Still too many prisoners in California

Gov. Jerry Brown is fighting the courts, but he should be trying harder to curb inmate overcrowding.

Federal judges rejected Gov. Brown's request that they return control of California's still-overcrowded prison system to the state. Above: Inmates are seen at California State Prison-Lancaster in 2010. (Los Angeles Times / June 10, 20)

It may come as a disappointment to Gov. Jerry Brown — but it certainly should not come as a surprise — that a panel of federal judges rejected his request that they return control of California's still-overcrowded prison system to the state. The network of 33 state prisons continues to hold more than 9,000 inmates beyond the court's mandated cap, and Brown's administration has not presented a realistic plan to eliminate that excess, even though the court has extended the deadline for compliance from June 30 to the end of the year.

Brown is vowing to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and more power to him. He argues that medical and mental health care provided in California's prisons, recently so abysmal as to be deemed cruel and unusual punishment, is now the nation's best, and perhaps he is right. But even so, the courts can be expected to retain jurisdiction until the target inmate population is reached, and until the justices are assured that new standards of care in the prisons are a permanent part of the institutional
culture and not merely a short break after decades of unconscionable inmate treatment.

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This is from an LA Times editorial.  Tom

 

Overcrowding making life dangerous for workers and inmates in prisons

The people who supervise inmates at Canada’s overcrowded federal prisons say bulging populations mean less opportunity for rehabilitation, and they fear a more dangerous breed of convict will be released back on the streets.

Hundreds of officers of the Correctional Service of Canada are expected to rally Saturday outside Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s constituency office in Calgary to protest what they say are increasingly dangerous conditions inside penitentiaries.

Climbing incarceration rates and a toxic mix of convicts, many of them with gang ties, have made life behind bars more difficult for prisoners and the people who work with them, says Pierre Mallette, the national president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers.

Mr. Mallette has been on a cross-country tour of federal institutions to learn first hand about the challenges facing his members and says the problems associated with overcrowding top of the list.
Although the national crime rate has been dropping since 1992 and is now at levels not seen since 1972, policies of the federal Conservative government have put more people behind bars.

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Ink Well

Should prisons have government-sanctioned tattoo shops?

By Jessica Wapner

A tattooed Filipino inmate

Nothing says "I've been in prison" like an armful of tattoos. Worldwide, studies report that up to half of prisoners get tattoos while doing time. Because prison tattooing is illegal, inmates create their inking equipment with whatever they can scrounge: ink made from burned Styrofoam cups, shampoo, or anything else that can be turned into a dark liquid is injected through makeshift tattoo guns using parts from radios, PlayStations, or anything else with a rudimentary motor. And a needle can be crafted from just about anything sharp—even a staple.

Now, a newly published review of more than 100 studies has confirmed the connection between tattoos and hepatitis C virus. Nowhere is that relationship more apparent than within prison walls. Rates of HCV are 10 to 20 times higher in prisons, compared with the population at large; as many as one-third of the more than 2 million inmates in the United States are infected. As a blood-borne disease, HCV is easily transmitted through dirty tattoo needles and can survive for some time in ink. Considering the high prevalence of HCV, the popularity of illegal tattooing, and the commonness of sharing used ink needles, the disease is probably being spread through this route. Studies have found higher HCV rates among tatted-up prisoners than in their ink-free inmates.

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Mackerel Economics in Prison Leads to Appreciation for Oily Fillets

Packs of Fish Catch On as Currency, Former Inmates Say; Officials Carp

By JUSTIN SCHECK

When Larry Levine helped prepare divorce papers for a client a few years ago, he got paid in mackerel. Once the case ended, he says, "I had a stack of macks."

Mr. Levine and his client were prisoners in California's Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex. Like other federal inmates around the country, they found a can of mackerel -- the "mack" in prison lingo -- was the standard currency.

"It's the coin of the realm," says Mark Bailey, who paid Mr. Levine in fish. Mr. Bailey was serving a two-year tax-fraud sentence in connection with a chain of strip clubs he owned. Mr. Levine was serving a nine-year term for drug dealing. Mr. Levine says he used his macks to get his beard trimmed, his clothes pressed and his shoes shined by other prisoners. "A haircut is two macks," he says, as an expected tip for inmates who work in the prison barber shop.

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Nice article for a Friday morning. Tom