Guards give, lawmakers take

The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. has donated $100,000 to an initiative campaign that would alter the state's term limits law--and extend the power of Senate leader Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, both facing retirement from the Legislature.

Yesterday, the same day the $100K donation was publicly reported (PDF) by the union, Nunez and Perata unveiled a plan that would force 8,000 inmates into lockups out of state. The CCPOA, not surprisingly, hates this part of the Nunez-Perata prison overhaul--it takes away their best customers.

"We are going to do everything we can to point out the dangers of this plan," Lance Corcoran with the union told The Times. He said prisoners who don't want to move could create peril for officers: "We're going to have to fight them out of their cells," he said.

The CCPOA contribution to the Committee for Term Limits & Legislative Reform was made April 11, and reported yesterday.

'Healing' California inmates

When he was a bodybuilder and actor in the 1970s, Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger would make low-profile visits to California prisons to talk about lifting weights and other life lessons. This week, Schwarzenegger made a special point of saying he wanted comprehensive reforms to California's prison system that would enhance rehabilitation for inmates. That presumably would include drug treatment, counseling and job training.

The governor's New Age language (which has not been backed up with concrete proposals) comes in stark contrast to prison guard officials who tend to characterize California inmates as animals. Schwarzenegger said yesterday:

"I think it is wrong to think that when you lock up people, that after 20 years that they have now been healed of the problems that they have, and now they are ready to go out. No, it only means they have served their term, their time. But 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. We have to help them. [Snip.]

"We want to make sure that they learn something while they're in prison.  We want to make sure that they are capable of connecting and getting a job.  By giving them a $200 bus ticket--I should say a bus ticket and $200--and hope for the best, hasn't worked. ...  I used to, in the '70s, go around and visit all the prisons in California, and bring weight training into those places, because I got a lot of letters from inmates.  You know, 'Can you come in and show us how to train, and inspire us,' and all of those kinds of things. So I visited a lot, so I'm very familiar with this subject.

"And I think that people make mistakes, people commit crimes.  So before we send them back out into society, we need to fix those problems, what caused them to commit the crime in the first place.  I think it's very important." [Emphasis added.]

What does the proposal by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, Senate leader Don Perata, Assembly GOP leader Mike Villines (pictured above) and Senate GOP leader Dick Ackerman say about rehabilitation?

According to some prison advocates, not much. In addition to $7.4 billion in spending to build new jails and prisons, it would allocate just $50 million in the first year on substance abuse, education and mental health services. The system currently has about 170,000 prisoners, and a recidivism rate close to 70%.

The program does, however, include thousands of beds in new, transitional rehabilitation facilities with job training and counseling. A Schwarzenegger administration official said, "This is a very significant  rehabilitation part of the proposal."

Jenifer Warren reports today in The Times that prison officials would have to meet other benchmarks to receive half of the construction funding: the creation of 4,000 drug treatment slots; formation of a California rehabilitation oversight board to monitor the department's progress; individual inmate assessments to ensure that each receives suitable education or mental health treatment; and overall expansion of vocational and academic training behind bars.

(Photos: Rich Pedroncelli/AP; AP)

Cast Away

Mike Jiminez, president of the Correctional Peace Officers Assn., won't shave his beard until prison guards sign a new contract with the state. It's been nine months.

Governor orders halt on death chamber

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered that work be stopped on a new lethal injection death chamber at San Quentin, after officials discovered the cost had jumped to $725,000 - well above the $400K limit that requires a financial review by the state Legislature.

"We are now going through the budget process and it will have to be vetted through the Legislature and approved as part of the governor's budget," said Oscar Hidalgo, spokesman for the Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He said a review this week of the financial documents on the project showed the cost had jumped.

Construction of the death chamber has riled California lawmakers who say they were kept in the dark about the new facility - which was originally reported to cost $399,000, just under the legal limit before a legislative review. A federal judge ruled last year that California's death penalty system could be considered unconstitutional because prison officers were not adequately trained to conduct in executions, lethal drugs were not properly accounted for or were mixed improperly, and the death chamber was too cramped and the lights were too dim.

"The administration's actions seem designed to subvert the process of the federal court's review and the legitimate need for legislative oversight," said Assemblywoman Sally Lieber said last week. "This is a series display of bad faith on the part of the Administration. To build a new death chamber, using an administrative loophole to avoid informing the Legislature, is inexcusable."

Jim Tilton, Schwarzenegger's prisons secretary, says he had no idea that construction had started on the death chamber, although he knew it was going to be built to address the judge's concerns. Facing a May 15 deadline to show progress, the prison system has legal authority to build the new facility. But now, Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) is to hold hearings Wednesday to determine whether the corrections department did anything improper.

Danger zone

"We are very close to an agreement. If it doesn't get done this week, it will get done after we come back from Easter vacation." - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a March 27 press conference in Fresno, promising a prison reform agreement with the Legislature.

• Number of days since the spring break ended: 9
• Schwarzenegger events since then: Speech in Washington D.C., speech in New York, Yom Hashoah commemoration in L.A., visit to  USC Cardiovascular Thoracic Institute.
• Schwarzenegger's schedule today: Emergency room tour, San Diego.
  

Meanwhile, Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, the Republican point man on prison reform, continued his rant against Los Angeles as being too dangerous to invite out-of-town guests. After L.A. lost its 2016 Olympics application to Chicago over the weekend, Spitzer took to the floor of the Assembly and said:

"And Los Angeles was not awarded the Olympics. And let me pause on that for a moment to say, it wasn't because Los Angeles didn't deserve to host the Olympics. ... Los Angeles isn't safe. And I don't blame the International Olympic Committee for refusing to award Los Angeles the Olympics, because it has an out of control gang problem, and we have absolutely no plan to make sure California is safe. And that in my opinion is why – and one factor that the International Olympic Committee considered – when it decided to send the Olympics to Chicago."

Spitzer (pictured) recently took a prison tour near Sacramento and emerged to say: "I personally want people to be scared, because that's going to motivate people to act." He also wrote a column for the FlashReport calling members of the Public Safety Committee "pro-criminal." Not surprisingly, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez of Los Angeles thought this went too far. He printed out the column, confronted Spitzer about it and started yelling obscenities. And then he bounced him from the committee.

Everyone has their problems I suppose. For example, in Spitzer's district the cities of Norco, Corona, Rancho Santa Margarita, Anaheim, Orange, Mission Viejo, Santa Ana and Tustin posted the following statistics for 2005, combined:

• Murders: 38
• Rapes: 206
• Robberies: 1,558
• Aggravated assaults: 2,665

Secret death chamber outrages lawmakers

Given the history of the death penalty in California, this is surprising in the least: San Quentin prison officials have been building a new death chamber without informing lawmakers - or even the head of the Dept. of Corrections.

And it appears there was a deliberate effort to keep the cost below a specific price so lawmakers would not have to be informed. The Sacramento Bee says "paperwork indicates the price tag on the project is $399,000. Projects costing less than $400,000 can be financed out of Corrections' discretionary funds; legislators do not need to be notified of such projects."

A federal judge ruled last year that California's death penalty system could be considered unconstitutional because prison officers were not adequately trained to conduct in executions, lethal drugs were not properly accounted for or were mixed improperly, and the death chamber lights were too dim.

Lawmakers are particularly upset because a federal judge on Feb. 23 rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request to keep documents and information secret while the state's execution process is being reviewed. "At no time was the actual construction of a new death chamber even mentioned," said Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, who said she filed an amicus brief with the court "seeking openness on the part of the Schwarzenegger administration."

"The administration's actions seem designed to subvert the process of the federal court's review and the legitimate need for legislative oversight," said Lieber. "This is a serious display of bad faith on the part of the Administration. To build a new death chamber, using an administrative loophole to avoid informing the Legislature, is inexcusable."

Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, whose Marin County district includes San Quentin, told the S.F. Chronicle: "To sneak a project like this through is just outrageous. We will find out what kind of creative accounting they've done." And Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said the secrecy was insulting and questioned the price as well: "Why not $399,999.99?" he said facetiously. "The question is, was this price tag a coincidence?''

The Chronicle spoke late Friday afternoon with Tilton, who said he was "aware that the corrections staff was discussing whether to build a new death chamber in response to a ruling in December by U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel that the state's haphazard process for administering capital punishment could be considered unconstitutional. But Tilton said he had not been told that construction had begun."

"I hate to admit it," he told the newspaper, "but I don't know everything that's going on in the department."

(Photo: Dept. of Corrections; AP)

Jerry Brown: Send inmates to Maine

Attorney General Jerry Brown - lamenting an "institutional conveyor belt" that perpetuates gang crime - told a Central Valley crowd that the prison crisis might be solved by moving California inmates far away from their homes. Very far away. The Fresno Bee:

"We have a paradox in that even the gang members we put in prison can still be in control of crimes outside by communicating with other gang members," Brown said. "Maybe some should be sent to Maine instead of Corcoran, so that they'd be further away from their crime network."

In a move that has angered the state's prison guard union, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued an executive order to transfer California inmates to out-of-state facilities. Currently, the state prison system has about 170,000 men and women housed in prisons built for 100,000. But shipping inmates to prisons in Maine might not work either.

According to Maine prison Commissioner Martin Magnusson, the state has its own emergency - overcrowding by a whopping 293 inmates. "The crowding is taking a major toll on staff, who are working so much overtime that some are sleeping in their cars after their shifts because they're too tired to drive home, said the commissioner, who met with 250 corrections staff on Monday to hear their frustrations," the Morning Sentinel reported.

Anyway, it's the concept that counts.

An empty prison in California

State officials could re-open a Stockton-area prison once used for women inmates - this time filling it with men. The women's prison closed four years ago "because of state budget cuts," and has been used for training ever since. Of course, local officials are balking using the empty space, even though California is currently housing about 170,000 inmates in facilities designed for 100,000.

But, according to state officials who spoke with the Stockton Record: In order to house men at the 800-bed facility, prison officials require approval from the state Legislature. No offense to the fine men and women in the Legislature, but why can't Schwarzenegger just open the facility himself under emergency orders? The state is, after all, facing a federal takeover if the prison over-population crisis is not resolved soon.

Powerful Union Opposes Prison Expansion

A day after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger toured an overcrowded Norco prison - and while GOP lawmakers were taking their own Oz tour in Solano and Vacaville - one of the state's most powerful unions announced it would oppose Schwarzenegger's $10.9 billion prison expansion. The SEIU Local 1000 represents 87,000 rank-and-file state workers, including about 13,000 working in prisons.

The SEIU Local 1000 would instead expand rehabilitation programs, change parole and sentencing policies "to encourage rehabilitation of low-level offenders," and hire more prison workers. "We cannot not build our way out of California's overcrowding crisis," said Marc Bautista, Local 1000 vice-president for organizing and representation. "If we invest in rehabilitation and proper staffing levels, and if we put sanity into our parole and sentencing policies, our prisons will be more effective and our communities will see fewer and fewer repeat offenders."

(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP)

'Cracked Paint And A Faint Manure Odor'

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Guillermina Hall, warden of the state's Norco prison, on Monday toured the overcrowded facility for low-level offenders and drug addicts (pictured below). The buildings date back to 1928 when it was a luxury hotel, the governor noted, before it was transformed into a naval hospital during WWII, and then a prison in the 1960s. Ah, human progress!

Schwarzenegger is campaigning for an $11 billion reform and building package that he says will alleviate severe overcrowding at the state's 33 prisons and avoid a federal takeover. At the photo opportunity, the governor said "the Legislature has not really yet committed to really solving this problem."

State Senate leader Don Perata (pictured) said about the governor's visit: "I am disappointed that the governor today blamed the Legislature for the state's prison crisis instead of offering ways to attack the problem. As the governor said, we need to show the court short-term solutions.  But the governor's only short-term proposal has been ruled illegal. ... It's time to stop the antics and give the Legislature something to work with – not hyperbole or hastily crafted fixes. I am committed to working with the governor, but he must step up and show real leadership."

The Norco gym was evacuated and the entire prison was put on lockdown for the governor's visit. Complete report on the visit after the jump.

(Photos: Rich Pedroncelli / AP; Terry Pierson / AP)

High Court Rejects Schwarzenegger On Inmate

The California Supreme Court has rejected efforts by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to keep a murderer in prison. The parole board had approved the man's release, but Schwarzenegger fought to keep him locked up. An appeals court said Schwarzenegger didn't show enough evidence to reverse the parole board.

Bonnie Garcia: Prison Inmates Are 'Animals'

Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia joined fellow Republicans on a tour of Folsom State Prison today. (See post below.) Here is what Garcia had to say while on the tour: "I would make somebody a pretty good involuntary wife for 72 hours until they call in the SWAT team. ... Every time you open the door to feed these animals you put yourself at risk."

Folsom guards informed the GOP lawmakers that they would try to ensure their "survival" if an inmate took them hostage, but they would not be traded for a prisoner release. Another lawmaker said the 19th century prison looked like it was from the movie "Shawshank Redemption." A single reporter acted as "pool" for the visit. His report follows after the jump

Lawmakers Visit Prison Voluntarily, Nobody Shanked

Be scared. Be very scared.

That's the message from the Assembly’s Republicans, who journeyed to suburban Folsom this morning to launch a "Keep Californians Safe" tour of the state's overcrowded prisons. With the famous gray tower of Folsom’s old lock-up forming an ominous backdrop, 27 GOP lawmakers lined up behind their leader, Assemblyman Mike Villines of Clovis, and accused Democrats of wanting to let bad guys out early.

"We are sick and tired of hearing our Democratic colleagues underestimate the dangerousness behind us," said Assemblyman Todd Spitzer of Orange, referring to the 4,000 felons eating lunch just over the prison’s stone walls.

"I personally want people to be scared," Spitzer added a bit later, "because that’s going to motivate people to act."

Villines said the prison tour, which runs through March and will take delegates to seven sites, was designed as part fact-finding mission and part communication device. He wants to highlight the depths of the overcrowding mess and stir talk of solutions inside the statehouse.

"This crisis isn't impending, it's here," Villines said of the overcrowding, which has prompted federal judges to consider a cap on the 172,000-inmate population.

Agreement on a remedy, however, may prove elusive. Democrats are pushing an independent criminal sentencing commission with the authority to impose changes unless the Legislature votes them down.

Republicans today greeted that idea with a strong nyet, calling it a stealth campaign by liberals who want "low-level" offenders set free. The GOP’s solution? Build more cells, house our prisoners in other states, or maybe create space for cons by retrofitting some unused state buildings.

Meanwhile, the inmates keep coming, busload after busload. It's enough to make one hum that old Johnny Cash tune … "Folsom Prison Blues." - Jenifer Warren, Times Staff Writer

(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP; AP file of Calif. State Prison L.A.)

Lawmaker Blasts 'Pro-Criminal' Colleagues

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer wrote a column recently calling members of the Public Safety Committee "pro-criminal." Not surprisingly, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez thought this went too far. He printed out the column, confronted Spitzer about it and started yelling obscenities. And he bounced Spitzer (in lower photo) from the Public Safety Committee. The FlashReport, which helped start the whole mess by printing Spitzer's column, isn't holding back today:

"The real tragedy here is that Assembly Democrats will continue to treat their criminal constituents with the same level of love and respect that they afford to all of their other constituents (well, perhaps they do prioritize their convicted constituents over one group -- taxpayers) -- and you can be sure that the most effective, anti-crime ideas that are introduced as bills this year will languish in that committee, which once again has been stacked with a majority of Nunez's cronies."

But haven't tough-on-crime Republicans and Democrats completely failed in one critical arena?  A new report by the watchdog Little Hoover Commission calls the California criminal justice system a catastrophe, with prisons swelled beyond capacity, inmates living in hallways and gyms, and critically: "The bulk of the state's prisoners are not succeeding once released. California’s recidivism rate, at 70%, is near the highest in the nation."

Who is to blame? The report says 30 years of "tough on crime" politics and "political posturing," which has "taken a good idea –- determinate sentencing –- and warped it beyond recognition with a series of laws passed with no thought to their cumulative impact. And these laws stripped away incentives for offenders to change or improve themselves while incarcerated. ... Consequently, offenders are released into California communities with the criminal tendencies and addictions that first led to their incarceration. They are ill-prepared to do more than commit new crimes and create new victims."

Read the report here.

"You Are Not A Number ... You Feel Like A Human Being'

"It blew all of our minds." -- California prison inmate transferred to Tennessee to relieve overcrowding, happy about his new home.

The Times' Jenifer Warren uncovered an incredible promotional video produced by California prison officials that extols the virtues of prisons in other states. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered the transfer of thousands of prisoners to relieve overcrowding, but only about 600 have volunteered. The video is designed, as one union official said, to make California inmates believe they are headed on a cruise vacation. It's another remarkable admission from state officials about the Dickensian conditions in California.

Accompanied by music straight from a 1950s employee training filmstrip, the California inmates are seen praising "their new surroundings, including the food, the staff, the recreation and the job and education opportunities," she writes. "Footage shows inmates lounging in roomy cells with views, playing basketball and chess, lining up for hot meals and chatting amiably with smiling officers. Inmates of different races mingle — something unheard of on a California prison yard — and one convict marvels that 'we've already had dental exams,' which are hard to come by behind bars in the Golden State."

Good Advice

• "He ought to look into the prison parole system. It is totally broken." Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, speaking to reporters after the Nov. 17, 2003, inaugural for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Brown is now California Attorney General.



• "Following the lead of other states, Schwarzenegger wants to eliminate parole supervision for about 24,000 nonviolent offenders leaving prison each year. He also would give thousands more the chance to earn their way off parole with one year of 'clean time' — or no parole violations. ... 'This is smart policy and a dramatic change for California,' said UC Irvine criminologist Joan Petersilia." Los Angeles Times, more than three years later, about Schwarzenegger's 2007 plan for the parole system.

What Prisons Did After Guard Was Stabbed to Death

After prison guard Manuel A. Gonzalez Jr. was stabbed to death by an inmate at California's prison in Chino, the state's Office of Inspector General ordered officials to change how they handled potentially violent inmates at prison "reception centers." They developed new procedures for locking up tools that could be used as weapons. They purchased more protective vests for guards. They created a special investigative unit for such crimes.

While the Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation has made substantial progress on most of the problems that lead to Gonzalez's death, a new audit shows there is work to be done. The audit, released today, faults the department for failing to properly secure tools in some areas. "One of the boxes, secured with a maintenance lock, housed ladders of varying lengths, which could be deployed for inmate escape," the report said. And they reported a statewide medical emergency plan for other institutions remained unfinished.

"For example, some institutions failed to provide one or more pieces of basic equipment in their emergency kits, such as oxygen tanks, suction devices, airways, or adjustable cervical collars. In addition, some emergency medical personnel at these institutions demonstrated limited knowledge of the proper use of such equipment."

Read a PDF version of the Inspector General report here. The department's response is at the end.

Prison Guards Target Newspaper

The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. has launched a "statewide action" against the Sacramento Bee and other McClatchy newspapers — a "Beecott," as they call it — over recent editorials and the newspaper's use of "prison guards" instead of "correctional officer." The PacoVilla blog written by CCPOA members wrote: "When the Sacramento Bee's editorial board published a mean-spirited, personal attack upon CCPOA members asserting we are 'whiners' who don't do a very dangerous job at all, well, those are fighting words!"

That appears to refer to a Nov. 18 editorial headlined "The Cloak of Victimhood," which said the 30,000-member union was "using its formidable political war chest to run ominous television ads to put pressure on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to do a repeat of the giveaway 2001-2006 prison guard contract."

From the Bee:

"The CCPOA portrays a guard's work life as one of unending suffering and victimization. The reality is that a California prison guard can go to work every day for 20 years and never break up a fight and never get assaulted. What makes the job so stressful and dangerous is uncertainty — the prospect that routine boredom could be broken at any time by violence."

It concluded: "The union needs to get out of its current 'I am victim, hear me whine' mode."

PacoVilla said guards are planning to picket in front of the Sacramento Bee offices on Dec. 22, and it wants to pressure McClatchy advertisers as well. In the past few years, the Bee's editorial pages have become livelier and more pugnacious under the direction of David Holwerk, the former managing editor at the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky. I called him up and he's not backing down. "We stand by our editorials," he said, "and our editorials speak for themselves."