State begins early releases of nonviolent prisoners

SACRAMENTO — The state is releasing some low-level, nonviolent prisoners early as Gov. Jerry Brown complies with a federal court order to reduce crowding in its lockups — a turning point in the governor's efforts to resolve the issue.

Inmates serving time for certain nonviolent crimes are being discharged days or weeks before they were scheduled to go free, a move that Brown had long resisted but proposed in January and was subsequently ordered by judges to carry out.

Eventually, such prisoners, who are earning time off their sentences with good behavior or rehabilitation efforts, will be able to leave months or even years earlier.

Prison workers, inmates' lawyers and county probation officials said the releases began two weeks ago. Since then, San Bernardino County probation officers said, the number of felons arriving from prison has increased more than two dozen a week, or 30%.

L.A. County Deputy Probation Chief Reaver Bingham said he did not know how many prisoners had been released early to his jurisdiction.

Corrections officials confirmed that some inmates are being released "slightly earlier" but would not say how many or discuss the criteria used to determine who is eligible.

Officials are still working on the terms of other planned steps to reduce crowding, including making more inmates eligible for medical parole and a new release program for those older than 60.

In addition, some second-time offenders who have served half their sentences under the state's three-strikes law could be eligible to leave.

Brown's administration has estimated that 780 inmates could be released under those programs.

Sentence reductions were among the changes Brown offered to make as he sought two more years to reduce prison crowding to a level the judges deem safe. He wants to meet the jurists' targets mostly by placing more felons in privately owned prisons and other facilities.

In February, the judges granted Brown's request and ordered him to "immediately implement" the early releases and add parole options for prisoners who are frail, elderly or serving extended sentences for specific kinds of nonviolent crimes.

Analysts in Brown's administration initially estimated that about 1,400 prisoners would be freed early over two years by being allowed to shave off as much as a third of their sentences with good behavior.

From prison, they follow the normal path to either state parole or county supervision, depending on the crimes they committed.

"Our first 'Whew!' moment was when we realized it was not anybody we wouldn't [be getting] already," said Karen Pank, a lobbyist for California's 58 county probation departments.

More than 17,000 prisoners overall are potentially eligible for reduced sentences, according to the administration's analysis.

Pank said the administration was negotiating with counties over whether to pay them additional money to supervise those who are sent to probation early.

Eligibility rules for the court-ordered parole programs have not been made public. A Board of Parole Hearings meeting on the matter was held last week behind closed doors, according to an agenda posted online by the board.

Ordinarily, such major changes to the state's criminal justice system would be debated before the Legislature, but the federal judges have set aside those requirements.

"We don't have many options to weigh in on the consequences of what is being put in place," Pank said.

If California misses any of the court's interim deadlines for easing crowding, a court-appointed officer has authority to order additional releases.

State lawyers said in an April 15 court filing that officials have already met the court's June 30 benchmark, its first since the judges gave Brown extra time.

The judges set a limit on the inmate population of 143% of the prisons' capacity; the state's attorneys said the latest population was 141%.

Lawyers for prisoners argued in a court motion last week that the state was counting empty beds in a medical prison in calculating its capacity to house inmates, permitting other prisons to remain crowded. The corrections department contends the medical space should be included.

The latest prison population reports from the government show a women's prison in Chowchilla is at 183% of its capacity. Corrections officials have confirmed an inmate lawyer's report that as many as eight women at a time share dorm rooms that have a single toilet, sink and shower.

"There is one person on top of another.... It is a pressure cooker simmering," said attorney Rebekah Evenson of the Prison Law Office, which represents inmates in class-action litigation over prison conditions.

Corrections spokeswoman Krissi Khokhobashvili said crowding in women's prisons will ease when a private lockup in McFarland opens to take 520 female inmates.

In a conference call Tuesday with financial analysts, executives of the company that owns the McFarland facility said it would not be ready to take the first 260 women until the fall.

They said state officials had not yet requested the remaining 260 beds.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ff-prison-release-20140430,0,122976.story#ixzz30UUQewyl

Stanford University studies look at how California's prison realignment is playing out

The state's prison realignment program shifted thousands of would-be state prisoners to local control. But it didn't set up a mechanism for tracking what happened to the population or the impact on the counties where they ended up.

Now, two papers out of Stanford Law School's Criminal Justice Center look at how realignment is playing out in California counties. 

How realignment is perceived

In the first study, Stanford Law Professor Joan Petersilia spoke with 125 local stakeholders: police chiefs, district attorneys, public defenders, probation officers, judges, and sheriffs. The idea was to get a sense of how realignment is going. It resulted in "a portrait of counties struggling, often heroically, to carry out an initiative that was poorly planned and imposed upon them almost overnight."

Nonetheless, Petersilia found most law enforcement accepted that realignment is "here to stay," and that "the old system was yielding disappointing results." 

Perhaps the most optimistic and supportive group, probation officers, felt realignment: "gave them an opportunity to fully test whether well-tailored rehabilitation services can keep lower-level felony offenders from committing new crimes and returning to prison."

Petersilia also offers a number of recommendations based on the conversations:

• Create a database of state prisoners released to county probation supervision.
• Consider an offender's past crimes when determining his or her level of post-prison supervision (parole or probation).
• Cap county jail sentences at three years, and consider prison time for repeat probation violators (like sex offenders who cut off their GPS monitors). 

Such changes, Petersilia suggests, could help law enforcement deal with the challenges realignment has brought. 

Where the money is going

The second study examines how California counties are spending billions of dollars they've been allocated by the state to implement realignment.

Looking at the county's plans for the first year of realignment, University of Denver Sociology Professor Jeffrey Lin found that counties varied in whether they allocated more of their realignment dollars to law enforcement or treatment and rehabilitation.

Lin found counties that had relatively fewer per capita law enforcement personnel (like Riverside and Kings counties) used realignment dollars to beef up their law enforcement ranks.

Other counties that invested more heavily in law enforcement (like Los Angeles and Kern counties) may have felt compelled to invest in law enforcement because of higher crime rates and politically, their "relatively high preference for prison for drug crimes."

Those investing more in treatment and rehabilitation also shared some characteristics.

A category of counties that included Alameda and Sonoma tended to have high Black unemployment rates and popular county sheriff's. In these counties, Lin hypothesizes: "high confidence in the sheriff’s office may allow key leaders to address those needs in less politically popular ways—i.e., pursuing treatment as a solution to crime problems."

Overall, "Sheriff and Law Enforcement spending is generally a product of local needs (crime conditions and dedication to law enforcement) and preference for punishment."

Whereas, "Programs and Services spending fundamentally revolves around electoral
confidence in the Sheriff."

Lin adds the caveat that only the first year of planned realignment spending was included in the study. He plans to follow up to see how the trends hold up over time. 

Yoga Could Boost Prisoners' Mental Health

Yoga: the secret to less-stressed, better-behaved prisoners?

A new study by researchers from Oxford University, King's College London, the University of Surrey and Radboud University Nijmegen may suggest so.

The findings, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, show that prisoners who completed a 10-week course in yoga had less stress and better moods, and also performed better on a behavior-control task compared with their non-yoga-doing peers.

"We're not saying that organizing a weekly yoga session in a prison is going to suddenly turn prisons into calm and serene places, stop all aggression and reduce reoffending rates," study researcher Dr. Amy Bilderbeck, of Oxford University, said in a statement. "We're not saying that yoga will replace standard treatment of mental health conditions in prison. But what we do see are indications that this relatively cheap, simple option might have multiple benefits for prisoners' wellbeing and possibly aid in managing the burden of mental health problems in prisons."

For the study, researchers had prisoners from a range of institutions, including a women's prison, an institution for young offenders and five category B and C prisons (in the UK, these prisons are considered "closed" prisons, but the most serious criminals are not housed here). Researchers had some of the prisoners recruited for the study do 90-minute yoga sessions for 10 weeks, while the other prisoners constituted the control group and didn't do any yoga. Before and after the 10 weeks, all the prisoners completed questionnaires to analyze their well-being, mood and stress levels. They also did a computer test to measure their behavior control.

Researchers found that the prisoners who did yoga had improvements in their mental health measures as well as better scores on the behavior control test, though more research is needed to see if the results on the behavior control test translate to better behavior while in prison and beyond.

Of course, it's not entirely surprising that yoga can have these kinds of mental health benefits. A wealth of past research has looked at how exactly yoga seems to have these effects on the mind, with one recent review of 124 studies from Duke University researchers confirming that yoga benefits people with depression, sleep problems, ADHD and schizophrenia (alongside drug therapy).

Support the Strike!

Unless the Governor and the Department of Corrections take decisive action, prisoners throughout California will resume a hunger strike and work stoppage ONE WEEK FROM TODAY to protest the torturous conditions in solitary confinement--and other parts of the prison system.  

Stand in Solidarity with the Hunger Strike and other Job Actions Being Called for July 8th!

Communities across the state, country, and world plan on taking action to help the strikers win their demands.

Sign up for updates at prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com.

Wherever you are, please take some form of action on July 8th.  Big or small, every voice counts!

Click here for more: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/take-action-2/add-your-event/

And, please support the statewide mobilization to Corcoran State Prison on July, 13!  Details below.

Mobilization to Support the Prisoner Hunger Strikes

Corcoran State Prison

Saturday July 13, 2013

Rides available by bus and carpool. Contact rachel-at-criticalresistance.org or 510-444-0484

Caravans will leave from MacArthur BART in Oakland at 9:00 AM and Chuco’s Justice Center in Inglewood at 9:00AM. We will gather at Cesar Chavez Park in Corcoran (1500 Oregon) at 2PM and then march to Corcoran State Prison  where our demands will be heard!

In 2011, over 12,000 California state prisoners engaged in a hunger strike to end long term solitary confinement and to demand changes to the way that prisoners are assigned to torturous cells, known as the SHU (security housing units). Although the Department of Corrections acknowledged that their demands were reasonable and would be addressed - very little has changed for California prisoners since 2011. California is still spending millions of dollars a year to keep people in solitary confinement for decades!

Statewide Hunger Strikes Resume

On July 8, 2013 California Prisoners will begin an indefinite hunger strike and work strike until meaningful changes are made within the Department of Corrections.

On July 13, 2013 we will rally at Corcoran State Prison to show our support for the prisoners and pressure Jerry Brown to meet their demands! Like Pelican Bay, Corcoran isolates nearly 2,000 people in solitary confinement.

________________________________________

How You Can Support

We need your support now more than ever! Please consider making a donation to our coalition so that we can continue to fight for the human rights of people in extreme isolation in California prisons.  Funds collected will be used for the July 13th mobilization in addition to other coalition expenses such as monthly mailings to prisoners, legal visits to Pelican Bay and Corcoran and other printing expenses.

Donations can be made online at www.prisons.org; be sure to click the “Special Instructions” link and write “PHSS” to direct your donation to us.  Or you can write a check to California Prison Focus/PHSS and mail it to PHSS 1904 Franklin Street #507, Oakland, CA 94612.  We could also use donations of such as food and water for the July 13 mobilization, as well as vans or buses for the caravan to Corcoran.  Please contact Rachel Herzing, rachel-at-criticalresistance.org or call 510-444-0484 if you would like to offer assistance in these areas.

Sleep deprivation intensifies torture conditions for prisoners in advance of hunger strikes and work actions

by Isaac Ontiveros, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity

Oakland— Less than a month before statewide hunger strikes are set to resume, the California Department of Corrections has instituted a new policy at Pelican Bay State Prison which has resulted in chronic sleep deprivation for prisoners in solitary confinement.

Both guards and prisoners complained to lawyers conducting legal visits last week about a new policy requiring prison guards to conduct “welfare checks” every 30 minutes on prisoners isolated in the prison’s Security Housing Units (SHU). Normally, prisoners in the SHU are counted every three to four hours by guards who patrol each unit, ensuring prisoners are in their cells. Each prisoner must be observed physically moving or showing skin. The frequency and method of these counts have already been challenged in a federal lawsuit, Ashker v. Brown. Experts claim the sleep deprivation caused by the counts violates prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights.
“Sleep deprivation has many significant psychological consequences, including irritability and impairment of the ability to make rational decisions,” says Dr. Terry Kupers, a clinical psychiatrist and an expert on forensic mental health. “Because of the harm it causes, sleep deprivation has been described as torture by organizations such as Amnesty International.”

The new policy has been ordered by Jeffrey Beard, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) newly appointed secretary whose Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for June 19, 2013. The directive applies to over 1,100 prisoners who are in solitary confinement in Pelican Bay.

“Tensions were very high at Pelican Bay last week,” says Anne Weills, an attorney who is representing SHU prisoners at Pelican Bay. “The guards are on edge and upset about this new policy. Obviously the prisoners are on edge and suffering because of the sleep deprivation. But they remain resilient and deeply committed to peaceful actions to make necessary changes.”

In January, prisoners at Pelican Bay announced in an open letter to Gov. Brown that they would resume hunger strikes and include work actions to protest the conditions of their confinement. In 2011 over 12,000 prisoners in over a third of California’s 33 prisons participated in two waves of hunger strikes. The 2011 strike was called off when the CDCR promised new policies and other improvements that addressed five demands outlined by prisoners. Almost two years later, prisoners and advocates claim the CDCR’s promises have been empty, and prison conditions have worsened.

Less than a month before statewide hunger strikes are set to resume, the California Department of Corrections has instituted a new policy at Pelican Bay State Prison which has resulted in chronic sleep deprivation for prisoners in solitary confinement.

“This is torture,” says Azadeh Zohrabi of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition. “This intensified sleep deprivation adds to the long list of human rights violations endured by thousands of prisoners held in solitary for prolonged and indefinite terms, some for decades.”

Lawyers and advocates have also received demands from prisoners who plan to go on strike in San Quentin, High Desert and Corcoran State Prisons. Prisoners have been clear that the strike could be called off if Gov. Brown engaged in good faith negotiations. Brown’s office has not responded to their request.

Isaac Ontiveros of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization working to abolish the prison industrial complex, is a spokesperson for the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition. He can be reached at (510) 444-0484 or isaac@criticalresistance.org.

via SFBayview.com

California Prisons Face Maximum Security Shortage

http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/02/27/31402/california-prisons-face-shortage-masimum-security-/
Feb. 27, 2012 | By Julie Small | KPCC

Last year, California began complying with a federal court order to reduce its prison population by shifting thousands of low-level felons to county custody. It’s called “realignment” and although it helped bring down the number of inmates in prison, it won’t solve another problem: Where to put the thousands of serious and violent inmates.

The number of inmates in state prisons has already dropped by 16,000 since realignment took effect in October. Corrections officials project that the diversion of low-level felons to counties will reduce the state prison population by 40,000 inmates within a few years. But California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can’t shift serious felons to the counties.

In a report out last week the Legislative Analyst’s Office projected that as realignment progresses, state prisons will have a surplus of 15,000 low security beds and a shortage of 13,000 high-security beds.

The non-partisan report suggest several ways to deal with the mismatch.

Analyst Drew Soderborg says, "One thing that we’re recommending is that they try to maximize their use of their existing space to house high security inmates."

Soderborg thinks CDCR should convert most of the reception centers used to temporarily house new inmates into the higher security housing the prison system needs.

Corrections is also in the process of converting Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla into a men’s prison. The LAO recommends that CDCR use the prison to house as many serious offenders as possible.

Soderborg also says, "We’re recommending that they identify if there’s any other facilities out there that they can use to house high security inmates."

Converting facilities from minimum to maximum security will require an investment in construction, equipment and additional staff.

Soderborg says the state could save money by shutting down some of its more expensive prisons: One example the LAO's report cites is the California Institution for Men in Chino. Its security level matches that of the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, but Deuel spends $10,000 less per inmate per year to house felons than Chino does.

Soderborg says CDCR could also consider shutting down remote prisons that are difficult and expensive to staff and transferring inmates to maximum-security prisons in other states. He says California could also keep some of its high security facilities "slightly overcrowded."

Protesting prisons-for-profit that prey on the poor, powerless immigrant detainees

Occupy Wall Street groups march on Wells Fargo bank in Harlem

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 4:00 AM

Updated: Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 4:00 AM

Handout

More than 200 members of Occupy Wall Street groups rally outside a Wells Fargo bank branch in Harlem to protest investments in prisons-for-profit.

Incarcerating poor, powerless people for profit is a despicable business, but it sure is profitable.


“Hello Harlem, we’re here to help” reads an unintentionally ironic sign in a Wells Fargo bank, a major investor in two private prison companies, the GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) that in 2010 made a whopping $2.9 billion in profits.


On Monday 200 people took to the streets to protest the scandalous connection between investment in private prisons and the mass jailing of prisoners and immigrant detainees for profit. The demonstration was organized by the Occupy Wall Street Immigrant Worker Justice working group and the OWS Prisoner Solidarity working group, "[For these corporations\] the more people in prison the better it is for business,” said Mariano Muñoz of the Occupy Wall Street Immigrant Worker Justice working group.


Not surprisingly, both GEO and the CCA spend a pretty penny lobbying at both the state and federal level for laws like the infamous Arizona and Alabama anti-immigrant legislations.
“[Those laws\] place greater numbers of non-U.S. citizens in the immigrant detention and deportation system,” Muñoz added. “And that’s good for business.”


Private prison corporations that profit from detention and deportation policies make tons of money by locking up poor, powerless immigrants for months and even years with little federal supervision. One of these jails is located in Springfield Gardens, Queens, and many voices have been raised in protest.


A spokesman for Wells Fargo denied the company owns shares of GEO or CCA or that it is invested in either company. "Wells Fargo Advantage Funds currently holds a small position in mutual funds that we administer as a trustee on behalf of fund shareholders. Wells Fargo is not the owner. Public filings and website listings can give the incorrect impression that Wells Fargo is an owner of a company’s stock – we are not. These shares are owned by various Wells Fargo mutual funds. Wells Fargo is not a beneficial owner of these mutual funds, but serves as an adviser,” he said.


The rally last week focused on the role those private prison companies have played in supporting anti-immigrant policies, leading to record detention and deportation rates.


The rally began in front of the Lincoln Correction Facility in Harlem, one of the city’s many African-American neighborhoods devastated by the explosive growth in prisons over the past few decades. From there, protesters marched to a Wells Fargo bank branch.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/protesting-prisons-for-profit-prey-poor-powerless-immigrant-detainees-article-1.1026328#ixzz1nLZXHy4B


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/protesting-prisons-for-profit-prey-poor-powerless-immigrant-detainees-article-1.1026328#ixzz1nLZL5UJr

The politics of parole

http://informant.kalwnews.org/2012/02/imprisoned-for-life-part-ii/

By Joaquin Palomino

A life sentence with the possibility of parole is one of the only sentences in California designed to encourage the convicted to reform. Lindsey Bolar, who served 23 years in prison before receiving parole, believes “lifers make up your best population in prison.” After serving between 20 and 25 years, Bolar says, “you know that the mad stupid stuff doesn’t go anymore, then all of a sudden you are trying to find a meaning for your life and you want to go home.”

The system seems to work. Only around one percent of lifers return to prison after being released, and almost never for another violent crime. Still, for the past three decades, it has been nearly impossible to be paroled. The reasons have less to do with public safety than politics. In the second segment of a three-part series, we look at the political chutes and ladders of California’s parole process.  KALW’s Joaquin Palomino has the story.

Around one quarter of California prisoners are serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Also known as lifers, they’re a unique group of inmates. For starters, most have committed a horrendous crime – typically murder, rape, or kidnapping. They also have one of the only indeterminate sentences in California, meaning their term is open-ended and they have to work for their freedom.

J.B. Wells is one such person. “The crime I was charged with is murder in the second degree and it carries a maximum sentence of 15 to life,” says Wells. In 1983, he was sentenced to life with the chance of parole (“chance” being the key word). To be freed, he had to participate in programs, build up a resume and kick a steady drug habit. In prison, he became a published author. “I’ve been in famous plays, I played the part of Lucky in Waiting for Godot, I played the part of John Brown in John Brown’s Body, and I just had a really, really fabulous prison experience.”

It’s pretty rare to hear an inmate say he’s had a “fabulous prison experience.” Although most released lifers don’t use such animated terms to describe prison, many do say it was positive. Much of this has to do with their indeterminate sentence, a type of sentence that was once much more common in this state.

For almost the entire 20th century, California had an indeterminate sentencing system.  Offenders would get very broad sentences, such as five years to life in prison. A parole board would make the final decision on whether or not an offender would be released. “[An] independent, objective set of experts would look at someone, look at their psychology and look at their behavior, look at the totality of the situation and make a reasonable decision,” explains criminal justice expert Barry Krisberg. Theoretically, those that were fit to reenter society would be released, and those that posed a threat would stay in prison. But there were flaws in the process.

In 1979, a number of factors led to the end of that system and the implementation of determinate sentencing. The driving force was fairness. Under an indeterminate sentencing system, one person might get four years in prison for dealing drugs and another could get six months for the same crime. Accusations of discrimination and favoritism are inevitable.

Determinate sentencing prevents those accusations. “Under determinate sentencing, for virtually every crime, there are three potential sentences that the judge can choose from: a high sentence, a medium sentence, and a low sentence,” says Krisberg. “Under determinate sentencing, you walked out of the courtroom knowing exactly how much time you were going to serve.”

The state needed to rewrite the penal code to reflect the sentencing overhaul and it put the legislature in charge of deciding which crimes carried which sentences. That decision came with an unintended consequence. “Suddenly, in this very political environment, with everybody watching, with the media there, you have elected officials who don’t necessarily have training or background deciding [the scale] of penalties,” says Krisberg. The shift sparked an era of tough-on-crime politics in California.

“It almost became a bidding war. ‘I want to show that I am tougher than you, so if you think a rapist should get ten years, I think he should get 20 years.’  So there has been this natural escalation upwards,” Krisberg explains.

Life with the chance of parole was one of the few sentences excluded from the overhaul. It maintained its indeterminate status, but it wasn’t excluded from the trend towards toughness.

For most of the 1990s and in the early 2000s, the chance of being paroled on a life sentence was around one percent. Last year, it peaked at 18 percent, the highest it’s been in 30 years. Again, the reason for this has to do with politics.

“California was in the grips of a moral panic about crime,” explains Krisberg. “Voters were concerned with it. People would get defeated for office because of it. We would have statewide elections that were strictly about criminal justice sentencing.”

At the onset of this panic, in 1988, a ballot measure had passed that granted the governor power to overturn parole board decisions. Governors have been taking advantage of that power ever since.

During the 12 years Pete Wilson and Grey Davis were in office, almost no life prisoners were released. Schwarzenegger was more lenient, but he still reversed about 70 percent of his parole boards decisions. According to Krisberg, Governor Brown is allowing more inmates to be paroled, but the system is still stuck.

J.B. Wells can attest to that. He was eligible for release in July of 1990, but each time he went in front of the parole board he was rejected for the same reason. “They would cite the gravity of the offense, the heinousness of the crime,” says Wells.

He was turned down ten times on those grounds. Then, in 2008, the California Supreme Court changed the rules. The Justices decided that a lifer’s original crime could not be the sole factor in a parole board’s suitability hearing. “The courts eventually said you just can’t use that over and over and over again,” Wells explains, “because that is something the prisoner can’t change.”

In a 2010 parole hearing, Wells was found suitable for release – but he still couldn’t get out right away. The tape recorder had malfunctioned during the hearing and he was told that, without a transcript, the parole hearing was null. Wells had to wait another year.

Last year, Wells was finally released, 21 years past his minimum parole date, at the age of 68 years old.  “I’m just so grateful to still be alive, to have hair on my head and teeth in my mouth,” says Wells.

Having an indeterminate sentence, which aims to rehabilitate, in a prison system guided by retribution creates some pretty noticeable contradictions. Wells experienced the extremes of both. In his own words, he had a “fabulous prison experience,” accessing a number of rehabilitative services and enrolling in a multitude of arts programs. He was also an active member in a San Quentin Vietnam War veterans group. But he also spent 21 extra years in prison despite never being considered a risk to society by the parole board.

“At the end of the day, corrections was about the bumping of heads of those people that think prison should be for punishment and those people that think that prison should be for rehabilitation,” Wells says. “And I was caught between that every day.”

It’s clear which side is winning this tug of war. In past 30 years, California criminal justice has been guided almost exclusively by goals of retribution, which many believe is the root of our current prison crisis.

There are signs, though, that times could be changing. In 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger put a key word back into the title of the state department responsible for prisons, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. More recently, the implementation of prison realignment has started bringing more discretion to the sentencing process. Some lawmakers are even wondering if a return to indeterminate sentencing might be in order.