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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS ROOM | |
| http://www.cjcj.org/index.php |
| Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 54 Dore Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466 |
Despite a year of scandals revolving around California's prison system, including beatings of inmates caught on videotape, dramatic hearings by two state senators, apparent acknowledgment of serious problems by the new governor and a federal judge threatening federal receivership of the entire state system, the state Legislature could bring itself only to tinker around the edges of the problem.
The evidence suggests that the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the prison guards' union, despite some setbacks, remains one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Sacramento.
The good news first. SB 1342, by Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, beefs up penalties for prison officials who retaliate against whistle-blowers. SB 1352 gives the prison inspector general a bit more authority and makes his reports on corrections available to the public. SB 1431 creates a statewide code of conduct for prison officials (previously standards varied from prison to prison) and establishes standard penalties for offenses such as use of excessive force and being drunk on duty. The latter two bills also are from state Sen. Speier.
Another Speier bill, SB 1400, regularizes procedures for a bureau of review, a panel created in response to warnings from the federal court, whose purpose is to oversee internal investigations. AB 2742, introduced by conservative Republican Dennis Mountjoy of Monrovia, after learning of a case where a prisoner died of breast cancer after being denied a mammogram for several years, provides that prisoners who are seen by community doctors (those outside the prison system) will receive the treatment the doctors prescribe.
Proposals for major reform, however, failed to win approval. Democratic state Sen. Speier, for example, introduced a bill to prevent the building of new prisons until officials reduce the recidivism rate. It was not passed.
A commission headed by former Gov. George Deukmejian recommended major reforms. The key recommendation to create a five-member public commission to oversee the prison system went nowhere. As Dan Macallair, executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco put it to us, "that report was collecting dust before the ink was even dry."
Emblematic of the power of the CCPOA was SB 1731, proposed by Los Angeles Democratic Sen. Gloria Romero. It sought to remove what is considered a major barrier to investigations of guard misconduct, a clause in the labor contract that requires investigators to turn over information about a probe, including the accuser's name, to the guards' union before internal affairs interviews are conducted, which practically invites intimidation. Matthew Cate, Gov. Schwarzenegger's prison "watchdog" supported the bill. But the guards' union opposed it and it failed.
"I'm afraid the corruption is so deeply entrenched," Dan Macallair said, "that neither the governor nor the legislature can fix the prison system. The biggest problem is the union."
The corruption of which Mr. Macallair speaks is not secret under-the-table money, but the simple self-interest of the prison guards' union in having more inmates and less oversight. The union keeps growing and contributes large amounts to political campaigns. Few politicians will buck it.
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