Politics or a Post-Partisan Approach to Prisons? A Sentencing Commission with Teeth Independent of the Department of Corrections is the Answer

The Prison crisis is of great significance to every Californian and American Citizen for that matter. Because awareness and conscience are at the core of these issues, it is difficult to impossible for one person to make a change overnight. If for instance a single mother knew that stealing a video tape (misdemeanor) would constitute a third strike and land the guilty party to a California Prison for fifty years at a cost of approximately $33,000 per year she might not have voted for the law to be enacted. But, because that legislation was presented as only heinous child molesters getting such an ill fate she voted for it. Rather, she might have voted on legislation designed to help single mothers with child care for instance (if such legislation was being written by law makers.) So, instead of spending exorbitant amounts on criminal law issues maybe that single mother could have had an option to put her tax dollars into programs that help families in California.

The “people,” or more amply appropriately stated the TAXPAYER, are fitting the bill for the renegade prison system that is holding taxpayers and legislators hostage by demanding a hefty ransom - that is tens of millions of dollars over budget annually and has an annual budget of approximately $10 billion dollars to California taxpayers.

The prison/parole and legal system (prosecuting attorneys and Judges who were once prosecuting attorneys) are corrupt! They are able to create job security for themselves, at the expense of the taxpayer, by criminalizing citizens. The blame for this condition is upon the taxpayer. They are the ones who foolishly accepted the ZERO tolerance mentality (a Nazi position) in criminal law, and voted on inane legislation like the Three Strike Law and Mandatory sentencing that supersede the Constitution of the United States. The Governor is virtually powerless to change or intervene into the CDC. His only “chip” of hope rests upon the voter. The corruption is so deeply entrenched into politics that any change would be radical. Furthermore, it is the Governor who figuratively represents the conscience of the “people,” thus Parole boards exemplify those sentiments. Therefore, it is a sad and pathetic condition that we the people find ourselves in.

We have seen plan after plan and Romero had a fantastic bill last session that should have been passed which would have resulted in actual prison reform. But noooooo, we have the Repugs up there lockstep voting against anything that would inconvenience the law enforcement labor unions that keep they and some of the not-so-loyal Democrats in campaign funds. The link about some of the reports that long identified the problems that is referenced in the above article by Barbara Christie is here

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2006/07/californias_pri.html

It's very worthwhile reading it again. What needs to happen is accountability of judges, prosecutors and everyone involved in the corrupt criminal justice system. This means that the citizen's must organize and get active to get law enforcement's representatives taken out of office.

It's worthwhile

Just when we finally got mainstream media to our side, including NBC news and even daytime TV favorite show, The Days of Our Lives, in portraying the truth of how corrupt criminal authorities enact laws to persecute children and parents, we see Sally LIEber's introduction of the spanking law which would jail parents and send their children to foster care. Sally must have been raised by wolves in a State institution. Nobody else would agree with such a preposterous claim that spanking children is a criminal act. If it were, it is a matter for the police to handle, not some bureaucratic goons. Sally is the living result of this insane way of thinking. Someone should have spanked her hard.

Besides her twisted way of thinking, the fact is that institutionalization and drugging children is severe felony ABUSE. What Sally is suggesting is criminalizing people for being good parental disciplinarians and sentencing them to prison and their children to a life in foster care where they are drugged, sexually assaulted and severely abused and even murdered.

I don't believe that Sally could be that unintelligent. Therefore, she must know exactly what she is promoting and is part of the criminal ring of pedophile authorities trafficking in children. If she really is so tragically misinformed, I suggest she take some computer classes and do some research on the thousands of web sites of the suffering and deaths of children in foster care and how institutionalization leads to later homelessness and drug addiction.

Take two to start, then one four times a day:

http://protected-to-death-by-cps.memory-of.com

http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.8358ec82f5b198d18a278110501010a0/?vgnextoid=208a9e2f1b091010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD

Then see how the people in Sally's own community, Mountain View, ostracized her for corruption:

http://www.recallsallylieber.org

http://www.msnusers.com/FreeVincentBooth

CPS around the world are the greatest Child Abusers. For every child they help, they destroy 1,000. It is a cruel scheme, a white-collar criminal enterprise at the lowest level, and a mechanism of Social Control and Population Control at a higher level. Its aim to criminalize a part of the population and prepare young people for the craddle to prison pipeline industry.

By being interconnected with the Public Schooling System, which only purpose is to dumb down the masses and condition them to serve their masters; any child who either does not fit the formula, either is directly sent to the Juvenile Justice System or forcibly placed into Special Ed classes to be destroyed.

Public Schools are working perfectly for what they have been designed to do: a sorting mechanism.

Parents in Action
http://www.parentsinaction.net

First 5: A question of oversight The bad news isn’t just that university researchers spent tax dollars on a convertible, beachside retreats and sofas. BY GRETCHEN WENNER, Californian staff writer Oct 28 2006 http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/81292.html?

On the afternoon of Oct. 4, in the music room at Buttonwillow Elementary School, a telling conversation unfolded during the monthly meeting of First 5 Kern commissioners.

"When can this commission say to the taxpayers of Kern County that we have actually made an improvement (in children’s lives) and show what that improvement is?" Commissioner Jeff Green asked a group of Cal State Bakersfield researchers hired to study that exact question.

"Do we actually have the data?" replied Tanya Boone, one of three new researchers who took over the project in June. "I cannot say with any certainty that we do, because I have not seen it."

It was a disappointing, even disturbing answer after five years of study by Boone’s predecessors at the university’s Applied Research Center.

And those five years of study weren’t free.

The Cal State research cost taxpayers close to $5 million, including Kern’s share of roughly $3 million. Millions more paid for evaluation software and consultants.

And the previous Cal State researchers — one of whom got a car allowance from First 5 on seemingly little more than a handshake — claimed last year their work showed "First 5 Kern is making a substantive and significant difference" in local lives.

When can the commission show just how the $11 million or so of tobacco-tax money it doles out annually has improved the lives of Kern County’s youngest children?

That question is supposed to be answered every year. The law that created the state’s First 5 agencies requires it.

But after five years and more than $3 million, Kern County still cannot answer that basic question.

Instead, Boone and her colleagues are stuck sorting through data that apparently wasn’t collected properly and didn’t track the benchmarks First 5 Kern chose to study.

The information is supposed to give concrete results showing how the 50-cents-a-pack state cigarette tax that fuels First 5 helps children through age 5 get a good start in life.

Meanwhile, a Californian investigation of how the research center, under its former director, spent evaluation money from First 5 agencies in Kern and other nearby counties reveals a series of questionable expenses OK’d by the researchers, their then-managers at the university’s private foundation and First 5 Kern’s chief executive.

Examples include:

* More than $17,000 in personal car lease payments to the research center’s former director, Kenneth Nyberg, that may not have been accounted for as possible income (see "Cruisin’"sidebar);

* More than $12,000 on seaside retreats for research center and First 5 staff;

* $1,800 for a charter flight to bring a First 5 director to one of the retreats;

* More than $155,000 for consultants, two of them spouses of research-unit staffers;

* More than $100,000 for travel, including trips not directly related to First 5 for researchers’ "professional development";

* More than $62,000 for new computers and another $22,000 for software and accessories;

* $1,400 for a couch and two bookcases for Nyberg’s office;

* $1,300 for embroidered satchels and golf shirts.

The Californian investigation is the first outside look at more than 3,500 pages of receipts, travel claims, check requests and other documents former researchers submitted to First 5 Kern for reimbursement, according to state and local auditors.

The paperwork, provided by Cal State Bakersfield in response to a public records request, shows researchers submitted claims for professional dues, cell phone bills, car adapters, PalmPilots, home Internet service and other items.

Steve Ladd, First 5 Kern’s executive director, assured The Californian the costs were legitimate.

Retreats, computers, logo gear and so on are all common business expenses, he said.

"It was like starting up a new business," Ladd said of at least two dozen computers bought for evaluators. "So we helped them buy whatever they needed, just like we did for any other contractor who’s starting fresh."

Cal State Bakersfield officials shrugged when asked if some items faculty charged to First 5 — such as four Morro Bay retreats — may not have been what voters had in mind when they OK’d the tobacco tax eight years ago.

"It was a work session," said W. Michael Chertok, the top executive at the Cal State Bakersfield Foundation. The private foundation, which is not subject to the same open-books accountability rules as the university, oversaw the research center until last year.

If a research contract OKs an expenditure, said Michael Neal, Cal State Bakersfield’s vice president of business and administrative services, the university considers the spending appropriate.

Yet the car payments alone show, at best, a sloppy regard toward how the public’s money was spent.

Ladd says First 5 agreed to reimburse the research center for an allowance Nyberg was already getting.

Not true, campus officials say.

No one except the university president has a car allowance, they say, and they’re not aware of any professor ever getting one.

Ladd also said the lease payments were financially advantageous to First 5. Nyberg drove extensively between counties, he said, making the lump sum cheaper than mileage would have been.

A Californian tally found otherwise (see "Cruisin’" sidebar).

In the meantime, Nyberg — who did not respond to several e-mail requests for comment — and other key researchers have left the project. Nyberg entered an early retirement program and is not scheduled to teach until January, campus officials said.

In mid-June, three new faculty members took over and renamed the unit. It’s now the Institute for Social and Community Research.

Director William Edward Wagner III said there will be no more "fancy retreats at Morro Bay" or other "lavish" spending under his watch.

Boone, an assistant director along with Robin Högnäs, said after the October meeting the group is "horrified" by some of the earlier spending.

In August, the trio finished First 5 Kern’s annual evaluation, started under Nyberg.

Their report notes the information they inherited stymied their ability to tell how well programs are working.

"We confronted enormous data limitations across all of the 34 programs for which we received data," the report says.

The new group told commissioners at the Oct. 4 Buttonwillow meeting they’ll now dig through the database to figure out what’s in it.

County Supervisor Don Maben, who sits on First 5 Kern’s commission, was disturbed by what was described at the meeting as a "disconnect" between data collection and agency goals.

"If that information is not there," Maben later said of the data, "then somebody shined us on."

What is First 5?

First 5 Kern is a county-level public agency that doles out money from a state tobacco tax. Every county in California has its own First 5 commission. There’s also a state commission that oversees the program.

Local commissions don’t provide services, but decide which organizations get funds. Kern County gets roughly $10 million to $12 million in First 5 dollars annually.

California voters approved the 50-cents-a-pack cigarette tax in 1998 to help children through age 5 enter school well prepared and in good health, among other things.

Former actor-director Rob Reiner spearheaded 1998’s Proposition 10.

Since the program started, Kern County has received roughly $85 million from monthly tobacco-tax disbursements, state records show. Some additional funds have paid for school readiness and other specific programs.

The money has gone to a range of projects and programs, including playground equipment, immunization and dental programs, education for teen parents, health insurance enrollment and more.

More than $91 million for 450 projects,has been committed by First 5 Kern, according to the group.

More cigarette taxes? On Nov. 7, state voters face another cigarette tax.

Proposition 86 would tack an additional $2.60 to every pack of cigarettes.

The new tax would raise about $2 billion a year.

Proponents say the money would expand health insurance for children, among other things.

Opponents call it a misguided money grab that will benefit large hospital corporations.

Currently, state cigarette taxes total 87 cents a pack and raise about $1 billion a year, according to the state legislative analyst.

You can read the state’s analysis of Proposition 86 at www.voterguide.ss.ca.gov/props/prop86/analysis86.html.

Through the center, Cal State Bakersfield faculty and grad students can take part in research projects for outside contractors such as First 5, CalTrans, NASA, county departments and other customers.

The Applied Research Center was launched at Cal State Bakersfield in 1987, according to its Web site. It operated through the university’s private foundation until last year.

Last year, along with many campuses systemwide, Cal State Bakersfield moved research functions to the university. That meant a switch to stricter “state-side” accounting rules and paperwork as well.

In mid-June, after the research center’s former director started an early retirement program, a new group of faculty took over the unit. They renamed it the Institute for Social and Community Research.

You can read more about the institute and its goals by visiting its Web site at www.csub.edu/iscr/

Who runs First 5 Kern?

Nine people sit on First 5 Kern’s oversight commission. Three, as county department heads, are permanent members; one is a county supervisor; the remaining five are supervisor appointees.

The state law that established First 5 says county commissions must have from five to nine members. The law also requires a certain mix: at least one county supervisor; at least two from county departments dealing with public welfare; and the rest from First 5-funded agencies or education and community groups involved with children.

That means many commissioners ­ as is the case in Kern ­ are involved with organizations that ask for money from First 5.

Commissioners are not paid, though they get a small stipend for travel and other costs.

Law enforcement knows how to organize their voting block that can take anything that would keep the prisons stocked and make it illegal, anything to do with children would pass rapidly. This is not to say that anyone should ever be hitting a child under the age of 3 which happens all too frequently in our twisted, violent society.

People should stop showing their kids violent movies and games, stop hitting them, take all the Schwarzenegger movies out of the house and trash them for their violence and inappropriate lessons.

Teaching kids violence has resulted in a much more violent society than we had 30 years ago. But nobody is more violent toward our children than prisons, jails and juvenile halls - law enforcement are the most violent people of all!

The citizen's must organize a voting group to take pro-law enforcement legislators out of office and prevent them from ever being elected in the first place. This is why I am an active member of the UNION, United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect, www.1union1.com. We do a lot more than just pass email. Those without large, funded voting citizen's groups have no representation in the legislature

Thank goodness we still have politicians who have the good sense to understand the need for sentencing reform. Hats off to Gloria Romero for taking the unpopular stand and introducing SB 110. It may not be the perfect solution, but it's a move towards we need to be and a far cry from where we are today. A massive prison building program is not needed, sentence reform is needed. The commission should not be comprised of only law enforcement or CDC personnel as they are "tainted" in their attitudes and are not non-partial in determining sentencing policy. We must return to indeterminite sentencing if we ever hope to solve the overcrowding problem. Transferring prisoners out of state is destructive as it takes them away from their families. Family support is of the utmost importance for these people to be able to come back and lead productive lives. If CDCr does not live up to its name (Corrections and Rehabilitation) nothing can be accomplished. We need more beds dedicated to mental health and drug rehabilitation and neither needs to be in a prison building. The only building that should be approved is for hospitals. If money is actually put into rehab and training we can turn these people back into society with some self esteem and job training. It is far less costly and more humanitarian and American. I trust Judge Karlton will follow through on his threat to take action to correct this problem which has gone from bad to worse to worst.
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I am encouraged by the efforts of Senator Gloria Romero, but skeptical that her bill will be taken seriously because there are too many politicians, most Repubs but some Dems, who have been bought & paid for by law enforcement to keep their jobs necessary by keeping the jails & prisons as full as possible.

Sentencing should be taken out of the hands of politicians because they pass & enact ridiculously harsh & unreasonable laws only to prove they are "tough on crime", just to get votes to stay in office & retain power. We NEED these reforms ASAP! And they need an unbiased sentencing commission that is NOT under the authority of the politicians or special interest groups. Sentences need to be determined fairly & scientifically; not to gain public support for politicians.

Our prisons are warehousing people like ANIMALS. The majority (not all) of those in law enforcement have proven to be more violent as a group than the criminals themselves.

In a FREE society should it be acceptable when someone who is complying to the orders of officers to then be brutally beaten up & then have that covered up?

Should the accused be coerced, threatened & intimidated in to copping a plea, receiving a conviction, so these convictions can be added to a DA's record so they can get a raise or gain prestige & power?

What ever happened to JUSTICE? What happened to convicting CRIMINALS & if someone is INNOCENT, allowing them to go free? In our system, you are GUILTY unless you can PROVE you are INNOCENT? & it’s IMPOSSIBLE to PROVE your INNOCENSE unless you are willing to spend THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. So the RICH go free & the rest of society goes to jail or prison; whether innocent or guilty.

In the eyes of our "justice system" (a laughable name) anyone who is suspected of a crime is GUILTY & TREATED AS SUCH! They are manhandled, beaten, starved with too little food, malnourished with low quality unbalanced diets mainly of starches, little protein & no fresh fruits or vegetables, given contaminated water, forced to live in filthy disease ridden environments that provide hostile living conditions with little to no heat in bitter cold weather, & little to no AC in sweltering hot weather. Animals are provided better conditions.

The public needs to be aware that just because someone is in jail or prison does NOT mean they were guilty! It means they didn't have the means to afford a GOOD ATTORNEY! Drug addicts & alcoholics are imprisoned rather than rehabilitated as well. Alternative sentences for crimes by this group should be provided in rehab hospitals, which are about ¼ the cost of prisons & will actually provide help instead of locking someone up for being ill.

Annette, you are SO right. Remember that some of the greatest people in history spent time in prison, including the Apostles. Some of the most criminal people had positions of power and control over all. After researching this issue for over seven years, I have concluded that the head of the pyramid of prison problems lies with the judiciary. You can have the best attorney in the world, but a criminal judge has complete impunity and absolute power and control. What California needs is a commission to oversee the Judicial Performance committee. It must consist of people who are NOT connected in any with with politics or the legal system. It could be a pool of "jurors" picked anonymously by computer once a year.

I hope this bill passes. I feel that CA over did it with the sentencing on the 3 strikes bill. We need to sentence for the crime committed not for the past crimes committed. I hope to hear more on this bill. I have a brother who was sentenced on the 3 strikes did his crime deserve sentencing yes it did. but not the 15 years he was sentenced. I see people being sentenced for less time and the crime they commited more severe then my brother's. I will never understand our legal system. I feel it is in need of desperate help.

I hope the bill pass, cause I am also a confuse person. My nephew did a crime and yes I agree he should serve time I am not arguing that point. But the time they gave him that where I am confused. Now this person had never been in trouble with the law accept for having some parking tickets as all of us have from time to time and forget to pay them. And he got life in prison now come on now and if you look at his family back ground and study this stuff you also would agree with me I am praying that a bill will pass and lessen his time cause if you knew him you would say the same thing that he is a person that don't even belong where he is right now. Sometimes in all our lives we come face to face with fear and don't know how to handle it and at that time we react the best and only way fear has us at that time, but God is good cause I know God and law will come up with something and someone in the justice will come across his papers and say or ask the question "why is this person here?" looking at this he don't need to be here not for life yeah for 5 to 10 yes but not life. Thanks for taking the time and reading and I look forward to hearing a response of something for this. Thanks and God Bless

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