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 ...
LOL. Sounds like Morgan Freeman's character in "Shawshank Redemption."
"These walls are funny. At first you want to get out. Then you get used to it."
Feeds them bologna sandwiches? Sounds like something he may have thought of after listening to a Tom T. Hall song (about what happens to a guy who gets caught speeding in a small town). At least I think the artist was Tom T. Hall.
Most of the ones mentioned are not a threat to others. The question that remains for me is which is cheaper treatment on the street paid by MediCal or inside paid by the Dept. of Corrections. As these people get older they will need more and more skilled nursing care.
That;s the nature of jail and one of the big differences between jail and prison. Of the Sherrif ran a prison system he wouldn't be able to do all the things he can do to short timers.
Precisely why he should remain in jail, dumbass.
I don't wish ill upon anybody, but I really hope that the rapists and murderers whom he wishes to "set free" will visit his house before mine.
Then he may be singing a slightly different tune.
If he has not stopped using drugs after 50 years, why should we think letting him loose for drug treatment now would change anything?
"As a society, we should not murder."
The Death Penalty is not murder. It is justice meted out by citizens in a just and lawful manner.
Wait a minute here. The libs were the ones who pushed "life without parole" as an alternative to the death penalty. And how many times have we heard that death row is more expensive than imprisoning people for life? It seems like that is no longer the case.
Right, now it's 'let the old crooks go so we have new ammo to pretend there still is such a thing as senior poverty--Social Security II, baby-bee!!'
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