Free the California 52,000?
A panel of three federal judges is holding a trial to determine whether to free 52,000 of California's 172,000 prison inmates to alleviate overcrowding. You might be asking yourself: Who elected these guys to run California?
One of the three judges, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, determined in 2005 that California's prison health care system is so bad that it's unconstitutional. He put the system in receivership and appointed law professor Clark Kelso to oversee prison health care.
Now Kelso is demanding $8 billion to renovate the system — even though the state is spending about $14,000 on health care per inmate, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. (California's total health care spending was $169 billion in 2006, the California Medical Association's Ned Wigglesworth told me, which divided by 37 million comes to about $4,600 per head — or a third of what is spent on the incarcerated.)
Here's the unfunny funny part: Criminal Justice Legal Foundation President Michael Rushford recently figured out that inmates live longer on the inside than on the outside, and they live longer on the inside than outsiders live. He found a study, "Release from Prison — A High Risk of Death for Former Inmates," published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, which shows that the mortality rate for Washington state inmates spiked more than 1,200 percent in the first two weeks after their release, and averaged 386 percent higher than inmates in prison during the two years after release.
The study also found that Washington inmates have a lower mortality rate than the general population. In that Washington state inmates have a mortality rate very close to the California rate, Rushford figured that the judges should beware that by releasing 52,000 prisoners, more inmates will die. As the New England Journal study noted, "the risk of death was sharply higher after release than during incarceration." The leading cause of death for released inmates was drug overdose, followed by cardiovascular disease, homicide, suicide, cancer and motor vehicle accidents.
Apparently prison — even prisons with shabby health facilities — provides a healthier environment than what most criminals are used to. Behind bars, there are fewer ways to be self-destructive — and there's health care.
I do not intend to make light of any substandard medical care in California prisons. Henderson found California penal health care to be so "fraught with medical neglect and malfeasance" as to be unconstitutional. He cited filthy conditions and poor hygiene practices — including a San Quentin dentist "who neither washed his hands nor changed his gloves after treating patients into whose mouths he had placed his hands." Ugh. (If this were a "Law & Order" episode, prosecutors would have charged the dentist with a crime — and rightly so.)
The good news is that after Henderson stepped in, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger worked to improve the prison health care system and poured money into the effort, with results to show for it. A 2007 analysis of prison deaths for Kelso reported that a number of health workers left the system, while state prisons hired board-certified professionals.
The number of inmate deaths has fallen dramatically, from 124 in the first quarter of 2006 to 87 in the second quarter of 2008. The analysis found three "preventable" deaths in California prisons, one for an inmate who ingested razor blades.
These improvements are not good enough for Kelso. As the Sacramento Bee reported earlier this year, Kelso had been working on a plan for health care facilities with art therapists, music therapists and beauticians — at an annual cost of $230,000 per inmate, according to a corrections agency draft.
Other problems, the Bee noted, were plans to build facilities with "proximity to urban areas, in several cases, backing up to neighboring homes and schools," in a "mall-based environment" with unlocked rooms that would allow male and female inmates to mix.
Does Kelso understand that 47 percent of the California prison population are repeat violent offenders, 33 percent are repeat offenders and many of the rest are first-time felons who committed serious crimes against people, like rape and murder? Do the three judges? As the Associated Press reported, one of the three, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento, asked recently, "In the long run, does it make any difference to public safety if we release them 60 days earlier?"
Corrections spokesman Seth Unger explained what that difference would be: "Releasing 50,000 inmates would be the equivalent of emptying 10 prisons onto the streets." Maybe Karlton doesn't worry about what the effect on the general public might be. But now we know, more prisoners may die.
E-mail Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com. To find out more about Debra J. Saunders, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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This article is pure FICTION!!!
Did the author even bother to talk to any of the inmates who are affected by the poor medical in prisons? Has she ever been TO a prison and seen the way that these men and women are packed in like sardines? A group of Monitors from the multiple Class Action suits filed against California recently toured the prison at Mule Creek and one of the women was so sickened by the smell in one of the gyms she had to leave.
Disease runs rampant through the prisons in California, partly due to the overcrowding. Stop and ask yourself this question - are the men and women who die from these diseases counted in the number of preventable deaths? I think not - this would be considered a natural death so it would not be included in the preventable death figures that are released to the public. Some of these men and women will eventually get out of prison and carry these diseases back to the communities they live in. Are the men and women who die because of poor post operative care included? Are the ones who die of suicide, because they are in so much pain due to poor health care counted? Are the ones who die from "drug interactions" reported? Some men are on 10-12 different drugs for mental disorders - and they die from "drug interactions" - but this would be a natural death to CDCR.
This is IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM!!!!!!!!!!! Do your homework before you write something like this that is so easily proven wrong.
Show me where in the Receiver's Plan of Action that is says that men and women would be in facilities that allow " unlocked rooms that would allow male and female inmates to mix", Show me where in the Report it says "art therapists, music therapists and beauticians — at an annual cost of $230,000 per inmate". Art and music therapy for the mentally ill is an accepted practice and it is being used in California prisons already.
You are perpetuating the myth that prison inmates have it better than those on the outside by printing half truths and propaganda handed to you by CDCR. Before you print this FICTION, you should read the dozens of reports that California has paid for and then ignored.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Madhatter
Sun Dec 14, 2008 6:05 AM
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I certainly don't want to see 50,000 prisoners mass released - but I don't believe that is how the judges plan for it to happen (if at all). From the reports I've read, the releases would happen over a two year period, NOT "all at once", and would only apply to those whose time for release is somewhat imminent anyway. I have also read that it would not apply to prisoners whose charges are considered violent. Oh how the media loves to play on people's fears! It is a fact that the judges have given the state a lot of time and leeway in initiating enough changes to the current system that any early releases wouldn't be necessary. I would have liked to have seen in this article a mention of how many years California and it's lawmakers have had to get the penal system into constitutional compliance. (It has been over 13 years). Instead, we continue to write new laws without addressing the problem of where we're going to put all these people we're locking up. A smart approach is needed in sentencing laws as well as more alternatives to prison. Prop 36 (drug court) has helped, but it doesn't reach far enough.
Our corrections system is in need of a massive overhaul. 2/3 of parolee's get sent back to prison on technical violations - not on new felony charges. Less than 10% of prisoners get any type of programming treatment. Over 75% are considered "functionally illiterate". An estimated 85% are substance addicted. Unless and until we address education, drug/alcohol abuse, "real world" job training skills, the need for a change in sentencing laws and parole reform, California prisons will continue to be a revolving door. That revolving door is costing this state a fortune. Common sense is needed. Give prisoners a "reward" for programming by giving them a viable reason to complete their education, overcoming their addictions (which by the way, drugs are almost as easy to get in a prison as on the streets) and by providing job training skills that can actually be used once they are released (less than half of them are assigned to any type of work program, and many of those, such as "coffee roasting" are hardly viable job skills that they can apply once released). Also, make parole work as a positive tool - not retributive. And for goodness sakes - quit crying wolf! The judges are not going to put 50,000 prisoners back on our streets overnight. If you read some of their statements and orders, you will see for yourself that this is not, and has not ever, been their intent. Is the system broken? YES! But after years and years of noncompliance, and with lawmakers and CDCR refusing to make the changes necessary for reformation of the system - IF judges order a population cap, we have no one to blame but the system and those who are in charge of it.
Comment: #2
Posted by: jackima
Sun Dec 14, 2008 7:18 AM
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Ma'am;...What a paradox you present, that life behind bars not only seems long, but is longer... And what does that tell you, that prisoners live longer than free people of the same class??? I would say; if you care about these people behind bars, first find that they all deserve their time there, that we are not just using them as a threat, and a lesson to others -that the others will never take... In a proper sense, all we are required to do is exclude people from our society, and that is because we have no way to exclude people from humanity except by excluding ourselves as well... What we see in the past is that when a person did a deed so great that he should be excluded, he was made an outlaw who could be killed on sight, but since he was still some ones kin, he could not be killed unless blood demanded blood... Since people in the past recieved their sense of identity, their ethic, and their character from their communities, it is certain many could not live as outlaws...And yet, among the Greeks, they regularly heaped the sins of the community onto a single person, and drove the scapegoat out... And whether blood was shed or not, since an individual alone was the enemy of all, his days were numbered, and his death certain... We should expect progress from ourselves, and instead we invite degradation... We should send people to prison for the crimes we know they have commited, and not on a presumption of general guilt, and then we should punish those people by exclusion from society, from all society, including their own... What good does it do to put people in prison with a grudge against society, feeling they have been harmed, into the company of worse people, worse aggrieved to learn new and worse expressions of hate... We know many people in prison are mentally deranged, homicidal, and violent in the extreme... In fact, many need close supervision in a medical facility, and though most of them cannot be cured, it is for that very reason that humanity demands their treatment and protection...Do we want to some kid guilty of some simple theft thrown in with some lifer who does not care who he rapes, abuses, or uses??? We get caught up in the idea of punishment to the point where we hurt ourselves financially in the process...Nearly everyone who suffers a loss now could be made whole on what we collectively spend to punish, and since our punishment is an injustice, we are guilty as well... It is not fair that society should endure the cost of caring for a criminal, but they are ours; some ones family, brother, sister, father, or mother... This fact demands humanity; but we should consider, across the board all the many people who should be supported, who do not belong in our work places, or schools because they present an impediment, or a hazzard; and yet should be kept stocked with food, housing, and tv, -and told to stay clear... We inflict punishment in this land because we suffer a great deal of anxiety, frustration, envy, and anger... We are led to believe we coddle criminals... We do not coddle criminals... Our punishment should be this: that those convicted are deprived of their productive years, wealth, liberty, and dignity... That is enough... No one can give them their time back, which for them as for us, is our lives... We can restore them to honor, rehabilitate those who desire it, teach them to use their freedom in a responsible manor, and to not hate humanity...I think we can all agree that what we are doing is expensive, inhumane, and counter productive...Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #3
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Sun Dec 14, 2008 8:17 AM
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Re: Madhatter; ...Good Job, by the way. I don't know if the problem is too much booze, or too much play time with a plastic bag; but some of the stuff Mz Saunders comes up with is fart, fable, or swill from the dark ages... I expect stupidity from my fellow men, and I have learned to expect better sense from women; and in this case I am disappointed for the most part... Ideological women are no better than ideological men... No one should let their ideas do their thinking for them...Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #4
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Sun Dec 14, 2008 8:24 AM
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"even though the state is spending about $14,000 on health care per inmate, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation."
Oh really Ms. Saunders? My son has been in 16 months and just now got his first visiit to a dentist - which he needed very badly. He will be released in two months - so one dentist visit, who did nothing by the way except give him an asprin, cost $14,000.00? And this is nothing compared to the very, very ill people that are ignored everyday - to the point that at least one inmate dies each week from LACK of any care. If you think the average person is getting the raw end of the deal - go to prison for a few months and then write an article.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Judeca
Sun Dec 14, 2008 12:59 PM
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First of all, how in the WORLD can you compare Washington State to California in any way, shape or form? WA State has 29,000 inmates in Jail and Prison. California has 170,000. Apples and Oranges. California is almost 8 times larger. Here is an interactive map you can check all 50 states prison/jail populations.
http://www.sentencingproject.org/StatsByState.aspx
WA State is one of the smallest and you pick some obscure report that says a bunch of nothing. What you gather from it is that if this country as a whole doesn't start actually trying to fight drugs in other ways other than incarceration this problem is going to continue. PRISON DOESN'T CURE ADDICTION. So of course they die when they get out. NO REHABILITATION WAS OFFERED ON THE INSIDE AND NO OR FEW SERVICES EXIST ON THE OUTSIDE FOR THESE INDIVIDUALS. Violent individuals need prison, that's a given, but there a thousands serving time in prisons that should have been given alternative sentencing and honest to God help to change their lives. The system in California as it exists is a planned return to prison within 3 years for 70% of parolees. Why? They are given $200 and dropped off in the County of their crime. There is no place for them to go if they have no family and many don't. Yet they are expected to just be good. No one will hire them, no one will rent to them. Many find it impossible to even get a valid ID. THE SYSTEM SETS THEM UP FOR FAILURE. Law Enforcement and all who profit from it make TONS A CASH OFF CALIFORNIA CITIZENS and what do we get. BILLIONS THROWN DOWN A BLACK HOLE THAT GET'S BIGGER AND BIGGER. It eats up ever more of our budget so money is sucked away from education, medical, mental, welfare, roads, you name it. Reform Sentencing, Reform Parole, Education, Real Drug Rehabiliation if necessary and Real Job Skills. No prisoner should get out without at least a GED! People need to wake up and STOP LISTENING TO THIS KIND OF PROPAGANDA BY JOURNALISTS TRYING TO INCITE FEAR. WE ARE TIRED OF BEING LIED TO.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Morris1
Sun Dec 14, 2008 7:47 PM
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Re: Judeca;... Ma'am, what your letter points out is that you can put a person in prison, but the whole family sufferes.... It is not fair; and it does not lead to a reconciliation with society...We have a whole philosophy behind our prison system which has failed... In the deep past, there was group responsibility, and group control... Every group would police its own because they understood that any injury to others would be returned without regard to specific wrong do'ers, for all were held responsible for the actions of the individual... The idea of an individual accountable to himself and for himself has replaced group responsibility... Law has broken down all the communities that once enforced social behavior, and even the last vestiges of community, in the family, are under fire... We are all left standing alone without a community to defend us or to defend our rights... Communites have no responsibility in theory, and no power in fact....Yet; It is stupid to say the blacks are not held responsible and made to suffer the wrongs done by their individuals; but their power to police their own is gone, so to hold them responsible is clearly unfair . ... And while we say there is such a thing as an individual, we deny it with a cookie cutter approach to law and sentencing.... Considering that we all survived our earliest expression of law, and that some people today still thrive under a social and community expression of law that takes into account that penalites are always suffered by the community, and the family of the guilty, we should look for that as a model... We make some terrible mistakes as a society... We take power from families and communities to enforce their codes when it would do much good, when a child is young and amenable to change... Instead, an overburdend law system slaps the paws of children until they no longer fear the law, and then they must impose severe penalites which punish in the extreme -when education would have worked better... No one can look critically at our system of law which has held sway for only a thousand years without some understanding of what went before... The past had no great prisons and could not support anyone not working, guards, police, judges, or prisoners... Nor was capital punishment that common... For murders, people paid... One community would pay off another, or suffer revenge... Now we say the individual is responsible for his actions and must pay, but not in an individual fashion, but by the same sentence as every other regardless of the nature and circumstances of the crime. Yet; as always, the family must suffer, and the whole community must fear that the prisoner suffering injustice will inflict injustice in turn, -and that the one brutalized by law will never shake free of brutality, but become its messenger, and broadcast it far and wide... The law should make better all it touches; and this it does not do..... ..Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #7
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Mon Dec 15, 2008 5:32 AM
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Every time I read anything composed by Debra Saunders, I get sick.
Comment: #8
Posted by: Matarese
Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:10 AM
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