Turn prisons into places of learning

There is a high-noon showdown approaching, and the outcome may have a profound effect on California's future.

The state's massive prison system health-care operations are technically in receivership, and a federal court-appointed overseer last week accused lawmakers and the governor of “deliberate obstruction” with regard to the $7 billion he says is needed to build seven new prison medical facilities.

He threatens to seize the funds needed from the state budget, which is already an estimated $15 billion-plus in arrears.

Lawmakers can laugh about it, if that suits them, but it's no idle threat.

Receiver Clark Kelso, appointed to oversee prison operations the courts believe are being poorly managed by the state, has the power to order such a seizure, and the state would be compelled to pay.

There is more than a little irony here. As of last year, the state was spending more on prisons than on its university system. Prison spending is escalating at the rate of 9 percent a year, compared to 5 percent increases in higher education spending.

By the 2012-13 fiscal year, state spending on its prison system is predicted to average $15.4 billion annually, compared to $15.3 billion for the university system.

Compounding the irony is the fact that California's taxpayers don't get much of a return for the bucks spent on prisons. University graduates, on the other hand, are the keys to our future.

There is direct linkage between education and incarceration spending. While about 4 percent of the general U.S. population is illiterate, in California prisons, the rate runs about 21 percent. More than half of the state's 175,000-plus inmates read below the seventh-grade level, the accepted standard for functional illiteracy.

Perhaps that explains why California, which has the nation's largest inmate population, also has the nation's highest recidivism rate.

We certainly can understand the court receiver's enthusiasm for getting better medical care for inmates in the state system. That would help address the “cruel and unusual” aspect of punishment.

But our elected leaders also need to take their heads out of the sand, and face the fact that one of California's leading growth industries is its prison system. It's very expensive, and the costs are only going to go up - as long as the system operates in such a way as to all-but-guarantee a revolving-door environment that sees the same people recycling through the system.

A good place to start a reform movement would be to offer more education to inmates, who are a true captive audience. Just teaching them to read and write would probably cut the recidivism rate significantly.

Once they learn to read and write, they can be given job skills, maybe some tutoring on how to interact with other humans - without trying to rip them off, or apart.

In other words, take the same approach with prison inmates as the public education system takes with teens in high school.

A solid education in the basic core disciplines, coupled with some refinement of people skills, could pay enormous dividends to the inmates when they walk out of prison, and to California's taxpayers, who now foot the ever-rising bill for warehousing lawbreakers.

This is not a soft-on-crime approach. The worst of the worst among us should and will be punished. All we're saying is that this state spends tens of billions on its prisons, and gets absolutely nothing in return.

If we're going to have a prison industry, at least it should be an industry that has a useful product. Just teaching inmates to read and write effectively would be a good start.

June 23, 2008
 
John Lum
Coalition for Effective Public Safety (CEPS)

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Issues surrounding the Parole of those incarcerated has become a major political policy debate in California recently - especially for those serving term to life sentences who have been found suitable for Parole and the Governor's have repeatedly denied the Parole board recommendation of Parole and kept them in prison.  Recently many of these "Lifers" have sued the state in federal court for basically altering their sentences from life with the possibility of parole to life without parole and rightfully agreed that it is illegal the deny Parole to these "Lifers" who have been found suitable by the Parole Board for Parole.  What makes all this even more interesting is that recently members of the Parole Board have found themselves on the other side of the table and a shake-up is now occurring within the Parole Board.  The following articles all deal with all these issues:

Backlog of Parole hearings for inmates needs to be reduced according to Judge:

http://www.sacbee.com/114/story/582238.html

State Parole Board Chief Resigns:

 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-parole18dec18,1,5002808.story
?coll=la-news-politics-california&ctrack=2&cset=true

Chief of prison guards union defends hiring of parolee

By Andy Furillo - afurillo@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, June 21, 2008

California's prison watchdog agency is investigating the state correctional officers union and its president for giving a paid internship to a paroled carjacker.

Officials from both the Office of the Inspector General and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed the probe into the employment of the parolee from Southern California in the union's legislative affairs office in Sacramento.

California Correctional Peace Officers Association President Mike Jimenez blasted the prison department for making an issue out of the union's granting of the internship to Raul Gomez. The 21-year-old parolee got out of the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi last August after serving more than four years on his 2003 conviction.

"I'm trying to do the right thing here," Jimenez said, of his union's employment of Gomez. "We as an organization are trying to do the right thing. It doesn't surprise me that CDCR would do this. They spend a lot of time, money and effort talking about rehabilitation, but then doing everything possible to keep (parolees) from being successful."

Jimenez said he met Gomez last month in Los Angeles at a Latino legislative caucus event on juvenile justice. He said that Gomez, a San Bernardino County resident, "showed up to advocate on behalf of parolees" and that he was immediately impressed by the young man's presentation.

"He's a young man with a firm handshake who will look you in the eye when he's speaking to you," Jimenez said. "He speaks with conviction, and he's very up-front about his past, and he lets you know he's made mistakes. He has dreams, he has hopes, and I think he has a future."

Gomez could not be reached for comment Friday.

The CCPOA president said that Gomez, technically, is employed by a union affiliate called Minorities in Law Enforcement. The group gets virtually all of its funding from the CCPOA, and its chief executive officer, Stephen B. Walker, also is the legislative affairs director of CCPOA.

Jimenez said the union has been paying to fly Gomez from Southern California every week.

With parolees generally restricted to living and working in the county of their commitment, Gomez' travel to Sacramento could represent a violation of the terms of his release. Officials did not provide details Friday on whether Gomez had obtained a waiver from his parole agent in Ontario that would allow him to make the trips to Sacramento.

"We're trying to make it so the kid is successful – why would they do that?" Jimenez said, when asked if Gomez is in danger of being returned to custody on a parole violation. "This is exactly what is wrong – sick – about our system."

Union members' befriending of Gomez also could get them in trouble with regulations that bar what are called "overfamiliar" relationships between prison and parole employees and offenders.

Jimenez said he thinks he's in the clear on that issue.

"It talks about 'undue' relationships, that you shouldn't have any 'undue' interaction," he said of the regulation. "Giving a kid a job is not undue interaction."

The investigation comes as the union has gone nearly two years without a contract and nine months after the state unilaterally imposed contract terms on the labor group.

Jimenez is up for re-election in September and could face a stiff internal challenge. It would be the first such effort within the union in more than 20 years.

His predecessor, Don Novey, who led the union from humble beginnings to become one of the most powerful political organizations in Sacramento, said the CCPOA's employment of Gomez could spell trouble for Jimenez with the union's rank-and-file.

"In a hypothetical situation, you just don't hire felons, especially if you're a peace officer," said Novey, who retired as the CCPOA president and has since become a political strategist. "That's all there is to it. Our job is not to rehabilitate this guy in our legislative shop."