Dortell Williams' Radio Broadcasts
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Dortell Williams is an inmate at the Los Angeles County California State Prison in Lancaster, California. Dortell has been published in a number of community newspapers, including the San Francisco Bay View, The Final Call and The Los Angeles Sentinel. He mentors at-risk kids through San Francisco's The Beat Within and is an inside correspondent for Families to Amend Three Strikes. You can email Dortell at: dortellwilliams@yahoo.com. For more information about the Honor Yard Program, visit: www.prisonhonorprogram.org
California's No Parole Policy
Commentary by Dortell Williams, recorded 1/03/08
1) 3:37 MP3 Radio Essay Radio Stations: Not Broadcast Quality
(Please be advised...given the conditions at the prison this recording may not be broadcast quality. You may want to broadcast it with an explanation, or broadcast a limited portions of it. We are in the process of re-recording this segment and will post it as soon as we can.)
California’s No-Parole Policy
Copyright 2008/ Dortell Williams
When prison officials break laws, any they any better than those they’re sworn to oversee? That’s what thousands of lifers adversed by a contempt parole board are asking.
Vantrae Gregory recently brought that very question to me. An ambulatory cane treacherously defies his 40-plus years of youth. His coco-brown face almost ghostly by the dismay of a board denial.
“They said I have perfect parole plans, but rejected me for five years. They asked me to admit unsuitability for a year and come back in 12 months,” he told me. Like untold others, he was severely punished for refusing.
Twenty-three years down. Gregory’s minimum parole date is four years past due.
The crime for which he admitted, and still expresses remorse, is a fatal shooting in a drug deal gone bad, way bad.
Still, some state officials have written on his behalf. Like scores of others, Gregory has exceeded the board’s requirements. He has amassed an impressive array of trades: dry cleaning, office services and a few other menial occupations they offer.
His perfect parole plans include a job with Partnership for Re-entry Program (sponsored by the Office of Restorative Justice, in Los Angeles), as well as a trucking job. Gregory also has offers for housing from myriad supporters.
Thousand of lifers are well beyond their eligibility dates, despite their meeting the prescribed mandates. Their complaints are not in a vacuum.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office recently reported that California is headed for a $10 billion shortfall. Funny, that’s about what the prison system’s annual budget is, though it literally increases by the year. Paralegals for the California Lifer Newsletter report that the cost of these lifers is half a billion annually. A complete waste.
In March of 2005 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals opined that the Board of Parole Hearings was processing lifer hearings unconstitutionally slow, denying prisoners their due process rights. The Board is desperate to ctach up.
In September, Santa Clara County Judge Linda Calderon described the parole system in one word as, “malfunctioning.” In an unprecedented 34-page opinion, the former prosecutor stated that thousands of cases each year are so flawed, prisoners’ rights are being violated wholesale. Other courts have made similar findings.
Out of 3,000 cases a year, only 5 percent are granted parole. The governor overrides 90 percent of those. This ia the pattern by a succession of politicians since 1992.
Remember, this is a system designed to reform, rehabilitate and release. We’re talking about a system in meltdown, with hordes of prisoners smoldering within the silt.
In comparison, other states with functioning systems eclipse California’s like the sun over a shadowed moon. Less than 1 percent of lifers ever return. A fact that raises serious questions about public safety here at home.
I anticipated when I wrote this that many listeners would be hard pressed to empathize with those who have killed – no matter what the circumstances: drug dealers who’ve shot rivals, battered women who defend themselves or vehicular negligence. But this is about laws and the value of life, and when either of these are disregarded, then at base, what you have are criminals watching criminals.
Sources:
Vantrae Gregory, CDCR# C-85909
www.cdcr.ca.gov
Howard Mintz, “Ruling Could Give Thousends of Murderers Chance at Freedom,” Mercury News, September 13, 2007
Willie Thomas, “Blanket No-Parole Policy is Unlawful,” San Francisco Bay View, September 19, 2007: p.3
California Lifer Newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 5, March 2005 (P.O. Box 687, Walnut, CA 91788)
Dortell Williams is an inmate at the Los Angeles County California State Prison in Lancaster, California. Dortell has been published in a number of community newspapers, including the San Francisco Bay View, The Final Call and The Los Angeles Sentinel. He mentors at-risk kids through San Francisco's The Beat Within and is an inside correspondent for Families to Amend Three Strikes. You can email Dortell at: dortellwilliams@yahoo.com. For more information about the Honor Yard Program, visit: www.prisonhonorprogram.org
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