The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation oversees about 166,000 prisoners and 111,000 parolees.
CDCR
For the second time in as many years, a drug commonly used in executions will become unavailable.
Word’s come out that pentobarbital, a barbituate several states use in lethal injections, will be much harder to find shortly, as the sole FDA-approved manufacturer of the drug is refusing to sell it to states that use it for executions. Pentobarbital, incidentally, became widely adopted just last year as a replacement for sodium thiopental, which was recently discontinued by its US maker.
Rina Palta
Hunger strikers have been protesting conditions in the state's Security Housing Units, like this one at Pelican Bay State Prison.
By Nicole Jones
A spokesperson with California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has confirmed that an inmate on a hunger strike at Corcoran State Prison died on Feb. 2 after refusing food for four days.
Gomez began fasting to protest conditions in the Administration Segregation Unit at Corcoran. Over thirty inmates housed in the isolation unit at Corcoran had also been refusing food since January for the same reason. On Feb. 13, all inmates resumed eating, according to CDCR’s spokesperson Terry Thornton.
Correctional Healthcare Service spokeswoman Nancy Kincaid said nothing in the preliminary autopsy suggests starvation was the cause of death. Gomez was under medical care prior to hunger strike, suggesting he may have been in poor health which was further complicated by fasting.
Juvenile crime in California has been steadily declining for several decades,reaching an all-time low in 2010. What hasn’t changed much, however, is the disproportionate number of youth of color who are being incarcerated.
This is the focus of organizations like the W. Haywood Burns Institute. The San Francisco-based nonprofit has been working for years to help counties remake their juvenile justice systems so they’re equitable. It’s going to become more and more important as California begins to phase out its statewide youth prison system in favor of county alternatives.
It’s a controversial proposal from Governor Jerry Brown, and one that’s likely to be implemented by 2014. KALW News Director Holly Kernan sat down with Burns Institute Founder and Executive Director James Bell to talk about the closure of the Division of Juvenile Justice.
By Nicole Jones
A new bill is on the block would allow counties to use AB 109 funds to pay for out-of-state contracts to house inmates, similar to how the states currently contract with other states. Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson and Senator Tony Strickland introduced the bill in hopes of giving counties more options for housing inmates sentenced to local jails. Jackson spoke with KALW’S Nicole Jones on why he thinks this is a smart move for overburdened counties.
NOTE: This bill is not endorsed by the LA’s District Attorney’s office, but rather by Jackson as a private citizen, who’s also running for Los Angeles District Attorney.
By Nicole Jones
Criminal justice realignment is changing the way probation officers are managing offenders, reports the San Jose Mercury News. Motivational interviewing is reemerging in probation offices across the state as a tool to better prepare probationers for reentry. Studies show that motivational interviewing and other techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy and positive client development will prevent inmates from becoming repeat offenders. But it all starts with teaching probation officers a less punitive, more collaborative approach to dealing with offenders.
Andria Blackmon
O.H. Close Youth Correctional Facility is one of the few state youth prisons that remains open.
By Nicole Jones
The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco released a report this week that shows California counties have the capacity to implement Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to eliminate the state’s youth prison system.
Brown announced his plans in January to eventually fade out the Division of Juvenile Justice system by 2014. The proposal would have counties share $10 million to develop local alternatives to housing youth in state facilities. But it’s raised some concerns from counties and law enforcement, saying they lack adequate secure juvenile placement facilities for high-risk youth offenders the DiJJ currently serves.
Johannes Jensen
By Joaquin Palomino
Yesterday, we heard how politics have shaped California’s prison system, and about the push and pull between rehabilitation and punishment. “At the end of the day, corrections was about the bumping of heads of those people that think prison should be for punishment and those people that think that prison should be for rehabilitation,” says JB Wells, who spent almost three decades stuck between the two ideologies.
We know that in that tug of war, rehabilitation has been losing. In the last fiscal year, California spent $9.6 billion on its prison system. Just 4.6% of that went towards rehabilitation programs. In this final part of our series on sentencing in California, KALW’s Joaquin Palomino looks at changes that could reform California’s prison culture.
Mike Cogh
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/5997920696/
By Joaquin Palomino
A life sentence with the possibility of parole is one of the only sentences in California designed to encourage the convicted to reform. Lindsey Bolar, who served 23 years in prison before receiving parole, believes “lifers make up your best population in prison.” After serving between 20 and 25 years, Bolar says, “you know that the mad stupid stuff doesn’t go anymore, then all of a sudden you are trying to find a meaning for your life and you want to go home.”
The system seems to work. Only around one percent of lifers return to prison after being released, and almost never for another violent crime. Still, for the past three decades, it has been nearly impossible to be paroled. The reasons have less to do with public safety than politics. In the second segment of a three-part series, we look at the political chutes and ladders of California’s parole process. KALW’s Joaquin Palomino has the story.
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