The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines' self-congratulatory, chest-thumping commentary in The Bee May 3, titled "California's Prison System in Crisis," would have us believe that he and the rest of the Legislature stood tall in the face of a possible "takeover" of California prisons by a federal judge.

Politicians love crime. Give a politician a good crime, preferably a sex crime against a child, and he will pop up on the front page with a new piece of sentencing legislation, named after the victim, of course, having consulted his advisers on the political up-tick such a photo op will give to his political fortunes.

Before 1977, politicians did not set prison sentences, the state's Adult Authority set sentences. Most convicted criminals went into prison not knowing how long they would spend there, and their release date was determined by a rather harsh board of former cops and parole agents who periodically reviewed their crimes, history and prison behavior in determining their sentence lengths.

The Adult Authority was arbitrary; it tended to be racist, and it punished prisoners who spoke out. But it was, in the end, more humane than what we've got now.

Prisoners had a motive to behave well in prison and to rehabilitate, because that was the key to freedom. True fiscal conservatives, Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown, were running our state then.

Prison sentences were relatively short, and our prisons were dungeons where corruption, brutality and neglect were rampant. Given what has happened since, perhaps this was a good thing. Perhaps we should have left well enough alone.

Instead, in 1977, with the passage of the Indeterminate Sentencing Law, we gave the issue over to politicians, who love defining whole new crimes and increasing sentences, and have gone at it with an enthusiasm that would make one think they actually believe in what they are doing.

But their enterprise is cynical. Every study done, whether by law enforcement or pin-headed intellectuals at the University of California at Berkeley, establishes that longer sentences do not make us safer in the long run; they just make more prisoners and more prisons.

In the 1980s, politicians were faced with the mounting prison population.. They started spending tons of money on new prisons. After the ribbon-cutting ceremonies were over, these behemoths emerged as unwieldy, out-of-control, brutal and mismanaged human warehouses.

They built them in remote corners of the state to please their urban constituents, and where doctors, dentists, psychiatrists, social workers and other essential professionals would refuse to work.

The inevitable outcome of these purely political choices was unconstitutionally inadequate medical, dental and mental-health care; violations of the federal rights of the disabled; the repeated unlawful use of force against prisoners; the warehousing and abuse of imprisoned youths; and a parole system in shambles.

It should be noted the hijacking of crime for political ends is not a phenomenon unique to California.

In the early 1970s, President Nixon made a point of politicizing crime, and many other states did what California did, with equally disastrous results: increased prison population, longer sentences and escalating spending on incarceration. This is not a California problem; it is an American problem.

No federal judge has "threatened" a takeover of California prisons, contrary to Mr. Villines' dramatic pronouncement. Three federal judges have put court monitors in place to supervise the reform of systems of care in California prisons, and all three judges have said that if the Legislature does not ante up to its responsibility to undo the damage it has done, the federal judiciary will have to put the prison system in receivership.

These judges do not thump their chests and make claims to courage. They respond to the evidence presented in a court of law.

So what does our brave Legislature, including Mr. Villines, a Republican from Clovis, do in the face of imminent court action? It votes to build more prisons, and to pay for them with lease revenue bonds, better known as credit.

Unlike other bonds, a lease revenue bond does not require voter approval.. Legislators know polls have shown that taxpayers would not vote to pay for new prisons, so they delayed payment and gave corporate investment houses huge windfall profits from the interest on these bonds. That's what Mr. Villines calls "courage."

Mr. Villines rejected a "sentencing commission" -- a substantive reform recommended in every recent study of the problem, and by some of the same people responsible for creating our prison problem, including former Gov. George Deukmejian -- because, says Mr. Villines, that would undermine public safety.

Truth be told, Mr. Villines and his Republican colleagues fought a sentencing commission because it would limit their power to exploit crime as a political issue. It would take sentencing out of their control and put it under the supervision of a representative group of professionals from academia, law enforcement, and the public.

Some sentences would be shortened because they are disproportionate to the harm done, and some might be lengthened, like the penalty for driving while using a cell phone -- very dangerous behavior indeed.

Some people would be released, like the very elderly, and the very ill. The parole system would be revamped to focus on dangerous offenders. A sentencing commission would, in fact, make us safer, and it would be a step toward compliance with constitutional standards.

The Legislature has been failing the people of California for 30 years, and as one who has worked on behalf of men and women in prison, I can attest to the immeasurable human toll in compromised health and wasted life that exists behind those walls as a consequence of political manipulation and our collective indifference.

I can only be grateful there are federal judges willing to hold the Constitution in one hand, and the evidence of neglect in the other, and then promise all Californians, free or imprisoned, that the law will be obeyed.

Catherine Campbell is a Fresno appellate and civil rights attorney. She can be reached at cathsoup@comcast.net.

http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/valley_voices/story/50121.html