A bunch of animated shorts apparently produced in a workshop at California Men’s Colony in the 1990s just popped up on Youtube, and they’re pretty entertaining.
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Corrections
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation oversees about 166,000 prisoners and 111,000 parolees.
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Why the prison population is getting older
Ackerman Gruber Images
Mike Males over at the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice has insight into the “mammoth growth in prisoners age 55 and older, from 7,000 in 1979 to 33,000 in 1995 and 124,000 by 2010.” Usually, Males writes, those in the criminal justice reform community attribute the rise to punitive policies that keep people in prison for a long time, like Three Strikes and mandatory sentencing. But, Males says, a new Human Rights Watch report inadvertently sheds light on a different culprit:
Commentary: Why the decline in prison jobs for inmates?
Mike Cogh
By Richard Gilliam
File this in the “shooting yourself in the foot” file.
In years past, convicts performed many of the day-to-day jobs that kept a prison running smoothly. I remember arriving at the Reception Center in Chino, to find inmate clerks and trustees on-hand to take your initial mugshot, ethnicity, gang affiliations, commitment offense, medical concerns, and to assign each man to his housing location. Inmate-clerks typed, filed, and kept track of medical records, classification actions, and disciplinary records. They ordered supplies such as food, clothing, soap, stationary, and a myriad of other items specific to the operation of a small city. They saw to it that other items specific to the operation of a small city. They saw to it that cooks were awakened at the right time, and made sure critical positions were manned. it was said that it was the clerks who really ran each prison.
Lethal injection drugs harder and harder to find
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.
Hunger-striking inmate dies in California
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.
Q&A: James Bell on what to do with California’s youth prisons
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.
Q&A: Alan Jackson on why counties should be able to send inmates out of state
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.
California probation officers: less tough, more love
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.