The California political system’s dysfunctional dance around its prison system continued yesterday with legislative Democrats rejecting most of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s undercooked plan. They adopted his general approach, but spent less. In the end, this may set the stage for at least a partial federal takeover of the long-troubled system.
Schwarzenegger called for spending some $6 billion to build two new prisons, move low-security female and male inmates into more community-based facilities, send illegal immigrant inmates to other states, and create social re-entry centers for those about to be released. Instead, the Legislature’s counter package would spend just under $1 billion. That money would be used to add more than 5000 beds to existing prisons, move female inmates, and plan for new facilities for inmates with special medical and psychological needs and for the re-entry centers.
But few believe that this is any real solution. Here California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) president Mike Jimenez discusses the long-term prison need in this NWN video. The Democratic plan would fund only a third of the expanded beds sought by the administration; officials warn that 16,000 inmates are currently sleeping in gymnasiums and classrooms rather than cells or dormitories.
Many political pros know that prisons are not high on the list of voter concerns. Says one high-ranking Democratic consultant: “Inmates can be stacked like cordwood in there for all the public cares.”
Indeed, prison bonds were part of Schwarzenegger’s original Big Bang Bonds infrastructure package from his State of the State address in January. Democrats had no problem with removing prison construction from the package that appears on the November ballot.
Democrats do support Schwarzenegger’s plan to move some female inmates into private prisons, but it’s unclear that private operators, wanting control over their facilities, would accept the requirement in both the Schwarzenegger and Democratic plans that unionized correctional officers be employed in the facilities.
In political terms, the prisons are a lose-lose proposition. There is no mass constituency that cares about the prisons. They are a place to warehouse failure. When Democratic legislators forced the removal of the prisons from Schwarzenegger’s big bonds package, there was no public outcry.
In the absence of a broad constituency that cares, particular interests have developed tremendous sway. The powerful prison guards union, with a massive political fund derived from highly lucrative contracts, intimidates politicians of all stripes.
The union played primarily on the Republican side of the fence at first in gubernatorial politics, famously doing an independent expenditure campaign on behalf of Pete Wilson in his closely fought battle with Dianne Feinstein in 1990. While it wasn’t the only reason Wilson, then a U.S. senator, beat the former San Francisco mayor, it alarmed many Democrats. The following year, then state Democratic Party chairman Phil Angelides and his political director, Bob Mulholland, instituted a plan to make the prison guards union part of the Democratic structure, as well as the Republican. Soon the guards were “underwriters” of state Democratic conventions.
Now, for many reasons, the prisons are a mess, and there is no real state solution in sight. Says one Democratic politician: “I hope the feds take over. We can’t handle it.”
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What a mess. The administration knows the prisons have a major problem, but is apparantly unable to articulate a solution. The political leadership is unwilling to govern on the issue. If you don’t want to spend the money to build lots of new beds, then you have to find a way to keep population in the prisons down. Sentencing reform, anyone? The feds already have the prison health care system in receivorship, perhaps turning over the whole thing to them is the best solution now. What a mess.
Democrat and union are famous for breaking or weakening things and creating problems. They can’t offer or have solutions but know how to take the opportunity to strengthen their power.
In the end, California will face much worse prison problems. More Californians will be murdered and raped due to the early-release program of prisoners. There will be public outcry. Democrat and union will blame the problems on Republican, just in time for the 2008 and 2010 elections.
See how it works…
The really good thing about a federal takeover of the system would be much less fear of just firing the CCPOA thugs–remember the air traffic controllers? When the employees have a stranglehold monopoly, the current chaos is inevitable.
“There is no mass constituency that cares about the prisons. They are a place to warehouse failure.”
True…however, sadly, more and more of the budget is being devoted to corrections…so, it behooves the public to get a little better informed on “what and how” and the “why” of how their tax dollars are being spent…then there could and should be a serious discussion on possible policy issues. Prisons are closed and rather secretive and certainly scarey institutions. I assume the GUV will sign SB 1521 into which would grant more media access and thus generate eventually more stories and more discussion among the general public especially if the FEDS take over. This special session appears to be “much ado about nothing” Arnold calls a special session of the legislature with no bills just at best an outline!…this harkens back to the old Pat Clary days style of working …
“LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST: SB 1521, Romero [Co Author Senator McClintock] Prisons: media access. Existing law grants certain rights to inmates in state prisons. Existing regulation allows media representatives access to state prisons with prior approval, and allows random interviews with inmates. This bill would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, upon reasonable notice, to permit representatives of the news media to interview prisoners in person, as specified. The bill would forbid retaliation against an inmate for participating in a visit by, or communicating with, a representative of the news media.
Perhaps after the election somebody will have the stones to again bring up sentencing reform. Overcrowding is the product of decades of “get tough” sentencing laws which politicians have used to promote themselves by running against fictional (since the Bird court anyway) “soft on crime” judges. Time and again they have enacted mandatory sentencing laws which deprive judges of the discretion to decide which guys need to go away for a VERY ong time, and which just need a brief and swift kick in the a**. A fair proportion of the prison population didn’t need to be sent there, where they WILL be turned into the hardened criminals they hadn’t yet become, and just needed the eye-opening experience of up to a year in county jail as a condition of probation, with further time hanging over their head if they screw up again. But that option has been incrementally taken away from judges over the years by mandatory prison sentencing laws. Like Dan Nguyen, politicos pluck one “Willie Horton” example from a population of hundreds of thousands and use it to justify treating every felon – including the two-time loser who shoplifts a pork chop – as if he were Willie Horton. CCPOA uses their money and microphone to promote and defend these laws because they are full employment acts.
By declining to simply fund further explosive growth in capacity the Legislature has set the stage for a longer, more thoughtful examination of the astronomical COSTS of excessive one-size-fits-all sentencing laws, which the electorate has never understood, and exploration of less costly alternatives including drug treatment and re-entry programs. Whether they’ll have the guts to go there is another question.
SB 1521 is, to me, a real litmus test for GAS. CCPOA is adamantly opposed because they have so much to hide about prison conditions, and the potential for embarrassment of the administration from such interviews is also high.
A “blow up the boxes” centrist-populist reformer would sign this bill. Has that aspect of the character been written out of Arnold’s script? Only time will tell.
Let’s put NWN Video in the prisons.
Notice who the co-author is.
Three points: 1) The Gov and Les inaction is the greatest failure of Prison Administration since the government of King Louis XVI of France failed to prevent the takeoverl of the Bastille by 18th century reformers;
2) Here we have a Governor and Legislature that would save the world through Global Warming legislation, but cannot deal with mundane issues concerning the incarceration of criminals;
3) Since Prison Administration is moving from the Governor’s Office to the Federal courthouse, perhaps the CCPOA will decide that it is more important to them as to who is Attorney General than who is Governor.
If you were an average person, would you care about the prisons at all?
“Notice who the co-author is.”
Thank you …I actually inserted it in that copy and paste item..Of course he will sign it…in any event, Arnold has never been against reform…
no one will give a hoot unless there is an Attica-style riot.
Dan wrote: Democrats are “famous for breaking or weakening things and creating problems.”
Indeed, Clinton “broke” the stagnant economy he inherited from G.H.W.B. Good thing G.W.B. was able to “fix” it in less than a year.
And yes, Clinton “weakened” welfare. That has created the “problem” of former welfare recipients entering the workforce.
Damn you Democrats!
As long as we’re dancing, Schwarzenegger should appoint Merle Haggard to run the prisons. He has plenty of experience in prison and can sing a tune that most everyone is going to like.
If the feds takes over, he can update “Mama Tried” to fit the situation.
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/haggard-merle/mama-tried-507.html
Sullihan – you are right to remind us in (2) that the Legislature (and the Governor’s office) is the forum, as the inimitable Clay Jackson used to say, for resolving matters of relatively small import and significance. The larger issues, which require leadership, debate, deliberation, and guts, are beyond the abilities of these institutions, and have been, in my opinion, since about the early 70s. I think that Arnold had the potential when he first won the recall election to be a force who could get us past the influence of the “special interests” and the internal atmosphere dominated by the petty interest of legislators to remain little more than professional officeholders. But once Arnold succumbed to the Republican establishment bureaucrat model of “governing,” as exemplified by the Deukmejian – Wilson – Pat Clarey – Alan Zaremberg mindset, the promise of a revolutionary change evaporated.
Now we are back to status quo ante, and I don’t see much interest, or at least ability, on the part of any of the current players to revive that kind of promise anytime soon. I am a big fan of incremental change and use of the process to accomplish that change, but sometimes these folks have to take a stand, and it seems to me that the prison-CCPOA issue is one calling for that. But I don’t see much prospect for that with this bunch.
Godspokin Bierko – And yes, Clinton “weakened” welfare. That has created the “problem” of former welfare recipients entering the workforce.
Clinton, like Arnold, had promise when he first entered office. But for his intervention and championing of welfare reform, we would never in a million years seen the day where we “ended welfare as we know it”… In fact I think there was something out on the wire just yesterday about how decidedly the anti-welfare reformers have been proven wrong. But I seem to remember that it was the Democrats who were fully against welfare reform, and fought the issue long and hard until it became clear that it was a parade they had better get in front of…
Prisons ARE expensive! Reforma as well as HABILITATION are even more expensive. Is the public prepared to spend more money? I think not.
Hap: the one revolutionary in the AS inner circle, Paul Minor, was booted out by Clarey when it became clear that the CA Performance Review, which he championed, would threaten too many entrenched Cabinet officials, most of whom were Wilson retreads and not AS loyalists.
Prison placement costs about $35-45,000 per year, a figure which is about to spike quite sharply when Judge Henderson starts ordering some very expensive things to be done. And I’ve never been confident that the published cost figure fully accounts for the downstream costs of CCPOA’s sweetheart pension package and chronic budget overruns, based as it is on CDC’s “voodoo” annual operating budgets.
A more diversionary pattern of drug rehab + drug courts + attention-getting county jail stretches does not cost the public nearly so much per offender. We can mitigate the “supply side” of first strike offenders, whose fate and our consequences are cast once imprisoned in those oversize “rape rooms,” if we don’t continue to spend all the loose cash on the results of neglecting the “supply side” and pols’ insistence upon wholesale imprisonment of nonviolent offenders with hard cases which demagogues peddle to the masses with “Willie Horton” distortions.
CA Performance Review was gelded before it left the barn.
Wilbur: I agree with you that one of the problems in the prison crisis is owing to the proclivities of the Legislature and the past several Governors to push for ever-increasing penalties and penalty enhancements for every crime imaginable. This trend of course continues, with Jessica’s Law coming up this November… This legislation by press release has in no small part led to overcrowding of prisons and increased power of CCPOA and its satellites. It is very clear that this won’t change anytime soon, of which you of course are well aware.
Matt: Thanks. I do know that Miner was the key to the bringing us the Arnold we thought we might be getting. He is a true John Adams style revolutionary. It started to look bad for the Arnold show right from the start when Walsh put Clarey in place and she tried to purge Miner from the transition team. Of course she was instrumental in tubing the Performance Review because among other things, whatever Miner is for, the Clarey caucus is against. Begs the ‘where was Arnold’ question, wouldn’t you imagine? Clueless in Sacramento seems to be the answer, unfortunately. I guess he may have now realized his error, but folks generally get only one opportunity to start a revolution.
Hap: it does make one wonder if AS makes decisions based upon whomever whispers in his ear last. a troublesome thought.
PS: it was Bob White who installed his protege, Clarey, who then packed the new Administration with her old cronies from the Wilson era, most of whom had no buy-in or connection to the AS revolution.
Question no one seems to be asking: Why do only the female inmates get the preferencial treatment? What ever happened to cried of gender equality from the Dems?
Andy, I believe female prison sentencing rates have been rising even faster in proportion to available beds than on the males’ side of the system, rendering their space crisis even worse. Some say the crack explosion had a lot to do with the increasing female incarceration rates, but I assume Phyllis Shafley would blame N.O.W.
You’ve come a long way, baby. Welcome to Frontera.
Matt,
You are wrong about Bob White installing Pat Clarey as COS. While it is true that White brought Clarey with him to Main Street in August 2003, by October 2003 he was pushing someone else for the C0S job.
Andy,
Crime rates are higher in males. Sex crimes are usually (not always)a male crime. Jessica’s law will raise the male inmate population and only slightly raise the female inmate population. The numbers of total inmates will steadly increase as the population increases, why not prepare now by adding more beds and training more staff?
Carol and Wilbur,
I appreciate the fact that males generally committ more crimes and that female prisons are more crowded.
Still, that does not justify treating women better than men in prisons. If you are going to provide an increase in the “quality of life” for the female inmates, you should do the same for the males, or at least make plans to once the funding becomes available.
This is America; someone should not be treated differently in the justice system becasue of their gender. This is one place where “seperate but equal” should apply.
Andy,
“Seperate but equal” … will apply. I believe Title 15 covers all issues in regards to inmates rights. I worked by those titles. I was inspected by the grand jury serveral times thourgh out my career. My Sheriff was strict, he provided the county with trainned personnel and beds for his inmate population. I was lucky to have worked in the county I did. I honestly did not see the civil rights violations that you have mentioned. Yes, at times the jails were crowded but, every effort was made to adhere to the strict rules. In the future,I believe the same rules will apply…politics aside.
The California Plurality Report … All Spin, All The Time.
They get paid to lie.
Lucas: Bob Hertzberg, perhaps?
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