Posted on 11/27/2005 8:34:51 AM PST by SmithL
FOR A GRIM GLIMPSE of the future of California's correctional system, you need go no further than the California Medical Facility, a few blocks off Interstate 80 in Vacaville.
That's what we did a few weeks ago when we visited the prison, the only one in California dedicated to providing medical care to inmates.
What we saw pointed to the outcome of a "get tough on crime" policy that began decades ago, and has resulted in the continuing incarceration of thousands of ailing and aging inmates, most of whom present little or no threat to public safety.
In mid-September, the Vacaville facility opened the first licensed elderly care unit in a California prison. It offers an even higher level of care than a regular nursing home to inmates who can no longer care for themselves. It is home to 17 inmates ranging in age from 43 to 82. Half suffer from dementia. Some are paralyzed from strokes. Name a common debilitating disease -- from insulin-dependent diabetes to Parkinson's disease -- and you're likely to find it there.
On the day we visited, three inmates lay on beds in the "day room" of the elderly care unit. They seemed barely conscious. Sixty-one-year-old Richard Carreiro was the only one who seemed aware of his surroundings, as he sat in a wheelchair watching a rerun of the television show "Cops." He has been battling drug problems since he was 12, and has been in and out of jail almost as long. Rather than being incarcerated, he says he should be getting drug treatment. But the last time he was in a prison drug-treatment program was in the 1960s.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Note carefully that the cost of $70,000 per year is not compared to the cost of releasing them and having them go out on the street - and wind up on Medicaid, likely in a nursing home anyway. The bottom line - minimal added cost to taxpayers by keeping them in jail.
This is a standard technique of the MSM. They present only half of the story.
Furthermore - who's to say who's indigent and who's a threat - it's a VERY subjective determination. As long as I'm able to see felons on their deathbed still in jail, then I know we're erring on the safe side.
By the way, nice air conditioner units on those cells.
“The state should also consider granting 'compassionate release' to feeble or dying inmates who have already served the fixed portions of their sentence, and are eligible for parole.”
Compassionate release to the feeble and dying? In what alley do they plan to dump them? If the author of this article is talking about compassion, it is compassion to give them medical care until the last rather than turning them out onto the street.
Although the author did not say this, is he thinking of transferring them to a “civilian care” facility? If so, then I will forgive the author.
right on!
I I agree with you totally!
"Where else would they go?"
They would have to deposit the cons in nursing homes or other assisted living facilities at taxpayer expense. Putting aside for a moment the issue of these criminals not having yet paid their debt to society, I have a big problem introducing scumbags, albeit sick scumbags, into civilian nursing homes or rehab hospitals where the cons can use the decades of experience they have preying on other cons on the innocent patients in these facilities. If the taxpayer is picking up the tab either way, keep the cons in the joint.
I took the tour of that facility when applying for a job there a fews years back. Seemed like it was pretty well run, with good care given. Of course it's not state of the art, but to me it beat your average resthome. I just did not want to work all the overtime that was then and I understand still is, required.
They worry about the cost, so the answer is to take a prisoner, whom we are providing 100% of the cost of their feeding, housing, and healthcare, and release them to the street. Does that then mean that they will have no more need for any of these?
We'll be EXPECTED to still provide them with everything.
If we're still gonna pay for it, I want them right where they are.
No, but it's an idea we ought to consider.
If they are too sick to work on the chain gang, it's time to put them down.
SO9
The writer is exercising his anonymity by hiding under the "Editorial" tag, otherwise I was going to write and ask him to forward me some other Taxpayer Advocate articles he's written.
Thank you for your input. You gave me a favorable comparison and education of their care in their last days.
I appreciate it.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
What is the answer to this huge problem? Yawn...
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
“…while I have to do without. What's wrong with this picture?”
Nothing. My tax money is not going into supporting the entire U.S. population, only a few. We don’t have Hillary care yet, so we are not entirely socialistic yet.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Hahahaha!...Now there's a plan. I've been worried about my old age health problems that will come up. Now I have an answer.
FMCDH(BITS)
That's what I was thinking. They are complaining because these criminals are held in jail, so what is the solution? Throw them out on the street? Then the same journalists would be writing a series about how heartless it is to dump old criminals on the street without taking care of them for life.
Brainless is correct.
"I really like that sheriff in AZ who keeps tent city jails and feeds them on Bologna sandwiches."
Some of the people in tent city are violent offenders.
Others are awaiting trial and their only crime is not being able to make bail.
It's not fair to keep the two populations together. It's a violent place.
Maybe we should spring Kevorkian and let the angel of mercy deal with all these no-longer=dangerous denizens of the California penal system.
Sarcasm.
As a society, we should not murder. But we might weld the damn bars shut and show the daily videotapes to all those schoolchildren who are making a choice between the Crips / Bloods and moral society.
I really don't care if they're dangerous any more. That's not the point. But then it's incumbent upon us to deal with these individuals as they wind down towards death. We need to get them to turn their lives around. They aren't getting out and should not. But they might persuade others not to follow their lead into a criminal life.
What is the answer to this huge problem?
17 357 Magnum cartridges, about four bucks.
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