Triggers and Vulnerabilities: Why Prisons Are Uniquely Vulnerable to COVID-19 and What To Do About It

When I reviewed the causes and effects of the 2008 Financial Crisis for Cheap on Crime, I relied partly on a series of lectures given by Ben Bernarke, Director of the Federal Reserve. As he explained it, the Great Recession was a case of "triggers and vulnerabilities:"

The triggers of the crisis were the particular events or factors that touched off the events of 2007-09--the proximate causes, if you will. Developments in the market for subprime mortgages were a prominent example of a trigger of the crisis. In contrast, the vulnerabilities were the structural, and more fundamental, weaknesses in the financial system and in regulation and supervision that served to propagate and amplify the initial shocks. In the private sector, some key vulnerabilities included high levels of leverage; excessive dependence on unstable short-term funding; deficiencies in risk management in major financial firms; and the use of exotic and nontransparent financial instruments that obscured concentrations of risk. In the public sector, my list of vulnerabilities would include gaps in the regulatory structure that allowed systemically important firms and markets to escape comprehensive supervision; failures of supervisors to effectively apply some existing authorities; and insufficient attention to threats to the stability of the system as a whole (that is, the lack of a macroprudential focus in regulation and supervision).

The distinction between triggers and vulnerabilities is helpful in that it allows us to better understand why the factors that are often cited as touching off the crisis seem disproportionate to the magnitude of the financial and economic reaction. 

Bernarke's distinction between triggers and vulnerabilities is useful to the current crisis as well. Today we learned that a man behind bars in Chino is the first acknowledged COVID-19 casualty in CA prisons, and that 59 of his fellow prisoners have tested positive. As of today, we've also seen the first positive test in the San Francisco jail system. It's all going to mushroom from here. 

Several of my colleagues (see especially here and here) are making the important argument that the spread of COVID-19 in prisons is a very big deal, to the point that not addressing it properly could negate much of our social distancing effort outside the prison walls. But what is it about prisons that make them such an effective Petri dish for the virus to spread?

Think of COVID-19 as the trigger, and think of the disappointing--even shocking--reluctance of federal courts to do the right thing as another trigger. These triggers operate against a background of serious vulnerabilities, some of which preceded the decision in Brown v. Plata and some of which emerged from it.

First, what gets called "health care" in CA prisons really isn't. Litigation about it took a decade and a half to yield the three-judge order to decarcerate, and until then, horrific things were happening on a daily basis. Despite ridiculous expenses, every six days, a CA inmate would die from a completely preventable, iatrogenic disease. The cases that spearheaded Plata, including the story of Plata himself, were emblematic of this (see Jonathan Simon's retelling of these stories here.) 

It is important to think again of what it was, exactly, about overcrowding that made basic healthcare impossible to provide. First, medical personnel were, and still are, difficult to hire and retain. California has gigantic prisons in remote, rural locations, and it is difficult to attract people willing to work healthcare in these locations. Housing, clothing, and feeding so many people in close proximity meant not only that violence and contagion were more likely to occur, but also that the quality of these things--diet, especially, comes to mind--was extremely low. Every time someone had to be taken to receive care, the prison would have to be in lockdown, which meant more delays and big administrative hassles. The administration and pharmacies were total chaos. People would wait for their appointments in tiny cages for hours without access to bathrooms. People's medical complaints were regularly trivialized and disbelieved--not, usually, out of sadism, but out of fatigue and indifference in the face of so much need. Moreover, the scandalously long sentences that a fourth of our prison population serves mean that people age faster and get sick, and make the older population an expensive contingent in constant need of more healthcare and more expense.

The outcome of the case--reducing the prison population from 200% capacity to 137.5% capacity--was mixed in terms of the healthcare outcomes. But it also yielded four important side-effects. First, it exposed the inadequacy of county jails for dealing with a population in need of both acute and chronic healthcare. Second, it created big gaps in service between counties that relied more and less on incarceration. Third, because the standard was the same for the entire prison system and relied on design capacity (rather than, following the European model, on calculating minimum meterage per inmate), it yielded some prisons in which overcrowding was greatly alleviated alongside others in which the overcrowding situation was either the same as, or worse than, before Plata. And fourth, because of the way we dealt with Plata, we became habituated to resolving overcrowding with cosmetic releases of politically palatable populations (i.e. the "non-non-nons") rather than addressing a full fourth of our prison population--people doing long sentences for violent crime and getting old and sick behind bars.

So, now we face this trigger--COVID-19--with the following vulnerabilities:

1. We still have a bloated system, because the Court used the wrong standard to create minimal space between people for their immediate welfare.
2. We're now dealing with lots of small systems that answer to lots of different masters and have different priorities and ideologies.
3. We already have a lousy healthcare system behind bars, which could not be fixed even with the release of more than 30,000 people, and that was *without* a pandemic going on.
4. We have gotten used to doing a "health vs. public safety" equation that doesn't make sense and biases us against people who committed violent crimes at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons. In fact, we are so married to the idea that we can't second-guess mass incarceration, that the newest preposterous suggestion has been to protect people from COVID-19 by... introducing private prisons into the mix. 

Stack these vulnerabilities against the trigger, and what you have is an enormous human rights crisis waiting to happen in the next few weeks. It's already started. 

And if you wonder whether this can be contained in prisons, well, it can't. Guards don't live in prison, obviously; prison staff has already been diagnosed positive in multiple prisons. Stay at home all your like, wear your home-sewn masks all you wish; we have dozens of disease incubators in the state and apparently very little political will do do anything to eliminate them.

What should we do about it? Follow the excellent roadmap that Margo Schlanger and Sonja Starr charted here, primarily point four: get over your icky political fears about public backlash and let older, sicker people out--even if they committed a violent crime twenty or forty years ago. If you are a governor or a prison warden with some authority to release people, do as Sharon Dolovich implores in this piece and use your executive power to save lives.  

Body-Worn Cameras in Prison?

I just got off the phone with a person who is serving a long sentence in a CA prison (I will keep the person's details to myself to preserve their anonymity.) The person heard my KPFA interview about Yesterday's Monsters and some of the reforms I suggested resonated with them. They had some reform ideas of their own, which struck me as interesting and important, and I promised them I would float them to the criminal justice reform community, and here's the most obvious and interesting one: Why not require that correctional personnel wear body-worn cameras in prison?

It's certainly an idea whose time has come; I've looked at a few correctional gear websites and the technology exists. Problems with privacy and technology quality now have solutions. More importantly, everybody wins. I think it's an easy sell to the correctional community: look at this CorrectionsOne article from 2014, before the technology became ubiquitous in police departments around the country. Prison guards might be well served to rely on the proven effects of the technology in improving the behavior of the incarcerated people they interact with, as well as addressing false accusations of brutality and avoiding lengthy and costly litigation. Incarcerated folks could use them to pursue redress in cases of physical or sexual assault. Moreover, footage captured in the course of an incident leading to a disciplinary write-up (115/128 in CA) could be used to explain the circumstances of the write-up to the prison authorities and/or to the parole board. In short, everyone wins. 

The privacy concerns that are often raised in the context of police-worn cameras are largely mitigated in a prison environment. Prisons are already equipped with cameras (apparently woefully antiquated ones compared to the capabilities we have now) and people do not have what the law recognizes as a reasoanble expectation of privacy in prison (e.g., Samson, Florence). 

Aili Malm and Mike White have a wonderful new book out about body-worn cameras for police officers. They review the scientific evidence we have on the impact of body-worn cameras on policing quality, use of force by and against the police, behavior toward the police, complaints (true and false), etc., and offer some helpful policy guidelines for how to regulate the use of cameras. The thorniest issue, I think, is how the footage gets used. Prisons would require careful regulation of the footage use and access to it--even more so than in the police context, because the access to technology to see, let alone use, the footage is so asymmetric. But that something is difficult doesn't mean it should not be done. If it's something that is likely to improve behavior in prisons and prevent violence and abuse, it should be in everyone's benefit to implement it. 

I'd like to hear from you, readers, what you think about this idea. What do we know about current camera coverage of prisons? What gaps are there in the factual accounts of narratives about encounters between prisoners and guards that cameras could fill? How much would it cost to fit the entire correctional staff at CDCR with cameras and to process and store the footage on the cloud? Most importantly, are there any drawbacks to this idea that my correspondent or I might not have thought about?

Distress Call: Suicide Rates in California Prisons

A couple of years ago, Michael Bien alerted us at his keynote speech at WSC to an alarming trend: mental illness was on the rise in CA prisons even as they were getting decrowded. He and his lawyers ran the numbers lots of possible ways, and couldn't find a comprehensive explanation.

And now, we have some distressing data about the suicide rates in CA prisons. The Chron reports:

Last year, an average of three California inmates killed themselves each month in state cells — 34 total suicides in a system with 129,000 inmates. That amounts to an annual rate of 26.3 deaths per 100,000 people, the highest rate in California since at least 2006. 

That figure is higher than the national average for state prisons (20 per 100,000 in 2014) and federal prisons (14.7 in 2018, according to the Washington Post). From 2001 to 2014, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, twice as many people killed themselves in California cells than in the entire federal system, which contains more prisons and inmates. There were 448 total suicides in California prisons during that period and 222 in federal prisons. 

The inmate suicide rate has now increased for four straight years in California, and it may rise again in 2019. According to the state, 16 inmates committed suicide during the first six months of this year. Michael Bien, an attorney who represents mentally ill prisoners, said he knows of 10 more inmate suicides since then, for a total of 26 so far in 2019. A state spokeswoman said she couldn’t confirm the 10 recent deaths because “some investigations are still ongoing.”

Read the article in its entirety: it exposes a disturbing pattern of neglect and cover-your-asses mentality and the futility of the ongoing Coleman litigation. What is wrong? and how can we fix it?

Three Jail Guards Arrested in Santa Clara Jail Inmate Death

The shift of numerous inmates from state prisons to county jails has turned our attention to conditions in these local institutions. This morning's news present a particularly tragic example: the brutal killing of 31-year-old Michael Tyree, an inmate at the Santa Clara jail, who was beaten to death by three guards. The San Jose Mercury reports:

The three guards at Santa Clara County Main Jail were only supposed to be conducting a routine search of Michael Tyree's cell, looking for extra clothing or toiletries that inmates often try to hoard. Instead, the correctional officers did something "violent and cowardly," Sheriff Laurie Smith said Thursday, that left the 31-year-old mentally ill man lying naked on the floor, covered in lacerations and bruises and bleeding to death internally.

During a news conference Thursday, flanked by 18 uniformed members of her command staff, Smith announced the arrest of the three correctional officers on suspicion of murder, just a week after Tyree's severely beaten body was found in jail wing 6B.

"The disappointment and disgust I feel cannot be overstated," she said. "His life had value."

The murder allegations against correctional officers 28-year-old Jereh Lubrin, and 27-year-olds Matthew Farris and Rafael Rodriguez, unprecedented in the 165-year history of the Sheriff's Office, have put the jail it runs under a harsh spotlight and drawn attention to the difficult plight and placement of the mentally ill.

Smith said she spoke privately with Tyree's family, just hours after the arrests.

"I want to express my profound sorrow over the loss of Mr. Tyree," Smith said, accusing her officers of losing their "moral compass."

"This violent and cowardly act that took Mr. Tyree's life is not indicative of the values we expect and honor with the men and women of this department."

The murder allegations may be unprecedented, but other problems in the Santa Clara jail, and particularly violent behavior on the part of the guards, are not. In 2014, the jail observer reported that "the guards run the jail" and that numerous calls and complaints pertain to guard behavior.

The sheriff is to be commended for arresting the responsible guards--and if the system works properly, this should be no different than any other brutal homicide trial--but the county's liability largely depends on the extent to which it was negligent in hiring, training, and supervising its staff.

How the Media Talks About Prison Homicide: A Murder in Vacaville

A couple of months ago, news outlets reported a murder in California State Prison, Solano. The murder did not make headlines until yesterday, when it suddenly returned to the news with some gruesome details and discoveries.

Beyond the sadness and horror (and, of course, condolences to Maria Rodriguez and her family), one has to wonder, again, about the media tendency to look for an "angle". It's fairly obvious that the story got a second life once media outlets found out (two months late) the horrific details of this heinous crime. But the Associated Press cannot resist looking for an "angle"--some way to generalize from this and make it into a moral panic we can all get behind--and here's what it finds notable:

Homicides are distressingly common in California prisons. More than 160 inmates have been killed in the last 15 years, and the state has one of the nation's highest inmate homicide rates.

. . . 

 "It's very difficult to cover every contingency with the limited staff that we have," said Chuck Alexander, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association that represents most prison guards.

   "This kind of thing at Solano, sad to say I predict it's just a precursor," he said. 

   He noted a 2011 California law that keeps lower-level offenders in county jails, leaving state prisons to hold the most violent criminals. Changes in prison policies, meanwhile, mean more dangerous offenders are being housed in lower-security prisons like medium-security. 

If you're a critical news consumer, this ought to leave you wondering: does California have a particularly violent prison population? and, if so, is this somehow attributable to the Realignment? to "changes in prison policies"?

The Bureau of Justice Statistics routinely collects information on inmate deaths in federal, state, and local custody. In this report, which covers the years 2001-2012, California is reported to have a yearly average of eight inmate homicides per 100,000 inmates. This number includes not only homicides by inmates, but also by staff (sadly, the numbers don't offer the breakdown.) Two things are notable about this number: first, it is not at all an outlier among other states. That honor falls to Oklahoma, with 14 per 100,000 homicides, or to Maryland, with 11 per 100,000 homicides. Just to show the number in context: Hawaii has had an average of 6; New Mexico and Tennessee, 9 each; Maine, 8; and Colorado, 6.

Second, it is not grossly out of proportion to the overall homicide rate in California, whose annual homicide rates for the years 1996-2013 veered between 9 and 5 homicides per 100,000 people. Of course, as is the case in the country in general, it was a downward slope; the prison data are presented in a way that makes it impossible to figure out if they've also had a downward slope.

It seems like the presentation of data in the article (160 homicides per 15 years) does not suggest anything particularly violent about California prisons as compared with the outside population or with other states.

But let's turn to Alexander's remarks. Would more homicides be prevented if there were more guards? Since the BJS data do not provide the breakdown between staff and inmate perpetrators, it's hard to tell. If the former accounts for a considerable number of the homicides, perhaps the relationship between number of guards and number of homicides should give us pause about hiring more.

The coup-de-grace, though, is the bizarre mention of Realignment and "changing prison policies". I assume by the latter Alexander does not refer to Prop 47, which was approved only in November, and therefore could not have affected the numbers in any way. As to Realignment, as the article correctly mentioned, it was a policy that focused on non-serious, nonviolent, nonsexual offenders, who were moved out of the prison system (according to a new study by Julie Gerlinger and Susan Turner, people who commit less serious offenses are not necessarily less risky or less likely to recidivate; they're just less likely to create public uproar when released). What sort of effect could it have had on homicide rates? Is there any evidence whatsoever that prison homicide rates have risen in the aftermath of Realignment? Is there any evidence whatsoever that the increased rate is that of homicide perpetrated by inmates, rather than by staff? I confess I'd be surprised if that were the case; one of the effects of Realignment was alleviating the massive overcrowding in California prisons was alleviated, so one possible factor in prison violence rates has actually been addressed. At a conference last year, Ryan Patten presented a paper that suggested that Realignment actually brought a rise in violence in local jails (as opposed to prisons), but I remember not being convinced that this correlation was not marred by confounding variables. Moreover, Patten didn't have a breakdown by perpetrator, either. In short, absent any actual data, it's hard to give credence to Alexander's assessment.

Here are three alternative suggestions for "angles" that might actually have something to do with prison homicide rate:

Bad cellmate choices. Just recently, CDCR refused to consider the possibility of taking inmate preference into account when allowing them to choose cellmates. Of course, there is no data about how many homicides are perpetrated by cellmates, but that would be one interesting thing to find out. Why resist a simple compatibility survey when it could save lives?

An overall unsalubrious environment. For 11 of the 15 years mentioned, inmates lived under horrific conditions that included overcrowding, massive medical neglect, and a whole host of iatrogenic diseases. There's still plenty to do on that front. Maybe this is a "broken windows" type of situation, in which people who are horrifically treated conform to the institution's conditions and expectations.

Staff violence. Just recently, the Supreme Court decided Kingsley v. Hendrickson, which requires a legal objective test to assess excess violence toward pretrial detainees. The Court also left the door open as to the possibility of applying this test to prison inmates, too. I, for one, would have liked to see the breakdown between staff and inmate perpetrators and learn more about the source of prison violence.

I would have liked to see an article discussing prison violence from these perspectives, rather than throwing out conjunction and statistical inaccuracy, and presenting prison violence as merely a subset of overall violence. But I'm not holding my breath.

Corporal Punishment for the Mentally Ill? Judge Karlton to Decide

Two shocking videos depicting prison guards at Corcoran subduing mentally-ill inmates with pepper spray and batons are the subject of federal litigation aimed at ending such brutal corporal punishment. The videos are not available for sharing online, but they have been viewed in court, and the Sacramento Bee describes their content:

In the first video, played to a hushed crowd of lawyers and reporters in Karlton’s 15th-floor courtroom in downtown Sacramento, an inmate in a mental health crisis unit at Corcoran State Prison is shown refusing to take medication from a psychologist visiting him in his cell.

“He refused to take it,” the psychologist tells a waiting team of guards wearing gas masks, helmets, padded vests, gloves, protective jumpsuits and shin guards.

The inmate, locked in his cell, was playing with his feces and threatening to throw two cups of an unknown substance on anyone who entered. Almost immediately after the psychologist emerged, the team began pumping pepper spray through the food port of the metal cell door, repeatedly dousing the inmate between warnings that he better come out.

The team opened the door, dragging the inmate out and wrestling him to the floor as he alternately sobbed and screamed, “Don’t do this to me,” “help,” and “I don’t want to be executed.”

The motion focuses on Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment violations, including force against inmates manifesting symptoms of mental illness, excessive use of pepper spray and of expandable batons, and requests that the Court order CDCR to revise their use-of-force policies to provide training, quality and assurance processes.

As Bakersfield Now reports, things have not been looking good for the state in court:

In its response brief, CDCR argues that it has a comprehensive use-of-force policy, revised in 2010, that takes into account mentally ill inmates and includes appropriate training and discipline provisions. The brief also argues that the high standard for intervention under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) has not been met. The two videos, the defendants argue, do not demonstrate a "pattern or practice" of disproportionate force.

The state's own expert witness testified that guards use pepper spray far too often and in quantities that are too great. He also said previous recommendations for changes were rejected or ignored.

The Contra Costa Times quoted Michael Stainer, Director of CDCR's Division of Adult Institutions, who described the depicted incidents as "at best, controlled chaos."

Judge Karlton is to issue his decision in a few days.

California Prison Overcrowding: State of the State, October 2013

And now, this is how things stood: the cat was sitting on one branch, the bird on another… not too close to the cat... and the wolf walked around and around the tree looking at them with greedy eyes.

                                                                           --Sergei Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf (1936)

Developments in the last few months raise grim questions about the wisdom of leaving California to its own devices in trying to solve its overcrowding problem. Since the initial three-judge panel order in Plata v. Schwarzenengger (2009), the state has fought tooth and nail against the order to reduce population, and the struggle against the court mandate continued even after the Supreme Court confirmed the order, 5-4, in Brown v. Plata (2011). Numerous state appeals and motions to change the order and delay the timeline for population reduction (some of them bordering on contempt of court) have been thwarted. The last of these is the Supreme Court's rejection of the state's appeal yesterday. The Chron reports:

The high court's one-line dismissal - which said only that the court lacked jurisdiction to step in - leaves intact a three-judge federal panel's directive to the state to slash its population of 120,000 inmates in 33 prisons.

. . . 

Brown has been fighting for years the prospect of releasing some prisoners early, saying he was worried it could increase crime. Advocates and attorneys for prisoners have pushed for reforms in sentencing that they say would safely shrink the prison system.

Through a spokeswoman, Brown referred Tuesday to a statement released by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman, which said officials were "disappointed the state's case won't be heard."

But this rejection is far from being the big victory that inmate rights advocates are seeking. The original order in Plata was to reduce overcrowding in prison to 137.5% capacity, but it famously left it up to the state to find the means to do so. Moreover, Justice Kennedy's celebrated opinion of the court in 2011 explicitly stated that one way of doing so could be via more prison construction. In 2011, activists and advocates felt comfortable in the knowledge that prison construction was impossible; the state was broke and public sentiment was that correctional expenditures were already excessive, to the point that former Governor Schwarzenegger suggested enacting a law that would prohibit correctional expenditures to exceed educational expenditures. It now, however, appears that "the money is there" to start privatizing California's prisons en mass, via lucrative contracts with Correctional Corporation of America and the GEO Group.

California never had dealings with private prison providers on its own soil, though it did send 10,000 of its inmates to CCA institutions out of state and was a significant source of income for the company. This was not because of some principled objection to privatization; rather, it was because the California Correctional Peace Officer Association (CCPOA) actively resisted privatization out of concern for the guards' employment. As Josh Page reveals in The Toughest Beat, CCPOA is so powerful in California that even a prison built in CA by CCA entirely on speculation was left empty. But these difficulties have been resolved: Governor Brown, historically a good friend and ally of the prison guards union, has promised them that they would be employed in these newly-constructed private prisons. This promise made old enemies - state prison guards and private prison providers - into allies, and sealed the deal toward a projected expenditure of $315 million of my money and yours on prison construction.

Obviously CCA is laughing all the way to the bank - a rare and enviable position for a corporation at the end of a recession and during a government shutdown. Here's how this lucrative contract looks from Tennessee, home of CCA. The Nashville post reports:

The lease agreement between CCA and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation calls for the state — which is under a court order to reduce overcrowding in its jails — to pay Nashville-based CCA $28.5 million per year starting Dec. 1. If the two sides agree to two-year extensions after three years, the rent will begin to increase gradually. CCA also has committed to spending $10 million on improvements at its 2,304-bed California City Correctional Center; renovations beyond that will be paid for by California.

"We appreciate the opportunity to expand upon our longstanding relationship with the CDCR and the state of California," said CCA CEO Damon Hininger. "Our ability to react quickly to our partners' needs with innovative solutions that make the best use of taxpayer dollars exemplifies the flexibility that CCA is able to provide."

In conjunction with its California contract news — which had been expected since August — Hininger and his team also said CCA's fourth-quarter profits will be hurt by a number of factors, including the spending needed to reopen its California City complex. Among them: Lower inmate counts related to its contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which are believed to be "due to the furlough of government employees and other consequences of the federal government shutdown."

On top of that, CCA's leadership has begun spending money to prepare vacant prisons in anticipation of more business from California late this year. The total impact of those factors on Q4 numbers isn't yet clear, the company said. Analysts are expecting the company to earn 49 cents per share during the fourth quarter.

Investors chose to put more emphasis on the new California cash that will start arriving in December. As of about 1:35 p.m., shares of CCA (Ticker: CXW) were up about 1.5 percent to $35.81, putting them back in positive territory for the year.

If you're still capable of keeping your breakfast down, you didn't read carefully enough.

Governor Brown essentially put the ball in the hands of the federal courts, by saying - if you don't give us some time to cope with the expected releases, we'll have to recur to privatization and high-expense construction. This option was produced, as if out of a magician's hat, in the height of the California Criminal Justice Realignment, which presumably redistributes overcrowding and internalizes its expenses by making counties, who are responsible for charging and sentencing, think about incarceration alternatives and manage their own convict population. One has to wonder what good this experiment is if, suddenly, we're building private prisons in three counties and contributing $28.5 million per annum, to the foreseeable future and beyond, to CCA's bottom line.

We will continue following up on developments and reporting as we have for the last five years.

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Props to David Takacs and to Jim Parker.

Private Prison Management Offers to Buy Prisons in Exchange for Occupancy Rates

Our four-year foray into the changes in correctional policies since the fiscal crisis has taught us that various states are scaling back their correctional apparatus to respond to money difficulties. California is no different. But as is the case with every regime, there are always folks who would benefit and make a quick buck from a broad social and economic problem.

This astonishing recent story in USA Today is a case in point. Many states are working on closing down their prisons for fiscal considerations. So, Corrections Corporation of America, of which we've written here before, is angling to purchase said prisons and operate them. But therein lies the rub:

The $250 million proposal, circulated by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America to prison officials in 48 states, has been blasted by some state officials who suggest such a program could pressure criminal justice officials to seek harsher sentences to maintain the contractually required occupancy rates.


"You don't want a prison system operating with the goal of maximizing profits," says Texas state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and advocate for reducing prison populations through less costly diversion programs. "The only thing worse is that this seeks to take advantage of some states' troubled financial position."


Corrections Corporation spokesman Steve Owen defended the company's "investment initiative," describing it as "an additional option" for cash-strapped states to consider.


The proposal seeks to build upon a deal reached last fall in which the company purchased the 1,798-bed Lake Erie Correctional Institution from the state of Ohio for $72.7 million. Ohio officials lauded the September transaction, saying that private management of the facility would save a projected $3 million annually.


Linda Janes, chief of staff for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said the purchase came at time when the state was facing a $8 billion shortfall. The $72.7 million prison purchase was aimed at helping to fill a $188 million deficit within the corrections agency.
Ohio's deal requires the state to maintain a 90% occupancy rate, but Janes said that provision remains in effect for 18 months — not 20 years — before it can be renegotiated. As part of the deal, Ohio pays the company a monthly fee, totaling $3.8 million per year.

This is not new. CCA had AB 1070 passed in Arizona to guarantee prison occupancy, and built a prison on speculation in California. But it's astonishing to see the machinations presented so matter-of-factly out in the open.

In these days of dire straits and realignment from state prisons to county jails, is it conceivable that California could cut a similar deal? I very much doubt it. CCPOA, the prison guards' union, would object it with all their might, and might win the battle again, as they have before. But it's a somber reminder that prisons are, above all, an industry, and subject to cynical manipulation by profiteers.

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Props to David Greenberg for bringing this to my attention.

Book Review: Josh Page, The Toughest Beat

California has often been proclaimed ungovernable, its politics described either as too dense to fathom or, in an oversimplified fashion, as a mess generated by unfettered direct democracy and shortsighted financial policies. But some astute political actors have accrued the knowledge and skills to navigate these complex political seas, and the California Correctional Peace Officers’ Association (CCPOA) is one of them.  Joshua Page’s new book The Toughest Beat  clearly and intelligently transcends theoretical abstractions and simplistic clichés to provide a sobering, thorough analysis of the CCPOA’s role in shaping California’s penal policies, and in doing so, provides an excellent primer to the entire landscape of California politics and decisionmaking.

The book begins with a detailed, fascinating history of the rise of the CCPOA from an “old boys’ club” providing social opportunities and camaraderie for its members to a powerful player in state legislation and policy. Using a myriad of sources, in the tradition of “old-school,” well-done ethnographies, the book cleverly tells this story oscillating between the macro world of the state and national contexts and the microcosm of specific personalities. Don Novey‘s role as the architect of the CCPOA’s lobbying and influence strategy is particularly highlighted. Emphasis is placed on the CCPOA’s bipartisan alliances with Democracts (with respect to union concerns) and Republicans (with respect to punitiveness concerns).

This account is followed by two somber chapters, which illuminate the role played by CCPOA in shaping penal policies. The first reveals the complex interdependency between the CCPOA and a few victim organizations, such as the Crime Victims United of California; the latter organizations, representing the interest of specific demographics and a particularly punitive and vengeful victim perspective, were effectively created, managed, and puppeteered by CCPOA. Rather than flinging radical accusations and conspiracy theories, Page’s careful analysis of this web of interdependency and coalitions is understated and backed with hard evidence, including a personnel and finances analysis and ethnographic data. The CCPOA’s wisdom in fostering such mutually beneficial coalitions with victim organizations, district attorneys, sheriffs, and wealthy private citizens, is grimly shown to prove itself in the following chapter, which analyzes, blow-by-blow, the passage of the Three Strikes Law, California’s pioneering piece of punitive legislation. While the story behind California’s return to determinate sentencing, and the subsequent story of its romance with an ultrapunitive sentencing regime, are a larger story than that of the CCPOA, the union played a pivotal role in selected phases, and was a dominant factor in swinging the punitive pendulum. This account is an indictment not only against CCPOA, but against a system in which the idea of direct democracy is marred by a reality of unregulated funding, misleading advertisements and abundant disinformation and ignorance.

But Page’s book cannot be reduced to a good guy/bad guy formula. His masterful account of the CCPOA’s epic fight against prison privatization shows the different strategies employed by CCPOA and the private prison corporations, and relies on a deep, intuitive understanding of how the state works to explain how, despite resorting to nefarious techniques such as building a prison on speculation, the private companies did not prevail.

The book reads like a fascinating political thriller. It does not resort to extremism or unfounded proclamations, is concisely written, and is refreshingly free of jargon. Page’s reliance on Pierre Bordieu’s field analysis as his theoretical framework is light-handed and nimble; the theory facilitates, rather than obscures, the book’s clear narrative. It is a book that professionals and laypeople alike would appreciate and enjoy.

I take issue with two minor aspects of Page’s analysis. Firstly, in presenting the punitive background for the rise of the CCPOA, Page paints the “era of rehabilitation” and indeterminate sentencing in nostalgic, overly rosy colors. While the rhetoric and logic of rehabilitation and positivism governed the penal field in California, studies of actual incarceration practice and conditions reveal a grim picture of cruelty, hard labor in the guise of correction at the time, not to mention the arbitrary sentencing practices which dramatically disfavored minority and poor inmates. Determinate sentencing led to a great many evils in California’s correctional system, but it was preceded by a great many evils in its prior regime, which many activists and legal professionals fought to eradicate for all the right reasons.

Second, Page portrays the CCPOA in two somewhat contradictory ways: As an astute political player, who will choose alliances according to what suits its members’ narrow interests, and as an ideologically-committed “law and order” player. I am curious as to which of these frameworks he finds to be a better descriptor. When presenting the CCPOA’s involvement in the creation of Three Strikes, Page refers to it as an “exception” to the “nonintervention rule” regarding sentencing matters, adopted by the union, but his analysis of the involvement and ideological choices made could also regard Three Strikes as a pivotal moment in CCPOA policy, in which it morphed into an ideological player. As Page grimly reminds us at the end of the book, despite CCPOA’s support of sentencing commissions and seemingly more reasonable positions, its powerful, debilitating shadow still looms large over any attempt to reform the correctional system, and its interests in hindering such reforms go beyond its union objectives.

Notwithstanding these minor critiques, The Toughest Beat is a terrific read, and I highly recommend it not only to readers interested in penal policies, but to anyone interested in the inner workings of the political system in the Golden State.

Pelican Bay Inmates to Begin Hunger Strike on July 1st

Prisoners to Begin Hunger Strike on July 1st in Pelican Bay State Prison (from www.indybay.org)

Prisoners in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California announced that they are beginning an indefinite hunger strike on July 1st to protest the conditions of their imprisonment, which they say are cruel and inhumane. An online petition has been started by supporters of the strikers. While noting that the hunger strike is being "organized by prisoners in an unusual show of racial unity," five key demands are listed by California Prison Focus: (http://www.prisons.org/)

1) Eliminate group punishments; 2) Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria; 3) Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to long term solitary confinement; 4) Provide adequate food; 5) Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates.

The CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation prides itself on Pelican Bay being "the end of the line," and is part of a continuation since the 1960s of prisons using solitary confinement as a main tactic to crush rebellion and resistance.

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity states, "As anti-authoritarians and anarchists, this is a crucial moment to show our solidarity with those on the inside who are ready to die in their fight for dignity and the most basic necessities of life that the state continues to deny. This will be the third major hunger strike in a US prison in the past year and those of us fighting on the outside need to make a visible show of support for this wave of prisoner-led organizing."

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A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Vowing to die, if necessary, inmates at the dreaded “SHU” section of California’s Pelican Bay prison begin a hunger strike on July 1. “Like the strike by inmates in Georgia’s prison system late last year, the Pelican Bay protest cuts across racial lines.” The core issue: a brutal, soul-killing policy of solitary confinement and other deprivations aimed at turning every inmate into a snitch on everyone else.

Pelican Bay: Hunger Strike in Super-Max

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Inmate organizers say prisoners have been subjected to solitary and a whole range of deprivations for ten, twenty, even forty years.”

On Friday, July 1^st, between 50 and 100 men at the Security Housing Unit of California’s infamous Pelican Bay prison go on hunger strike to protest cruel and unusual punishment. It is a punishment inflicted, primarily, on their minds. At the heart of the protest is solitary confinement, the barbaric torture that deprives prisoners of contact with fellow human beings, condemning them to a kind of “social death” – some for decades.

This is the “dark side” of the American repressive arsenal that Vice President Dick Cheney was so happy to unleash as a weapon in the so-called War on Terror: the stripping down of captive people through methodical deprivation of everything that makes them human. Yet these excruciating mind-destruction techniques are routinely deployed on the domestic front, in the American prison gulag, at places like Pelican Bay.

Inmate organizers say prisoners have been subjected to solitary and a whole range of deprivations for ten, twenty, even forty years. They are most incensed at the policy euphemistically called “debriefing,” in which inmates are pressured to confess to every crime they have ever committed in life. They are then expected to inform on other prisoners, their crimes, conversations and gang affiliations. This information – whether true or false – is then used to throw fellow inmates into the special Hell of solitary confinement. It is a brutal, sadistic cycle of degradation, a bizarre world in which everyone is compelled to “snitch” on everyone else. Prisoners are routinely given indeterminate solitary on the mere word of an informer. The worst section of the SHU is called the “short corridor,” where 200 men languish in the deepest isolation. These are the men at the center of the hunger strike.

“It is a brutal, sadistic cycle of degradation, a bizarre world in which everyone is compelled to ‘snitch’ on everyone else.”

One of them is named Mutope Duguma, formerly known as James Crawford. The “call” for the hunger strike was put out under Duguma's signature. It asks that “all prisoners throughout the State of California who have been suffering injustices in General Population, Administrative Segregation and solitary confinement…join in our peaceful strike to put a stop to the blatant violations of prisoners’ civil/human rights.” Like the strike by inmates in Georgia’s prison system late last year, the Pelican Bay protest cuts across racial lines, involving, in the prisoners’ words, “united New Afrikans, Whites, Northern and Southern Mexicans, and others.” The organizers warn inmates to “beware of agitators, provocateurs, and obstructionists” among the prisoner population.

The Pelican Bay hunger strikers vow to die, if necessary, in a struggle against dehumanization. In the San Francisco Bay area, supporters from the outside have formed Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity@gmail.com), to let the inmates know that they are not alone, and “to make sure their voices are heard outside of prison.”

From the inside, inmate Gabriel Huerta reminds us that “Using indeterminate total lock down to extract confessions is torture by international standards as is the use of prolonged solitary confinement.” This is a global, human rights issue.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Haney on Psychological Consequences of Imprisonment in California

Today I attended a compelling lecture by Dr. Craig Haney of UC-Santa Cruz on the individual psychological consequences of imprisonment in California. His talk was especially well-timed after Dr. Haney was cited six times by the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Brown v Plata. You may also recognize Dr. Haney as the lead author of the famous Stanford prison study from 1973, in which twenty healthy males, evenly divided into groups of "inmates" and "guards," acted so brutally that the 2-week experiment was suspended after 6 days.

Since then, Dr. Haney has spent over 30 years touring and studying prisons and prisoners. He began with an overview of the recent expansion of the U.S. prison system, because overincarceration has led to Plata and "prisonization" (stay with me here). The U.S. rate of imprisonment stayed stable around 200,000 from World War I to the mid-1970s, when the War on Drugs sentencing mentality started. From 1973-1993, the CA crime rate hovered around 100 per 100,000, but the incarceration rate increased from 100/100,000 to 350/100,000.

Dr. Haney pointed out that, being a generation older than me, he could still remember a time when prisoners had their own cells. Cellmates, or double-celling, was still seen as an abomination in the mid-1970s. His archives include letters from the prison wardens of 40 years ago, decrying this inhumane practice. Now, of course, prison cells house at least two inmates as a matter of course.

Prison used to aim to rehabilitate prisoners. Through work assignments, education, and other programs, inmates were taught useful skills or conditioned for better lives. In the mid-1970s, states began to veer away from this century-old aim: Haney referred us to Cal. Penal Code § 1170(a)(1), passed in 1976, which begins: "The Legislature finds and declares that the purpose of imprisonment for crime is punishment." Half of CA prisoners released in 2006 had had no assignment whatsoever: no program, no job, no education. All those years, wasted. In 1973, prisoners averaged a 6th-grade reading level, and this is still the same today.

As recently as the 1970s, people suffering from serious mental health conditions were usually committed to mental hospitals for in-patient treatment. Nowadays, mental health patients are more commonly imprisoned. In the U.S., the rate of hospitalization of mental health patients has fallen from 450 per 100,000 residents over 15 years old in 1950, to only 50/100,000 in 1990. People who would be hospitalized in 1950-1980 are more commonly incarcerated in 1980-2010.

Dr. Haney used this background to discuss institutional history as social history. By taking over so many people's lives, for so long, commonly at such young ages, the state has become not only a parent, but an abusive parent. Imprisonment retraumatizes inmates who have already experienced the trauma that led to their incarceration in the first place. Prisoners suffer tremendous institutional risk factors: abuse, maltreatment, neglect, an impoverished environment, diminished opportunities, exposure to violence, abandonment, instability, and exposure to criminogenic role models.

Haney's last slide explained "prisonization" as a set of normal psychological responses to abnormal situations. Prisons create dependence on institutional structures and procedures: newly-released people may suffer a lack of volition and independence as they are separated from these strict regimens. Prisons damage interpersonal skills or even prevent future relationships, by engendering interpersonal distrust, "hypervigilance," suspicion, emotional overcontrol, alienation, psychological distancing, social withdrawal, and isolation. Prisons diminish self-worth and personal value, and can result in Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder -- PTSD inflicted by slow, continuing trauma as opposed to a discrete event.

Women's Institutions: Health Issues and Overcrowding

This weekend's Huffington Post featured an extremely distressing story about California's women institutions and the health and sanitation conditions in them.

The Human Rights Council report cited in the post provides some further distressing information but fails to properly state which of the facts relate to California prisons and which relate to federal facilities or those in other state. It seems like the particularly horrifying report about male staff members incurring sexual favors in exchange for providing basic sanitation products is from a 2009 report on federal inmates.

Here, however, is the bit that clearly identifies California inmates and institutions:

A number of additional challenges often result in tension and conflict among inmates and with prison staff. These include inadequate access to basic hygiene products, the high costs of telephone calls and, the inadequacy and sufficiency of the food served. This was a particular concern at the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) where interlocutors pointed out persistent deficiencies in terms of services and the hostility with which some guards respond to inmates. These challenges are further intensified by the overcrowding in the facility which was designed to hold 2,004 inmates but currently holds 3,686 people.

I wonder - nowhere in Brown v. Plata does the decision explicitly limit itself to men's institutions. The number of inmates, I believe, is an assessment of ALL state institutions, not just men's prisons. This week's population report indicates that, at 168.9% capacity, women's institutions suffer from an overcrowding problem that also exceeds the 137.5% established by Plata. I assume, therefore, that the population reduction will include these three facilities, and particularly CCWF, which is at 185.7% capacity.

Prison Guards and Legal Reform

Lots of interesting posts lately about the CCPOA, its compensation, and its complicity in the crisis. Today's post from Joshua Page addresses an important distinction between the legitimate and illegitimate aims of the union. Following Sara Mayeux's point from yesterday (the system is broken and the CCPOA involvement is the outcome of that), he argues:

In a perfect world, taxpayers wouldn’t need to offer carrots to a public employee union to reform a state’s criminal justice system. But California politics, to put it mildly, is not quite a perfect world, and unless campaign financing and plenty of other structural matters are radically altered, the governor must get the CCPOA’s buy-in to downsize prisons.


Brown’s realignment proposal is projected to reduce the state prison population by upwards of 40,000. Although it would alleviate overcrowding and satisfy the federal courts, it would not necessarily shrink the overall correctional population (instead it would simply shift state prisoners to the counties). Truly shrinking the system still requires sentencing reform. Neither Brown nor the legislature has shown any willingness to shorten prison sentences or increase alternatives to imprisonment, but if they do take up serious sentencing reform, they will again have to deal with the CCPOA and its allies. By addressing union members’ fears, policymakers can soften their resistance. And while a smaller prison system will eventually lead to fewer officers (and union members), it will also benefit those who continue to toil on the tiers and on the yards.

Some of those fears are, of course, legitimate. Guards' lives are in peril, their jobs are difficult to do, and given the size of our correctional monster, they provide an indispensable service dealing with a situation that is largely invisible to the public (save, of course, when it touches the public wallet in overt ways.) There is a golden mean between the approaches of Schwarzenegger and Brown in their dealings with CCPOA, and here's hoping it can be found soon.

A Balanced Look at Guard Compensation

Sara Mayeux of the Prison Law Blog posted a guest post on American Prospect about the Wall Street Journal story we recently covered. Some excerpts follow:

Do you know what "overtime" consists of when you are a prison guard? Hours and hours of your life! Spent inside a prison! Doing the soul-crushing labor of corraling other human beings! Instead of, you know, playing baseball with your kids, or whatever else you might want to be doing. Who wouldn't give up late-night doc review and expense-account dim sum for that? Quelle luxe!


Look, the solution to the high cost of prison staff is to put fewer men and women in prison. If, however, a state is going to put itself into the business of the custodial care of hundreds of thousands of men and women, then it's going to have to hire people to oversee them. And, you know what, it's going to have to pay them semi-decently, and it's also going to have to allow them vacation. So what if it's seven weeks of vacation? So what if they retire at 55? Considering what Philip Zimbardo taught us that being a prison guard does to a person after even a day or two, I wouldn't exactly call that a sweetheart deal.


It is, indeed, a problem that California legislators and voters have prioritized punitive criminal-justice policies at such great fiscal cost and, more importantly, at such great human cost. It is a problem that the political economy of California has rewarded the CCPOA so handsomely over the past 30 years for its advocacy of ever-more punitive sentencing laws. It is a problem that California has nearly 170,000 men and women in prison. The CCPOA did not c3reate those problems so much as it's astutely exploited the system that made those problems possible.

While Mayeux's critique of Finley's comparison is, of course, justified, I think she's cutting CCPOA a bit too much slack. Exploiting a problematic system is not a ticket out of responsibility; ask the many California unions who do not hold the state government hostage, and the many unions that do not have well-funded, deceptive puppet organizations supposedly advocating for victims. And while a system vulnerable to lobbying is not unique to prisons or to California, the war on crime (as opposed to the war on other social ills) has unique features and has had unique consequences as to the urban landscape and life choices of Californians.

I would like to hope that Finley's critique was not aimed at individual prison guards. As Luke Whyte from Voices of Justice reminded us recently, working in corrections is not a piece of cake. And while this calls for a strong union and good work conditions (as per the recently passed contracts), none of this absolves the organization from its cynical exploitation of victim voices to push the government toward solutions that push as further toward mass incarceration. I would like to hear more from CCPOA about their support of a sentencing commission and about community-based solutions. They have a substantial share in the responsibility we all have for the current system and they have the power to be an important player in fixing it.

More Information on CA Prison Guard Salary from the Wall Street Journal

A tongue-in-cheek Wall Street Journal op-ed compares the benefits of pursuing a Harvard degree and a career with CCPOA.

Training only takes four months, and upon graduating you can look forward to a job with great health, dental and vision benefits and a starting base salary between $45,288 and $65,364. By comparison, Harvard grads can expect to earn $49,897 fresh out of college and $124,759 after 20 years.


As a California prison guard, you can make six figures in overtime and bonuses alone. While Harvard-educated lawyers and consultants often have to work long hours with little recompense besides Chinese take-out, prison guards receive time-and-a-half whenever they work more than 40 hours a week. One sergeant with a base salary of $81,683 collected $114,334 in overtime and $8,648 in bonuses last year, and he's not even the highest paid.

The comparison, of course, makes no sense in many other ways, but it does draw attention to the salaries, justified by the "toughest beat" rhetoric CCPOA has used for years.

Brown Defends Prison Guard Contract

Jerry Brown's traditional alliance with CCPOA, the prison guard union, has resumed, much to the chagrin of Republican lawmakers. The Chron reports:

Overall, the six contracts would, among other things, do away with imposed furloughs, increase state employees' pension contributions and temporarily cut pay for a year before giving top earners a raise in 2013. Schwarzenegger negotiated the same terms with other public worker unions last fall, and lawmakers approved those contracts.


But opposition to the new agreements was fueled this week when the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office concluded the six contracts would result in only about $179 million in savings next fiscal year for the deficit-plagued general fund, not the $308 million assumed in the 2011-12 budget approved by lawmakers last month. Those savings will disappear by 2012-13, the analyst said, when costs will begin to climb once again.


Republican lawmakers said the discrepancy is a major problem, because the state is facing a $26.6 billion deficit.

Brown's election must have seemed a blessing to the CCPOA, who have had long and prosperous relationships with California governors and with Brown in particular (see Joshua Page's informative post on that). Their abysmal relationship with Schwarzenegger, that culminated in a 2008 effort to recall him, is now behind them. Guard salaries were somewhat cut (to $92,000, which was subsequently balanced by allowing overtime); here are more details on the pay scale and contracts. We can expect the "toughest beat" rhetoric to resume its influence in California politics.

Legislative Analyst's Office Unhappy with Brown's CDCR Budget

The Legislative Analyst's Office has just issued a report critiquing Jerry Brown's plan for the CDCR budget (which we briefly discussed just a few days ago), and it does not paint a pretty picture. LAO finds serious overbudgeting in some areas, and is deeply concerned with CDCR exceeding its budget in several areas.

General Fund support for CDCR, particularly with regard to CCPOA salaries and overtime (already on the top steps of the salary scale), appears to be excessive, and CDCR has already exceeded its authority in these matters. Among the other surprising expenditures are $55.2 million in medical transportation costs, $20.5 million in legal costs (wouldn't it be cheaper to decrease population, which would also mean that the population decrease order would not have to be fought in court?), and $17.3 million in "empty beds" in case incarceration needs change.

The LAO report critiques the CDCR practice of notifying the legislature of budget shortfalls after the fact, thus coercing legislators to increase the budget in restrospect. Also, the budget does not take into account savings in adult parole and administration, which might mean the money could go elsewhere, where it is needed.

A particularly thorny issue is the fact that the budget assumes that CDCR will be making personnel cuts it has no intention of making absent a reduction in inmate population.

The budget, says the report, does not hold CDCR accountable regarding its expenditures, and there is no guarantee against CDCR pulling its retrospective budgeting trick again on the legislature. LAO therefore recommends that the legislature demand accountability and accuracy in the correctional budget.

Native Hawaiians Over-Represented in Hawai'i's Criminal Justice System

Groundbreaking research shows that Native Hawaiians are more likely to be incarcerated than other racial or ethnic groups in Hawai'i

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
September 29, 2010

NATIVE HAWAIIANS OVER-REPRESENTED IN HAWAI'I'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Groundbreaking research shows that Native Hawaiians are more likely to be incarcerated than other racial or ethnic groups in Hawai'i

HONOLULU, HAWAI'I - The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) released a new report today, The Disparate Treatment of Native Hawaiians in the Criminal Justice System , which examines the impact of the criminal justice system on Native Hawaiians. While detailing how Native Hawaiians are disproportionately impacted at various stages of Hawai'i's criminal justice system, the report also includes first-hand accounts of Native Hawaiian concerns with the criminal justice system and how it affects their families and their culture. Native Hawaiians are the indigenous, native people of Hawai'i. Findings from the report show that the criminal justice system incarcerates Native Hawaiians at a disproportionate rate.

"This crucial research shows the need to address the unfair treatment of Native Hawaiians in our state's criminal justice system," said Clyde Nâmu'o, OHA's chief executive officer. "Native Hawaiians make up almost 40 percent of the populations in Hawai'i's prisons and jails. We are more likely to be sent to prison, and for longer periods of time, than nearly every other racial or ethnic community in Hawai'i. OHA strongly supports a fair justice system and this study sets the course for change."

Additional key findings in the report include:

* Of the people serving a prison term in Hawai'i, approximately 50 percent are housed in facilities on the mainland. Of this population, about 41 percent are Native Hawaiian, the most highly-represented group. While incarcerated out of state, these people are further disconnected from their communities, families and culturally appropriate services for re-entry.
* Native Hawaiians do not use drugs at drastically different rates from people of other races or ethnicities, but Native Hawaiians go to prison for drug offenses more often than people of other races or ethnicities.
* Once released from prison, Native Hawaiians experience barriers that prevent them from participating in certain jobs, obtaining a drivers license, voting, continuing education, obtaining housing and keeping a family together.
* Without a sufficient number of culturally appropriate services, Native Hawaiians are not given the best chance at achieving success upon re-entry into the community.

"In 2009 the OHA Board submitted Concurrent Resolutions to the 25th Legislature noting that a study would be helpful in determining the extent, nature and impact of perceived disparities. The Senate urged with the House of Representatives concurring in HCR27, HD1, that OHA should contract a nationally respected and objective consulting firm to conduct a study of disparate treatment of Native Hawaiians in Hawai'i's criminal justice system. That study is now complete." said OHA Chairperson Apoliona.

The resulting report provides a number of recommendations to reduce the unfair impact of the justice system on Native Hawaiians, including:

* Reform the criminal justice system in Hawai'i to embrace the cultural values of Native Hawaiians. Changing the justice system so it is in line with culturally significant norms and values will help preserve a historic culture and strengthen the Hawaiian community and its identity.
* Develop a targeted plan to reduce racial disparities. One immediate proposal by OHA is the establishment of a task force that will review the findings and recommendations of the report, and formulate policies and procedures to eliminate the disparate treatment of Native Hawaiians in the criminal justice system. Members of the task force will include OHA, government agencies, legislators, prosecutors, public defenders, the state attorney general, the judiciary, public safety and probation officials, the police, a former prisoner and treatment providers.
* Concentrate efforts to reduce the punitive nature of the criminal justice system and fund community-based alternatives to incarceration. Investing in alternatives to incarceration and the investment of funds into re-entry and preventative programs will aid in addressing the disproportionate impact on Native Hawaiians.
* Reduce collateral consequences associated with criminal justice involvement. The current system deprives pa'ahao of full integration into the community. Barriers to education, housing, employment and parental rights only serve to increase the likelihood of future re-imprisonment which would further destabilize families and communities.

The Disparate Treatment of Native Hawaiians in the Criminal Justice System was written at the request of the Hawai'state legislature following the approval of House Concurrent Resolution 27, and was compiled through research by the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute (JPI), and experts at the University of Hawai'i and Georgetown University.

To read the Executive Summary and the full report of The Disparate Treatment of Native Hawaiians in the Criminal Justice System visit www.oha.org/disparatetreatment. For more information on OHA, please visit www.oha.org. If you are interested in reading additional research from the Justice Policy Institute on racial disparities and efforts to reduce the number of people affected by the criminal justice system, please visit www.justicepolicy.org.

About OHA

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) is a unique, independent state agency established through the Hawai'i State Constitution and statutes to advocate for the betterment of conditions of all Native Hawaiians, with a Board of Trustees elected by the voters of Hawai'i. OHA is guided by a vision and mission to ensure the perpetuation of the culture, to protect the entitlements of Native Hawaiians, and to build a strong and healthy Hawaiian people and nation. For more information, visit www.oha.org.

The Unbearable Lightness of Tasing

Avid followers of the Mehserle trial for the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART station may recall that his defense consisted of a mistake: Mehserle argued -- and the jury believed him -- that he had intended to use his taser, not his gun, on Grant. This defense argument places an emphasis on the taser as an instrument aimed to minimize the usage of more harmful force. However, we may ask ourselves whether adding this option to the array of devices available hasn't simply escalated law enforcement's response to violations and disorder, without diminishing the number of cases in which guns are used.

The latest installment with regard to these "lesser" devices comes from an NPR story about the usage of zapping devices at the Pitchess Detention Center north of Los Angeles.

"You know when they set their phasers to stun, they did that so they didn't kill people? Well, that's exactly what this is. It does stun you," says Mike Booen, a vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems. The company built the device for the Los Angeles County Jail, a scaled-down version of what it designed for the military.

"I don't care if you're the meanest, toughest person in the world," he says, "this will get your attention and make your brain focus on making it stop, rather than doing whatever you were planning on doing."

Riots are nothing new at this jail. The Pitchess Detention Center has a history of bloody inmate violence. In fact, the latest brawl between 200 inmates broke out two days after the Raytheon device was unveiled.

Dave Judge, the operation deputy for the sheriff's department, says the machine is more effective than their usual methods of firing rubber bullets and tear gas grenades.

"This is tame; this is mild," Judge says." This is a great way to intervene without causing any harm. The nice thing about this is it allows you to intervene at a distance."

With the remote-controlled device, he says, guards can focus on specific targets using a monitor and a joystick.

Whenever new techniques for order maintenance are introduced, the question is whether they might substitute the usage of lethal or otherwise harmful force, or substitute the usage of lesser options. If this is to be empirically assessed, what we need is to examine a number of incidents and count the frequency in which guns, tasers, and less intrusive techniques were used. Calculating the percentages would not be a perfect measure, because each riot and situation is somewhat different; but it would provide us with some measure as to whether the introduction of tasers is ameliorating, or exacerbating, the use of force in the detention context.

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Props to Colin Wood for alerting me to the story.

Narrow Coalitions? CCPOA's Blueprint for Prison Reform

The CCPOA website features, these days, their statement on prison reform. Prison activists might find, to their possible surprise, that there are some issues on which a narrow coalition can be formed. Granted, CCPOA supports building more prisons under AB900, but they are also staunch supporters of a sentencing commission, strongly support parole reform, and bemoan the lack of rehabilitation programs in prison. The document makes for an interesting read.