Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Roderick Q. Hickman, the secretary of youth and adult corrections, looked out from a gun tower at Ione's Mule Creek State Prison during a tour last year.
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Posted on 04/18/2005 9:24:05 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WEST SACRAMENTO – The state prison-guard union, under fire last year from those who believe it is too powerful, came up with a playful, in-your-face response.
For two weeks, it flew a skull-and-crossbones pirate flag outside its two-story headquarters here.
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association isn't known for having a light touch. The union's bare-knuckles approach to politics, along with its sizable bankroll, has helped make it one of the most effective and influential labor groups in the state capitol.
But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently said the union has too much control over the state's mammoth prison system.
And the man running the state corrections agency, Roderick Q. Hickman, appears eager to challenge the union when contract negotiations start next year.
Union leaders aren't giving an inch.
"I think a lot of our membership is surprised by the disdain the Schwarzenegger administration has for their profession," said Lance Corcoran, the association's executive vice president. "It's disrespectful."
The union began to emerge as a political powerhouse in the 1980s, when California kicked off a prison-building boom that also swelled the number of guards.
With about 31,000 dues-paying members, it has made an easy villain for those finding fault with California's network of lockups.
It was a major financial contributor to an unpopular governor, Gray Davis. It has showered politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, with contributions. It's legendary in Sacramento for its lobbying skills.
It also draws criticism for its role behind bars.
Last year, a federal court investigator accused the union of undermining investigations into allegations of guard abuse.
Union leaders express disgust and anger at such allegations. They say the association is often blamed for mistakes made by prison administrators.
Corcoran said critics ignore the good deeds of those who work perhaps the ugliest and most tense law enforcement beat in the state, California's 32 adult prisons.
This year, veteran correctional officer Manuel A. Gonzalez was stabbed to death by an inmate at a prison in Chino, the first killing of a guard in California in two decades.
At the union headquarters, a photo of Gonzalez hangs in the sun-lit lobby.
Rookie guards earn nearly $40,000 a year. The average base pay for a California correctional officer is $60,000, according to the state controller's office.
According to Corcoran, there is one guard for every eight inmates in California, a higher ratio than in New York and other states with large prison systems.
He said the association will continue to fight for the interests of its members, even if it gets personal at times.
Corcoran said, "Our job is not necessarily to always be politically correct. Our job is to sometimes rock the boat."
Governor faces uphill battle reforming prisons
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050418/news_1n18prisons.html
By Steve Schmidt
STAFF WRITER
April 18, 2005
SACRAMENTO – He made his mark knocking heads on the movie screen and hoisting barbells with his oiled biceps. He still has the Popeye arms to prove it.
But does Arnold Schwarzenegger have the muscle and moxie to tackle an issue that California governors have largely avoided for a generation?
The state prison system is a budget-draining, accounting-deficient, violence-plagued mess. The governor knows it. Legislators know it. Inmates know it.
Schwarzenegger says he wants to tame the mammoth system, and many argue his tough-guy persona makes him the right person for the task.
Yet in the past few weeks, it has become clear the governor won't have it easy.
The state prison-guards union and other groups have stepped up criticism of Schwarzenegger's plans, and corrections officials earlier this month scrapped a key plank of his proposal to overhaul the parole system.
The governor's plans will likely come under further scrutiny during a state Senate hearing on the prison budget scheduled for Thursday.
"This is the first time we've had a real serious discussion about prison reform in years," said state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles.
Californians will spend nearly $7 billion this year on the state Youth & Adult Correctional Agency, more than the gross national product of most nations.
In return, taxpayers get:
One of the nation's busiest revolving doors. More than half of California's convicts released on parole land back behind bars within two years, underscoring the ongoing failure to prepare inmates for life after prison.
A prison network that has grown so big, so fast that it has become ripe for mismanagement. Many convicts, for example, arrive in poor health, yet corrections officials have no way to adequately track an inmate's medical history.
The most violent lockups in the nation. The rate of assaults committed by adult inmates at California's 32 prisons has ballooned over the last decade.
The governor recently named the agency his top priority for reorganization, saying it has been marred by "too much political influence, too much union control and too little management courage and accountability."
"California was once the national leader, a pioneer, in corrections. . . . We can make it so once again," he said.
Schwarzenegger wants a revolution in the way the agency does business, starting at the top. He recently targeted the correctional agency, which includes the state Department of Corrections and the state Youth Authority, for an organizational makeover.
For too long, the governor's aides argue, each prison in the far-flung system was allowed to operate like a fiefdom, with scant oversight and accountability. The result has been a record of severe cost overruns, uneven management and often little coordination to prepare convicts for life on the outside, they say.
The governor wants to make sure the buck stops with someone, and that someone is Roderick Q. Hickman.
Under a reorganization plan approved last week by the state Senate, Schwarzenegger wants to consolidate authority with Hickman, the new secretary of youth and adult corrections. The plan goes to the Assembly for a vote.
Sen. Romero, D-Los Angeles, favors the change. Others have serious doubts.
Sen. Jackie Speier, a longtime critic of the prison system, likens the management overhaul to "rearranging deck chairs."
"It makes no difference how many times you do a reorganization chart if you don't change fundamental problems in the institution," said the Daly City Democrat.
Paul Sutton, a criminal justice professor at San Diego State University, predicts the governor's plans "won't make a damn bit of difference."
Sutton has spent his career tracking prison systems across the nation.
He said the problems dogging the California prison system are too big and systemic for one governor to correct. For genuine reforms to take hold, Sutton said, they must percolate from the prisons, not Sacramento.
One key reform has been dropped. Earlier this month, corrections officials said they will no longer let chronic or serious parole violators receive drug treatment or home detention as alternatives to prison, saying there's no evidence the diversion programs were working.
Officials were counting on such programs to reduce recidivism and, in the long run, save money by reducing the prison population.
The decision came after a group called Crime Victims United of California aired TV ads in the San Joaquin Valley accusing the governor of being soft on crime. Correctional agency spokesman J.P. Tremblay said, however, that the ads played no role in ending the programs.
Despite the setback, state officials remain committed to a major overhaul of prisons. "There is real reform that's going to happen," Hickman said.
Many observers have noticed a sharp shift in tone and policy coming from the Terminator-turned-governor. "I can't move fast enough for the governor," Hickman said.
Schwarzenegger has allowed at least 81 convicted murderers to be released on parole since he took office more than a year ago.
Gray Davis allowed eight murderers to go free during eight years as governor. Those releases were recommended by the state parole board.
The "R" word
Schwarzenegger has also resurrected the "R" word – rehabilitation.
For more than two decades, California governors and other elected officials stressed that the chief purpose of imprisonment was punishment. The public wanted unflagging, tough-on-crime leaders, and successive governors struck the pose.
In the early 1980s, California kicked off a prison-building boom that is winding down. Twenty-one prisons have opened since 1984, including Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa.
Fed by the state's three-strikes law and other initiatives, the inmate population has swelled to 164,000, up 35,000 since 1995. The inmate population is enough to fill Petco Park more than four times over.
Schwarzenegger, however, believes the system must do more than house and punish convicts. He says it must also emphasize rehabilitation, as it did in the 1960s and 1970s.
Top corrections officials say that if the state does a better job preparing inmates for life on the outside, they will be less likely to land back behind bars.
And that, they say, will free up prison money that instead could go to schools, universities and other state programs.
The average annual cost of housing and feeding each California inmate swelled last year to nearly $31,000, more than the national average, according to the National Institute of Corrections.
At the same time, about 55 percent of parolees end up back in prison within two years of release, further straining the corrections budget.
"Corrections is supposed to correct people, not make them worse," Hickman often says.
Many believe, however, that before Schwarzenegger can succeed at prison reform, he faces a more pressing challenge: Dealing with the state prison-guard union.
The governor and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association would appear to make a strong team. He has played the tough guy. They work a tough beat.
But Schwarzenegger has made it clear he's no ally.
Lots of money
Former Governors Davis and Pete Wilson accepted millions of dollars of political contributions from the union. Other elected officials in Sacramento, both Republican and Democratic, have also received huge contributions.
In 2002, the union ranked fifth among California labor groups in donations to state candidates, contributing nearly $1.5 million, according to the Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonpartisan organization based in Montana. Rankings for 2004 aren't available.
So far, Schwarzenegger has refused to accept a dime.
Over the years, state officials have approved contract concessions giving the union more control over sick-leave policies, officer training and other workaday issues.
Schwarzenegger and others say the union has too much power. "We've got this thing kind of twisted around a little bit," Hickman said.
The union's contract with the state expires in mid-2006.
Hickman said he's anxious to negotiate a pact more favorable to the state and taxpayers. He was recently given the right to negotiate directly with the union on the contract, a right previously assigned to the Department of Personnel Administration.
The 49-year-old agency chief also tries to strike the tone of a benevolent leader, saying he wants what's best for his 54,000 employees, including correctional staff.
"I'll take ownership for the employees," he said. "They're mine."
As reform plans unfold, Hickman said, the correctional association is "more than welcome to come along, but they ain't going to tell us where we're going."
Union leaders bristle at such talk.
"If Mr. Hickman thinks that the agency or anyone else is going to come in and run roughshod over us, he's got another think coming," said Lance Corcoran, executive vice president of the association.
'Ground zero'
With the union contract due to expire, Corcoran calls next year "ground zero with respect to protecting our members . . . I'm not looking forward to it."
He said those who consider the union a roadblock to reform are wrong.
If anything, Corcoran said, the association has often pushed for prison improvements in the face of foot-dragging from agency administrators.
"We agree that prisons need to be more efficient, they need to be safer and they need to be more successful," he said.
SDSU's Sutton believes the prison-guard group will remain politically strong, regardless of what the governor does. "The union is so much more effective at playing politics than any other entity in state government," he said. "The union can make hay out of dirt."
Romero believes the power of the union behind prison walls is often exaggerated.
"It's easy to pick on them," she said. But, she added, "if reform is to take place, they (need to be) a fundamental partner in it."
Romero said serious prison reforms are going to cost money, especially as the agency moves to improve rehabilitation programs.
She noted, however, that the agency's proposed 2005-06 budget includes a $95 million cut in inmate and parolee programs, contradicting the reform rhetoric out of Schwarzenegger's office.
"It is disingenuous. It is a true lie," she said.
Hickman believes the agency can engineer an overhaul using existing funds, noting that it has little choice given the state's financial problems.
Many around the state Capitol said there's been more talk than action so far on overhauling the prison system. But at least, Romero said, the governor is pushing the idea.
"No previous governor has had the guts," she said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Roderick Q. Hickman, the secretary of youth and adult corrections, looked out from a gun tower at Ione's Mule Creek State Prison during a tour last year.
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