It’s the System that Needs Corrections and Rehabilitation

It was kind of like asking a captured robber voluntarily handcuff himself without the threat of authority, or expecting a rabbit to hold still while you aim and fire. Today, the prison guards distributed a survey asking if we’d be interested in voluntarily transferring to out of state joints to help them ease overcrowding. The survey was initiated by the legislature as they contemplate the viability of such transfers, along with sentencing reform and other avenues to alleviate a severe population overflow.

Of course, the true nature of the beast is force. Everything in prison is done by force—directly or indirectly. However, this time we got saved by the parched, yellowed and dog-eared sheet of paper called the Constitution.

The survey said, as if we didn’t know, that the prison system is dangerously overcrowded and voluntary transfers would help relieve the pressure.

I’ve been captive to these hell holes for nearly two decades and marvel that our quixotic legislature has finally decided to act on this re-occurring problem.

The stakes are high, so they want us to help dig them out of this mess.

So, let’s say the needed 5,000 of us agree to transfer. The problem is temporarily countered. Yet laws like Three Strikes continue to gobble up petty thieves for life, the Board of Parole Hearings, which is designed to actually parole people, continues to release its annual 2 percent trickle and the newly released continue to get tripped up on technical violations and recidivate. Before you know it, we’re up to the brim again. Then what?

Meanwhile, for the rest of us, there’s little by way of job training, or rehabilitation or drug treatment—though 85 percent of offenders have drug or alcohol directly or indirectly related to their imprisonment. Opportunities to gain productive skills are slim to none in California prisons, so we abide in a world of idleness where violence reigns as a result.

That pretty much describes the cycle every time they build a new prison as well. California has been trying to build its way out of overcrowding—without releasing lifers or rehabilitating those with fixed sentences for over 20 years. It hasn’t worked in the past and nothing suggests that failure won’t repeat itself with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s two proposed prisons or multimillion dollar extensions to existing sites. These always amount to nothing more than temporary plugs—been there, done that.

The survey graciously related that we’ll continue to earn good-time credits if we help ‘em out and transfer out of state. Sure we will, and every other detail of our sentences will also apply. No sentence adjustments commensurate with the accepting state’s sentencing guidelines, which are usually far less than that of California. And perhaps no furloughs, or family visits for the general population, or other incentives that California refuses to give. The survey listed 28 applicable states, from Alabama to Wisconsin, none of which lock up their citizens for 25 years to life for video game theft or other such petty offenses, but, again, even if we were to transfer to Jupiter, California will want its quarter-century in time.

So “what do we get out of the deal?” was the echo on the yard. Or how does the taxpayer benefit, for that matter? It’s just a shell game, but with bodies. Just more of the same.

Still, there are other options. We can hold out and make our captors actually fix the problem. They can honor the punishments originally meted out and start releasing the thousands who have met their Board of Parole Hearings requirements. The legislature should enact sentence reform, and implement genuine rehabilitation like other states with successful prison systems, or better yet, let U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson take over and bust up that dominating guard’s union (the California Peace Officers’ Association), said to be the most influential in the state. They’re constantly pushing for more prisons, more guards and repressive laws to ensure the need for prison growth. It’s as immoral as slavery.

Judge Henderson has already seized control of the Youth Authority, along with a portion of the prison administration that deals with prison guard discipline (due primarily to a pervasive code of silence within their ranks that hindered criminal and misconduct investigations on prison guards), and most recently Judge Thelton has taken control of the prison system’s health care department where an average of 52 prisoners were dying a year of preventable deaths as a result of gross negligence—that’s about a prisoner a week.

According to a 34-page report released in July by special master John Hagar, appointed by Judge Henderson to investigate the corrections department and possible violations of prisoner’s civil rights, the guard’s union is too influential, is impeding positive reform, and the governor’s office has become too chummy with the union, apparently trying to curry favor for the November election. Hagar also accused the governor of back peddling on his promise to fix the problems which have now grown into a crisis.

I checked the “Not Interested” box on the survey without the slightest hesitation. In spite of the myriad of criminal allegations we see those in power spin their way out of, they hold us responsible to the Nth degree for our slightest slipups. I say it’s time we finally hold them accountable for something; namely this overcrowded, mismanaged, wasteful and out of control prison system they’ve created that now needs a good dose of correction and rehabilitation itself.

Sources:
Don Thompson (AP) “Prison Watchdog Rips Governor,” Antelope Valley Press, June 22, 2006: A10 (Hagar report, Officer code of silence).

Don Thompson (AP) “Prison Problems Prompt Special Session,” Antelope Valley Press, August 2006: A1, A6 (Hagar report; governor chummy with union).

Jennifer Warren and Jordan Rau, “Prison Reform Plan Falls Short,” Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2006, B1, B7 (Need rehab, forced transfers unconstitutional).