributed to lifting the Consent Decree; it’s the opposite “cops are always right” closing or the ranks that got LAPD into trouble in the first place.
Sure Fire sounds like a shill for the PPL, and its “flexing its muscle” on behalf of the rightwing coalition of Zine/Cooley/Trutanich/Weber and sort of Baca — though he’s in a class by himself in many ways, good and bad. Sure they all know how to speak less “mouth-frothingly hard right” in private to liberals like you especially, than in public — how else do you think they’ve managed to persuade so many even like Alan and Cooper that they’re NOT rightwing Republicans? You have to listen to them on talk radio and look at what they do and who they support, like Dutton and so on. Saying and doing anything to get elected and gain support against someone who’s easy to hate or at least distruct these days (Antonio) is a classic demagoguic technique.
I say this as someone who’s never supported most of Antonio’s positions and think he’s wasting precious political capital on his handful of schools that few care about, while paying too little attention to the issues of the conservatives and homeowner groups who are the ones who get out and vote, even if they’re outnumbered in population numbers.
But let’s get real here: what’s happened/ing in this city isn’t some sort of “brave independents” taking on some formidable “Democratic machine” but a rightwing machine of these guys and many more who have their very own rightwing agenda, are just wolves in sheep’s clothing, but with often thuggish tactics. In the process we’ve lost Bratton, Weiss (a whole lot more qualified in experience and character than Trutanich) and if they have their way, with the likes of Zine as police chief and a Republican mayor, we’re going to have a whole leadership bought by PPL and other rightwing union money and the energetic efforts of talk radio which gets its programmed voters to the polls.
Whether you think that’s good like Sure Fire or a sinking to the lowest common denominator, Mobocracy, is clearly a matter of opinion.
I would be surprised if “Sure Fire” isn’t suffering from more than just “smoking something”.
I hope that his quick dismissal of the Ron Settles murder and the Signal Hill killer cops as victims is a sign of only historical amnesia and acute bias instead of Alzheimer’s disease
“When Ron Settles died at Signal Hill”
WTF? ???
I think a better description would be “When Ron Settles was found dead with multiple bruises on his body and hanging in his cell”
Or, “When Ron Settles was found with bruises on his body and hanging in his cell after a confrontation with the notoriously racist and brutal Signal Hill Police Force”
Or even better would be, “When the young athlete Ron Settles, who had no police record of consequence, was found murdered in his cell after being brutally beaten and probably choked to death by the notoriously racist Signal Hill Police, and hung in his cell as a cover up.”
Or, best of all would be, “When the young athlete Ron Settles, who had no police record of consequence, was found murdered in his cell after being beaten and probably choked to death by the notoriously racist Signal Hill Police and hung in his cell as a cover up. And the murdering racist cops “hid†behind their fifth amendment right against self incrimination to avoid having their ass’s sent to prison where retribution is sometimes swift”.
The City of Signal Hill paid out a large monetary settlement to the Settles family over the disgraceful murder of their son.
Curious how some peoples memories and historical amnesia can trivialize a cold-blooded murder as the years go by
Take a look at a history of endorsements made by law enforcement unions in this state, large ones like PORAC, ALADS and the PPL and you’ll see who they endorse for statewide office and it’s not conservatives. It’s a fiscal thing that people like WBC don’t get. Talking about who they support to run the show at individual departments are a different matter, they don’t have any say in the pay and benefits they seek.
You’re just foaming at the mouth like most liberals who don’t understand the difference. Most cops I’ve worked with did and it was a bitter pill to swallow when we saw some of the endorsements police unions were making at the state level.
The whole Ron Settle issue to me was the fact that idiots in academia and the left were real quick to want to take away the rights of officers over Settles when they never uttered such b.s. when officers were murdered by the scum people like Don Poser champions.
Still waiting for them to start carting the bodies out of Chino, any minute now right Donny?
This “comment” below by the resident apologist for all things reactionary and extreme right wingnut, aka “Sure Fire”, is very telling in it’s vacuity, and omission of the facts, but that never stops a hate filled retrogressive from spewing forth the ranting and bile so recognizable to anyone who has ever had to deal with these sad moronic right wing androids.
“The whole Ron Settle issue to me was the fact that idiots in academia and the left were real quick to want to take away the rights of officers over Settles”
So the real issue wasn’t the murder and coverup of Ron Settles by racist cop goons in Signal Hill, it was the “academics” and left wingers taking away the rights of the murderers?
Uh oh! Someones weathervane is pointing south in a Santa Ana wind condition, a 5150 call for sure
This “comment†above by the resident “Fred Sanford” aka Don Culo can’t help himself when it comes to mentioning his is fear and hate of gavachos is an extreme wingnut and racist.
It’s hilarious for the old cholo ninja to being labeling anybody a wingnut. Don Culo have a Ramos Gin Fizz and quit your whining about the gavachos. jejeje
Dear TortillaQuemada,
Please say something that expresses your own opinion rather than endlessly making the same content-free slam about Don Quixote, while using what basically come down to ill-disguised racial epithets.
Last warning. This is racist crap and I’m done with it.
(I am not just picking on you, by the way. See Troy Davis thread for further info.)
Sure Fire (@#14) makes even less sense this time around and repeating allegations that PPL endorses liberals is nonsense.
As for my being a “foaming in the mouth liberal” who doesn’t understand “the fiscal thing,” I heard another foaming at the mouth liberal on his talk show this morning, Doug McIntyre, ranting about the detrimental effect the Prison Guards Union is having on the state prison budget, and about how if they hadn’t persuaded Gray Davis to give them a 37% increase in pay and benefits in exchange for their endorsement (now, THERE’s an endorsement of a liberal, but you can blame the Union for its opportunism), we wouldn’t be in this mess and having to release so many prisoners early.
Whether or not Doug’s figures are correct, and how much of a contributing cause the guards’ salaries and pensions are in having to release so many non-violent offenders early, it’s absurd to call McIntyre a liberal. Yes, this is “a fiscal thing.” (It certanly isn’t a “liberals having a love affair with criminals” thing, as the PPL release strongly implies.)
From 2006 O.C. Blog..
There’s PORAC (the Peace Officers Research Association of California), which was traditionally the “Democratic” law enforcement group before all the other public safety unions also took on that role. In addition to endorsing Marty Simonoff, PORAC is also endorsing:
* Phil “Soak The Rich” Angelides (D) for Governor
* John Garamendi (D) for Lt. Governor
* Joe Dunn (D) and Abel Maldonado (R) in their respective Controller primaries.
* Cruz Bustamante (D) for Insurance Commissioner
* Deborah Ortiz (D) and Bruce McPherson (R) in their respective Secretary of State primaries
* Jack O’Connell (D) for Superintendent of Public Instruction
* Bill Lockyer (D) for Treasurer
* Jerry Brown (D) for Attorney General
PORAC is the largest statewide law enforcement group in the country. Like other large labor groups they tend to support Democratic candidates who will give them money. Davis was a very liberal Democrat who gave a very whopping raise to prison guards.
Far as I’m concerned every penny was deserved just like many of you are ok with the countless millions given to ridiculous gang intervention programs that don’t work.
I don’t make allegations, I post facts as I know them to be but you go ahead and prove me wrong WBC. You won’t do it by shooting off your mouth and saying you’re right you’ll do it by posting facts.
Cat get your tongue WBC? Now we get to release 27,000 of your pals real soon and another 10,000 in July, guess you guys are out partying.
Arrrrrgghhh! Sure Fire! Read the actual corrections reform bill. (Linked in the most recent thread.) 27.000 prisoners are not being let out early. Not. No way. Not happening. Not a fact.
The number that’s being talked about for “early release”—meaning at most, a few months early and then, instead of just dumped into the community, being put on electronic monitoring et al—is around 6300. Then another 8,500 or so are the undocumented prisoners who have not committed serious felonies that, under this proposal will be handed over to the Feds.
Most of the rest of the numbers come from a combination of sentencing reform and some parole strategies, all of which are aimed at not having so many people recycle back into prison repeatedly.
Hey, object to the plan all you want. But object to the actual proposal, not what certain of my idiotic colleagues in the press have falsely reported because they won’t bother to fact check.
Celeste, this whole reducing the prison population based on the reasoning of the three justices is bogus in the first place.
LOS ANGELES — A panel of federal judges ordered the California prison system on Tuesday to reduce its inmate population of 150,000 by 40,000 — roughly 27 percent — within two years. Below is a few paragraphs from an article regarding the reasoning for the reduction.
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The judges said that reducing prison crowding in California was the only way to change what they called an unconstitutional prison health care system that causes one unnecessary death a week.
In a scathing 184-page order, the judges said state officials had failed to comply with previous orders to fix the prison health care system and reduce crowding.
The response by Jerry Brown
Attorney General Jerry Brown said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he intended to appeal the ruling. “Eventually, we’re going to have to go to the Supreme Court because I think the California prisons are spending about $14,000 per year per inmate,†Mr. Brown said, adding that the changes the judges ordered would cost more money, which the state does not have.
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I’ve read where it’s actually closer to $17,000 a year, more than most families spend without a doubt so the whole premise these idiot justices came up with is ridiculous.
The idiot governor’s plan was laughable and I’ll give Karen Bass some credit on rejecting portions of it. Some in her own party don’t agree with her but no matter which way you slice and dice it we’re going to be releasing thousands of prisoners.
I can’t believe that people are so naive as to think this will have anything but a negative impact on the state. I’m going to investigate this further and post on it more but having arrested people all the way into their 70’s for violent crimes doesn’t make me think releasing older prisoners makes this an easier pill to swallow.
Oh, by the way Celeste, the sentencing reform is total b.s.! I saw where the governor wanted to reduce GTA, among other crimes to a misdemeanor so as to avoid prison terms. I was run over by one of these clowns in a stolen vehicle and the proposal is based on anything but public safety.
Sure Fire, I’m not ignoring you. I was off writing something else and now have to go to opening night of my niece’s first feature movie. (She wrote it.) Wooo-hooo!
So sentencing policy et al is taking a back seat to the chick flick written by the brilliant and gorgeous niece.
Hope her film is well received.
I’ve been busy for a couple of days, haven’t checked in on this blog which is why I haven’t replied, Sure Fire, not because your brilliant would-be refutations of anything and everything I say have my tongue.
However, in fact I don’t want to get bogged down into your arguments about alleged historical police/ prison guard union etc. support for liberals over the decades and across the state, and how that’s somehow responsible for the “fiscal thing” we have today and this issue of prisoner releases. Still less how that somehow mandates that the PPL should now be a Republican-supporting organ (something you admit it’s become), like the state prison guards union – which thinks Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t Republican enough and wanted to recall him for trying to cut some of their pensions even as he tried to do the Republican thing and avoid raising taxes. You do concede my point that the PPL has become such under Weber (who took over last December), and not coincidentally, since he hired the former head of the prison guard union Don Lovey (I think I have it spelled right) to be his political “consultant” in charge of throwing their weight around. His first order of business was to go against “liberal” Bratton and back the Zine/ Trutanich/ Cooley etc. Republican team. Besides these people being all wrong for what L A really needs now, and contributing to a hostile atmosphere for Bratton that I think is a huge loss for L A, the PPL like the prison guards union has an adverse affect on our budget problems and public safety. Weber, copying the state prison guards’ union with “advice” from their Lovey, is adamantly opposing adding the 1000 cops the Mayor’s team has promised (and raised trash fees and the phone tax for) as he plays hardball in opposing “shared sacrifice” for existing cops. So him and you blaming the budget problems on some “liberal love affair with criminals” is just myopic.
Bratton says he needs a min. of 10,000 cops and really, 12,000, to keep from having to shuttle them around like chess pieces to hot spots — angering homeowner groups on the westside and west valley which have become very organized. L A is very underpoliced compared to New York, and Bratton’s done an incredible job with limited resources – such a great job, some councilmembers both left (Rosendahl) and right want to foolishly reduce the force for budgetary reasons. Seems to me all cops would benefit by not being stretched so thin, and as it is, the PPL’s been unsuccessful in achieving its aims by fighting the Mayor and pushing out his allies Weiss and Bratton, leaving the rank & file angry with how almost $800,000 was thrown to elect the wrong guy, and it’s just created a dysfunction and distraction as we look for a new chief who’s even close to Bratton’s stature and ability. This person will have to work well with the Mayor, or it’ll be Gates-Bradley, yet withstand the ambitious Republican clique which openly wants a Republican mayor who will then install Zine as his Chief.
You say the prison guards steeply increased salaries and pensions that are the main contributing factor to the budget crisis (even according to conservative ranter Doug McIntyre) are “worth every penny” but then blame the overcrowding that necessitates releasing some non-violent offenders on the liberals’ love affair with criminals.
The third strike issue, and whether declassifying some offenss from felonies to misdemeanors is a good thing, is an argument you can and have taken up with Celeste, who’s got strong opinions and research there. I heard Jon & Ken riling up the masses about the fact that one proposal was to reduce thefts of cars valued at under $2500 from felony to misdemeanors, and they were exclaiming that a criminal would be able to steal dozens of cars and still just be booked for misdemeanors if the cars were all under that amount. If that’s true it doesn’t seem appropriate, and the bill needs to be tweaked accordingly — but Celeste’s point (I think) is that mandatory sentencing as it stands sends people away for long periods if the third strike is stealing a ketchup bottle from a restaurant. There needs to be more discretion returned to the sentencing and parole review process.
One thing the talkradio screaming heads go on about that does have some merit is that with so many of the state prisoners being illegal aliens (the Times’ article last week put them at 11% or 19,000 total, while other sources say much higher, especially in L A County), scheduled to be deported on serving their sentences, and likely to just return without border security, this cost is a federal responsibility. So having a federal judge declare California non-compliant with prisoner housing mandates and hence necessitating the release of many to make room, is unfair. The state should pressure the feds to cover the illegal aliens — I don’t know that stats for how many illegal aliens other state prisons house, but it’s surely far less. In some cases, state prisons are below capacity.
Apparently some juvenile detention facilities are also under capacity and could be consolidated.
But I think the hysteria whipped up by the right, from talkradio to Weber’s “new” PPL-prison guard union clone, that the streets will be overrun by violent criminals if any are released, is just that, hysteria, to get the public to resist any cuts to police or prison guard pensions or benefits. Even as they resist adding the cops their Chief, the Mayor, Jack Weiss and common sense have said are needed. (In general I think the rank and file is “worth every penny” in salary but it’s the pensions for all unions that are killing this city and state. You’ve got those like Parks and Zine who was just a Sergeant, and Smith, with their huge pensions, unsustainable for future hires. The prison guards’ union with their bullying tactics are even worse and a bad model to follow. Baca is so beholden to them, he refuses to make any cuts to his huge County Sheriff’s budget, angering even the Republican supervisors.) This is a cynical game they’re playing with a naive public.
Why do you have to spin so much? You put things in your response I never said because like every weak liberal you can’t stand on your own posts merit. Give it a rest.
First, I don’t care whose chief of LA after Bratton, I don’t work for L.A. Secondly, I’m for a chief that’s selected on merit, not political standing or skin color.
Secondly, it’s not the pay and benefits of prison guards that caused the state to be in the hole it’s in, what simplistic and ridiculous liberal rhetoric. It’s the Legislators Gone Wild spending spree in Sacremento. The Dems are the last people anyone should allow with a state checkbook.
Lastly, there are 75 crimes they want reduced to misdemeanors, 75. They want to make grand theft that currently is anything above $400 to anything above $2500. This si insane, along with many of their other ideas. The bottom line is that we will have more idiots on the street whose only way to make a living is crime due to their lack of education, desire and even because of the job market taht will be able to commit so many more crimes because we have legislators who have had their heads up their asses for years.
More victims of all types of crimes will be the result. Thanks a lot Dems.