Transferring Convicts Out of State

Transferring Convicts Out of State
Duping The Public With Smoke and Mirrors
By: Boston Woodard

Many Californians cheered Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's export-a-convict plan that will be sending an estimated 5,000 prisoners to other states. They claim this will reduce the severe overcrowding throughout the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

That's great! whoopi! yea! lets send our criminals to some other state and let them deal with the CDCR's inability to be responsible. Maybe the receiving states can do a better job of rehabilitating California's prisoners, a job it can't seem to get a handle on.

You would think that a prison system fueled with a nearly $9 billion dollar annual budget would have a mechanism in place to handle any problem. Nope. Not the CDCR. Rather than fix the problem the governor and prison officials want to transfer their problems to other states. The old smoke and mirrors out of sight, out of mind trick.

When Schwarzenegger declared a "state of emergency" saying the overcrowding crisis is getting worse with each passing day, and that, "immediate action is necessary to prevent harm." who was he attempting to fool with that statement?

One CDCR spokesman said that this is "merely an interim step," and that the Schwarzenegger administration will go back to the legislature next year to press for "reforms" rejected in this past summer's "special session" on prison reform.

What many politicians and prison administrators don't like to discuss, consider, or factor into a solution to the problem, is a real plan to significantly reduce the prison population, But, carefully being looked at for the first time by some politicians are California's absurd and exorbitant sentencing laws. These laws have lead to the long term incarceration of tens of thousands of Californians who present no danger to public safety.

For example, the Three Strikes law has been warehousing men and women who are serving as many as 25 years-to-life for relatively minor violations of the law; possession of small amounts of drugs, stealing video tapes and petty theft. We've all heard the stories and most of us know that the tremendous amount of prison time given to some of these people are just plain vindictive. Many of these commitments should be serving smaller sentences in county jails or rehabilitation facilities in established community programs. Then there are the "old school lifers" who have programmed and jumped through every hoop queued in front of them for twenty, thirty, and in some cases forty years in an honest and sincere attempt be paroled. But with a corrupt and revengeful in spirit parole board, that's nearly impossible.

In mid October Corrections Chief James Tilton said that sentencing reform was an issue the governor was willing to pursue. He also said that reforms should not be pursued in response to overcrowding, but rather be made "on their own merits." Who cares how its pursued as long as it is?

According to a 10/8/06 San Francisco Chronicle editorial, "Fundamental reform requires us taking a look at sentencing,' sad Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez in August. The signals that Schwarzenegger and other top officials also are willing to take a closer look at our sentencing laws is a most welcome development.

Deals worked out with GEO-Group based in Boca Paton, Florida, will be paid $28.7 million a year under a three year contract. Corrections Cooperation of America (CCA), with headquarters in Nashville Tenn., will receive $22.9 million a year. New Castle Correctional Facility in Indiana, the Florence Detention Center in Arizona, the North Fork and Diamondback Correctional Facilities in Oklahoma and the West Tennessee Detention Facility will be the recipients of California's cash-crop of human beings. Eureka?

This is going to undermine public accountability and shift responsibility for the business of prison administration to profit-driven corporate boardrooms.

The California Correctional Peace Officer's Association (CCPOA), the prison guard's union, and Service Employee's International Union (SEIU) Local 1000. representing other prison employees, say transferring prisoners out-of-state violates the state constitution. Their argument is that the transfers are illegal because it uses private companies for public safety services that should be provided by state employees. The truth is, every convict shipped to another state will be money out of their pockets.

In early November, the State Court in Sacramento shot down the CCPOA and SEIU's request for an injunction allowing the transfers to commence. A 16 year old class-action lawsuit could have been a reason to stop Schwarzenegger's plan to ship convicts out-of-state but it fell through. The so called Coleman class-action suit (1990) was successful by improving treatment for mentally ill prisoners. According to corrections spokesman Oscar Hidalgo, "We did a lot of screening to make sure they're not part of the Coleman class."

The CCPOA and SElU were unsuccessful in their attempts to persuade the judge for a temporary restraining order to block the transfers. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette rejected the motion for the restraining order.

On one hand the unions are whinning that their employees are being "beat up" and "overworked" due to "thousands' of job vacancies, and on the other hand, they want to keep California's prisons cramped and in chaos so their money wont flow to other states. Go figure.

According to state officials, they expect "more than enough" prisoners will volunteer for the transfers, but if not, CDCR officials said they will force prisoners if need be. Corrections Chief Tilton said at a Capital press conference that he anticipates no difficulty getting enough prisoners to volunteer for transfer out of California but said if need be, "the state will force some to move, starting with foreign nationals."

In an October 6, 2006 bulletin distributed throughout the prison system regarding the transfers, it reads: "The information contained in this document has been gathered to provide general information about various aspects of incarceration in other prison systems."

In the bulletin were many "general questions." They were questions said to have been posed by prisoners about the transfers. Some of the answers to those questions were:

1.) "You will not be offered a choice regarding where you will be transferred." 2.) "There are no special considerations made for inmates who participate in the out-of-state transfer." 3. ) "You can anticipate to be subjected to grooming standards [forced to cut hair and beards. etc.]." 4.) "You will be required to pay all restitutions." 5.) "States in which these out-of-state facilities are located have laws that require out-of-state prisoners to be sent back to California for parole." 6.) "CDCR inmates will not be allowed to purchase, possess or use tobacco products." 7.) ‘None of the contracted facilities have the ability to accommodate family visiting," and the list goes on.

The transfer package has absolutely no incentive for prisoners. Transferred prisoners will be subjected to the same rules and policies that govern most prisons and will be shuffled right back to California on a whim if necessary. California will not be getting rid of criminals, it will he storing them in another state until they return for years of parole. The prison system's multi-billion dollar budget will continue to grow. It'll be like shoveling money into a white hot furnace. The transferred prisoner's beds will be filled before they turn cold.

Something else you never read in so-called "mainstream newspapers" or hear about on network news stations are the tens of thousands of men and women who are warehoused in county jails and community detention facilities throughout the state. These detainees are waiting to be shipped like canned goods to one of California's 33 prisons as soon as beds are available as a result of the transfers. Reportedly, Los Angeles County alone has an estimated twenty thousand plus prisoners who are presently waiting to be placed in a state prison bed. Los Angeles is just one county. Hiding 5,000 or more convicts in out-of-state penitentiaries wont even make a small dent in the overcrowding crisis. It'll be like shoveling shit against a swift in coming tide.

The first 80 convicts that were transferred out-of-state took off from Meadows Field in Bakersfield for a private prison in Tennessee. The CDCR will continue to transfer prisoners over the next year to private prisons in Arizona, Oklahoma, Indiana and Tennessee.

California has been trying to build it's way out of an overcrowding crisis for decades unsuccessfully. Now the state is attempting to transfer it's way out of the problem. Just like before, it will never happen. They'll be back!

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Boston Woodard is a prisoner/journalist who has written for the San Quentin News and the Soledad Star, and edited The Communicator. The Department of Corrections has pulled the plug on all three publications.