Posted on 02/04/2009 9:33:25 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Reporting from Sacramento -- The battle over California prison inmates' constitutional rights has come down to this: finger-pointing over who dreamed up the idea of giving convicted criminals taxpayer-funded bingo and yoga rooms.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown have lambasted effortsby J. Clark Kelso, the court-appointed overseer of prison healthcare, to spend $8 billion on a "gold-plated utopian hospital plan" for 10,000 inmates. It features a "holistic" environment with natural light and space for yoga, music, horticulture and art therapy.
On Tuesday, Kelso fired back, saying that the facilities are meant for mentally ill inmates, and that he had simply followed the state's example for treating them.
The evidence? Sexual predators forced to live at Coalinga State Hospital, which opened on Schwarzenegger's watch, have access to an electronic bingo board, a state-of-the-art gymnasium with a rubberized floor, a weight room and eight landscaped atriums.
...
"They are criticizing their own treatment program," he said. "It does remind me of the poem, 'I shot an arrow up into the air, it fell to Earth I know not where.' Well, the arrow this time is falling on the state's own Coalinga State Hospital, opened by the Schwarzenegger administration in 2005."
On Tuesday, Brown said the facilities at Coalinga are not comparable to Kelso's proposal because the sexual predators had finished their prison terms and were now confined under the state's civil commitment law.
"The bar is much higher in that case, because they're being deprived of their liberty outside the criminal law," Brown said. "It's a totally separate legal situation."
He said he could not comment on whether sex offenders need a bingo board, and called Kelso's appeal to the media "unseemly" and political.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
California has spas in its prisons.
Let them go bankrupt.
Arnold, I want a bingo room added on to my house.
It’s true I don’t live in California, but still, it would only be fair. And I really, really, need it for my mental health!
In CA, The prisoners can have spas and yoga rooms, but law abiding citizens cannot have guns.
Why does ANYONE live in that state?
“who dreamed up the idea of giving convicted criminals taxpayer-funded bingo and yoga rooms?”.....
It’s all ass backwards!....It should be tin can pick up along the freeway and brush clearing!
The fight is over whether we’re going to have tax rates (overall/ combined) of 65% or so on working folks, like Canada, and luxurious prisons, like Canada,
or have “only” 40-550% or so cumulative tax rates, and plain, non-luxurious prisons with basic medical care.
Nothing has been built yet, but it was the federal receiver, Kelso who dreamed up this garbage. He also wants full size indoor basketball courts and land scaped courtyards for reflection and meditation. As liberal as Schwarzenegger is, and as left wing as Jerry Brown is, they are up in arms with this clown (Kelso) over these ridiculous ideas.
Because the weather is beautiful and very moderate here. I went into work with a short sleeved shirt on, how about you?
As a side note, your state really isn't that much better run than mine, if at all, so why the heck would anyone want to live in Pennsylvania when they could move south and get out of the global warming induced freezing temperatures?
Let them do yoga in their cells.
Personally, I love the snow and the cold weather. Cold weather builds character.
In PA, I can walk with my gun in a holster w/o a license. Try exercising your 2nd A rights in CA.
I’ll take a state that respects the Constitution, weather be damned.
FMCDH(BITS)
Fools.
On-site brothels will be next!
Yoga rooms in a prison mental-health infirmary? Wait until Mark Morford finds out. He’ll start chasing young guys so he can get in.
actually, the yoga might not be bad. I would rather have inmates calmer for the safety of the prisons staff and maybe its a way they can learn to control their frustration in the real world when they are released.
Now the bingo? I am guessing those are ‘prison privleges” that help control the population. I am sure violent criminals aren’t doing bingo or yoga.
Calif wouldn’t have such a big money problem if they didn’t have to support all those illegals—in and out of prison.
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