LA Times Reports Governor Schwarzenegger warned today that the entire California prison system is on the brink of collapse.
The governor and his corrections chief, Matt Cate, walked through the destruction at a housing unit for prisoners at the California Institution for Men in Chino, where 1,300 inmates rioted on the evening of Aug. 8.The prison housed nearly 6,000 prisoners, twice the number for which it was designed. About 1,200 beds were lost due to the damage, forcing the state to transfer inmates to other facilities.
Just how much trouble is California in with regard to its prison population? Well, there is a federal lawsuit which is poised to force release of 40,000 inmates:
A plan backed by Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders would reduce the prison population by 37,000 over two years through a variety of measures, such as offering house arrest during the last year of an inmate’s sentence and letting inmates earn their way off parole earlier. Republicans say the proposal would endanger public safety.
The state also is under pressure from the federal courts to reduce overcrowding.
A three-judge panel presiding over a pair of inmate lawsuits said this month that it would order the state to reduce its prison population by more than 40,000 unless officials devise a plan to do so first. California now has nearly 170,000 prisoners in custody.
How did this happen, well for starters, the whole idea of being tough on crime without distinguishing between violent criminals, and petty economic crime. For example, 25 year terms for shoplifting – at least in California!
California’s problem – like much of the nation’s – is a mismatch between its harsh sentencing policies and its willingness to pay to keep so many people locked up for so long. A few years ago, it went to the Supreme Court to defend its right, under the state’s three-strikes law, to sentence a shoplifter to 25 years to life.
Remember the fictional Jean Valjean? Sentenced to 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread? We are getting close to that level of absurdity and cruel and unusual punishment if a shoplifter can be sentenced to 25 years – more than Jean Valjean! Not to mention, at a cost of $49,000.00 per year.
No less an authority than the Christian Science Monitor makes clear the impact of having the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world.
Here in our state prison overcrowding is also becoming an epidemic.
Again, incarcerating more people then we educate for today’s jobs does not create public safety – it creates increasing social instability and an unbalanced budget.
The cruel “school to prison pipeline”, abandonment of legal orphans, elimination of guardians ad litem for education, prison over crowding and cutting the availability of scholarships and loans for students to become proficient in tomorrow’s jobs – THIS is not just cruel, it is crazy.
In fact, the definition of insanity used in my profession seems to fit:
Doing the same thing over and over expecting to have a different result.
http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/d…
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p>Just figure I’d a jump on the inevitable “let’s kill more people to save a few bucks” argument that many in the “party of life” like to make.
The cruel “school to prison pipeline”, abandonment of legal orphans, elimination of guardians ad litem for education, prison over crowding and cutting the availability of scholarships and loans for students to become proficient in tomorrow’s jobs – THIS is not just cruel, it is crazy.
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p>_ Take care of legal orphans.
– Reinstate guardians ad litem for education
– Reduce prison over crowding
– Give more scholarships and loans to students for tomorrow’s jobs.
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p>And this will reduce violent crime in the streets? If we go back and find out we did these things in the past and we still had a lot of violent crime… then what?
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”?
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p>Yes, give people opportunities, and it will ultimately cost society less in more ways than financial. So many of these people don’t know any other way and that is what needs to be fixed. You tend to assume that everybody has had the same opportunities as you so if I can’t break through that barrier I don’t know what else to say. Otherwise, what do you propose? Before you say build more prisons I would counter that such would treat the symptoms, but not even come close to curring the disease.
As long as the things you do are really “prevention”. I’ve seen so many things where I hear this will help make this happen or stop that from happening and guess what… they’re wrong. Christopher, we recently were chatting about the state of our school systems in MA and in the US. You could put a list together of
– New books
– New teachers
– New classrooms
– New buses, pencils, laptops…
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p>And I would say you will get exactly the same results you get now. We have opportunities for education for low income people like the country has NEVER seen before and look at the miserable results.
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p>Before we make proposals on these changes for prisons I’d like to see some deep analysis and then tie some accountability to the programs. We don’t have any money left to spend on any “hopes”. We need to spend it wisely on things which we feel extremely confident will work.
Of course in order to know what works we would need to at least have enough faith that it might work to experiment. To me common sense indicates that what was suggested above may well go a long way toward solving the problem. Nobody is suggesting that if we just did X all our problems would disappear overnight. It’s not just material things, BTW. There is plenty of overall opportunity, but it is NOT evenly distributed throughout every community. Clearly for many people the current system isn’t working, so as I often do I would turn the question back to you and say how would YOU solve the problem.
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p>The analyses have been done. Our recidivism rates remain unchanged, and we are incarcerating more first-time offenders than in the past. The programs we have in place don’t work. The prisons we fund are warehouses that do nothing to “correct” so that an inmate upon release can start over. We are not spending our correctional dollars wisely and that’s obvious, yet we continue to do the same things over and over because the prison industrial complex is entrenched and powerful at taxpayer expense.
I’m glad someone else was able to speak to the substance of this one.
therefore anything that gets proposed should be tried. I would agree that many of the proposals tried have not worked and that’s why I’m saying we need to think before we do. I have mentioned that my Father was a prison guard his whole life. I witnessed hem trying to have the guards wear white shirts, ties, beige sports jackets and cowboy hats (seriously) to make the prisoners feel more comfortable… didn’t work. They have brought flat panel TVs, educational classes, work-release…
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p>I think we need to take more than some academic doing a study on some limited sampling and then making deductions before we spend money. That’s all I am saying. I do want to make prison suck even more. The current feeling within the community of “I’ll do my time and come out..” needs to be changed to “I’ll do anything, get a job… but I don’t want me to go to prison ever again”.
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p>I think education is a great idea. We should look at the industries these people can go back to and get them trained. Talk about healthcare costs increasing, how about we look at reducing the annual prisoner costs.
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p>But please. let’s not start with the “BULLSHIT” answers of “we incarcerate more people than any other nation” excuse. We have more criminals than any other nation! Look at the cultural and genetic diffferences between our country and almost every other country. Comparisons are almost invalid.
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p>That’s ridiculous. Neither Christopher nor I have suggested any such thing. Why do you just make stuff up? Sigh….
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p>The logical response to this is we should try programs, not “anything that gets proposed,” that have been piloted and studied or are effective in other analogous nations.
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p>Gee, that’s a surprise. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that treating conficted felons like children isn’t effective.
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p>Okay, I think this is fundamentally where the breakdown is. You shouldn’t lump in televisions and your “work- release” with comprehensive K-12 and post-secondary educational opportunities. The first two are not mandated by law, but the comprehensive K-12 is.
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p>Television is inmate control. A bored inmate is a problematic inmate. Surely your father, if he really was a correctional professional, can explain to you the calculus there.
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p>Your nebulous “work-release” is a mystery to me. Are you talking about road crews that pick up trash and crews that paint public buildings, etc.? In the state prison system here (vs. the county house system), work details are not designed to rehabilitate, teach, or remediate. Details are designed to provide manual labor at minimal cost to the municipality or commonwealth. If you have something else in mind, describe it, but “work-release” as I’m thinking you understand it is not a program designed to change post-release behavior.
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p>I don’t think anyone is arguing against that. Programmatic efficacy is much like pharmaceutical efficacy. Trials, longitudinal measurement, and assessment of adverse reactions are needed. I would argue, however, that other nations do this sort of thing much more effectively than we do, and it is in the taxpayers’ best interest that we explore these things seriously. The American “we’re the best at everything, so there!” attitude is not productive in these matters.
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p>Well, I think you underestimate the attractiveness of living in a 7 x 10-foot cell with a stranger and having to shit in front of him every day. I suspect you’ve never spent any time in one of our prisons, so your desire to make them worse doesn’t really mean much. Most inmates actually wish never to return to prison–it sucks, believe me–but your simplistic formula “I’ll do anything to not go back” figures little when the alternatives, as a convicted felon, are overwhelming and substantial. Getting a job, as you put it, is not easy, for example.
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p>We do. Now try to convince those industries to HIRE these people. Your beloved CORI check makes it nearly impossible for convicted felons to get sustainable employment. There are some local employers who are what is called “con friendly”–Home Depot and Lowe’s are two that have historically been open to offering cons jobs. They are the exception, however.
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p>Pays continue to increase and benefits continue to get more expensive. Would you have liked your father to have taken a pay cut or benefit cut so that our annual cost per incarceration could go down? Didn’t think so.
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p>No, we have a culture of punishment that is more entrenched than other developed nations. Your definition of a crime worthy of incarceration at $40K a year and another nation’s definition of a crime worthy of incarceration at that cost is vastly different. That’s the difference.
I said… I witnessed them trying to have the guards wear white shirts, ties, beige sports jackets and cowboy hats (seriously) to make the prisoners feel more comfortable… didn’t work.
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p>You replied…
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p>Then we both agree that this was an idiotic suggestion which was nothing but a giant waste of time, money and embarrasment. It was also during that time that we had another genius suggestion… “since we need people who are more in touch with prisoners, why not hire an ex-con to run the prison system” which is exatly what Dukakis did.
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p>It might be worthy to see some facts on our system from DOC…
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p>How many inmates are incarcerated in the DOC?
On January 1, 2008 there were 10,132 criminally sentenced inmates in the jurisdiction of the DOC. There were 656 offenders incarcerated as a civil commitment and 576 offenders pre-trial or awaiting trial in the DOC.
How many Massachusetts inmates are incarcerated in other jurisdictions’ facilities?
On January 1, 2008 there were 66 DOC inmates housed in other state or federal correctional facilities; 136 DOC inmates were housed in county correctional facilities.
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p>How many institutions do you have and how many security levels are there?
The Department has 18 institutions and 5 security levels. Maximum (Former Security Level 6), Medium (Former Security Level 5/4), Minimum (Former Security Level 3), Minimum/Pre-Release (Former Security Level 3/2), and Contract Pre-Release (Former Security Level 1).
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p>What is the DOC overcrowding rate?
The total custody overcrowding rate for DOC facilities as of December 31,2007 was 141 %. The highest overcrowding rate was for medium security facilities at 153%. The overcrowding rate is determined based on the average daily population of the facility divided by the number of beds (design capacity).
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p>What is the average cost to house an inmate per year?
For Fiscal Year 2007, the average cost per year to house an inmate in the Massachusetts DOC was $42,418.70.
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p>How many people are committed to the DOC in a year?
There were 3,308 new criminal court commitments to the DOC during 2007; 2,227 males and 1,081 females.
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p>How many people are released from the DOC in a year?
During the year 2007, there were 3,140 criminally sentenced inmates released from both DOC facilities, as well as facilities in other jurisdictions. Of these releases, 2,562 (82%) were released to the street; 915 via parole and 1,647 through expiration of sentence. Of the 3,140 inmates released, 1,110 were female and 2,030 were male.
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p>What is the average length of incarceration?
The average time served until first release during the year 2007 was 54.1 months for males and 32.8 months for females. Time served is calculated based on an inmate’s commitment and release dates. (Data used is based on criminally sentenced inmates under the jurisdiction of the DOC and excludes inmates serving county, reformatory, federal and out-of-state sentences as well as parole and probation violators).
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p>What is the recidivism rate?
A 3 year recidivism study of 2,524 criminally sentenced inmates released from DOC institutions in 2002 yielded the following results: within the first year post release 521 (21 %) of the 2,524 released inmates recidivated, an additional 327 (13%) recidivated in the second year post-release, and another 160 (6%) recidivated within the third year post-release. The overall recidivism rate for inmates released in 2002 over the span of 3 years was 40%. (For the purposes of the 2002 Recidivism study, recidivism is defined as inmates who were re incarcerated post-release).
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p>How many “lifers” are incarcerated in Massachusetts DOC facilities?
On January 1, 2008, there were 1,785 inmates serving a life sentence. Of the 1,785, there were 917 inmates serving a first-degree life sentence while the remaining 868 were serving a sentence of second-degree life.
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p>What is the gender breakdown of the inmate population?
Of the 10,132 criminally sentenced inmates in DOC jurisdiction on January 1, 2008,607(6%) were female and 9,525 (94%) were male.
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p>What is the racial/Hispanic ethnicity composition of the inmate population?
Inmates serving criminal sentences on January 1,2008 reported the following race/ethnicity: White 4,252 (42%), Black 2,804 (28%), Hispanic 2,867 (28%), Asian 116 (1%), American Indian/Alaskan Native 58 (1%), Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 2 (0%), and Other 34 (0%).
I’m not entirely sure, though, if you are using that information to respond to anything I wrote? That said, I take no issue with any of it. It’s information I’ve seen before as I used to work for our DOC.
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I was just trying to rapidly get some facts out before we chat.
How so?
in the past, and they didn’t affect incarceration rates? If you are, say so, and show us the data to back it up. Otherwise, this looks and feels like another one of your kill-all-the-convicts-style responses.
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p>This nation incarcerates more people per capita than any other developed nation in the world, a reality that is fueled by a prison/punishment fetish that makes concrete thinkers feel good. Our entire correctional architecture is perfect for the dimwitted politician running for office. (Sex offender residency restriction bylaws anyone??) As a result, the incarceration industry is huge business with tremendous amounts of taxpayer money finding its way to charlatan contractors and predatory private management companies. We have a prison industrial complex in this nation that owes much to its fancy big brother. Meaningful reform is not likely in my lifetime, but be aware you’re wasting some serious money without it.
why don’t we look at any states out there that seem to be on the forefront of prison reform? Does anyone know if any particular state has a program which has proven to reduce recidivism or ease prisoners back into society safely and successfully? I don’t claim to have all the answers or even any answers right now but following a lead of success would get my support.
If I have time [not certain] before leaving on a family visit I will see what I can find out.
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p>I do know for all too many recidivism becomes a way of life, but I am not totally sure why. My son – a criminal justice major – says it is because in prison as it is done here the inmates are “broken” – some kind of damage to their will or independence, to becomed ‘successful prisoners’and lose the ability to make decisions or live indepedently. Once this happens, they come to crave the prison life and do not feel safe any where else.
Many long-time offenders who have done long stretches of time become what is called institutionalized. An excellent example that people can easily relate to is the character in The Shawshank Redemption who hangs himself in his dingey room because he is lost without the structure and “family” of the prison.
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p>It was not uncommon for us to comment upon the release of a guy after a long sentence that he’ll be back, not because he was a innate criminal, but because he was someone so comfortable in the institution that the uncertainty of the outside becomes overwhelming. Often these guys are older and will admit to some anxiety and depression prior to release.
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p>As for the chronic re-offender who is not institutionalized, breaking the cycle of criminal thinking is difficult. This is where refining effective programs is key.
experience in the field so I have to defer to you to a point. My Father (who was a guard) lost a battle to pancreatic cancer at 63 years old so I can’t ask him his advice.
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p>I’m for figuring out breaking the cycle of prison life, but I honestly don’t know the answer. My gut says we can have “some” effect by the programs you mention but I too believe that by the time we get incarcerated people, they have already been “institutionalized”. You know as well as I do that the system gives people breaks and only as a last resort sends them to jail. The question is how do we stop them from starting the cycle. I do feel the culture of the lower income population (all colors) seems t glorify and minimize going to prison. There’s no shame, no “avoidance at all costs” and in fact can be a badge of honor. Maybe that would be an area to start so highly susceptible younger kids will steer away from prison (Tough love programs).
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p>Education… go for it. So any law abiding people are taking college classes on-line these days it seems like a very small investment for prisons to do the same.
Tough love programs don’t seem to have had the success people once thought they would, though. Changing the cultural beliefs you mention is the hardest part, no doubt. I really don’t have an answer for that.
Kentucky is next in line. We will have to wait our turn.