Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, opponent Phil Angelides, and Democratic legislative leaders all have one thing in common when it comes to California’s prison crisis. Each, in his way, avoids grappling with the central point of last week’s scathing federal court report on the state’s prison system. None of them, in their statements yesterday, engaged the question of who controls the prisons: The state or the union?
Schwarzenegger, in his speech to the California District Attorneys Association meeting in Newport Beach, did not address federal court special master John Hagar’s sensational charge that in eschewing his administration’s declared path of reform his chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, undermined the leadership of the state’s corrections department and in effect turned power over to the prison guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA). Hagar said that after two years of the most productive reform in history, Schwarzenegger retreated under fire from CCPOA, which played a major role in defeating his special election initiative agenda last year and which has brandished the possibility of funding a massive advertising campaign against him this year. His Democratic challenger, Treasurer Angelides, tried to make hay out of the crisis by saying that it has occurred on Schwarzenegger’s watch, true as far as it goes.
But in the early 1990s, then state party chairman Angelides played a central role in aligning the Democratic Party with the feared guards union, which had played a major role in the narrow 1990 gubernatorial election victory of Republican Pete Wilson over Democrat Dianne Feinstein. When the Democrats regained the governorship in the late ‘90s under Gray Davis — with the help of a then record independent expenditure campaign on the Democratic candidate’s behalf by CCPOA — the union rose to even greater power over the prison system and benefited from one of the most lucrative public employee contracts ever struck, secretly negotiated by the Democratic governor’s office.
On balance, the governor had a good day, with agreement on a state budget likely to allow him to sign it into law before the constitutional deadline of July 1st. The deal was made possible — as reported here on June 22nd — by Schwarzenegger backing away from his plan to provide $23 million more in funding for county-run health care plans that take care of illegal immigrant children. This was the price of passage for legislative Republicans, who oppose such programs even though they are largely supported by local Republican elected officials.
But the prisons crisis is not going away. Fortunately for the governor, at least from a political standpoint, both major parties are culpable. Schwarzenegger called in his speech to the state’s county prosecutors for the construction of two new prisons — financed by special bonds requiring only a majority vote of the Legislature — to deal with the horribly overcrowded situation in the existing system, currently housing twice as many inmates as intended for the facilities. To aid in the easing of the overcrowding crisis, he also called for an unspecified number of community re-entry facilities to house prisoners on the verge of release, the moving of non-violent female prisoners into private correctional facilities closer to their communities to allow a female prison to become a male prison, and streamlining of state contracting procedures.
Democrats blocked Schwarzenegger’s drive earlier this year to include prison construction in his massive infrastructure bonds package, despite the prison overcrowding crisis. It’s unclear if they will support another version of this proposal now, although they may be more inclined to now with the deepening of the prison crisis.
Nothing Schwarzenegger has proposed is likely to conflict with the goals of the guards union, which will gain more members and hence more clout with the building of more prisons, as has happened throughout the big build-up of the state’s prisons over the past quarter-century.
While Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez issued a measured statement about Schwarzenegger’s plan, which also did not mention the federal court report’s charges about Schwarzenegger allowing the guards union to regain power over the prison system, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata did at least allude to the central issue by noting that “the governor has yet to appoint permanent people at the top of the Department of Corrections to institute reforms.”
Unlike the Democratic legislative leaders, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate was scathing in his criticism of Schwarzenegger. But Angelides, who has hedged on prison construction, did not offer much in the way of an alternative other than better managers, a thorough review of the situation and a top priority pledge of filling 3,000 empty jobs in the prisons. He did not say how he would pay for this. In any event, it would probably please the union.
The Democrats’ alliance at the statewide level with CCPOA goes back to the early 1990s and Angelides’ tenure as state party chairman. Alarmed by the union’s role in helping elect Republican Wilson to the governorship over Feinstein, then San Francisco’s mayor, chairman Angelides and his political director, Bob Mulholland — long a key operative for Angelides and now senior advisor in his gubernatorial campaign — set about the task of wooing the prison guards union. They began to forge close ties with then CCPOA boss Don Novey.
The guards union had emerged as an 800-pound gorilla in statewide politics and they felt that Democrats could not afford to have it as a permanent part of the Republican coalition.
By 1993, their efforts had already begun to pay off, with CCPOA officials expressing great interest in the gubernatorial candidacy of Democratic Treasurer Kathleen Brown. A Mulholland-arranged meeting did not go well, however, as Brown’s then campaign manager Teresa Vilmain somehow managed to leave Novey’s business card lying on the floor of the meeting place. CCPOA stuck with Wilson in 1994.
But the union had become a fixture at Democratic gatherings and by the mid-1990s was a regular “underwriter” of the party’s state conventions. In 1998, it was a difference-maker in Davis’s victory over Republican Attorney General Dan Lungren.
With the ascension of Davis, the union reached even greater heights of power. His 2003 recall — in which the union (whose 2002 convention featured an hours-long autograph-signing session with Arnold Schwarzenegger, to Mulholland’s dismay) remained neutral — ended that. And to the dismay of CCPOA, Schwarzenegger the friendly action movie star turned into a prison reformer. Until he stumbled badly and nearly destroyed his political career in last year’s special election, making him vulnerable as he sought re-election this year to just the sort of massive independent expenditure campaign for which the feared union has become known in elections up and down the state.
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| Comments (27) |
The Union scares me. The idea of taking and raising dues without any saying from its members is so much like communism taking bribes; I mean taxes, from its citizens.
If the Union and Angelides were in charge of California, there will be another exodus of Californians and businesses moving out of the state….
The whole discussion regarding the union and corrections in California is so off base it would be laughable if it didn’t have such tragic consequences. This union has been very effective at improving the working conditions and compensation of its members, which is what unions do. But the culture of the correctional system, including the much decried code of silence, the negative atmosphere in many prisons, the reactive and retibutive response to inmates and lack of accountability for both inmates and staff, is the direct responsibility of prison managers who have pandered to political pressure brought to bear by the public through their elected representatives and failed to show true courage and leadership.
As long as prisons are intended to “punish” and as long as we react to those who devalue and victimize others in response to their own lack of value, by further dehumanizing or devaluing them, we will never be successful at “treating” or proactively addressing the issues that lead to crime. Blaming the union for this failure is a shameful way to scapegoat and duck the real issues which no one wants to talk about.
Corrections should be mandated to do whatever possible to reduce the victimization of the innocent, because abuse, rape and murder is an unspeakable horror visited on victims and their families. The prison organization, its culture and its programs should be geared to do everything possible to reduce the horror of crime. Because if we don’t, then we are all to some degree or another responsible for the victims that will exist because of our neglect. This is not to say that either the prisons or the public should take responsibility for the actions of criminals. We tried that romantic nonsense fifty years ago with catastrophic results. But we can take responsibility for providing those who are willing to take responsibility for change, the opportunity to do so, and for not running an organization in a way that seems geared to impede positive changes.
After thirty two years in corrections I do not fear the day of judgment because of the things we did wrong, I fear it for the good things we could have done but chose not to do because it was not in our political interest. And it is little comfort to know that the media, the legislature and the public can seem to do no better, so we won’t be all alone before the bar of judgment on that final day.
“If the Union and Angelides were in charge of California, there will be another exodus of Californians and businesses moving out of the state…”
Another? I must have missed the last one, and so did PPIC…
“Overall, these findings reinforce our earlier conclusions that policymakers’ (and the media’s) concerns about jobs leaving California are for the most part unwarranted. Interstate relocation has a negligible effect on state employment, has little impact on the composition of jobs, and is not an indicator of the health of an industry.”
–David Neumark, Junfu Zhang, Jed Kolko “Interstate Business Relocation: An Industry-Level Analysis”
June 19, 2006, PPIC
And that was based on numbers under the end of the Wilson administration and all of Davis.
The part that should be illegal, is the amount of money that the union can feed into the campaign funds of these politicians that have no morals when it comes to money. It should not be legal to give the amounts of money the union gives to people that are going to decide what their next raise is going to be, how much retirement they get at 50, and their very liberal fringe benefits are going to be expanded.
Give me a couple of canisters of Syntox and I can have this prison overcrowding problem solved in 15 minutes.
‘Isn’t that cruel and unusual punishment?’
Geez, I’m trying to solve a problem and I’m the bad guy here?!
Wait. I am the bad guy here. Nevermind.
Thanks Donald, that ranks right up there with the Chambers’ “job killer” bills that preach the sky is falling every year.
“None of them, in their statements yesterday, engaged the question of who controls the prisons: The state or the union?”
Control the prisons? I think the union hould have power, they are major stakeholders ..the civil servants are not handling prisoners, it is dangerous and tough with enormous burnout…I do not think controlling the prisons is the problem ..The real problem is that the union and their massive war chest allows them to drive our public policy decisions on crime and how we deal with criminals. When LAO analyzed the 2006-07 Budget Bill, it concluded that 50 percent of all inmates are incarcerated for nonviolent crime.
I listen to Arnold yesterday via your link …I lost count how many times he said no revisions to 3 strikes… He wants to continue casting a wide net…then you must build more prisons. The lease-bond is a good means to get this done …but where are they going to put them? I ride with women that grew up on ranches around Stockton…this is not an issue you bring up with them unless you want a tongue-lashing!!!!
I thought is was rather cowardly of Arnold yesterday to ignore Hadar’s report is out there and has gotten a lot of press…and I am still mystified that the report even zeroed in on Kennedy, as if she held meetings in a vacuum, as if she is the GUV and calling all the shots here!..I would think that the report, the special session, all the attention the union and administration are getting will make the contract negotiations go smoother and the union will remain neutral in this race. According to a State Controller report approx 1700 correctional officer positions are vacant…maybe they should spend some money on recruitment advertise their perks!
Bill:
I am responsible for keeping current on correctional health issues and I would very much like to get a copy of the federal report to which you referred in your column today. Which department or agency issued it? Do you have their website.
Many thanks!
- Eric
I’m out of the office.
There were large articles in the daily newspapers last week on the federal court report that precipitated this special session.
All the information you need to find the report can be found there.
Bill, this is a terrific post. This sort of info is why NWN is one of the first things I read each day.
What percent of inmates are illegal immigrants?
“We’re all part of the same hypocrisy, Senator.”
Michael Corleone in Godfather II
Eric, I’ve googled around a bit and was unable to find the actual text of the report. It’s a report to U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson by a special master named Hagar whom he appointed some time ago to investigate conditions in California’s prisons, under several concurrent federal lawsuits brought by, among others, the Prison Law Office. One of those is the Plata medical care case, which may yet lead to a receivership given the tenor of Hagar’s report.
A lot of info and pleadings from the underlying cases, including Plata, is posted at http://www.prisonlaw.com/ but Hagar’s most recent report, which was released (leaked?) last week in “draft” form and may not yet be finalized, is not (yet) displayed there, either.
As Mr. Bradley notes, the politically relevant “highlights” were picked up by the press stories, which abound. But the details which would be of interest to penological policy wonks predictably were not.
AG – illegal immigrants constitute about 10.9% of the state prison population, and represent about 11.3% of the parolee population.
Wilbur – Hagar’s report, w/exhibits, is online at the OC Register’s website (www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/state/article_1188819.php), scroll down.
As a somewhat radical suggestion, I think that the counties should retain responsibility for incarceration of felons just as they are responsible for those who are convitced of miesdemeanors now, and reserve to state corrections only the responsibility for incarcerating those sentenced to LWOP or the death penalty. DA’s, courts and local law enforcement might start more effectively dealing with problems. It certainly wouldn’t be hard to outperform the state prison system. It also changes the labor dynamics and effectively removes the state legislature from the picture.
Phil Angelides has scorn for everything a plan for nothing. He’s a lightweight.
Thanks, Lucas.
I’m intrigued by Hap’s novel idea. One structural problem in our penal system is that local DAs’ charging decisions amount to a “locally mandated state program,” whereby the degree to which some county DAs go gung-ho for third strikes and death penalties where many/most other DAs would not, inflicting disproportionate burdens on the prison system. Our present system whereby the consequences of those decisions are always borne by somebody else’s budget provides DAs with “free” personal political incentives to make the headlines as being tougher on crime than the next guy, without any local political resistance from their own budget-writing supes.
Wilbur,
You implied that the three strikes law and the death penalty are to blame for the poor state of California’s prisons; however, the facts don’t support this claim.
Currently, fewer than 8,000 inmates, out of 171,527 total inmates, are third strikers (~5%). With respect to the death penalty, of the 652 people on Death Row, just 278 have been convicted and sentenced in the last 10 years.
These numbers hardly account for the fact that California’s prisons are at 193.3% of design capacity.
The real issue is preparing inmates for life on parole. Of the 52,185 people paroled in 2002, 29,872 people (57.24%) have been returned to prison in the last three years.
Thanks for disspelling the longstanding liberal myth of three strikes being responsible for the overcrowding of the prison system. I have some fairness concerns about how it is currently structured, but the usual canard that it is swelling the prisons is just that.
Lucas: The real issue is preparing inmates for life on parole. Of the 52,185 people paroled in 2002, 29,872 people (57.24%) have been returned to prison in the last three years.
Lucas,
That dovetails right into the topic of this special session….Could you clarify what is the exact goal of this executive session in regard to recidivism reduction . The LAO expressed some concern in Feb that Corrections was not meeting their timeframes 2006 Strategic plan proposed implementations….including not having some of the reports needed to base policy and budget decisions on…do you think that CDCR has all the required reports ready for the legislature now so that something of substance can be achieved in this Special Session on recidivism?
Moreover, some analysts are also concerned that the administration is once again “thinking too big” and has too many programs that could not be realistically implemented due to staffing and funding issues…nor is there much discussion how these programs should be evaluated…is all that going to be addressed in the special session?
Bill,
Thank you for this blog and for allowing hacks, flacks, wonks and everyone else share their POV or that of their employer with proper disclosures.
I agree with your point re: the fairness of the three strikes law and view its flaws as illustrative of the flaws in the greater criminal justice system.
Barbara,
My belief is that the issues before the legislature in the special session are meant to enable recidivism reduction by providing CDCR the breathing room necessary to deliver the programming necessary for inmates to be successful upon parole.
I think there is a reasonable chance for success, especially in the Assembly, as long as everyone involved doesn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As you have probably observed, members of the legislature only listen to the LAO when it serves their ends.
As someone who is an admirer of the LAO’s work and who has been at the receiving end of their criticism, I can’t predict whether or not they will be satisfied with what CDCR has by way of supporting information. However, they might give Jim Tilton the benefit of the doubt given his background and reputation.
Overall, I think the proposals before the legislature are manageable and that CDCR, if properly resourced, will be able to implement them.
There is another party that has played a great role in the current situation: the victim’s rights lobby which is widely acknowledged to be fostered by CCPOA. Whenever rehabilitation is discussed this has been shouted down as coddling prisoners and that punishment should be the main focus. Recent reports have been clear this is at the root of the horribly high recidivism rate.
As I have said before, this is a politically dicey mess for all sides of the political spectrum and will not be resolved any time soon.
[...] Angelides, like Schwarzenegger, said nothing that would offend the state’s powerful prison guards union. The current sense of crisis around the prison system was prompted by a federal court report saying that the union is reasserting its past control over the prison system, with Schwarzenegger retreating from his early reformer’s stance. Angelides, as state Democratic chairman in the early 1990s, initiated a program of aligning the party with the powerful guards union, which had just played a major role in the election of Republican Pete Wilson to the governorship. [...]
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