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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

The State of Corrections

Commentary by Dortell Williams, recorded 5/10/07

Scroll down for a written transcript

1) 3:02 MP3 Radio Essay

Update:

Senate Bill 299 sailed unscathed through the Senate Public Safety Committee, the Senate Public Safety Commission, Senate Appropriations and the full Senate. The bill is scheduled to go before the Assembly Public Safety Committee, August 31st, where it is expected to hit turbulence. Old fashioned, traditional letters are requested of the public for legislative supporters of the bill to offset expected opposition.

The State of Corrections

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The state of California is often touted as a growth state. Shamefully, one of its biggest and fastest growing institutions is its massive penal system of 170,000–plus prisoners, the largest in the nation. And as huge as the penal system is, it’s still to small for its burgeoning occupancy, which is almost double over what it was physically and constitutionally designed to hold.

Over forty–three prisons house this independent–country–sized population of people. That’s a lot of growth from the first prison in the 1850’s, which was actually a rotting three–mast ship. (Imagine how different things might be if we focused of growing the educational system with similar zeal.)

Following a derailed attempt at badly needed prison reform by the legislature this Spring, this massive monster of a penal system is now slated to grow even more. In a hurried effort to hold three federal judges at bay–who see the need to intervene or outright takeover the failed system–Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently announced that he had forged a deal with lawmakers to add nearly six thousand new beds to existing sites. Unsightly, matte–gray sites that dot California’s otherwise lively green landscape like a bad case of acne.

Of course, the price tag for these ungainly places must grow as well. Californians already strain to pay the current $9 billion a year budget, which translates to an estimated $40,000 a year, per prisoner. Add to that $7 billion for the expansion–which one insider estimates will balloon to $15 billion with interest.

The justification for the expansion is to ease overcrowding. It’s the exact same so–called remedy each governor has implemented; governor after governor, term after term, for the last thirty years. Each one passing along a more dire crisis.

Today, the state of corrections can best be described in two syllables: a mess!

Yet, this band–aid of a fix does nothing to address the causes of the mess.

There’s no plan for parole reform, though California has the highest recidivism on the nation.
The CDCR’s Board of Parole Hearings is in complete shambles; releasing only two percent of lifers who come before it–though the system was actually designed to release reformed men and women, unlike other state manage to do. As a result, the hopelessness increases violence and suicides–and again, California has some of the highest rates in both categories.
And thousands of non–violent three–strikers will hopelessly linger within, though just about everybody, including a number of judges, agree the law is bad policy and needs desperate reform–in fact, the only opponents seem to be those who profit politically or financially from the yearly growth.
Robert Sillen, the federal court appointed receiver of the failed medical division of the CDCR, has charged repeatedly that the department wastes billions of dollars because of chronic mismanagement.
Incessant overtime due to staff shortages has caused persistent cost overruns over the years. Last year, alone, overtime totaled $277 million. This year is expected to be no different.

Astonishingly, there was no remedy offered for these obvious problems, which actually go on and on, but were limited for this column.

In sum, the state corrections is so tattered that even those who host the most unfettered hatred towards prisoners should be white–hot at the failures; because each parolee who fails after release, and makes a new victim, is but a reflection of the bigger failure.

Sources:

William Wan., ‘Parole Museum Pays Tribute to Unsung System”, Los Angeles Times, May 17th, 2004: B3 (First prison, according to parole agent Paul Toma).

Pacifica Network’s KPFK Evening News (90.7), February 8, 2007 (billions wasted.)

Pacifica Network’s KPFK Evening News (90.7), February 9, 2007 (billions wasted.)

Pacifica Network’s KPFK Evening News (90.7), February 9, 2007 (Prison expansion deal).

KNBC4 News, April 27th, 2007 (Prison expansion deal.)

“California Parole Board Squelches Life Prisoner Writs on Procedural Grounds”, Prison Legal News, October 2006: p. 38, (98% of paroles denied).

“California Prison Guards’ Overtime Doubles to $227 Million,” August 2006.

Don Thompson, (AP), “California Inmate Suicides Climb, Security Changes Blamed.” August 6, 2006. (Herald. com)

Inmate Price Tag $43, 287–Legislative Analyst’s Office, Sacramento Bee, February 2007.

odcr.ca.gov–violence statistics and other information.