California Responsible For 1 out of 5 New Inmates in the U.S. in Prison Last Year

Jason, Thank you for a writing this article.
The California prison system is a nightmare and we need people to bring it to light. I wish more people like yourself would write. So many of our youth are being incarcarated for non violent crimes. Many are undereducated and low income. The whole system is corrupt, not just the prison system. Changes have to be made or we, the people, of California are doomed.

Excellent article. Corruption in California runs deep. Over the years voters have been duped into passing extreme bills that give law enforcement unfettered control of the legal system. The punishments no longer fit the crimes. There is no even handed justice. The same crime may get you probation or 10 years in prison. There are hundreds of DA's just like Mike Niphong in the "Duke Rape Case" trying to make a name for themselves. They overcharge, embellish and just plain lie and have to prove nothing. They can make statements in court that influence a jury without any justification or evidence. The accused know this so they are petrified to go to trial. 95% of California cases are plead out because of whate DA's can do. DA's and their investigators lie, intimdidate and coerce them into prison. They hang life sentences over people because
they can. All the crazy enhancement laws that have been enacted make a crime that should get someone 1 year in prison, 5-10. And we wonder why our prisons are overcrowded. Legislators need to stop using "tough on crime" bills for their own personal political gains. A sentencing commission is what is needed. Take control away from legislators and this problem can be solved. More money in Education, prevention and rehabilitation. That is the answer. Not more space in prisons.

This is what Dr. Cayenne Bird of the UNION had to say:

UNION Supports Prison Cap en Masse
Sacramento, California (June 27, 2007) The family members of our UNION traveled from as far away as San Diego to be at the Federal Court in Sacramento, Wednesday, in order to show support for a prison cap. Not everyone present has a loved one in prison, many UNION people are doctors, teachers, nurses and social workers in the professions who are united in the philosophy that prisons are doing more to create crime than to prevent it.

UNION Director Dr. B. Cayenne Bird believes that prison reform is coming about too slowly in proportion to the suffering and dying that is taking place inside. After more than a decade of lobbying the legislators, she believes that most of the politicians were put into office with the dollars and votes of law enforcement labor unions who are there to serve their needs only. Here is her statement.

"Rewarding a failed agency with more tax-payer dollars is a silly idea especially when they can't fund the institutions that are in operation" stated Dr. Bird. The Governor has repeatedly turned down many good reform bills because his tough-on-crime image is obviously more important to him than taking actions that would benefit public safety, such as the prevention of mental illness and elimination of poverty.

The Receiver is focused on cleaning up one institution right now, San Quentin, which will hopefully serve as a model for the rest. Meanwhile healthcare appears to be getting worse at the other 32 prisons and certainly the pleas for help that come into me have not subsided.

What I see is a crisis. The mentally ill are being put into conditions which causes them to break down, act out and then they are being criminally prosecuted for reacting. They have the courts full of mentally ill people caught masturbating in their own cells, which I find utterly ridiculous given the overcrowding. A sane person would break down and lash out in such inhumane conditions.

The families of the UNION have filed 28 lawsuits for preventable wrongful deaths and permanent disabilities. We are supporting a bill to re-sentence and release terminally ill and permanently disabled prisoners which passed both houses of the legislature last year but was vetoed by the Governor.

It's only a philosophy that is keeping paraplegics, quadriplegics, those with cancer and other terrible conditions in prison, a very expensive, wrong philosophy that will end up costing the taxpayers millions more since it is unconstitutional to lock people up and deny them medical care, which is what is happening now.

The only thing worse than denying any American medical care is to keep on denying them medical care. Many more lawsuits are on the horizon because when an image is more important than human life and extreme suffering the three million Californians attached to the prisoners have no choice but to seek court intervention.

I've been voicing this loudly for a decade, the families have been too uneducated to organize and take law enforcement's politicians out of office in the past but the UNION is doing everything to change that, it's very sad to see so many people devastated, confused and frightened of retaliation if they talk to the media about what's going on inside the prisons.

Not many people at this level understand how the system works and the legislators are notorious for ignoring them unless there is a ton of press coverage. The wardens and prison guards are literally getting away with murder.

So much inhumanity and most people there come back much worse off then before imprisonment. We can never thank Judge Henderson for what he's done enough but the families affected must a some point realize that nobody can keep on rescuing them, they must take the people who have voted against all reforms out of office with the power of initiative campaigns and at the ballot box. Robbing our education dollars to throw money into the black hole of more prisons doesn't make sense to most thinking people. But are they out registering the poor to vote to stop this slave labor industry, this is the big question.

The legislators freeze out advocates that have encouraged lawsuits and speak too much truth about this situation, they have banned the media from being able to witness the atrocities, even the media allowed inside the Capitol is a very controlled situation. It's very disturbing to see this type of inhumanity taking place in my native state of California. We are limited on funds, many of the victims of this type of government abuse can barely read or write so they don't know how to speak out to the media for themselves, they just watch their loved ones slowly deteriorate and often die without lifting a finger to organize against the abuse. In 2007 we are controlled by people who are punishers and not healers and they're no better than most of the inmates, criminals wearing badges and those they elected to office to do their bidding. It's insane and we have only voter apathy to blame for the entire mess.

We support putting a cap on the prison population and urge that some of our uncreative leaders turn to technology as better industry with which to finance their bureaucracy"

Thanks so much for this article. I am completing my thesis project on "Implementing Strategies on Reducing Recidivisnm in Urban Los Angeles', and need all the information I can obtain related to criminal justice issues in California. I am a former ex-con who has first-hand knowledge of the difficulties and barriers associated with becoming a productive member of society. Although I am considered a "so-called" minority in society, I was among the "majority in prison" - African-American female.
I believe many of us who care about the system are aware of political, social and other implications relative to prison overcrowind and expansion, i.e., salaries of CDCR employees, the Corrections Union, lack of stakeholders that truly give a darn about change until something happens in their community, private prisons and the PIA, telephone companies and vendors who contract with prisons, etc.
During the course of my research, information and statistics I needed were very limited. For example, I was unable to locate the exact number of parolees released to Service Planning Areas of Los Angeles County, in particular SPA 6, South Los Angeles. information regarding gender-specific programs for parolees, successful programs for parolees inconclusive of drug treatment, etc., where the domino effect of crime, arrests, sentencing and ultimate release from prison are probably paramount to any other area in the state of California.
In addition to my thesis project, I have developed a program called RAP.LA (Re-entry Assistance Program.Los Angeles for probationers and parolees so I will check back on this site for statistics and information I will be able to utilize when requesting funding.

Thanks Again,

Toni

This is known around the world as the California Prison Industrial Complex.

CALIFORNIA: COME ON VACATION ! LEAVE ON PROBATION ! RETURN ON VIOLATION !

Shame on California for allowing this to happen and on so many for participating in this cruel, inhumane and barbaric industry created by the Union police state.

You are the new Nazis.

"The quality fo mercy is never strained...." except in CA.

CA loves to "beat its chest" metaphorically like a testosterone laden gorilla when it comes to comes to prison reform. preferring o incarcerate women for long sentences for offenses that were neither drug or violent related. The male-dominate legislature and the Governor like to "sing to their choir" by incarcerating women whose offenses evolved from economic pressures of single parenting. No matter they are now "grannies in the yard" facing many more years before parole can be offered. Thus, the current initiative for releasing early 22,000 drugies et al seems so unfair.. when you realize that under the CA radar is a large population of women serving extremely long sentences for just stealing money. These one-time offenders.. these "Grannies in the yard" disproportionately cost the taxpayer money vis a vis the younger prisoners. the CA Assembly likes to proudly proclaim their "masculinity" by getting tough... on single parent women. Why? When these women.. many over 50 could be more productive on the outside.

It is time for CA to rebuke "Gonad the Barbarian's" (IE the Governor's) scorched earth mentality when it comes to the elderly incarcerate women in CA prisons. let the grannies in the Yard be free to make amends on the outside.

From a Mothers Heart. My Heart cries for our young men & women who are incarcerated. Our system is blowing out of it seems. They are being crowded in the prison wall of our great state of California. The answer is tougher on crime? Three strikes law? Use a gun get 10 years? Filling our system even more. The common sense is no longer in the judges hands. Why do we have a need for the judge, if the faith of a person is already determined with the laws above? Does a person ever pays his or her debt to society? Sending our children, to a mom they will always be our children. But sending our children out of state, is these the answer? Our state already has a deficit, Do we continue to bury are heads and are afraid to admit there is a problem? My son had a gun, he made a foolish act. Yes he did deserve some time for his behavior. But with the laws that I had mention above ( three strikes, use a gun get 10 years), Commom sense is know longer being used. My son had received 5 strikes for this on bad and horrible night. You say what about the victims? Yes victims need rights. They need to be protected. But also does this mean we forget about, are throw away some one elsies, life for another? Based on laws, not on individual circumstances? Such as the three strikes law and use a gun get 10 years. No matter if it was stupid or a very poor act a person had made or done. Because of having a gun know matter what happen, he will be classified or label the same as someone that had used the gun in a more violent nature, They are two of the same? to me, that is what they are being classified as the same as, no matter what or how as long as a gun was involved. Were is the balance in our law? How can our state justify paying other states for our over crowdedness? Or even building more prisons? If we don't look deeper into the problem, we can't fix the problem. Stop burying your head in the sand. I am not the only mother crying for her son.

WOW!!! I THOUGHT I WAS ALONE WITH MY THOUGHTS...I THOUGHT NOBODY CARED....AMEN, AND PRAISE GOD SOMEONE IS LISTENING TO US MOTHERS AND GRANDMOTHERS. OUR CHILDREN ARE NOT THROWAWAYS...LOCK THEM UP, THROWAWAY THE KEY...JUST DON'T FORGET MY PAYCHECK FOR PROTECTING SOCIETY FROM FACING UP TO A PROBLEM THAT HAS BEEN CRYING OUT FOR YEARS "HOW DO WE GET THESE HUMANBEINGS (YES, HUMANBEINGS)BACK INTO CIVALIZATION AND BECOME PRODUCTIVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN WITH HEALTHY DREAMS AND GOALS IN LIFE...TAKING ON THEIR OWN RESPONSIBLITY OF RAISING THEIR OWN KIDS SO THEIR GRANDPARENTS DON'T HAVE TO RAISE THEM".

EDUCATE AND REHABILITATE!!! WHAT A JOKE....PUT SOME MONEY THERE AND SEE WHAT BEAUTIFUL POTENTIAL THAT HAS BEEN LOCKED UP AND THROWED AWAY. THREE STRIKES....YOU TOSS THESE PEOPLE OUT WITH LESS THAN WHAT THEY WENT IN WITH, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?!!!

CALIFORNIA NEEDS TO LOOK AT THESE OTHER STATES, WHAT ARE THEY DOING RIGHT.

I AM IN AGREEMENT WITH ALL THAT HAS BEEN BROUGHT UP TOO...THE DA'S DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING BUT THE POINTS THEY GET FOR THEIR WINS...TO ME THEY SHOULD BE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TABLE ALONG WITH SOME OF THE PRISON GUARDS..WE ALL KNOW THAT THEY ARE PULLING IN SOME GOOD OVERTIME, NOT TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE STUFF THEY TAKE INTO THE PRISONERS AND HOW THEY TREAT THEM...THE DAY OF RECKONING IS COMING, AMEN.

Post a comment