STATE LAWMAKERS UNHAPPY AT NEWS OF PRISON STERILIZATIONS
On Thursday, state lawmakers got officially very, very unhappy at the news that nearly 150 female inmates received tubal ligations at the hands of the California Department of Corrections in violation of state law—and, according to some, general human ethics. The lawmakers called for a probe of the matter.
For those of you who haven’t read the original investigative story that triggered this legislative concern, you can find it here.
In the report, Corey Johnson from the Center for Investigative Reporting, writes that some of those involved insist that the sterilization was a much desired service offered to poor women, who could not afford the procedure on the outside. However others talk of a very troubling kind of coercion. For instance, Johnson tells of one woman who said a doctor pressured her to agree to a tubel ligation while she was sedated and strapped to a surgical table for a C-section.
Johnson has this newest update on his story.
State lawmakers called today for an investigation of the physicians involved in the sterilization of women inmates and raised questions about a federal prison overseer’s role in handling the matter.
In a letter to the Medical Board of California, state Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Redondo Beach, said that The Center for Investigative Reporting’s investigation raised “troubling allegations that doctors violated State law, disregarded ethical guidelines, and fell well below the Standard of care.” Lieu is chairman of the Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee, which oversees the medical board.
“We’ve been assured that this practice hasn’t occurred since (2010), but the question of course is why was this occurring?” state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, who also signed Lieu’s letter, told CIR. “We want to make absolutely sure – whether we have to do legislation or what – this procedure never becomes the practice it had in the past.”
CIR found that 148 women received tubal ligations without required state approvals from 2006 to 2010. Former inmates say doctors pressured women into getting sterilized and targeted those deemed likely to commit future crimes.
CDCR OFFICIALS THREATEN HUNGER STRIKERS ON DAY 4
According to the CDCR, as of Thursday morning, 12,421 inmates in 24 state prisons and four out-of-state contract facilities missed nine consecutive meals since Monday, July 8, 2013. (In the CDCR’s eyes, an inmate is considered to be on a hunger strike after he has missed nine consecutive meals.)
This is down from the 29,000 that the CDCR counted yesterday—yet it is still a number that makes it the largest prison demonstration in California history.
However, as the hunger strike moved through its 4th day, CDCR officials announced in a written statement that inmates could be subject to discipline for participating in the strike that is protesting the state’s policy regarding solitary confinement.
Moreover, in a moment of unpleasant irony, officials wrote in the statment that the discipline for participation could include being put in solitary confinement.
Participation in a mass disturbance and refusing to participate in a work assignment are violations of state law, and any participating inmates will receive disciplinary action in accordance with the California Code of Regulations, Title 15, Section 3323(h)(A) and Section 3323(f)(7).
Inmates identified as leading and perpetuating the disturbance will be subject to disciplinary action in accordance with the California Code of Regulations, Title 15 Section 3315(a)(2)(L) and may be removed from the general population and be placed in an Administrative Segregation Unit pursuant to CDCR’s hunger strike policy.
Thursday’s official statement also said that strikers cells could be raided and their stores of food purchased at the “canteen,” may be confiscated. By the way, this is food that is most often purchased at a premium with money sent by inmates’ family, and on which inmates often depend—hunger strike or no hunger strike.
If officials follow through on the threats this will likely have a chilling affect on the strike.
Wired magazine, which has been reporting off and on about the issue of solitary confinement for some time, has this story by Brian Keim about what experts think about the mental and emotional effects of solitary.
Here’s a clip:
Scientific studies of solitary confinement and its damages have actually come in waves, first emerging in the mid-19th century, when the practice fell from widespread favor in the United States and Europe. More study came in the 1950s, as a response to reports of prisoner isolation and brainwashing during the Korean War. The renewed popularity of solitary confinement in the United States, which dates to the prison overcrowding and rehabilitation program cuts of the 1980s, spurred the most recent research.
Consistent patterns emerge, centering around the aforementioned extreme anxiety, anger, hallucinations, mood swings and flatness, and loss of impulse control. In the absence of stimuli, prisoners may also become hypersensitive to any stimuli at all. Often they obsess uncontrollably, as if their minds didn’t belong to them, over tiny details or personal grievances. Panic attacks are routine, as is depression and loss of memory and cognitive function.
According to Kupers, who is serving as an expert witness in an ongoing lawsuit over California’s solitary confinement practices, prisoners in isolation account for just 5 percent of the total prison population, but nearly half of its suicides.
When prisoners leave solitary confinement and re-enter society — something that often happens with no transition period — their symptoms might abate, but they’re unable to adjust. “I’ve called this the decimation of life skills,” said Kupers. “It destroys one’s capacity to relate socially, to work, to play, to hold a job or enjoy life.”
AS BROWN CONTINUES TO FIGHT COURT ON PRISON POPULATION, A BLOOMBERG OP ED COMPARES HIM (UNATTRACTIVELY) TO FORMER ALABAMA GOVERNER GEORGE WALLACE
The drama between Governor Jerry Brown and the three judge federal panel continued on Wednesday when Brown and his administration filed a request with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy—who oversees appeals from the western states—asking Kennedy to delay for a year the federal order that would force the state to take immediate and radical steps to reduce California’s still overcrowded prisons.
If Kennedy says yes, the state will have a year’s breathing room and SCOTUS as a whole will consider the state’s appeal.
If Kennedy says no, Brown says he’ll start releasing inmates.
(Don Thompson from the Associated Press has more on Brown’s SCOTUS request.)
After Brown filed for the delay an Op Ed for Bloomberg, Steven Greenhut, who is the vice president of journalism for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, compared California’s governor to George Wallace, who in 1963 defied a federal order to desegregate the state’s schools. Not that Greenhut is for a moment suggesting that Jerry is any kind of right winger. His point is more that, instead of pushing for some sweeping but difficult criminal justice reform that the moment arguably calls for, Brown is—like Wallace—continuing to defy a federal court order—in Brown’s case to stave off criticism from the right.
In any case, read for yourself. Here’s a clip from the middle of Greenhut’s essay:
…The governor isn’t just resisting the justices. He is poking his finger in their eye after a series of federal court rulings — including one from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 — that require the state to reduce its prison population. The Brown administration responded with a “realignment” program, which sent thousands of inmates to county jails as a way to save money and comply with the federal orders.
Like it or not, realignment was a defensible policy. But the administration didn’t stop there. It launched what Jonathan Simon, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, labeled “an offensive against the courts with the self proclaimed objective of re-establishing ‘full state control’ over the prison system.”
As Simon noted on the Berkeley Blog, the administration claimed that realignment had worked and used an aggressive legal and public-relations strategy designed to thwart further prison-population reductions. In April, the court rejected California’s attempt to have the court vacate its 2009 reduction order. It also slapped down Brown and the state government for failing to act in good faith.
In response to the court, the Democratic governor sent the Democratic-controlled Legislature a package of court-ordered plans, as required. But the legislators have no more interest than Brown does in releasing criminals onto the streets — the one move in this liberal state that might move voters in a more Republican direction.
Read the rest. Although Greenhut isn’t pleased with Brown’s chosen strategy, he understands the governor’s tricky political dilemma.
Photo by Ksba pilot courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Everyone that knows anything about the prison system know that these inmates are missing chow hall meals but sit around eating canteen items all day. What a joke.
Analysis of the current situation in California Prisons as raw Political and Economic forces:
I would discount Gov. Brown’s fear of Republicans or of energizing a republican electorate in his decision making process for dealing with the prisons and with the U.S. Supreme Court’s admonishments and directives.
There are only two entities in California whose very mention should elicit a palpable fear in anyone who seeks election or reelection to public office, and Jerry Brown requires no assistance to remember their names:
Indian Gaming and
the California Correctional Peace Officers Association(prison guards union)
These two interest groups have demonstrated that not only can they provide pivotal financial support for a candidates winning effort, but when they feel a candidate has crossed them they can expend funds with unique diligence and fever in targeting the candidate for defeat.
Gov. Brown isn’t losing any sleep because the Supreme Court may be upset with him. The Governor’s hair is turning a new shade of gray before the last strands fall out from anxiety over the possibility of circumstance forcing him into a decision which draws the ire of the guards union.
Where does the prison guards union stand on these issues and dilemnas facing their prison facilities and populations?
Let’s look at the situation from the point of its effect on gross income, which the guards union is notorious for continually increasing – both individual guard take home pay and contributions to union coffers.
The high security facilities and the solitary housing units – these require the highest guard/prisoner ratio for operation. Whether they admit it or not, the guards union must be in favor of maintaining the same number or increasing the number of these, and they must be against any reduction.
Prisoner Hunger Strike – if it increases the perceived level of instability in the prisons then it justifies a temporary increase in staff/prisoner ratio. Net result is extra shifts and overtime hours.
Petty Punitive measures aimed at enforcing discipline. Net result same as above – fatter paychecks for guards and full collection buckets for the union.
Possibility of high alert disturbances at one or more prison locations – net result is unlimited overtime opportunities, recall of furloughed prison guards and eventually increased funding for new hire guard positions.
If one of California’s prisons goes critical and the public sees a tragic bloodshed and loss of life situation – what is the more likely result:
Public outcry for humane conditions and elimination of barbaric penal practices?
OR
Public support for increased funding for prison staff to control incarcerated population and prevent possibility of break out of zombie living dead marauding bands of escaped fugitives?
If we had a prison guard union leadership that was completely craven and immoral and driven to increase size and income of its membership, then they could see themselves as acting reasonably in their best interests to fund organizers of the hunger strike movement and then manipulate circumstances into crisis which brings tragedy and destruction.
Application of a program of petty punitive measures for the alleged purpose of maintaining discipline will actually heighten the risk of confrontation and temporary loss of order. As of today, that sounds like exactly the direction this may be heading.
Let’s ask ourselves – what better time than the present. After several seasons of harsh budget cutbacks and freezes, the State of California appears to have broken its revenue logjam. State receipts are on the up and we are getting upbeat projections.
Can any prison guards union worth its salt simply stand immobilized on the sidelines as the Governor announces multimillion and billion dollar funding increases for elementary schools and state parks?
Heck No! We may just be watching a train wreck. It was in slow motion a few days ago, at present its going about 20 miles per hour and gathering steam.
If Jerry Brown is looking like George Wallace this week, by next month get ready for the debut of California Governor Nelson Rockefeller!