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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:
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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.
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By Nicole Jones
The number of incarcerated Americans who are over the age of 65 grew by more than 90 times the rate of the total prison population from 2007-2010, according to a report released last Friday by Human Rights Watch. Across the country, the number of older inmates increased by 63 percent while the number of all inmates rose by just .07 percent. California inmates over the age of 50 increased from 4 percent in 1990 to 17 percent in 2010.
The average national annual healthcare cost per prisoner is $5,482. But for prisoners aged 55-59 it’s closer to $11,000, and for prisoners age 80 or over, $40,000.
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Young, Black women are currently the fastest growing prison population nationwide–despite the fact that crime numbers for the group have not risen.
According to the Atlanta Post, during a recent conference at UC-Berkeley’s Boalt School of Law:
Nikki Jones, a sociologist from UC Santa Barbara and Meda Chesney Lind, University of Hawaii, and attendee of the conference, has studied the statistics of imprisoned black girls for over 10 years and explained, “we have never seen these kind of numbers before.”
At Ethnoblog, Rachel Pfeffer contends that young, Black women do not commit crimes at higher rates than White women, but their arrest rates are higher:
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Lone inmate grows garden for charity More gardens cropping up behind bars, this one started by a young man in juvenile detention. (News 10 Sacramento)
Sign Advising Muni Patrons To Duck Fares Appears Reminding patrons that fines handed out for not paying carry no criminal penalties. (SF Appeal)
Brown’s comment could help Prop. 8 forces Blunder or go-ahead for non-governmental organizations defending same-sex marriage ban? (San Francisco Chronicle)
New courts aim to curb repeat criminal offenders San Francisco gets a reentry court, the latest in a trend towards nuanced justice. (sfexaminer.com)
Four things about Mr. Snuffleupagus For one, he was Big Bird’s imaginary friend who no one believed existed–until a number of high-profile sex crimes got producers thinking they shouldn’t have a bunch of adults not believing what a child tells them. (kottke.org)
Prop 19 wouldn’t do much to Mexican drug cartels Rand Corporation study says trafficking would only be seriously hurt if California started exporting pot. (blogs.sacbee.com)
Judge orders military to stop discharging gays The ruling puts an immediate (if possibly temporary) stop to Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Eighty-five percent of women in prison are mothers A q&a with Deborah Jiang Stein, who was born in prison, served time herself, and now works with women behind bars. (ht.ly)
Gavin Newsom: “Fatal Negligence” Abel Maldonado, currently in a race with the SF Mayor for lieutenant governor, attacks Newsom for the city’s Sanctuary City policy, which he says allows murderers to go free. (youtube.com)
3 Hate Crimes in SF in 5 Months Hate crimes are apparently the hardest to convict. (Mission Loc@l)
Shelters scrambling For money after the Governor vetoes a bill that opened up a means of funding through increased fees for marriage licenses. (SF Appeal)
Santa Clara County: 22 people arrested in marijuana sting Named “Up in Smoke,” the sting targeted those delivering marijuana. Protests ensued. (Inside Bay Area)
18-year-old woman kidnapped from San Jose home Police are looking for Brian Bui Adrong, also known as Tony Pham, in connection with the kidnaping and a related stabbing. (Inside Bay Area)
Walnut Creek woman fends off rape attempt At the same apartment complex where three women were recently attacked. Police recently arrested a suspect in the previous attacks and believe this one is unrelated. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Kern County prison: No hugging, no kissing Officials think affection is masking contraband swaps. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Supreme Court preview Including a look at the upcoming legal battle over California’s prison overcrowding crisis. (Politics Daily)
Alameda County judges race Offers two very different candidates–and not just because one is transgender. (Inside Bay Area)
Obama drug-policy adviser says the administration opposes marijuana legalization and isn’t big on medical marijuana “Marijuana cannot be the one exception in history of the world that doesn’t go through a scientific process to be approved as medicine” (billingsgazette.com)
Salinas gets visit from marijuana-friendly ‘Cowboy’ Ex-police officer from Fort Worth rallies ‘yes’ votes on horseback. (thecalifornian.com)
US law enforcement looking to change the rules on online eavesdropping Privacy groups protest. (Inside Bay Area)
