Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Excess, deprivation mark state prisons
Excess, deprivation mark state prisons
By BRIAN JOSEPH and TONY SAAVEDRA
Orange County Register 2009-12-09
For 20 years, the gymnasium at San Quentin has served as overflow housing for the residents of California's most notorious prison.
Beneath rimless backboards, more than 300 inmates pass the time playing cards or working out among the long rows of metal bunks that crowd the gym. San Quentin is home to California's Death Row and some of its most dangerous criminals.
But the most difficult post for the prison guards is the gymnasium, which houses murderers, parole violators and all manner of criminals in between.
Only four guards are assigned to the gymnasium at any given time; they watch from an elevated platform at one end of the floor. Traveling between the bunks, especially at the end of the gym, you are putting your life into the hands of bored criminals. The inmates are so close you can smell their sweat and stale breath.
"They got all these people in here and only two sinks work," complains Richard Ferguson, a ripped 46-year-old with tattoos on his arms and no front teeth. Ferguson is in San Quentin for violating his parole after he served time for battery on a police officer. He also served time for two counts of resisting a peace officer and for domestic violence.
"We ain't living good," agrees Richard Howlan, 43, who was convicted of drug possession and is serving time on a parole violation. Howlan says there's mold growing on the wall near his bunk. "I've been sick as a dog for three weeks," he said.
And yet, San Quentin is part of the largest and most expensive state prison system in the country. California's commitment to the tough-on-crime mentality has led to a prison system so large that it's become untenable. Our only options now are to spend even more, or reform our justice system.
Change, however, has been virtually impossible because the prison issue is so politically charged. Any reform proposal, no matter how innocuous, risks the dreaded soft-on-crime label. Few lawmakers will support such proposals – even if it means perpetuating a flawed system.
"You're keeping me for years for having four tablets of Tylenol with codeine," said James Banlaki, 44, sitting in his cell at Donovan prison in San Diego County.
Indeed, Banlaki's record shows the Tylenol was part of the reason he was returned to prison in August. Corrections spokeswoman Maria Franco said he had other parole violations as well—plus previous convictions for burglary and assault with a deadly weapon.
If nothing else, he's a pretty good example of California's failed correctional system.
CALIFORNIA DREAM
Fifty years ago, California was a promised land where workers could find jobs and their children a state-paid higher education.
Today, it's not quite like that anymore.
Prisons have replaced the university as the state institution of priority. This fiscal year, the state General Fund plans to spend $8.2 billion on corrections – $3 billion more than what's budgeted for the University of California and California State University systems combined.
In fact, California spends more per capita on its prisons than any state of comparable population. In 2007, California devoted nearly $280 to corrections for every man, woman and child in the state. New York spent $191 per resident.
From 1999 to 2007, California spent more than $60 billion incarcerating the state's worst criminals. Over that time, Texas spent $22 billion. New York, $28 billion.
And California did see an improvement. Between 1999 and 2008, the violent crime rate here dropped nearly 20 percent, outpacing five of the eight largest states and the US as a whole, which saw a drop of 13 percent. Only two of the large states had a larger drop in violent crime – New York (32 percent) and Illinois (28 percent).
But California has not become much safer relative to other states.
In 1999, California had the third worst violent crime rate (627 violent crimes per 100,000 residents) among those eight large states. In 2008, it had the fourth worst rate (504 crimes per 100,000). In both years, California's crime was well above the overall US rate, which was 523 per 100,000 in 1999 and 455 per 100,000 in 2008.
Why hasn't all that money made a bigger difference?
The Orange County Register's examination of California's prisons found a system riddled with policies that were designed to maintain a tough on crime appearance or reward public safety workers, but sometimes have the opposite effect:
• California is one of only two states (the other being Illinois) to require all inmates to serve a period of parole upon release, regardless of the risk they pose to society. This means that a parole officer's time and resources are frequently diverted from the truly dangerous to those who are less likely to re-offend, like a nonviolent but mentally ill parolee or a woman who killed her abusive boyfriend. According to state figures, 10.5 percent of the state's prison population is there for a parole violation.
• California's Determinate Sentencing Law, which stipulates the precise sentence for every crime, doesn't allow the state to keep its most dangerous inmates in prison longer. Other systems manage that with indeterminate sentencing laws, which allow judges to offer shorter sentences and parole to inmates who work to change their lives. Under California's system, there's little incentive for criminals to reform – they'll be released no matter what.
• California's tough version of "Three Strikes" requires the law to be enforced unfairly. Two criminals who commit the same crimes can receive dramatically different sentences under Three Strikes, based on the sequence of their crimes. That's because some crimes don't count as first or second strikes, but are counted as third strikes. So someone who commits a theft and two burglaries, in that order, faces a sentence of 10 to 18 years while a criminal who commits two burglaries and then a theft faces 25 to life.
According to figures released by the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 70 percent of California inmates are rearrested within three years of their release from state prison.
"We cannot reduce recidivism unless programs are funded that open up opportunities for ex-convicts to create alternatives to a criminal lifestyle," wrote Stanford's Joan Petersilia, an expert on California prisons, in 2008.
"Few inmates leaving California prisons today have participated in education, substance abuse, or vocational training, almost guaranteeing their failure after release."
PUBLIC SAFETY LOBBY
Among all 50 states, California's violent crime rate consistently ranked among the top 15 in the nine years ending in 2007. For property crimes, California consistently ranked among the top 35. In 2007, California reported about 191,000 violent crimes. Texas, with 13 million less people, reported about 122,000.
Is that a good comparison? It's virtually impossible to know. Academics who study prisons say there are simply too many variables to judge whether California's investment in 33 prisons, nine juvenile facilities and 36,000 correctional peace officers has actually translated into safer streets.
Over the past few decades, Californians have consistently thrown their support behind tough-on-crime polices. In the current fiscal year alone, public safety spending will consume $13.5 billion – 11 percent of the state's total budget.
But the system we have today isn't even good enough.
Three years ago, the federal government took over California's prison health system after a judge ruled that its prison health care constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment." Today, a three-judge panel is calling for the state to release as many as 57,000 inmates to alleviate overcrowding.
"It's not that we're not spending enough," says Jean Ross, executive director of the nonpartisan California Budget Project, which analyzes state spending. She says the problem is where we're spending it. And politics can get in the way of spending it wisely.
The broad public support for anti-crime efforts has translated into tremendous power and influence to any interest group that can reasonably position itself as providing public safety.
Consider the state's prison guard union, the California Correctional Peace Officer Association.
On its Web site and its literature, the union declares that its members "walk the Toughest Beat in the State."
California's prison guards also receive the highest salary and benefits in the nation. Their union is one of the wealthiest and most powerful political organizations in the state. Its 33,000 members contribute more than $25 million in dues each year.
Petersilia, the Stanford prison expert, says that by virtue of its political rhetoric and money, the CCPOA "has been more successful than any other correctional union in the nation at winning benefits for its members."
In "California's Correctional Paradox of Excess and Deprivation," a book chapter Petersilia wrote in 2008, she estimated that 70 percent of the state's prison budget goes to staff salaries and benefits. Those high costs impact California's ability to devote more resources to rehabilitation, which she attributes to California's high rate of recidivism.
The prison union agrees with Petersilia's conclusions, but says you can't blame its members for the state's limited investment in rehabilitation. Union spokesman Lance Corcoran said that the state needs to offer prison guards competitive salaries and benefits in order to attract good employees. (See chart of how much public safety groups have spent on political lobbying in California).
"We're in competition with a myriad of different agencies at the state and local level to try to get folks to come to a not very glamorous job," he said.
So instead of cutting the salary and benefits of prison guards, Corcoran said the state should focus its remaining resources on trying to rehabilitate only those criminals who actually want to change their lives. Anyone who doesn't want to change is a lost cause, he said, and should remain in prison.
"Write them off," Corcoran said.
Matt Gray, lobbyist and executive director of Taxpayers for Improving Public Safety, said the public is uninformed about corrections issues. He said special interest groups, like the prison guard union, rely on the politics of public safety to convince lawmakers and voters into seeing things their way.
Instead of relying on data or studies to back up their positions, public safety groups paint grim pictures of criminals running in the streets. That's a powerful argument. Nobody supports crimes.
"It's a culture of fear," Gray said. You seemingly can kill any prison reform plan by simply calling it soft on crime. ... "I equate it to yelling 'Fire!' in a theater."
PRISONERS, CRIME DOWN IN NEW YORK
When it comes to prison policies, it's difficult to compare states – the differences are just enough to throw off any analysis. In Pennsylvania, for example, inmates serve their time in local jails unless the sentence is two years or longer. In California, the cut off is one year. In Florida, where tourism is big, economic conditions are different than those in Ohio, where manufacturing is important.
But even with those caveats, New York offers a stark contrast to California. Over the last several years, New York has increased its spending per inmate while at the same time decreasing its prison population. Meanwhile, the state's crime rate has gone down. (See comparison charts)
"I don't think anybody can say with absolute certainty that our prison policy has accounted for (a specific) percentage of the drop in the crime rate," said Erik Kriss, spokesman for the New York Department of Correctional Services. "But we do think we're trying to do the right thing here."
Kriss said New York has made it a priority to protect rehabilitation programs in these tough economic times. The state has implemented a "graduated sanctions" policy for parolees, which offers alternative penalties, instead of additional prison time, for less-serious parole violations.
In addition, New York has adjusted its sentencing laws so that prisons hold only the most serious offenders. Kriss noted that the number of violent felons in New York prisons has remained fairly constant. It's just that the percentage of violent felons in the prison population has increased.
"I think there has been a recognition in New York that long prison sentences aren't the answer for a lot of nonviolent prisoners," Kriss said. "The (Correctional Services) Commissioner likes to say, 'We're keeping the right people in prison.'"
Today, California officials are fighting the federal judges who want the state to decrease its prison population. Some, like the governor, say the judges are demanding that the state reduce its prison population too quickly. Others oppose any proposal that would result in criminals going home earlier than they would under current law.
"Sending thousands and thousands of inmates home in an early release line-up places California families in grave danger," said Orange County State Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, when the Senate originally approved the prison reform package. "There is no doubt that the state's prison system is collapsing, but there are more reasonable and responsible ways in which to save money."
New York's strategy might work in California. It might not. But in today's political climate, it's unclear whether state leaders would even seriously consider it.
"There may be ways of reducing the prison population without being soft on crime. There are ways to rethink these situations," said Bert Useem, a prison expert at Purdue University.
"There's nothing soft on crime in New York. But they have done a rethinking. Perhaps California could benefit from a rethinking as well."
http://www.ocregister.com/news/-223376--.html
Excess, deprivation mark state prisons
Monday, December 14, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
When Prisoners Phone Home
November 28, 2009
EDITORIAL
When Prisoners Phone Home
New York State
lawsuit by families of inmates who claimed that the prison system
overcharged them for telephone calls from their loved ones. The good
news is that this suit — and an accompanying lobbying effort — has
already succeeded in reforming a terribly unfair system.
New York
profit center. MCI, which provided the phone service, agreed to pay
the prison system 57.5 percent of the fees it charged for prisoners’
collect calls. The state then allowed MCI to charge outrageously high
rates: 16 cents or more a minute plus a $3 surcharge for every call.
Families paid as much as $300 to $400 a month, according to one
advocacy group.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, a public interest legal
organization, and prisoners’ families sued in 2004, charging that the
exorbitant rates were unconstitutional. The suit rightly embarrassed
New York
newly elected governor, announced that rates would be substantially
lowered. The Legislature later made it illegal for the Department of
Correctional Services to accept revenue in excess of its reasonable
costs for operating an inmate phone system.
What was left for the New York State Court of Appeals to decide was
whether family members were due refunds. They contended that the
excessive fees were an illegal tax that violated inmates’ equal
protection rights. This week, the court, by a 5-to-1 vote, rejected
the suit.
The decision is regrettable. But even the majority noted that the
plaintiffs had strong arguments that the high rates were bad policy
because they made it difficult for inmates to maintain family and
community ties, and that released prisoners who lack these ties are
more likely to return to a life of crime.
That is a message other states should heed. Prison systems may not
have to subsidize these calls, but they should not be using them to
balance their budgets. When prisoners cannot afford to keep in touch
with their wives, husbands, parents and children, everyone pays.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/ 28sat4.html?
partner=rss&emc=rss
lawsuit by families of inmates who claimed that the prison system
overcharged them for telephone calls from their loved ones. The good
news is that this suit — and an accompanying lobbying effort — has
already succeeded in reforming a terribly unfair system.
profit center. MCI, which provided the phone service, agreed to pay
the prison system 57.5 percent of the fees it charged for prisoners’
collect calls. The state then allowed MCI to charge outrageously high
rates: 16 cents or more a minute plus a $3 surcharge for every call.
Families paid as much as $300 to $400 a month, according to one
advocacy group.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, a public interest legal
organization, and prisoners’ families sued in 2004, charging that the
exorbitant rates were unconstitutional. The suit rightly embarrassed
newly elected governor, announced that rates would be substantially
lowered. The Legislature later made it illegal for the Department of
Correctional Services to accept revenue in excess of its reasonable
costs for operating an inmate phone system.
What was left for the New York State Court of Appeals to decide was
whether family members were due refunds. They contended that the
excessive fees were an illegal tax that violated inmates’ equal
protection rights. This week, the court, by a 5-to-1 vote, rejected
the suit.
The decision is regrettable. But even the majority noted that the
plaintiffs had strong arguments that the high rates were bad policy
because they made it difficult for inmates to maintain family and
community ties, and that released prisoners who lack these ties are
more likely to return to a life of crime.
That is a message other states should heed. Prison systems may not
have to subsidize these calls, but they should not be using them to
balance their budgets. When prisoners cannot afford to keep in touch
with their wives, husbands, parents and children, everyone pays.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/ 28sat4.html?
partner=rss&emc=rss
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Inspections of prison medical facilities reveal low adherence to key policies
Nov. 23, 2009 | Julie Small | KPCC
The state Inspector General’s Office will soon issue a report on the quality of prison medical care in California. It’ll include a summary of inspections at 11 state prisons. The report will help a federal judge determine when to return control of prison medical care to the state. KPCC’s Julie Small has looked over some of the preliminary scores.
A federal judge took over California prison medical care nearly five years ago in a case called Plata v. Schwarzenegger. The court determined an inmate a week died because the care was so poor.
Since then, a court-appointed federal receiver has tried to improve that care. Chief Assistant Inspector General Jerry Twomey monitors the progress.
"Part of this is not just a medical review for the sake of having a medical review," Twomey says. "It’s a medical review to answer the question that the legal decision in Plata said, 'Your medical care is deficient in very specific areas in very specific ways.'”
Twomey and his inspection team grade 150 areas of prison medical care – from how a prison treats inmates with asthma, hepatitis, or other chronic conditions to how well a prison’s medical staff is trained and supervised. The top score is 100 percent.
Of 11 prisons inspected so far, the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla scored the highest at 77.9-percent. The California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi scored the lowest at 64.3.
Jerry Twomey won’t put a value to those numbers. He says that’s the federal court’s job.
"Our role in this was not to say what’s an OK number. Our role was to tell people what the number is based on, the criteria we all agreed on to evaluate the medical care against. So what does a 56 mean? I’m not sure I can tell you. I can tell you 56 is not as good as 80 and better than 20, right?"
Attorney Steve Fama with the Prison Law Office is willing to interpret some of numbers. They’re found in the sub-scores that make up the aggregate score.
"Some of those scores – and it’s almost universal across all the prisons so far looked at – are horrible!" Fama exclaims.
Fama points to Pleasant Valley State Prison. For getting medication to chronically ill inmates, Pleasant Valley got a 4 percent score.
The prisons inspected so far scored less than 75 percent compliance in four priority areas: treatment of chronic illness; access to primary care; how well a prison assesses the health of newly-arrived inmates; and an inmate’s ability to see to a specialist. For that last one, all the prisons scored less than 75 percent.
The Inspector General’s Jerry Twomey says a low score in specialty raises the question of "are inmates, are patients, getting consults that they might need?"
Twomey says if an institution scores 42 percent, "then they’re not getting sent out as appropriately as they should be."
Twomey’s talking about the 42 percent score on specialty care his inspectors gave to the Central Medical Facility in Vacaville.
The Central Medical Facility houses chronically ill, infirm, and elderly inmates. It got that 42 percent score for specialty care – but in other key aspects of inmate care, the Central Medical Facility got 80 percent scores.
On a recent tour, chief medical officer Dr. Joseph Bick showed off a gleaming clinic, a gym where inmates with disabilities can exercise, and a hospice for end of life care. Dr. Bick says for the medical care it controls, the prison scores well.
"When a patient asks for services in here – did we get a nurse over to evaluate them? Did we assign them an appropriate level of need? Did we get them in to see their provider? Did we document it in the medical record?"
Dr. Bick says the Central Medical Facility’s low scores were for care it can't control, like specialty care. That’s when inmates need to see outside the prison. Dr. Bick says the reason it’s hard to line up those doctors is "Because as a clinician, I can identify a need to see a certain sub-specialist, but I don’t have the ability independently to initiate a contract with a provider who’s willing to see our patients at whatever rates the department is willing to pay them."
The Department of Corrections sets the pay rate for outside doctors. But some doctors won’t take prison cases because the pay’s too low. That delays specialized care – and Dr. Bick’s prison medical report card takes a hit.
The Inspector General’s Jerry Twomey says the point of scoring medical care is to identify areas that need improvement. Twomey says it’s really up to the federal receiver and the Department of Corrections to act on those low scores.
"To then take that number and say what didn’t we do, why did we get non-compliance, no responses, and then what do we need to do going forward so that we are compliant with those areas?"
The Inspector General’s Office plans to inspect the rest of California’s prisons and issue a final report on the findings by next summer.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/11/23/prison-inspect/
Monday, November 23, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
New Jails, No Treatment, in California Prison Plan
New Jails, No Treatment, in California Prison Plan
Posted November 18, 2009
By Bernice Yeung
With his first proposal rejected by a federal court, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week submitted a new, 130-page plan to cut California prisons' inmate population by 42,000 in two years.
The proposal (PDF) would build new prisons and transfer inmates out of state, but comes amid a hefty budgetary slash to drug treatment programs that lawmakers had previously identified as an effective way of in keeping people out of prison.
Indeed, rehabilitation -- treatment, counseling or education programs -- does not figure into the new prison plan. It adopts similar strategies outlined in the document that Schwarzenegger filed with the courts in September -- including house arrest for elderly and ill inmates, transferring inmates out of state, and building new prisons.
The plan would waive environmental laws to expedite prison construction, and forgo restrictions on transferring inmates with serious medical and mental health problems to out-of-state prisons.
As mandated by the court, the state also included comments on the effects of $250 million in state cuts to adult rehabilitation programs -- a 40 percent reduction in the overall rehabilitation and treatment budget.
The cuts could have an "adverse impact" on some health services for prisoners, and would also target 5,000 slots in the state's substance-abuse programs for parolees.
The new plan does not mention that cuts to rehab will mean that drug treatment will close outright at eight prisons, and scaled-down versions will continue operating at 12 of its 33 prisons, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
Cuts have already forced the shuttering of a substance abuse program at Donovan State Prison that's hailed for cutting recidivism from 71 to 21 percent.
Two years ago, an independent review of California's prison system commissioned by state legislators found that rehab programs could eliminate 48,000 prison beds, saving taxpayers $561 million to $684 million per year.
Schwarzenegger has championed rehabilitation in the past. He was responsible for changing the name of the state's corrections department to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation four years ago and in 2007, he told reporters that when it comes to rehabilitation services for prisoners, "We have to heal them. We have to get them ready to go out so they can get a job, connect with society and never commit a crime again."
Schwarzenegger continues to challenge the legality of the federal court's August 2009 order mandating California's prison population reduction. The case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/006061.html
Posted November 18, 2009
By Bernice Yeung
With his first proposal rejected by a federal court, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week submitted a new, 130-page plan to cut California prisons' inmate population by 42,000 in two years.
The proposal (PDF) would build new prisons and transfer inmates out of state, but comes amid a hefty budgetary slash to drug treatment programs that lawmakers had previously identified as an effective way of in keeping people out of prison.
Indeed, rehabilitation -- treatment, counseling or education programs -- does not figure into the new prison plan. It adopts similar strategies outlined in the document that Schwarzenegger filed with the courts in September -- including house arrest for elderly and ill inmates, transferring inmates out of state, and building new prisons.
The plan would waive environmental laws to expedite prison construction, and forgo restrictions on transferring inmates with serious medical and mental health problems to out-of-state prisons.
As mandated by the court, the state also included comments on the effects of $250 million in state cuts to adult rehabilitation programs -- a 40 percent reduction in the overall rehabilitation and treatment budget.
The cuts could have an "adverse impact" on some health services for prisoners, and would also target 5,000 slots in the state's substance-abuse programs for parolees.
The new plan does not mention that cuts to rehab will mean that drug treatment will close outright at eight prisons, and scaled-down versions will continue operating at 12 of its 33 prisons, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
Cuts have already forced the shuttering of a substance abuse program at Donovan State Prison that's hailed for cutting recidivism from 71 to 21 percent.
Two years ago, an independent review of California's prison system commissioned by state legislators found that rehab programs could eliminate 48,000 prison beds, saving taxpayers $561 million to $684 million per year.
Schwarzenegger has championed rehabilitation in the past. He was responsible for changing the name of the state's corrections department to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation four years ago and in 2007, he told reporters that when it comes to rehabilitation services for prisoners, "We have to heal them. We have to get them ready to go out so they can get a job, connect with society and never commit a crime again."
Schwarzenegger continues to challenge the legality of the federal court's August 2009 order mandating California's prison population reduction. The case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/006061.html
Friday, November 13, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Prison Rehab Programs Cut a Mistake!
As rehab programs are cut, prisons do less to keep inmates from returning. State to eliminate 40% of funding designed to turn prisoners' lives around. Opponents say streets will be less safe as a result!
See the full story at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rehab17-2009oct17,0,121936,full.story
See the full story at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rehab17-2009oct17,0,121936,full.story
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Interview KTRS Radio St. Louis
Rick Lichten of DrPrison will be interviewed on KTRS Radio-St. Louis. It's the Mindset with John Brown and Trish Gazall Show tomorrow Sept 2nd at 12:25 PT/2:25 CT.
Vincent Fumo Interview
We just appeared on WXTU Radio in Philadelphia to discuss Vincent Fumo going to prison today. We were on the Addie & Chris show.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tom Miller on Mancow
Tom Miller of DrPrison will be interviewed on Mancow in the Morning radio show tomorrow morning. He is scheduled to be on between 6:15 and 6:30. I will post the link on www.drprison.org when it is available.
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