Gov. Brown denies parole for almost all of parole board's recommended release candidates with murder charges
by Brian Leubitz
This is a failing system:
California Gov. Jerry Brown pardoned 21 people in his first year in office and rejected parole for 71 first- and second-degree murderers who had been recommended for release by the parole board.
Brown did allow for the early release of just one person, Tung Nguyen of Garden Grove, who was convicted of first-degree murder for his role in a motel-room killing in a dispute over money. ... Unlike the 71 other such recommendations rejected by Brown, the governor approved Nguyen's parole, based in part on his role in helping 50 civilians to safety who were on the prison yard during a 2006 inmate riot.
There was once a point to a parole board. They were doctors and social workers who specialized in examining risk to the public. They still are the same people, but now their recommendations are completely ignored. Few of the violent offenders that are recommended for early release are actually released. Offenders with "life" sentences that are eligible for parole should just consider the first word, and forget the rest.
Since the governor was granted the power to reject parole board recommendations, rarely has a governor not taken advantage of that power. There is simply no real upside of releasing a prisoner, but the downside political risk is huge. And so nobody gets released. We have a prison system that ignores rehabilitation and simply warehouses people.
It is massively expensive but not particularly effective. But nobody ever got voted out of office for keeping an offender behind bars, and so the cycle continues.
A full report on Brown's pardons and parole releases is here.
The transfer of prisoners and responsibilities from the state to the counties has already begun, but the money? Well, as they say, the check is in the mail. The counties are beginning to look around anxiously:
California counties are lining up to secure millions of dollars in state funds to expand jails now that Gov. Jerry Brown's plan is under way to shift the incarceration of some felons from prisons to jails.
But while many county officials cheer the availability of $600 million in state funds to add more jail beds, opponents of prison expansion say building more incarceration space will discourage prosecutors, police and other public safety officials from seeking alternatives to lockups. (SF Gate)
Certainly some counties will at least consider construction of additional beds for their counties rather than triaging the prisoners and releasing and monitoring those that would be better served outside the traditional jail situation. We have been looking at prisons as solely retribution rather than than how we can improve public safety for far too long.
But, in theory, there is this money, and it is awfully tempting for the counties to take the money and run.
Shift to local jails means big changes in some counties
by Brian Leubitz
With the realignment shift towards counties, all of a sudden the once sleepy 58 sheriff positions become a whole lot more meaningful. Sheriffs will be in charge of far more prisoners, and the one who gets the lion's share of that is Lee Baca in LA County.
The so-called "prison realignment" beginning Saturday will transfer the state's responsibility for lower-level drug offenders, thieves and other convicts to county jurisdictions.
An estimated 9,000 parolees will be added to the caseloads of the Probation Department, whose workers already oversee inmates released from county jails.
The Sheriff's Department will have to find room in its jails for an additional 7,000 inmates convicted of non-serious, non-violent and non-sexual felonies.
Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday this sweeping overhaul of the correctional system would help the state save money, reduce the 70 percent recidivism rate, and bring the state into compliance with a U.S. Supreme Court order to ease prison overcrowding. (LA Daily News)
To be honest, you can't get a whole lot worse than the current system. We still aren't dealing with some of the underlying problems in sentencing, but baby steps I suppose. However, if we could just fix our broken probation system, we would see that 70% recidivism rate falling rapidly.
The big question is how this will be funded. Gov. Brown has pledged additional funds for the prisons, but as of yet, most counties have big holes to close in their jail budgets.
I don't feel very good about this country this morning, and as so many of us are I'm thinking of how Troy Davis was hustled off this mortal coil by the State of Georgia without a lot of thought of what it means to execute the innocent.
And given the choice, I'd rather see us abandon the death penalty altogether, for reasons that must, at this moment, seem self-evident; that said, it's my suspicion that a lot of states are not going to be in any hurry to abandon their death penalties anytime soon now that they know the Supreme Court will allow the innocent to be murdered.
So what if there was a way to create a compromise that balanced the absolute need to protect the innocent with the feeling among many Americans that, for some crimes, we absolutely have to impose the death penalty?
Considering the circumstances, it's not going to be an easy subject, but let's give it a try, and see what we can do.
The ACLU of California supports the striking prisoners' demands to end cruel and inhumane conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison. These conditions include prolonged, solitary confinement in small, windowless concrete boxes with little to no human interaction and other severe physical deprivations.
Not only are such conditions inhumane and harmful, but they also jeopardize public safety. Solitary confinement causes and exacerbates mental illness, and prisoners who are subjected to such extreme isolation cannot properly reintegrate into society, resulting in higher recidivism rates.
An alarming number of prisoners are released directly from secure housing units into the community. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) must implement policies that enhance safety both within prisons and within our communities. Current practices do not achieve these equally important goals.
The ACLU calls on the State to re-double its efforts to engage in meaningful negotiations with the strikers to bring the hunger strike to a swift and peaceful conclusion. In addition, the ACLU calls on Governor Brown and CDCR Secretary, Matthew Cate, to significantly curtail the use of the SHU at Pelican Bay and other California prisons and to provide all prisoners confined to the SHU items, services, and programs necessary for psychological and physical well-being including warm clothing, out-of-cell time, and participation in rehabilitative programs.
Undoubtedly, "3 strikes" as a concept remains popular. But dig a little deeper and there are a lot of questions:
The San Jose Mercury News reported last week that a group is crafting ballot language and seeking high-profile endorsements for an initiative that would require that a third strike result only from a serious or violent felony conviction. Under California's law, a third strike can be assessed for any felony, at times bringing sentences of 25 years to life prison for those convicted of crimes like petty theft.
On the same day the Mercury News article published, the Field Poll released survey results (PDF) showing 74 percent of registered voters would support altering the three-strikes law.
Thing is, back in 2006, Prop 66 had similar support before a horde of DAs and "ToughOnCrime" folks decided that discretion for judges just wasn't necessary. Apparently we need a hard and fast rule that locks up thousands of people for sometimes rather petty crimes. The current 3-strikes prison count is at about 6% of the prison population, or about 8800 prisoners.
We should hear something about this proposed change to the policy, and then we can proceed on whether it is a step in the right direction. But at this point, it is hard to see how anything could be worse than what we're doing.
This is completely insane. Here you have a quadriplegic - maybe a bad dude in his heart, but incapable of acting on it in any way - that we're spending $625,000 to hold in prison for no reason. Under normal circumstances this would be a waste of money - under the circumstances that California, under a Supreme Court ruling, must reduce the prison population, it's unconscionable. This guy is taking up the space of some other criminal. There are people in comas in state prisons. When lawmakers passed this bill, they didn't just want parole hearings, they wanted people who could not threaten society released, as a least-worst option to relieve a prison crisis.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans are addicted to the prison system. They are addicted to the simple solutions that it presents, and afraid to confront the more difficult issues of prevention and treatment. Perhaps the Supreme Court decision changes that, but don't count on Incarcerex going down without a fight.
Since Christmas we've been talking about the story of Betsie Gallardo, a woman who is dying of cancer in a Florida prison.
When we last met, she was being starved to death, literally, at the direction of the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC), who had decided not only to withhold further treatment for her inoperable cancer, but to withdraw nutritional support as well.
Her adopted mother is fighting to have her discharged from prison so that she can die at home-and the DOC have recommended that she be released.
On December 9th, Florida's Board of Executive Clemency ("the Board") chose to ignore the DOC advice.
Since then, thanks to a whole bunch of outside pressure, things have changed, for the better, which we'll be talking about today.
On January 5th, the Board meets again-and if we do this right, we can bring some closure to this story.
If you were with us on Christmas Day you heard the story of Betsie Gallardo, who, unless something changes quickly, is going to be intentionally starved to death in a Florida prison after being convicted of spitting on a cop.
In fairness, the State did not decide simply to starve her; instead, the Department of Corrections (DOC) first chose to withhold any further treatment for her inoperable cancer...and then they decided to starve her to death.
Her adopted mother is trying to get her released on humanitarian grounds; the DOC recommended in October that she be allowed to go home and die, the Florida Parole Commission refused.
Governor Charlie Crist chairs the Executive Clemency Board, who could also agree to let her go...and so far, they've also refused to take action.
Funny thing is, the Governor and his Board have been more than willing to step in when other Floridians requested pardons and commutations, even in situations that seemed a lot less dire.
Today, we're going to look at that history-and to be honest, as with many things in the Sunshine State, from the outside...it all looks a bit bizarre.
There are many gifts to be given and received this holiday season; some that you can wrap and put under a tree, and some so intangible and ethereal that they cannot be held within the boundaries of paper and ribbon.
Instead, they exist within the boundaries of our hearts.
Among those intangible presents, few matter more than the chance to be with those we love-and at the time of our death, it's the most important thing of all.
We have a chance to bring all of this to a dying woman and her family-but the only way it can happen is if we convince the Florida Department of Corrections not to kill her first.
It's not a tale of light and joy-but if we get lucky, there could still be a happy ending.
In case you hadn't noticed, we are pretty much at the moment of perfect storm for the prisons. They are wildly overcrowded, and generally wild. They are the subject of Supreme litigation to release 40,000 prisoners. They are costing us more than we are spending on our higher education systems, and oh, yeah, there's the fact that we face about $30 Billion of debt.
So you would think that this would be a super fantastic opportunity to try to do something about the prison situation. For years, the voters and politicians of the state have been scared of doing anything other than trading on fear. Rather than working on new solutions was considered too risky. Thing is, while I was working for Kamala Harris' campaign, I learned that somebody forgot to tell her that. Instead, she has throughout her career as SF DA been willing to look at new ways to make this a safer world, rather than just the politically safe ways of locking up every offender and trying to keep the keys far away.
And perhaps we are seeing more Californians noticing that we, in fact, have a few problems here. From today's LA Times:
"Smart on Crime" is something of a Harris franchise, the name of her 2009 book. In it, and during her campaign, Harris argued that criminal justice money is wasted on the "revolving door" that prison has become as 70% of the 120,000 convicts released annually end up being caught committing new crimes.
She believes that prison should be the punishment for serious offenders and that greater pains should be taken to prod milder offenders with education, counseling, probation and other community-based support.
"I firmly believe in and advocate accountability and consequences when you are talking about rapists and murderers and child molesters - you've got to lock them up," she said. "But you've also got to look at the fact that crime is not monolithic." (LA Times)
However, we can't really think that whatever changes are going to be either quick or easy. At the same time this story (entitled "The time may be right for Kamala Harris") was published, we get a story of Jerry Brown's fealty to the prison guards union (CCPOA).
Jerry Brown is preparing to dance with the ones who brung him, specifically 31,000 members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. ... In a speech that was closed to the public, Brown warned union members that there may not be much if any pay raise. But he also talked about his strong relationship with the union's leaders and declared that he intends to work out a labor pact with them once in office.
"He reached out to a large segment of his employees and gave them hope," said Chuck Alexander, the union's second in command. "It made people feel a little bit better."(SacBee)
CCPOA has been in a near constant war with Schwarzenegger. It occasionally was helpful, but more often what they were fighting was any attempt at reform. The target of their ire was sentencing reform primarily, as they would prefer to keep more people in prisons (and more guards in jobs). The relationship with Brown will certainly be different. That's probably a good think initially, but CCPOA is going to have to open up to reforms, or face some far more drastic options.
The court decision is still looming, but even a "victory" would only be a temporary for our prison and its history of letting people die in their own cesspools. Everybody is going to need to make some changes in their thinking if we are to really tackle the prisons issue. CCPOA is going to have to open up to reform. Politicians, particularly Harris and Brown, are going to have to get really friendly with that third rail in order to provide the leadership our state needs. And most importantly, our voters have to realize that their is a high cost of the "tough on crime" mantras, especially when not backed up with sensible rehabilitation procedures.
Big change is coming, but whether its delivered through democratic processes, through a court order, or some sort of disaster, well, who knows?
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Well, the best interest of the State of California, isn't it to deliver adequate constitutional care to the people that it incarcerates? That's a constitutional obligation.
MR. PHILLIPS: Absolutely. And California recognizes that.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So when are you going to get to that? When are you going to avoid the needless deaths that were reported in this record? When are you going to avoid or get around people sitting in their feces for days in a dazed state? When are you going to get to a point where you are going to deliver care that is going to be adequate?
If you've listened to the news on the radio today, you may have heard something about the California prison litigation at the Supreme Court. On one hand, it boils down to a relatively arcane bit of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which governs, well, how prison litigation happens in federal court. The state is arguing, amongst many things, that the federal court erred in not providing enough discretion on how to reduce prison population.
It's not that California's been ordered to provide Cadillac care; today, one inmate dies every eight days due to shoddy medical care. The suicide rate in California prisons is twice the national average.
Despite efforts by the state to improve the situation over two decades, it's still bad.
Last year, three federal judges ordered California to reduce the prison population. They decided that the only cure for the situation was to reduce overcrowding in California prisons; California prisons are packed to nearly double capacity.
They ordered California to release 46,000 inmates, about a third of the total, in the next two years. California appealed that order, and the U.S. Supreme Court hears that appeal today.
California says that the three federal judges overstepped their authority, violating a federal statute called the Prison Litigation Reform Act. That act says that the only way federal judges can order a prison reduction by a state is if the reduction is the only way to solve an ongoing violation; the ongoing violation in this case is the lack of medical and mental health care. It has to be the only solution to the problem. (SoCal Public Radio)
Of course, it isn't like the state has really done anything at all to reduce overcrowding in the last two years. Basically, we've been sitting back and focusing on fighting the litigation rather than the actual crux of the problem. I'm not sure that even in the best of circumstances it is possible to reduce the population in the two year window, but we didn't really try. The Bee ties this in with the recent victory of Kamala Harris in the AG race. (Notes: I worked on her campaign, and the Bee endorsed her opponent.)
She thinks there is a better way to hold nonviolent criminals accountable. She points to Back on Track, a San Francisco program that diverts nonviolent criminals, mostly drug dealers, to job training, community service, drug treatment and school, instead of prison or jail. She says the program saves San Francisco $1 million in jail costs for every 100 offenders who go through it, and twice that much in court costs, while reducing recidivism.
It is noteworthy that Harris will claim victory today at the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco, the rehabilitation facility which, as its website boasts, "has been teaching drug abusers, ex-convicts and others who have hit bottom to turn their lives around since 1971."
As attorney general, Harris will have no power to reduce sentences. She won't be able to alter how local prosecutors charge crimes. Nor will she be able to refuse to defend the state when federal judges challenge its overcrowded prison system.
But she can use the bully pulpit to push innovative approaches to the broken justice system. If it were smarter on crime, perhaps California wouldn't need a federal court order to cut prison population.(SacBee)
For many years, we've been beating ourselves up trying to get "Tougher" on Crime, as if there was some sort of choice on "Tough" vs. "Soft." But, that's one of the things that attracted my interest when Kamala was running for DA back in 2003, that she saw this as the false dichotomy that it is. Getting tough by simply applying the practices that got us into this mess will not solve anything, and it certainly won't make us safer. The way we become a safer, and more productive, state is to work to reintegrate those that have made the bad decisions that land them in our prison system, and work to get them back in a position to be productive citizens.
Obviously this doesn't work well for our violent criminals, but those are a minority in our prisons. We are locking up hundreds of non-violent offenders, and teaching them to be better criminals, and probably making them more violent at the same time. After all, prisons, especially overcrowded ones, are not really the best place to travel up Mazlow's hierarchy of needs.
Programs like Back on Track work because they recognize that not all criminals are created equal. We need to look for ways to not only punish, but also to do more for rehabilitation than Arnold's method of slapping the word on the end of the name of the department. We shouldn't be playing some sort of ridiculous multiple choice question, where we can have better public safety, lower expenditures, or lower prison populations. We can, and should, do all of the above.
If Kansas can get it, certainly California, the home of innovation, can do it as well.
By Bethany Woolman, Communications Fellow, ACLU of Northern California
In California, we shackle pregnant women in prison.
And despite widespread opposition, we will continue to do so.
Last week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have ordered county jails and prisons to stop shackling pregnant women. The bill, AB1900, required new guidelines on restraining pregnant women and would have encouraged counties to adopt these policies. It had overwhelming bipartisan support and passed the legislature without a single "no" vote.
The governor, however, opted to let the dangerous practice of shackling pregnant women continue.
Fewer than one in every ten California inmates are enrolled in an educational program, despite a pledge by state officials to enhance rehabilitation efforts in order to cut recidivism and relieve prison overcrowding. An estimated 14,360 inmates were taking part in a variety of academic classes out of a total adult inmate population of 162,608, according to a report [PDF] released last week by the California Rehabilitation Oversight Board.
The bigger problem is that it seems that some seats for potential students are even going unused. Meanwhile, education at the UC and CSU systems gets more expensive every year. The way we reduce our expenditures on prisons isn't to cut anti-recidivism programs, it is too make sure that they work and that prisoners are using them.
By Diana Tate Vermeire, Racial Justice Project Director, ACLU of Northern California
The state's criminal justice system is quickly becoming the only social service California is willing to fund. Our prison system is bursting at the seams, while school funding is drying up at the well. In the midst of a fiscal crisis -- one that only seems to be getting worse -- California continues to prioritize criminal justice spending instead of investing in the future of our state. Public education and crucial social service programs like welfare-to-work continue to experience drastic cuts, but California is loath to cut criminal justice spending.
Rather than choosing to prioritize basic necessities like a quality education, a job, and a place to live, our state's leaders are instead forcing social service agencies to close their doors, deny services, or turn certain individuals away altogether. Meanwhile, our jails and prisons remain open to anyone brought to their doors, no matter the cost. That choice-pouring scarce financial resources into the criminal justice system rather than much-needed social services-has resulted in the disproportionate incarceration of people of color, and an alarming uptick in the number of women - both women of color and white women - who are behind bars.
When I wrote regularly for Calitics, the progressive blog for California politics, I took a particular interest in the prison crisis, which has reached epidemic proportions in the Golden State. The health care system has already been taken over by a federal receiver because it violated the prisoners' Constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment, with at least one prisoner dying each week from medical neglect. The entire system, which fits 170,000 convicts into jails with 100,000 beds, may get taken over by the courts as well. Severe overcrowding, cutbacks to rehabilitation and treatment programs, and an insane parole policy which sends 2/3 of all recidivists back to jail for technical parole violations have contributed to the problem. As has the pervasive "tough on crime" stance from the political leadership of both parties, which has yet to be contrasted with any kind of progressive message on how to fight crime smartly and safely, at lower cost and with corresponding lower incarceration and crime rates.
Here are a few stories that all happened within the past 24 hours in California, regarding these matters: (over)
UPDATE: I've posted the full vote record over the flip. The same 34 Democrats voted in favor, but several of the Not Voting Dems moved to No, while several apparently couldn't make it to the touchpad. I'll let you take a look, and see if you'd like give them a telephonic opportunity to explain.
In jurisdictions across the world, we are gradually seeing the rolling back of the harshest prisons against minors under the age of 18. Not in California, as the Assembly killed SB 399 that would have allowed courts to review the sentences of minors 15 years after the crime.
Today, the State of California failed to join the rest of the world in ending life sentences for juvenile offenders. On a 34-36 vote, the State Assembly killed Senate Bill 399 - The Fair Sentencing for Youth Act authored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco).
While SB 399 would not have prohibited life without parole (LWOP) sentences for juveniles, the bill would have allowed courts to review cases of juveniles sentenced to life without parole after 15 years, potentially allowing some individuals to receive a new sentence of 25 years to life. The bill required the offender to express remorse and be working towards rehabilitation in order to submit a petition for consideration of the new sentence.
This was hardly revolutionary or radical. It was a modest measure that would have allowed judges to use a bit of discretion. But as we know, discretion is dead in the California justice system, where everything is on auto-pilot. Newspaper editorial boards from the San Diego U-T to the New York Times editorialized in favor of the measure as simply smart public policy.
But still, several Democrats crossed party lines to help kill the bill. Over the flip, I've posted the 34 Democrats that voted in favor of the bill in the previous vote, but the most current tally is not yet available. If your Democratic assembly member isn't on this list, well, perhaps they care to explain?
In part 1 of a New Deal for California, I discussed why any effort to rebuild the state must begin with a frontal assault on high unemployment as the only reliable means of achieving budget stability - as opposed to self-defeating quests for balance via austerity. In part 2, I studied how the quest for a more perfect democracy is inextricably linked to a renewal of democratic control over the state's own revenues.
Today, I want to discuss two areas of policy that are among the largest spending categories in the California state budget, but which also represent two faces of the state, and two approaches to developing its youth, and two sets of values - namely, education and prisons.
Arnold's recent proposal to put a floor under higher education at 10% of the state budget and a ceiling over prisons at 7% of the state budget is only the most recent example of a long trend of discussing the two in the same breath. As I discussed in the linked article, Schwarzenegger's approach is fundamentally flawed, a mirage of egalitarianism masking a reality of utter callousness. A moral society cannot pay for the future of its most talented youth through the deliberate immiseration of its least advantaged.
However, a New Deal for California will have to grapple with the reality that California will either educate or incarcerate its young, and that the power to choose lies with us.
Today's Budget Revise is Yet Another Missed Opportunity to Invest in Communities
Today, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released a revision of the budget plan he offered in January. And the ax, once again, will come down heaviest on our social safety net; however, it doesn't have too be that way. The Governor and Legislature know that they face a shortfall of at least $20 billion - and yet have remained unwilling to look at a juvenile justice system that has failed us and needs major overhauling. The Ella Baker Center advocates that we close the state youth prisons, giving more money to county probation to provide secure services and still save the state close $200 million a year that could be reinvested in California schools.
Consider the following:
California spends over $436 million annually on the Division of Juvenile Justice ("DJJ") to lock-up 1400 youth. DJJ is a costly system with a 72% failure rate-meaning 72 percent of youth there will be rearrested shortly after release.
California is on track to spend over $300,000 per youth per year for lock up in the failed DJJ system. In comparison, a kid in a California public elementary or high school only merits a $8500 per year investment.
California spends more than $8.2 billion dollars locking up 150,000 adults, yet it only spends $5.5 billion to educate more than 650,000 student in California's UC system and Cal State schools.
The latest round of state budget cuts will be heartbreaking after years of health and education cuts, budget gimmicks and expensive failed lock-em-up politicking. Things we value as a society-care for the elderly and the disabled, health care for sick kids, parks, and hometown government - will be gutted, while big prisons remains a sacred cow to fear-mongering politicians and spinmeisters.
The Governor proposes more cuts to our local schools, but wants to maintain decrepit youth prisons hidden in the countryside. At local schools, he would spend $8500 per kid per year, but he wants to spend 30 times that amount per young person in prisons that provide no education or rehabilitation What the Ella Baker Center and our allies have long been advising is the closing of the DJJ prisons-- and the reallocation of a third of that budget to public schools, a third to counties for youth rehabilitation, and a third back to the crippled budget.
Over the last several months, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature could have found time to work out a plan that set priorities, cut back on bureaucracy and limited the damage to the most critical public programs. But they chose instead to hide their eyes and hope that revenues would turn around, sparing themselves the hard choices that are required from strong leaders.
When this revise comes out, everyone will feel this hit - from the struggling college students to families unable to afford insurance for their kids. Every spending cut will be a testimony to a failure of courageous leadership and further cement that the roots of California's troubles are because of our ridiculous spending on prisons instead of people.
