Posted on 09/09/2006 11:34:28 AM PDT by calcowgirl
CROWDED PRISONS: California's survey offers 23 states in which they could finish their terms.
California Corrections officials, who expect to run out of prison beds by June, are asking inmates if they would volunteer to do their time in other states.
To ship prisoners out, California must sign up enough volunteers and negotiate deals with other states willing to take them, said Bill Sessa, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The state has 172,000 prisoners, and officials predict capacity will be reached next summer. Male inmates surveyed this week were given a choice of 23 states to call home. In less than 24 hours, the survey also stirred up a series of legal debates and rumors among inmates and their family members that prisoners might be forced to volunteer.
"Under the law, an inmate can only be moved if they volunteer," Sessa said. "What we are asking them is whether they are willing to move to another state, and we are offering them choices because it increases the likelihood they would volunteer."
Several states, including Texas and Michigan, have expressed interest in working with California to provide about 10,000 beds, Sessa said. Transferred inmates would be paroled back to California, but the state would pay the other states for housing its prisoners.
Joe Bauman, a correctional officer and union representative at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, predicted transfers even if there aren't enough volunteers. The governor could declare a state of emergency and use the surveys to justify forced transfers, he said.
This week Schwarzenegger, who last month failed to get legislative approval to forcibly move undocumented immigrant prisoners out of state, ordered his staff to prepare administrative options that can be acted on immediately in order to relieve the dangerous overcrowding in state prisons -- a move interpreted by many as a step toward declaring an emergency.
Courts have pressured the state to improve conditions at its facilities.
Union official Bauman estimated that the state would need to transfer 20,000 to 25,000 inmates to end crowding.
If the state doesn't fix the problem soon, the state could begin refusing to house prisoners sent to them by counties. That could then force counties to offer early release to misdemeanor offenders, Sessa predicted.
The proposal, combined with the sense of urgency, worries inmates and prisoner advocates.
The transfers could give some inmates a chance to be closer to family and supporters in other states, but they have no guarantee that they'll actually end up in the state of their choice, said David Warren, an inmate advocate and Jewish chaplain at several prisons.
In addition to the political pressures with an election in two months, the courts have been closing in with mandates requiring California to make its 33 prisons healthier and safer, a challenge in places where classrooms have been turned into triple bunk-bed dorms.
Excerpt:
The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is conducting an inmate survey to see how many prisoners might be interested in serving their time out of state -- and a Florida company that has contributed $90,000 over the years to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says it would be happy to accommodate them.The agency can administratively transfer inmates out of state if they volunteer and if the contracts with out-of-state operators do not exceed a year, according to department spokesman Oscar Hidalgo. Longer-term deals, he said, would require legislative approval.
California corrections officials say they have reached an overcrowding crisis, with 16,000 of the system's 172,000-plus inmates sleeping in gyms, dayrooms and classrooms.
Director James Tilton has said the state will run out of bed space by June 2007, at which point it will be forced to stop accepting inmates from counties -- 32 of which are already suffering severe overcrowding problems of their own.
Schwarzenegger, in the wake of the Assembly's refusal last week to act on a legislative overcrowding package that had cleared the state Senate, directed corrections officials to "prepare administrative options" to help relieve the prisons' population pressure.
One major private prison company, the GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla., has expressed interest in housing California inmates at its facilities in Michigan, Indiana and Louisiana.
GEO operates four private prisons in California.
One overcrowding bill would have required inmate approval for out-of-state transfers. In legislative hearings, GEO expressed support for an involuntary transfer plan.
Altogether, GEO has contributed $90,300 to Schwarzenegger ...
Besides GEO, five other private prison companies have responded to the corrections department's request for information.
County jails in 14 states and a women's prison in North Dakota also responded to the state's request. Altogether, there were 39 responses from facilities with 12,632 available beds.
They're prisoners. Send 'em out of state if you choose. Why require their permission? This could prove to be one more reason why you shouldn't do crimes.
"Under the law, an inmate can only be moved if they volunteer," Sessa said.
Time to change laws and stop catering to criminals.
If their sentences are under appeal or they're facing other charges, difficulties accessing their lawyers could possibly be raised as a due process objection.
Build a tent city like that Sheriff in AZ!
Pink clothes, bologna sandwiches and charge them for their food and board.
Send them to Turkish prisons.
Pains me to admit it, but there is a huge business opportunity, here.
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