Outline of Prison Deal to be Voted on Tomorrow by California Legislature

Has anyone noticed how lawmakers obviously put into office by law enforcement labor unions to do their bidding with little regard for what is best for the state is doing more dirty work on a "fast track?"

This is an increase in taxes. It takes away from education and human services and strengthens CCPOA and all the "punisher" groups even though there are no statistics anywhere that prisons, jails, harsh laws and excessive sentencing do one thing to keep the mentally and medically ill people locked in cages from acting out their illnesses.

We are mortgaging our children's futures to punish the mentally ill and addicts.

No sentencing reform?

Do people realize this $7 billion is just to get this party started and has nothing to do with maintaining it?

And there are millions in it for the unconstitutional law of Prop 83 as well.

It's a waste of time for people to call and write lawmakers as their votes are purchased. But what needs to happen is that everyone posts beneath the 100 articles in California today to alert the other voters that their taxes have been raised to support a huge black hole that does not nothing to deter or prevent crime.

Tens of thousands of beds could have been freed up simply by taking the mentally ill out of the failed system and putting them under a new agency.

This is all about the money, and it's a travesty that such a poor plan is all they could come up with - I hope Judge Henderson takes it all away at this point.

These lawmakers are absolutely heartless and have sold their souls to special interests. You could drop a dead body on any desk in the legislature and they would simply work around it.

This is horrible news. If people would like to read a number of articles that I've published Frank which would have saved an expansion of the prison industry without putting one person at risk, please send them to this link

6500 people can elect or recall any politician if they are willing to do some work and spend some money. Obviously the lawsuits mean nothing so reform can only come by force through initiative campaigns, referendums and preventing those who endorse such stupidity and harshness as this plan represents from ever getting elected to office.

It is a black day in California if this passes.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewByAuthor.asp?authorID=264

Corrupt Criminal Justice System Contributes to Over-Crowded Prisons
October 21, 2006
by: Dr. B. Cayenne Bird

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Real Prison Reform Must Include Sentencing and Parole Changes
September 25, 2006
by: Dr. B. Cayenne Bird

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Prison Reform for Dummies: What's Right and What's Wrong
September 13, 2006
by: Dr. B. Cayenne Bird

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Parents of Prisoners ask: Why are we paying to punish sick people in prison?
August 17, 2006
by: Dr. B. Cayenne Bird

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Parents of Prisoners Pray for this Urgent Reform First
August 8, 2006
by: Dr. B. Cayenne Bird

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Voters Must Demand Sane Prison Reforms to Protect the Public Safety
July 26, 2006
by: Dr. B. Cayenne Bird

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Build Mental Hospitals - Not Prisons - to Lower Crime
July 9, 2006
by: Dr. B. Cayenne Bird

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Links to all of the above articles can be found here.

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewByAuthor.asp?authorID=264

Legislators have prove unequivically that they do not listen to their constituents or the many many studies that have been done on reforming the prison system. They did exactly what we all knew they would do. Throw more money at and build more prisons. That is all this is. Nothing will change. More and more Californians will be warehoused in a Mega Prison State. They will claim as always that reforms will take place and they never will just like California Legislators have done in the last decade. They have shown they do not have th ability to oversee the CDCr in the past, so what will be different now. This is a complete sell out. The only two things that were needed to reform the system is a Sentencing Commission and Parole Reform and neither are in this bill. Californians will be forced once again to pay through the nose for the continuation and lack of management that has historically occurred between the State of California and CDCr. Another Black hole. Housing Inmates in other states has proven already to be a terrible idea. Inmates are torn away from family members and the inmates in these other prisons don't want our inmates. It is nothing but more abuse of inmates. If the Federal Goverment buys this, we have truly trampled the Constitution of this Country and there is little hope left. The people of this state have nothing to say about anything. This is why so many people don't even bother to cast their votes. They feel it doesn't matter. By-passing voters with Lease Bonds is a violation of our right to vote how our money is spent. They have shown who they are. They knew the voters would never buy this plan so they came up with a way to slide it through. Shame on our Legilators. Hopefully the next go round many of these legislators will lose their seats. I know I will keep a list of who they are.

How we even think of mortgaging our grandchildren's future with this excessive expenditure? I am outraged as a taxpayer that the Governor has so little care or concern for tomorrow but he is desperately trying to save his rear end today. This proposal still allows for prisoners to be transferred which has already been ruled against. Is he above the law? It doesn't allow for one shred of sentencing reform which is such a sensible, simple and inexpensive way to deal with over crowding. There are a great many people incarcerated whom are neither violent or dangerous. They are drug addicted or mentally ill not to be mention the elderly and physically ill. Certainly they can harm no one. Release these people now. The hardened career criminals are not going get out in spite of what is quoted in the media. We cannot build ourselves out of this problem, in fact, it just perpetuates it, because nothing changes. And by the way, how does the Governor intend to fund this year after year? His $7.4 billion proposal is for ONE year! Will we continue to rob education to perpetuate incarceration? This is unacceptable and intolerable.

7 Billion + of our hard earned tax dollars going to expand the horrifing prison system. Thrown into the black hole of in competency.
Billions and billions not spent for educating our youth, not for our at risk students, not for the needy, not for the uninsured, not for our elderly, not for our future.
And with no voter approval.
I am sickened, I am outraged.
How many of these inmates would have, could have, chosen a different path had we invested in them.
This is the root of all our evils. This is the root of our sick society. Which will now continue to grow.

How dare our politicians rob the people just to help their own careers. We already have a track record. We know that our prison system does not work. Why are we allowing more of the same? And repairing the mismanagement of the Corrections Department could cost hundreds and hundreds of millions more.
How sad that the misery, suffering, will continue under this plan. We must find a way to get these calious, hateful, thieves out of office. Our prisons are at the root of all of our social ills.

This bill has more holes than a sieve. The first programs slashed over the years have always been those programs to help inmates learn how to succeed in the outside world. The release of the elderly and the dying that are beginning to swell the prison population is not being addressed. The need to house and treat the mentally ill in a different facility than the more violent populous is not being addressed. The list of inadequate measures missing in this bill goes on and on. I think that the only way we can achieve some problem solving for prison reform is to get a bill out there that freezes all pay increases and benefits for the prison guards until major reform is accomplished.

A definition of insanity is to repeat the same action time after time and expecting a different outcome. By this definition our legislators are nuts! Building more prisons just lets the mad dog, lock them up and throw the key away fanatics like the Runners from Lancaster to add new crimes, lengthen sentences, and play the scare tactic to get votes. So here we are with a behind closed door bill in defiance of the public will repeating the same mistakes of the last 30 years. Again without reform and incurring a debt they didn't have the courage to ask the voters to support.

They're not just nuts, they're cowards too.

Reform what reform this is just another bandage to a sore that is never going away ... They have not even begin to face the fact that there is almost 100,000 extra inmates in our system here and sending them off to have another state bandage our overcrowding issues ... They feel is a good idea I say it is just another way to make themsevles look better as they line their pockets with more green .. I ask the question of us all ... What is it again that we the taxpayers pay our Government to do oh yeah just sit there and look pretty ... I do not think so they need to get off their duffs and start listening to the voters who voted them in and instead of looking pretty we want to be looking like they have actually worked for all the money they are being paid ... Most of us would be fired for not holding up our positions in any company why is it that they get to just slip by ... I wish I had all these answers but maybe if someday when all of our voices are heard they will come up with a reform that will reform and not just bandage the issue ... Accomplishments can not be accoomplished without some kind of guidance ... Our Government here in California is only guided by the dollar amount and the accomplishments are in their own greed ... Things need to change ... My question is will they ever?

Why does the money need to be spent on building more prisons? Why can't the money be spent on re-entry and rehabilitation programs? What about spending the money on "crime prevention" programs? I don't think building more prisons is the answer!

Who the heck would actually let this bill pass??? After reading the article, Karen is right, there are so many holes in this bill it is ridiculous. What I think is funny is...53,000 new beds in two phases. What the heck is that...2 phases???!!! So if DOC does not meet what is expected of them in Phase 1 then so much for those other beds? It is bad enough that 53,000 beds still does not alleviate the overcrowding, not even if they were allowed to transfer 8,000 people out of state. Another thing they say it will take up to 4 years or more to build and add new beds; so maybe by 2011 or 2012 they will have those beds? Now if they are expecting the prison population to be up to 190,000 by 2012, where will they house the other 15,000+ people? What will they do then, take away more money from the tax payers to build more prisons and add more beds? I know everybody sees that this is just a revolving door that will never end unless like Morris1 mentioned, we have a Sentencing commission and Parole reform. Also what is needed is vocational training skills so that the taxpayers don't need to pay $43,000 a year per persn to house them. If they have job skills when they get out then they can find a job and be able to stay out because they know how to work and feel good about themselves. Believe me I don't even make $43,000 a year and I live very comfortably. Shame on these people who would let something like this pass!!

The plan to build more prisons is a disaster that will make the problem we have at present seem like a walk in the park. It speaks of more education and rehabilitation without mentioning that there is little to none at present. This alone will cost billions if it were even a posibility. The budget is unrealistic. The next generation will pay the price for this legislation. Three strikes and you in for life will continue to fill all the prisons we can build. This is not the answer. Eventually it will catch up with us or our children. How can we talk about rehabilitation when there are prisons that don't even provide a religious program. An inmate has to fill out a form to see a chaplan and it can take weeks. Yes, there are correspondence courses that those inmates with family and loved ones that can aford the costly expense can take but what about the other 98%? Does that sound like anyone one is really interested in education or rehabilatation? The poblem is not that we don't have enough prisons, it's that our ploicies and legislation have created a whole bunch of new and serious issues. We need much better solutions instead of more of the same. Visit a prison and see for yourself. There are more productive possiblities for billions of dollars.

Kiley laments, "Maybe someday they will come up with a reform that will reform not just bandage the issue . . . ". Such reform has been proposed time and time again for three decades now by criminal justice experts, such as Joan Petersilia, by several Little Hoover Commissions, by the Deukmejian Independent Review Panel -- the list goes on . . . .

The problem is that the Legislature and the Governor have no interest in acting on this sound advice because it would be political suicide for them to do so and damaging to prison industry profits to do so. So our elected officials continue to mislead the public, use scare tactics on us, and pull sneaky moves like this one, transparently acting as if they are solving the problems besetting the horribly -- and ironically criminally -- dysfunctional California prison system, long known as the worst in the country!

Giving less than 24-hour public notice on a bill coming before our Assembly that doesn't even begin to outline a plan for what is needed for prison reform is disgraceful, cowardly, and outrageous! Our legislators and governor owe it to us all to pass effective prison reform legislation that address the true causes of overcrowding and recidivism, for starters: sentencing reform and parole reform. And we, the people, owe it to ourselves and our children to insist on building a better society through true prison reform and to refuse to support further building of the prison industry.

We all need to become informed and involved in removing these do-nothing-smart politicians from office and electing representatives who will courageously take sound advice and put into laws that will effect true and desperately needed prison reform.

Let's see if I've got this straight.
A secret and closed meeting in the dead of night hatched a Bill that was rushed to the printer for an early morning vote in the Legislator before the ink was even dry. No one had a chance to even read the Bill, let alone analize and discuss it, before being ask to vote on it. It will cost over 15 BILLION bucks, (when you add the interest) and THEY PASSED IT!!! Good God man, What is wrong with THIS picture.

Let's see if I've got this straight.
A secret and closed meeting in the dead of night hatched a Bill that was rushed to the printer for an early morning vote in the Legislator before the ink was even dry. No one had a chance to even read the Bill, let alone analize and discuss it, before being ask to vote on it. It will cost over 15 BILLION bucks, (when you add the interest) and THEY PASSED IT!!! Good God man, What is wrong with THIS picture.

After the surety companies indemnify the bonds, which are underwriting them, they do this through an investment banker or the banks themselves do this. They job it out to them. They buy up all these shares and turn around and sell them as investment securities. The shares represent the stock which represents the account of CCA. All of this has been funneled through CCA, the Corrections Corporation of America. What they are doing is selling stock in the prison system by selling the prisoners' accounts as securities through the securities exchange. They are making huge amounts of money off it. They privatize the prisoners' accounts and bring all these investors in and what they are doing is underwriting all these prisoner's accounts (bonds). This is after the surety company guarantees the bonds. Then they are underwritten through an investment bank or banker. Then they are put out on the market and resold to the public. In other words the banks are buying up all the shares and then they resell them as investment securities to the public. The public then buys them as mutual funds or they can buy them as debt instruments, equity instruments.

PRISON REFORM! That's the "in" catch phrase going around in Sacrammento these days, but is it? I think not. Real reform, would include sentencing reform, mental health facilities so that the severely mentally ill would receive treatment, not punishment for things they can't help, and training for jobs and careers that actually exist today and will exist in the future so that parolees have a viable shot at supporting themselves upon release. I don't see any of that with AB 900 do you? What I do see is something that was done in secret, at night without voter approval in an attepmt to appease the Federal Judges. AB 900 will morgage my childrens', and grandchildrens' future long after I am gone. Make no mistake I will remember the next time I vote and I always vote!

Do California law makers want our state to be known as "Prisons are Us"?? What person in there right mind would want to move to our State?? Most likely future prison guards??
Why has our system failed?(overcrowding) What percentage of people in the system are alcohol/drug related??
Being an addict is a diease. Mandatory/Monitored rehabilitation should be the sentence given for the first time offender all the way to the obviously addicted person.
Prison will not change an addict. Support from Family/Friends is highly crucial. Most inmates lose contact with their loved ones because of the PHONE COMPANYS' trying to get their piece of the $$$ pie. The burden of the HIGH PRICES for COLLECT CALLS help create the lack of communication. Yes they can write, if they know how to(education)or the family/friends can send money to purchase paper,pens,envelopes and stamps.
They need help. They become institutionalized unable in function once released.
Instead of California pushing for more prisons and guards, maybe it's time we push for Life Counselors, Career Counselors, Mentors. It's time to fix a corrupt system. It's not working.
And at $43,000 a year to house a inmate- which does not include,
1. Correspondance supplies
2. Personal hygenine items
3. Health conscience meals (I'm not talking 5-star but at least 3.5-star)
4. Health care (majority of inmates paroled have major health issues (besides addictions)accquired while serving their time and not treated properly (hep's,skin dieases,staph's,heart,diabetes etc....)
5.Proper sleeping arrangements
And yes I am speaking from experience I have someone in and out of the California Prison System for the last 20 years. (Alcohol/Drug related violations)
The numbers are growing will someone you care about be the next inmate to "California Prisons are Us"
Speak up California.

In relation to Dr. Bird's comment regarding Labor Unions' control over the Legislation, her conclusion is totally incorrect. I have served on two special committees for the labor unions within CDCR. I am a member of AFSCME and we put together a comprehensive white paper calling for innovative and evidence-based rehabilitation programs for inmates. These programs were to be instituted at all levels, at all institutions and for male and female inmates. They were to include Cognitive-Behavioral therapy and groups, mental health services, vocational and educational services and complete assessments and incentives to determine inmate needs and encourage inmate progress from the time the inmate comes into reception to the time they leave the parole process, respectively.

In addition, AFSCME joined in coalition with the other major unions including SEIU, CCPOA, UAPD and CAPT and developed a letter signed by the president's of all of these unions asking for reform in ALL areas necessary to reduce recidivism including SENTENCING REFORM, rehabilitation programs, Parole reform, Staffing recruitment and retention, building and space considerations, etc. This letter was deliver to the Governor and to every Legislator on April 12 in anticipation of an incomplete and unwanted deal such has just come out. We have actively been working with the legislature for months to have them understand the plight of inmates in California prisons. And we feel that they have let us down. In addition, neither they, nor the Governor, nor the top administration has taken the time to seriously listen to our recommendations and to take into consideration the vast knowledge of those people who work with inmates every day and who know their needs and shortcomings.

So please stop blaming the labor unions. In the case of Prison Reform and Rehabilitation, we have an amazing number of common goals, including such less than anticipated areas such as sentence reform, early release, etc.

How is it that they can vote for me to pay more in taxes without me voting on it? Am I a California tax payer? YES!

What is going to happen when they build these beds and bring back the out of state prisoners? We are going to be in the same boat we are right now.

We need reform! NOT more prisons! I do not want to spend my tax dollars on this!

Thanks to Elaina Jannell for reminding us of the published goals of the unions mentioned. I read the letter. They are in favor of sentencing reforms and other sensible ways of improving the prison system.

Thanks to Dr. Bird. She reminds us of ways we can protest against injustice.

And, thanks to those who pointed out glaring flaws of this disgraceful legislation.

The prisons were built with a capacity of 100,000 but are packed with 172,000 inmates. Phase I calls for 24,000 new beds that will be divided among several uses. 8,000 inmates are to be shipped out of state even through that is unconstitutional. That leaves us 40,000 beds short.

Elaina Jannell, Please don't take this wrong. I am not looking for a fight. It is my understanding that the CCPOA only got on the band wagon of Rehabilitation, Programs and Sentencing Reform when the threat of losing inmates to other states jeopardized jobs for the unions. Where am I wrong?

I know that many prison guards do all they can to stop inmates from college education courses. They for some reason are threatened by inmates bettering themselves. Many of them think of them as animals and treat them as such. Just read the Paco whatever website prison guards post on. Anyway, that is a separate issue. Bottom line is this bill is going to do nothing to address overcrowding for years. It will be exactly like what we have now because the same organizations will be in charge.

The Federal Government will have no choice but to come in and do what is necessary. Our legislators had their chance.

To CA Dustin: They have not voted to increase taxes. The money necessary to pay the ongoing costs of the bonds that are in the prison bill comes out of the state's General Fund where it will compete with other programs.

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