Inmates in the exercise yard at San Quentin Prison. (Photo: Wikipedia Commons)OPINION: California spends over $12 billion on its prison system each year. Given that stunning investment of public dollars, the residents of California deserve to understand the actual impact of incarceration: Does it create public safety and rehabilitate those who are incarcerated under its care?
Chuck Pattillo, former general manager of the California Prison Industry Authority. (Photo: CalPIA)The head of the California Prison Industry Authority, an internationally known agency that trains inmates for such diverse occupations as carpentry, deep-sea diving, computer coding and farming, is retiring after more than a decade on the job.
Folsom State Prison east of Sacramento. (Photo: Wikipedia)The state auditor says the California prison system’s programs to reduce recidivism aren’t working, noting that inmates who complete the programs wind up back behind bars at roughly the same rates as those who don’t. “These results are serious enough to highlight an urgent need for Corrections to take a more active and meaningful role in ensuring that these programs are effective,” California State Auditor Elaine Howle reported.
Pat Nolan addresses a 2014 meeting of CPAC <(Photo: Gage Skidmore)Pat Nolan has Southern California credentials that are about as solid as they come. The future Assembly Republican leader was born into a family that had been in the area for generations. One of his great-grandfathers had been an early settler of the area for whom two cities (Agoura and Agoura Hills) are named. Nolan also played a role in one of the Capitol’s darkest episodes – the FBI’s investigation of Capitol corruption, which included a dramatic nighttime raid on the building in the summer of 1988.
Sunlight streaming through the bars of a prison cell. (Photo: nobeastsofierce, Shutterstock)OPINION: I am a 50-year-old man who has spent 39 years of my life behind bars. Millions of taxpayer dollars were spent to incarcerate me in juvenile camps and the state’s prison system, where I was given a life sentence for murder. Life could have turned out differently for me, if I had the guidance and support I needed as a child who took to the streets to escape family dysfunction and abuse.
An inmate gestures through the bars of his prison cell. (Photo: Sakhorn, Shutterstock)Gov. Jerry Brown has a lot riding on the November ballot. Voters will decide on his Proposition 57, which Brown says would let nonviolent inmates become eligible for parole sooner, create “good behavior” credits for state prisoners and let judges decide whether to try a juvenile as an adult. With California’s prisons crowded and facing a court-imposed population cap, and thousands of inmates housed outside the state, Brown says his measure makes sense.
San Quentin prison, as seen from San Francisco Bay. (Photo: San Quentin News, prison newspaper)ANALYSIS: What if, instead of building prisons in remote locations, we put them near cities, accessible to family members and to the resources — educational, vocational, therapeutic, recreational, cultural — that are scarce in most prison towns?
An inmate gestures through the bars of his prison cell. (Photo: Sakhorn, Shutterstock)Gov. Jerry Brown and a number of church and law enforcement leaders said Wednesday they are launching a November ballot initiative that would ease parole restrictions on nonviolent prison inmates and provide incentives for prisoners to work toward an earlier release.
Obit: In his three decades on the federal bench, Lawrence Karlton presided over many high-profile cases including several involving California’s troubled prison system. In 2009 he forced the overhaul of California’s prison health care system and ordered the state to reduce prison overcrowding.
An inmate gestures through the bars of his prison cell. (Photo: Sakhorn, Shutterstock)For decades, Californians and their representatives in the state Capitol had a “lock-‘em-up-and-throw-away-the-key” approach to lawbreakers. But that view is changing. Following years of a steadily increasing prison population and some communities repeatedly being devastated by crime, public discussion has shifted in part toward reforming law enforcement’s approach to crime prevention.