Prisons: Power nobody dares mess with (California & CCPOA)

Sac Bee ^ | 2/29/04 | Daniel Macallair

[NormsRevenge]

The California state prison system provides a poignant example of how a government agency became dominated by a special interest.

Over the past 20 years, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) has held the state's correctional system in an ever-tightening grip. The union's control of state criminal justice policy has produced mismanagement and abuse that waste tax dollars and compromise the public interest.

[NormsRevenge]

Daniel Macallair is the executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco and teaches in the Criminal Justice Department at San Francisco State University. This article is based on research by the center with funding from the Greenville Foundation and Open Society Institute. More information about the California Correctional Peace Officers Association is available at www.cjcj.org.

[NormsRevenge]

[Carry_Okie]

However, as the pool of defendants sentenced from the local courts declined, the prison population was maintained by increasing the number of technical parole violations. In the past five years, the number of inmates returned to prison for a non-criminal parole violation has increased from 43 percent to 56 percent. For these violations, inmates are returned to prison for an average of five months without any additional rehabilitative services before again returning to the community.

Ain't it just like the Slave Party to please the public employee unions by throwing the poor into prisons while STILL expecting their votes? When will the GOP ever learn how to wield this kind of political opportunity?

[coloradan]

People directly on the government payroll should be prohibited from voting, because it's a massive conflict of interest.

[farmfriend]

Short list and Sacramento Area ping list.

[ServesURight]

Pelican Bay, San Quentin, and LA County Jail BUMP (LOL)

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[budwiesest]

With these alliances in place, the CCPOA was positioned to vigorously pursue its prison expansion agenda through harsher sentencing legislation. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s CCPOA-sponsored legislation was successful more than 80 percent of the time.

The best money that government can buy-again. I'm torn between locking-up the perpetual, lying, recidivist criminal as opposed to just hiring them in the first place.

Excuse me now while I go calculate what my fair share of taxes are due this state.

[TatooChick]

Can I just say....

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.....

I guess it is appropriate, you break the law, you go to the union shop...oops, I mean prison, and hang with the REST of the crooks.

[budwiesest]

Looked at your tag line (I realize this has nothing to do with this thread) and gotta tell 'ya, when Feinstein appeared on television humping for props 57 and 58 I was knocked off of the fence, so to speak. I've learned to respectfully hate the gun-grabbing b*tch that much.

$15B is a lot of cash, but if that's what it takes in cuts to balance the budget, so be it. Bring on the erasers, boys! Putting Feinstein's face on in support of these props was it for me.

Heck, maybe a few prisons will have to close, or the poor bastids will have to limit their 'overtime' gouging. In short, I no longer care. Screw them and the politician-buying horse they rode in on.

[TatooChick]

Screw them and the politician-buying horse they rode in on.

Might I add...Vote Kaloogian and then Screw them and the politician-buying horse they rode in on.

Thank you and Goodnight!