Apr. 30, 2010
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Schwarzenegger administration lost a legal fight Friday to end oversight of California's prison health care system.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal judge can continue with a court-appointed receiver to improve inmate medical care.
The appeals court also dismissed the administration's request to stop the receiver's construction plans to add medical beds.
Rachel Arrezola, a spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the state will appeal the entire ruling to a larger panel of the appeals court.
California has been trying to end federal oversight of the state's prison system, largely because of the growing costs. The state is facing a projected $20 billion deficit through June 2011.
State officials argued the receiver in charge of making improvements had no right to order the construction of 10,000 new beds, which would cost about $6 billion.
The receiver has since responded with a more modest proposal to build two prison hospitals to house 3,400 inmates at a cost of $1.9 billion.
The appeals court upheld the district court's authority to appoint a receiver, saying it was the least intrusive way to remedy prisoners' rights.
The state did not oppose or appeal when the court appointed the receiver back in 2006 to improve care at the state's 33 adult prisons.
"We are compelled to point out that ... the state is in a poor position to assert this objection to the receivership," the court panel wrote. "The receivership was imposed only after the state admitted its inability to comply with consent orders intended to remedy the constitutional violations in its prisons."
Link to article click Here
Friday, April 30, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Inmate Death At Kern Valley State Prison Under Investigation
March 24, 2010
Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP) investigators are cooperating with the Kern County District Attorney’s Office in the investigation of an inmate death.
On March 23, 2010 at approximately 8:14 a.m., inmate Angel Ramirez, 30, was pronounced deceased while en route to a local hospital.
Ramirez was serving a seven-year, four-month sentence from Los Angeles County for possession, transportation, and sales of controlled substances. He had been housed at KVSP since September 24, 2007.
The death is being investigated as a possible homicide by the Kern County District Attorney’s Office. The prison’s Investigative Services Unit is cooperating with the investigation and the Office of the Inspector General’s Bureau of Independent Review has been notified.
The suspect in this case is a 30-year-old inmate serving a 50-years-to-life sentence from Los Angeles County for first-degree murder. He has been in state prison since October 12, 1999 and has been housed at KVSP since January 3, 2008.
KVSP opened in 2005 and houses nearly 4,800 minimum-, medium-, maximum- and high-security custody inmates. KVSP offers academic classes and vocational programs and employs approximately 1,800 people.
Direct link to Article Here
Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP) investigators are cooperating with the Kern County District Attorney’s Office in the investigation of an inmate death.
On March 23, 2010 at approximately 8:14 a.m., inmate Angel Ramirez, 30, was pronounced deceased while en route to a local hospital.
Ramirez was serving a seven-year, four-month sentence from Los Angeles County for possession, transportation, and sales of controlled substances. He had been housed at KVSP since September 24, 2007.
The death is being investigated as a possible homicide by the Kern County District Attorney’s Office. The prison’s Investigative Services Unit is cooperating with the investigation and the Office of the Inspector General’s Bureau of Independent Review has been notified.
The suspect in this case is a 30-year-old inmate serving a 50-years-to-life sentence from Los Angeles County for first-degree murder. He has been in state prison since October 12, 1999 and has been housed at KVSP since January 3, 2008.
KVSP opened in 2005 and houses nearly 4,800 minimum-, medium-, maximum- and high-security custody inmates. KVSP offers academic classes and vocational programs and employs approximately 1,800 people.
Direct link to Article Here
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Inmate rehab programs sharpen focus in hard times
"Prisons Cut the Rehab Training" (March 8, Page A1) points out the importance of rehabilitating inmates, but missed a key point: Old ways of doing business have not been effective enough in reducing recidivism.
In my previous position as inspector general overseeing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, I found that its substance abuse programs were "a $1 billion failure." We have done a great deal since then to improve outcomes.
Yet, some seem to want to stay stuck in the past with no attention to whether programs worked.
Due to the state budget crisis, spending on CDCR's offender rehabilitation programs has been reduced by more than a third, but we are now focusing on cost-effective programs that reduce recidivism and have eliminated programming that did not prove successful.
As recommended by an expert panel, we are using evidence-based assessments to target services to offenders at the highest risk of returning to prison.
We are shortening our in-prison substance abuse programs to three months from the past six to 36 months to reach more inmates and emphasizing community aftercare treatment – a combination that has been shown to reduce recidivism. We will still be able to provide substance abuse services to 8,450 inmates annually – not 2,400 as stated in the article.
We are strongly emphasizing GED attainment, which can reduce recidivism up to 7 percent, according to the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. More students – not fewer – will be enrolled in GED classes by utilizing teachers' aides and combining classroom instruction with independent study. We are emphasizing vocational programs that can be completed in 12 months – which can reduce recidivism up to 9 percent.
For the first time, California is insisting that an inmate satisfactorily pass program requirements to earn time-off credits. New legislation authorizes as much as six additional weeks of credit for completing re- habilitation programs.
CDCR is training long-term inmates as certified drug- and alcohol-abuse counselors to help their fellow inmates recover and attain a marketable skill upon release, training inmates as literacy tutors and doubling funding for prisons to sponsor community volunteer activities such as Alcoholics Anonymous and other self-help programs.
Instead of staying mired in the failed policies of the past, our decision to focus on high-risk offenders, maximize use of existing resources and focus on programs proven to reduce recidivism is the right thing to do under challenging circumstances.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/21/2620581/another-view-inmate-rehab-programs.html#ixzz0k3aR7dcY
In my previous position as inspector general overseeing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, I found that its substance abuse programs were "a $1 billion failure." We have done a great deal since then to improve outcomes.
Yet, some seem to want to stay stuck in the past with no attention to whether programs worked.
Due to the state budget crisis, spending on CDCR's offender rehabilitation programs has been reduced by more than a third, but we are now focusing on cost-effective programs that reduce recidivism and have eliminated programming that did not prove successful.
As recommended by an expert panel, we are using evidence-based assessments to target services to offenders at the highest risk of returning to prison.
We are shortening our in-prison substance abuse programs to three months from the past six to 36 months to reach more inmates and emphasizing community aftercare treatment – a combination that has been shown to reduce recidivism. We will still be able to provide substance abuse services to 8,450 inmates annually – not 2,400 as stated in the article.
We are strongly emphasizing GED attainment, which can reduce recidivism up to 7 percent, according to the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. More students – not fewer – will be enrolled in GED classes by utilizing teachers' aides and combining classroom instruction with independent study. We are emphasizing vocational programs that can be completed in 12 months – which can reduce recidivism up to 9 percent.
For the first time, California is insisting that an inmate satisfactorily pass program requirements to earn time-off credits. New legislation authorizes as much as six additional weeks of credit for completing re- habilitation programs.
CDCR is training long-term inmates as certified drug- and alcohol-abuse counselors to help their fellow inmates recover and attain a marketable skill upon release, training inmates as literacy tutors and doubling funding for prisons to sponsor community volunteer activities such as Alcoholics Anonymous and other self-help programs.
Instead of staying mired in the failed policies of the past, our decision to focus on high-risk offenders, maximize use of existing resources and focus on programs proven to reduce recidivism is the right thing to do under challenging circumstances.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/21/2620581/another-view-inmate-rehab-programs.html#ixzz0k3aR7dcY
Friday, April 2, 2010
Time for California to Catch Up with the Death Penalty Decline
Mar 30th, 2010
Most of the country seems to be getting it: The death penalty is expensive and risky. The expense to execute a prisoner is staggering: in California, the cost of death row housing alone is $90,000 more per year, per inmate (PDF) compared to housing in other high security prisons, adding up to more than $63 million each year. A shift from death sentences to permanent imprisonment means significant savings and eliminates the risk of executing the innocent. That’s why a growing number of states are choosing permanent imprisonment over the death penalty. In fact, in 2009, the number of new death sentences nationwide reached the lowest level (PDF) since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Why, then, is California going in the wrong direction? The Golden State sent more people to death row last year than it did in the prior seven years. At the end of 2009, California’s death row was by far the largest and most costly in the United States.
The ACLU’s new report, Death in Decline ’09(PDF), shows, in fact, the majority of California counties are getting it right: most of California’s 58 counties have effectively replaced the death penalty with permanent imprisonment. Pursuit of the death penalty in California is limited to just a few “killer counties.” Only three — Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside — accounted for 83 percent of all death sentences in 2009. The strange reality is fewer and fewer California counties are sending more and more people to death row.
Most shocking is Los Angeles County. With 13 death sentences, Los Angeles was by far the leading death penalty county in the nation last year. L.A. sentenced more people to death in 2009 than the entire state of Texas. Meanwhile, Harris County, Texas, long the death penalty capital of the country, had zero death sentences last year.
Even more disturbing, the new faces on death row are more likely to be Latino than before. Latinos comprised a staggering 50 percent of new death sentences in California in 2007, 38 percent in 2008, and 31 percent in 2009. In 2000, Latinos were only 19 percent of the death row population, even when Latinos comprised 33 percent of the people living in California. We don’t know what’s causing the increase in Latinos being sentenced to death — the state doesn’t keep the data needed to answer that question. Given that murder rates are down across all communities in California, particularly in Los Angeles, the increase in Latinos sent to death row raises serious concerns.
So let’s review:
* The rest of the country has caught on that the death penalty is too expensive and risky.
* California — especially Los Angeles and a couple other counties — continues to waste resources that we don’t have on a death penalty system that doesn’t work.
* In the process, more and more Latinos are being sent to California’s death row, and we don’t know why.
As the death row population grows, so do the exorbitant costs of California’s death penalty system. But the money needed to fund the system just isn’t there. In fact, some local officials have taken to cutting costs by denying funding to defense attorneys, even though two out of three death sentences in California are reversed because of ineffective counsel at trial. Of the 700 people now on death row in California, 40 percent lack an attorney needed to handle their state appeal or federal appeals. People now wait more than 10 years on death row for an attorney. Meanwhile, memories fade, evidence is lost, and the risk that an innocent person will be executed grows.
California is on track to spend $1 billion on the death penalty in the next five years. For all the money we spend on the death penalty in California, only 1 out of 100 people sentenced to death has actually been executed during the last 30 years. What is the point?
It’s time for California to get with the program. California has a better alternative: permanent imprisonment. Every guilty person sentenced to permanent imprisonment has died in prison or will die in prison. It allows us to punish serious offenders while saving the state $1 billion over five years. These funds could be shifted to local police who now lack the resources needed to solve murders, or to our beleaguered education system. It’s time for California to move forward: the death penalty is a mistake we can’t afford to keep making.
How many people on death row come from YOUR county?
California has become a rogue state when it comes to the death penalty.
In 2009, our District Attorneys sought death sentences at a higher rate than Texas and Florida, making our death row the largest in the country. In fact, we are currently housing 700 people on death row and have already experienced six new death sentences within the first three months of 2010. But not all of California’s District Attorneys are to blame for our high death sentencing rates; in fact, over the past 10 years, 86% of death sentences came from only 10 of California’s 58 counties. Additionally, on June 8, 2010 voters from every County in California (except San Francisco and Los Angeles) will vote for their District Attorney. The DA holds the sole discretion to decide which cases will be tried as death penalty cases, and in deciding to do so, they cost their county $1.1 million dollars more than a non death penalty trial.
Link to State/county maps of death penalty inmates here
Most of the country seems to be getting it: The death penalty is expensive and risky. The expense to execute a prisoner is staggering: in California, the cost of death row housing alone is $90,000 more per year, per inmate (PDF) compared to housing in other high security prisons, adding up to more than $63 million each year. A shift from death sentences to permanent imprisonment means significant savings and eliminates the risk of executing the innocent. That’s why a growing number of states are choosing permanent imprisonment over the death penalty. In fact, in 2009, the number of new death sentences nationwide reached the lowest level (PDF) since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Why, then, is California going in the wrong direction? The Golden State sent more people to death row last year than it did in the prior seven years. At the end of 2009, California’s death row was by far the largest and most costly in the United States.
The ACLU’s new report, Death in Decline ’09(PDF), shows, in fact, the majority of California counties are getting it right: most of California’s 58 counties have effectively replaced the death penalty with permanent imprisonment. Pursuit of the death penalty in California is limited to just a few “killer counties.” Only three — Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside — accounted for 83 percent of all death sentences in 2009. The strange reality is fewer and fewer California counties are sending more and more people to death row.
Most shocking is Los Angeles County. With 13 death sentences, Los Angeles was by far the leading death penalty county in the nation last year. L.A. sentenced more people to death in 2009 than the entire state of Texas. Meanwhile, Harris County, Texas, long the death penalty capital of the country, had zero death sentences last year.
Even more disturbing, the new faces on death row are more likely to be Latino than before. Latinos comprised a staggering 50 percent of new death sentences in California in 2007, 38 percent in 2008, and 31 percent in 2009. In 2000, Latinos were only 19 percent of the death row population, even when Latinos comprised 33 percent of the people living in California. We don’t know what’s causing the increase in Latinos being sentenced to death — the state doesn’t keep the data needed to answer that question. Given that murder rates are down across all communities in California, particularly in Los Angeles, the increase in Latinos sent to death row raises serious concerns.
So let’s review:
* The rest of the country has caught on that the death penalty is too expensive and risky.
* California — especially Los Angeles and a couple other counties — continues to waste resources that we don’t have on a death penalty system that doesn’t work.
* In the process, more and more Latinos are being sent to California’s death row, and we don’t know why.
As the death row population grows, so do the exorbitant costs of California’s death penalty system. But the money needed to fund the system just isn’t there. In fact, some local officials have taken to cutting costs by denying funding to defense attorneys, even though two out of three death sentences in California are reversed because of ineffective counsel at trial. Of the 700 people now on death row in California, 40 percent lack an attorney needed to handle their state appeal or federal appeals. People now wait more than 10 years on death row for an attorney. Meanwhile, memories fade, evidence is lost, and the risk that an innocent person will be executed grows.
California is on track to spend $1 billion on the death penalty in the next five years. For all the money we spend on the death penalty in California, only 1 out of 100 people sentenced to death has actually been executed during the last 30 years. What is the point?
It’s time for California to get with the program. California has a better alternative: permanent imprisonment. Every guilty person sentenced to permanent imprisonment has died in prison or will die in prison. It allows us to punish serious offenders while saving the state $1 billion over five years. These funds could be shifted to local police who now lack the resources needed to solve murders, or to our beleaguered education system. It’s time for California to move forward: the death penalty is a mistake we can’t afford to keep making.
How many people on death row come from YOUR county?
California has become a rogue state when it comes to the death penalty.
In 2009, our District Attorneys sought death sentences at a higher rate than Texas and Florida, making our death row the largest in the country. In fact, we are currently housing 700 people on death row and have already experienced six new death sentences within the first three months of 2010. But not all of California’s District Attorneys are to blame for our high death sentencing rates; in fact, over the past 10 years, 86% of death sentences came from only 10 of California’s 58 counties. Additionally, on June 8, 2010 voters from every County in California (except San Francisco and Los Angeles) will vote for their District Attorney. The DA holds the sole discretion to decide which cases will be tried as death penalty cases, and in deciding to do so, they cost their county $1.1 million dollars more than a non death penalty trial.
Link to State/county maps of death penalty inmates here
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