The California Endowment Divests from Private Prisons

Should any foundation concerned about community well-being be investing in huge corporations whose job it is to ensure as many Americans as possible are kept incarcerated?

The California Endowment evidently does not think so. Yesterday, it announced that that it is divesting from companies “that derive significant annual revenue from the operation of private prisons, jails, detention centers and correctional facilities.”

Rick Cohen wrote about a campaign to divest from private prisons in 2014 and particularly about the campaign’s efforts to try to get the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to divest. At that time, he wrote:

The Gates Foundation responded to a protest led by the Latino advocacy group Presente.org in support of prisoners engaged in a hunger strike at the GEO-operated Northwest Detention Center by saying that the positive value of its grantmaking far outweighs its investments in operators of private prisons. The foundation also contends that it somehow doesn’t actually control its own investments, which are directed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Asset Trust, which operates separately from the foundation.

The campaign to divest from private prisons is asking both public and private entities to dump their holdings in Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, “America’s largest private prison corporations which have profited from billions in taxpayer money.” Both are publicly traded companies who spend millions on lobbying for policies that will keep our prisons full.

“Public resistance to privatization of correctional, detention, mental health and residential facilities could result in our inability to obtain new contracts or the loss of existing contracts, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.”—GEO Group, 2013 SEC Annual Report, “Risk Factors”

In announcing its divestment, the Endowment released a short statement.

“The California Endowment strongly supports community safety and stands with communities that experience serious disparities in incarceration rates for non-violent offenses that could be handled through drug treatment and other programs that help prevent non-violent crime,” said Robert K. Ross, MD, president and CEO of The California Endowment. “It is essential our investment strategies take into account the potential impacts they could have on the communities we serve.”

In June, Columbia University became the first university to divest, followed by Hampshire College in Massachusetts.

As Cohen wrote in 2014, “Divestment need not be an anti-corporate strategy at all. It is a pro-values strategy. But it demands that the institutions of our society that purport to be mission- and value-driven, such as private foundations, cannot stand on the sidelines with their billions in tax exempt assets and assume that their five percent devoted to philanthropic output automatically outweighs and camouflages the impacts of the investment of their 95 percent.”

By RUTH MCCAMBRIDGE

via https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/12/08/the-california-endowment-divests-from-private-prisons/

Here’s how jail-based health treatment failed my family: Guest commentary

As the child of a formerly incarcerated person, I’ve lived with the consequences of a failed law-enforcement system that believes jails can be places for rehabilitative treatment and care. This illusion eventually cost my dad his life.

My dad was a poor man of color raised in the smallest city in Los Angeles County. He served long sentences for drug-related crimes and parole violations. Being locked up exacerbated his existing physical and mental health issues. There were no services to greet him at the gate when he was released, and so imprisonment became law enforcement’s version of treatment. When he tried to find a job and a home, he was rejected at every turn because of his felony record.

At a meeting in Sacramento earlier this month, the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC), a small board dominated by law-enforcement officials, appointed the chairs of the committee who will recommend where to spend the millions of dollars of savings generated through Proposition 47, the law passed one year ago that reclassifies certain low-level crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Sixty five percent of this money must be allocated to diversion, mental health, and substance use treatment programs, giving California an opportunity to improve health outcomes for thousands of families.

But at that same meeting, despite testimonials from dozens of community members like myself whose lives have been harmed by incarceration, the BSCC voted to allocate $500 million in jail construction funds to counties across the state. Given that many of these new jail projects are being promoted as mental health treatment centers, sheriffs may soon be lining up to make the case for needing Prop. 47 funds to run these facilities. Awarding funds to expand jails makes no sense when national conversations have turned toward reducing jail populations.

The committee appointed by the BSCC to direct spending of Prop. 47 funds has the power to ensure that those savings go to treatment and care in the community, changing the culture surrounding substance use and mental health. This is the approach that finally worked for my dad.

When my dad was released for the last time in 2007, it was support from other formerly incarcerated people also grappling with substance-use and mental health conditions that helped him stay out of jail. He found his way to Homes for Life, a community-based organization in Southern California providing affordable housing and counseling for homeless and mentally-ill people. Living in a caring community empowered him to enroll in Long Beach City College’s Substance Abuse and Addiction Counseling degree program. It is bittersweet knowing that my dad didn’t find the resources he needed until he was 50 because society prioritizes punishment over healing.

Driving home to Southern California from Oakland this past spring, I prepared myself to see my dad for the first time in 20 years. It would also be the last time. I wept reflecting on 20 years of lost opportunities for our family because a poor brown man’s health conditions made him a criminal.

The real crime is the failure of law enforcement to know the difference between health care and incarceration. There is no happy ending to our story. My dad died without realizing his capacity to be a father and contribute to his community. I only find solace knowing he left this world trying to be the best person he could be.

My dad’s story is not exceptional. Families and neighborhoods continue to be torn apart by the same system that claims keeping communities safe means building more cages for people, when what they really need is comprehensive health care not administered by law enforcement.

Instead of accepting money for new jails, counties should reject the funding and give people with mental health and substance use conditions what my dad didn’t get: a fair chance at health, and a fair chance at life.

Angela Aguilar is a masters in public health candidate and a doctoral student in ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Via: http://www.dailynews.com/opinion/20151124/heres-how-jail-based-health-treatment-failed-my-family-guest-commentary

Victory in Sacramento! Brown signed SB 219!

On Sunday, we celebrated a major victory for incarcerated people and their families: Governor Brown signed SB 219, a bill co-sponsored by CURB and Justice Now that will expand access to the Alternative Custody Program! 

We couldn’t have done it without you.

Your letters, emails, phone calls, and tweets sent a clear message that Californians are determined to fight the devastation of imprisonment, and are willing to take action to support incarcerated people and their families.

Thanks to your fighting spirit, more people will be able to finish their sentences in the community so they can care for their children and dependent family members.

We hope the momentum created by this victory can help us continue our fight to reduce the number of prisons and jails and the number of people incarcerated, and invest in strong and healthy communities.

We hope this victory can be another stepping stone in a new path forward for California.

Via: http://curbprisonspending.org/ 

Conservatives are still trouncing liberals on prison reform

States don’t get any bluer than California, so last November’s vote adopting Proposition 47 – reducing six felonies to misdemeanors – could easily be taken as evidence that liberals and Democrats are leading the nationwide de-incarceration movement..

And that stands to reason. In image, at least, conservatives carry the tough-on-crime banner while liberals favor lenience and prefer rehabilitation to incarceration. The Obama administration won federal sentencing reforms. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that in 2014 the federal inmate population dropped – the first net reduction since 1980. Liberal officials, liberal policies, right?

So the American Conservative’s Feb. 3 Q. and A. with Mark Earley, a Republican Virginia lawmaker and attorney general and now a criminal defense lawyer, was a useful reminder that much of the real thinking and action on criminal justice reform has come from the right. Interviewer Chase Madar nailed the essential dichotomy in conservative politics by noting that conservatives “tend to value order and authority but also limited government.” There’s an obvious tension there – but it’s nothing new. Conservatives who once lined up behind the law-and-order part of their creed have begun questioning what mass incarceration means to the concept of limited government.

"I saw that in the ’80s and ’90s, criminal-justice policies were driven more by what constituents wanted, what worked in the short term," Earley said in the American Conservative. "But if you do that long enough, then all your constituents wind up having family members in jail."

The Times has noted with approval the reform-minded approach from conservatives on prisons and criminal justice reform.

“Many of the progressive innovations in criminal justice are coming not from supposedly liberal states and officials, but from conservatives who are determined to focus on cost and outcomes while keeping justice in the forefront,” the Times wrote in a 2011 editorial, just after criminal justice realignment took effect in California.

“The group Right on Crime is setting the pace in states such as Texas. At the same time, leaders on the left, in California and elsewhere, have been conspicuously quiet about making realignment work.”

Three years later, a few elected Democrats – but only a few – felt comfortable endorsing Proposition 47. Meanwhile, the Times ran an op-ed co-authored by Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of the founders of Right on Crime, urging passage and pointing out reforms made in conservative states like Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi.

“If so many red states can see the importance of refocusing their criminal justice systems, California can do the same,” Gingrich wrote.

Relatively few of California’s elected Republicans have chosen the red state path of seeing criminal justice reform as central to their limited-government creed. For the most part, the law-and-order approach prevails among Republican lawmakers in this most liberal of states.

So one of the most important aspects of the sweeping approval of Prop. 47 at the polls on Nov. 4 may be the signal it sends to California lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans alike: Update your view of the electorate. This is not 1990 or 2000. It’s OK to do thoughtful criminal justice and prison reform. You won’t automatically be punished at the polls for saying “no” to a new prison or a new get-tough-on-crime measure. There are good reasons, rooted in conservative as well as liberal politics, to focus on restorative justice and rehabilitation rather than simply retribution.

Law Enforcement, Health Advocates, and Members of Congress Push to Reduce the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jails

WASHINGTON, DC—Not long ago, Paton Blough stood before a class of law enforcement officers to teach them effective ways to intervene with people with mental health needs. It’s a topic Blough knows all too well: He’s been arrested six times, in each instance while experiencing a mental health crisis. He remembers one arresting officer who wanted to help him.

“If there would have been an opportunity to take me some place besides an ER or a jail, he would’ve loved to have taken it,” Paton told a crowded room during a Capitol Hill briefing last week. “We’ve got to get behind these programs that prevent problems, improve lives and save us money while making the communities safer.”

Programs that can help reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in jails, ranging from police training to certified peer support, are the basis for a new wave of national efforts highlighted Tuesday as Congressional leaders joined the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and the National Association of Counties (NACo) to discuss potential federal reforms and a new national initiative driven by the two organizations.

The briefing, which featured remarks from U.S. Sen. Al Franken (MN-D) and U.S. Rep. Rich Nugent (R-FL), underscored bipartisan commitment to prioritize this issue for the 114th Congress, highlighted successful local efforts, and introduced a new national initiative emphasizing state-local collaboration and targeted action on the ground level.

“This is a moral issue and an economics issue,” said Sen. Franken. “When we use our jails to warehouse people with mental illnesses, we burden the judicial system, the public health system, our law enforcement offices, and the taxpayers. In confronting this problem, we know that some of the most innovative solutions come from our local communities. It’s our job to make sure they’re properly supported.”

Rep. Nugent added: “Senator Franken and I are probably a couple of odd fellows because on most of instances we won’t agree. But on this one we do agree, and this is where bipartisanship really has to come together. We have the ability to change where we go forward … This is one area that the federal government can actually make an impact on the people we represent, a typically unrepresented population.”

NACo and the CSG Justice Center, together with other leaders in behavioral health and criminal justice, also discussed plans for an unprecedented effort to lower the number of people with mental illnesses in jails by improving access to effective mental health and co-occurring substance use treatment, strengthening criminal justice collaborations with behavioral health stakeholders, and advancing public safety goals.

“Counties are working to reduce the number of people with behavioral health and substance abuse needs in jails across the country,” said NACo Executive Director Matthew Chase. “This cutting-edge initiative will help counties focus on results and take their efforts to the next level. It will support action-oriented, comprehensive strategies to provide needed services in appropriate settings.”

The problem is clear: Jails in this country have replaced in-patient mental health facilities as the largest institutional treatment provider for adults with mental illnesses. Each year, more than 2 million people with serious mental illnesses are booked into jails, as well as millions more coping with less serious mental illnesses that jails are required to address. The majority of these individuals also have co-occurring substance use disorders, increasing their chances of staying longer in jail and being reincarcerated following their release.

The centerpiece of the initiative is a “Call to Action,” in which county leaders commit to a concrete, multi-step planning and implementation process that is supported by state policymakers, behavioral health and criminal justice practitioners, and other stakeholders to help achieve measurable results. The Call to Action will be launched in spring 2015.

John Wetzel, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and a member of the CSG Justice Center’s Board of Directors, provided closing remarks at the event, where he urged public officials and other stakeholders to “step up and do the right thing” regarding individuals and offenders with mental illnesses.

“Prisons were not designed to treat individuals with mental disorders, but the courts send these offenders to us and we must do everything possible to provide them with appropriate mental health services,” Wetzel said. “But in addition to these efforts, society in general needs to address this issue and seriously consider mental health courts and diversionary programs to ensure treatment for this segment of our population that does not include sending them to prison.”




via: http://csgjusticecenter.org/mental-health/posts/law-enforcement-health-advocates-and-members-of-congress-push-to-reduce-the-number-of-people-with-mental-illness-in-jails/

A breakdown of the governor's budget

Here's a breakdown of Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1:

K-12, COMMUNITY COLLEGES: Would get $7.4 billion more this fiscal year and next. For next year, Brown proposes a 7.9 percent increase in school spending. K-12 per-pupil spending would grow by $306, to $9,667. Much of the infusion will pay off what the state already owes schools, part of the "wall of debt" that Brown pledged to dismantle.

UC AND CSU: The two state university systems would each receive a 4 percent increase -- $120 million each -- as long as they don't raise tuition.

SOCIAL SERVICES: The state will spend an extra $800 million on Medi-Cal because of a 2.1 percent increase in enrollment. Brown would also spend $483 million to eliminate a 7 percent cut to the hours of care In-Home Supportive Services recipients receive each month.

COURTS: Would receive about a $180 million boost, the second consecutive year the judiciary got a dose of good news after years of cutbacks in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The bulk of the increase is headed to the state's 58 trial courts, which will receive about $2.7 billion of the judiciary's $3.47 billion budget.

PRISONS: Spending on the California prison system would increase by 1.7 percent, raising the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to $10.1 billion. Prison reform groups expressed disappointment in the governor's decision to increase spending on incarceration.

TRANSPORTATION: The state Transportation Agency would get $15.8 billion. Brown has said he wants to fix California's crumbling roads, highways and bridges, but his budget proposal includes no plan for covering the $66 billion cost of those repairs.

PARKS AND ENVIRONMENT: Brown proposed spending $532 million on new water projects, funded by the Proposition 1 water bond approved by voters in November. Projects include recycled water, conservation and watershed improvement. The governor also proposed $20 million in new money for deferred maintenance at state parks; $1 billion from prior bonds to fund new flood-control projects; and $1 billion from the state's cap-and-trade program to fund high-speed rail, urban transit, building efficiency and other programs to reduce greenhouse gases.

via: http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_27292946/breakdown-governors-budget

One-Size: A Need for Prison Reform

One-size-fits-all is a concept that never made sense to me. How can something like a T-shirt be a good match for everyone from a small child to a 300-pound NFL lineman? The answer is that it’s obviously not. It will be way too big for one extreme and way too small for the other.

If one-size-fits-all is an illogical way to manufacture something as insignificant as an article of clothing, how can we possibly justify it as a reasonable way to handle something as serious as sentencing criminal offenders?

But one-size-fits-all punishments for crime are being widely used across the nation, and they’ve driven up the size of our prisons at an enormous cost to taxpayers. These punishments are called mandatory minimums and they force judges to impose mandatory prison time on offenders whose criminal behavior often spans extremes as mismatched as the little kid and the NFL giant.


There is no question that violent and serious offenders like murderers, rapists, and child abusers need to be locked up for a very long time. They pose a real threat to society and deserve severe punishment for their crimes. But adopting the same approach through mandatory sentences for nonviolent offenders like small-time drug offenders is counterproductive as it often leads to exploding costs and less public safety. Research by the Pew Charitable Trusts and others is clear that for many offenders prison terms can be decreased without affecting recidivism or crime. The extra time is all cost and no benefit to public safety.

The sad reality is that many nonviolent offenders simply learn how to become better criminals in prison, instead of reforming their behavior so they can become productive members of society. Even when a prison is well run, the unfortunate truth of locking up so many people together is that it is a place for criminals to earn their advanced degrees in crime.

There are many less costly, more effective alternatives to prison for nonviolent offenders that will help prevent them from reoffending and ending up back in our prison system. We can save taxpayers money and cut crime across the country by using options we know work, like drug courts, which combine intensive supervision with drug treatment and frequent drug testing, instead of expensive prison beds.

Most importantly, mandatory minimums can have a terrible impact on families. When someone serves a sentence that is disproportionate to the crime, it creates financial and emotional strain on his or her family, often for decades at a time. Often, the family doesn’t fully recover from the pain and hardship of separation and economic stress, and society has to deal with yet another broken family. The sooner we can reintroduce nonviolent offenders into society after they have served a reasonable punishment, the better it will be for their families, who too often bear the collateral cost of incarceration.

As a signatory of Right on Crime, a national campaign for better criminal and juvenile justice policies, I join conservative leaders who are supporting reforms that restore judges with their discretion to consider factors like the role of the defendant in the crime and his criminal history when imposing sentences. This accomplishes two important goals: it helps focus expensive prison beds on those who deserve them the most, and it helps restore the separation of powers between the judicial and legislative branches of government as required by our constitution.

Americans should always ask whether we are getting the best possible results for the lowest possible cost out of any government service. When our corrections spending is sky high because we are locking up so many nonviolent offenders for such nonsensical amounts of time, I think the answer is clear.

via townhall.com

Inmate lawsuits cost California $200 million

Gov. Jerry Brown has begun aggressively challenging federal court oversight of California's prison system by highlighting what he says is a costly conflict of interest: The private law firms representing inmates and the judges' own hand-picked authorities benefit financially by keeping the cases alive.

How much are they making?

A tally by The Associated Press, compiled from three state agencies, shows California taxpayers have spent $182 million for inmates' attorneys and court-appointed authorities over the past 15 years. The payments cover a dozen lawsuits filed over the treatment of state prisoners, parolees and incarcerated juveniles, some of which have been settled.

The total exceeds $200 million when the state's own legal costs are added.

While the amounts are a blip on California's budget, they provide a continuous income stream for the private attorneys and experts involved in the ongoing litigation. And that is the point Brown is trying to make.

The AP sought the tally after the Democratic governor began using court filings and public appearances to call for an end to two major lawsuits that have forced the state to spend billions of dollars improving its medical and mental health care for prison inmates. Brown says the complaints are expensive, frivolous and motivated by attorneys' own financial interest.

"They don't want to go away," he said last month, standing behind a stack of court documents. "I mean, the name of the game here is, 'Come to Sacramento and get your little piece of the pie.'"

Brown says that, thanks to recent overhauls, California now offers inmates the best medical and mental health care of any prison system in the nation.

Inmates' lawyers and the court-appointed authorities overseeing inmate medical and mental health say the system, with more than 132,000 inmates, remains crowded and still has problems with suicides and mentally ill prisoners who deserve better care. They say they are not motivated by profit, but by a desire to protect prisoners' constitutional right to be free from cruel treatment.

"It's ridiculous for the governor to merely characterize these cases as being about money, when in fact these cases have been the only impetus in the last 20 years for reducing the prison population and improving conditions," said Donald Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office in Berkeley, which has won several major cases against the state.

The nonprofit, which has taken the lead in suing the state over inmate health care, and other legal firms have been paid $8.3 million in that case.

Many of the lawsuits are continuing despite the billions of dollars spent to improve treatment for the state's felons and a massive realignment of the state's penal system. The realignment has transferred responsibility for incarcerating tens of thousands of convicts from the state to the counties to reduce prison crowding.

Brown says inmate care now exceeds constitutional standards. He argues that what he called "the prison lobby" - lawyers and the court-appointed special master overseeing penitentiary improvements - is perpetuating the legal action to make money.

"We've got hundreds of lawyers wandering around the prisons looking for problems," he said.

The state has paid nearly $83 million to private law firms and the court-appointed authorities involved in the two major lawsuits that have forced the state to reduce its prison population and improve inmate medical and mental health treatment, according to the figures provided at the AP's request. The costs were provided by the corrections department, the state Department of Justice and the prison medical receiver's office and compiled by the AP.

In his budget address last month, Brown said the money that would be saved by ending court oversight in the mental health and health care cases could be spent instead on inmate education, substance abuse treatment and other rehabilitation programs, as well as to supervise convicts once they leave prison.

J. Clark Kelso, the court-appointed receiver who controls California's prison health care system, is paid $224,000 annually, and his administration costs taxpayers about $2 million a year. The receivership has spent $2.4 million for lawyers.

Receiver spokeswoman Joyce Hayhoe said Kelso expects to return control to the state as soon as it proves it can properly care for inmates.

"There is no effort on our part to delay any part of this case," she said.

The governor has taken particular aim at the court-appointed monitor overseeing inmate mental health care, Matthew Lopes.

The state has paid the special masters in that case and the prison experts they have hired more than $48 million since 1997, the earliest year for which reliable records can be found, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The beneficiaries of those payments include Lopes, who has been the special master for more than five years, and his Rhode Island law firm, Pannone Lopes and Devereaux LLC. The previous special master left in 2007.

In a court filing last month, the governor's administration said Lopes' ever-expanding standards for care have no relation to the real world and do not acknowledge the steps the state has taken to improve treatment.

"Perhaps the reason is because there is no incentive for the special master to be objective in this case," the administration said in disputing Lopes' conclusion that the state still provides substandard mental health care. "Further monitoring ensures that this revenue stream will continue."

Lopes said he could not comment because the matter is part of the ongoing legal dispute.

"There's no evidence that backs that up, other than saying, 'Oh, he got all that money' and they don't like his reports," said Michael Bien, the lead attorney representing the welfare of mentally ill inmates.

Bien's San Francisco law firm, Rosen Bien Galvan and Grunfeld, is among the firms that have been paid $19 million by the state in the inmate mental health lawsuit.

He said Brown and the state would be better off working with Lopes to reduce inmate suicides and improve mental health treatment.

Later Monday, the inmates' attorneys planned to file their formal response to Brown's criticism of Lopes' recent report.

Bien and other inmates' attorneys are paid by taxpayers only if they can prove a federal or constitutional violation, and by law are then paid at a rate hundreds of dollars below what they would usually charge. They also have to pay out of pocket for expert witnesses.

"This is really offensive to say that I'm doing this for the money," Bien said. "I didn't do it to get rich."

via ABC news

On Behalf of CURB: Stop the Expansion of the California Institute for Men in Chino

Join us WEDNESDAY Jaunary 30th-3 pm. 

As you might have heard, the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation is planning a controversial & massive expansion of the California Institute for Men in Chino. News stories report they intend to add as many as 3,000 more cells.

The city of Chino & CDCR are holding public meetings this Wednesday at 3:00 and again at 6:00 to discuss plans with the public. We at CURB hope that you can help us turn people out to those meetings who will voice opposition to expanding CIM. The meetings will be held at the Chaffey College Community Center, 5890 College Park, Chino.

Here are a few things you can help us with:

1) Meet us at Chuco’s Justice Center (1137 E. Redondo Blvd., on the border between South Central L.A. and Inglewood, one light west of Florence and Crenshaw | Inglewood CA 90302) at 1:30 pm so that we can carpool to the 3:00 pm meeting at Chaffey College Community Center. Please RSVP with Diana@curbprisonspending.org if you plan on attending. I will be emailing out talking points to all those interested in attending the meeting.

2) Forward this email to colleagues, students, friends and organizations who might be interested in stopping the growth of California's prisons.

3) Call 3-4 people and ask them to attend the meeting with you. Take a car full of people to the meeting.

4) Donate to CURB to help fund our work to shrink the number of Californians in prison.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=62257

We will have talking points at the action, but please email or call me if you have any questions.

via Californians United for a Responsible Budget

California Sheds Prisoners but Grapples With Courts

Those 100-plus bunk beds are now gone. Prisoners are no longer using an open bathroom, where the smell was barely tolerable. The conditions are certainly not luxurious, but for the first time in recent memory all inmates are sleeping in cells that were designed to house them.

Nearly two years after the United States Supreme Court ruled that California’s prison system was so bad that it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, the changes are, in some ways, readily apparent. The state is still a long way from reducing the prison population by 30,000, as the court mandated.

Nonetheless, Gov. Jerry Brown declared this month that “the prison emergency is over in California,” arguing that the federal courts should relinquish control of the state prison system and that placing more demands on correctional facilities was simply “nit-picking.”

“At some point, the job’s done,” Mr. Brown said during a fiery news conference on Jan. 8 in Sacramento, the state capital, where he defended the prison system. California has spent billions of dollars to comply with federal demands, he said: “We can’t pour more and more dollars down the rathole of incarceration.”

But a court-appointed monitor said in papers filed last week that Mr. Brown’s demand to end oversight is “not only premature, but a needless distraction” that could affect care for mentally ill inmates. The monitor cited dozens of suicides and long periods of isolation instead of treatment.

The leaky toilets have been boarded up at the prison in this suburban city east of Los Angeles. Inmates waiting to see a doctor are placed in holding pens that once doubled as cells in the hallways. Prisoners are being let out into the yard more often, as officers are less concerned that their time out of cells will inevitably lead to tensions.

Critics, including the lawyers who sued the state on behalf of prisoners, say that many of the changes are nothing more than cosmetic and that the system still does not provide adequate care to physically or mentally ill inmates.

“We’re wasting a lot of money on nonsense,” Mr. Brown said. “Everybody wants to send people to prison. Nobody wants to pay for it.”

Many advocates, had hoped that the court rulings would prompt more changes in the state’s aggressive sentencing laws, and submitted papers showing that there would be no uptick in crime rates if more prisoners were released. Officials have argued that they have already released the lowest-level offenders and that further releases would threaten public safety, even if there were no increase in overall crime.

“The state refuses to engage with the fundamental problem, which is that we incarcerate far too many people for far too long,” said Allen Hopper, a policy director with theAmerican Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. “What has gotten us into this mess in the first place is the constant ratcheting up of sentencing laws.”

California is expected to spend $8.6 billion on prisons this year, the third-largest chunk of the state’s total budget, just behind public schools and health care.

It now has roughly 130,000 prisoners, with 119,000 housed in state prisons. That is a significant drop from 162,500 in 2006, the height of the crisis. But it is still nearly 10,000 more than what the courts said they would allow by a June 2013 deadline. Nearly 8,900 inmates are in out-of-state facilities. Most of the inmates shed by the state prisons were lower-level offenders who were sent to county jails.

via New York Times

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