yeah, this is sort of old news (two days is a lifetime in social-media-warp-time) but i can’t get this story out of my head.
the one about the 11-hour prison riot in los angeles, which wasn’t cons-vs.-cops as you might expect, but prisoner vs. prisoner utter flaming mayhem. they practically burned the whole place down, and some wings are now completely unusable. dumb fucks, you already had about 1/2 of the space needed to live, even by the low standards of the correctional administration. now what?
and yet:
california, i just BET you’ve got 40k nonviolent potsmokers in your prison system right now. just open the doors and send these people home. their futures are already fucked up with a prison record that will follow them around until the day they die and keep many, many doors — employment-wise, housing-wise, government-benefit wise — forever closed to them. that’s more than enough punishment for personal, recreational, nonviolent drug use.
your system is stuffed to the rafters with harmless (and likely scared shitless) pothead inmates joined at their prison-suited hips to gang members, gunslingers, murderers, armed robbers and what have you. you already know that your state is out of money and can’t support this population with ANY kind of humanity going forward.
do the progressive thing. do the smart thing. take this opportunity to make a stand, clear out your prisons, render the system reasonably manageable and ensure that those system houses only those whose actions really call for harsh incarceration.
then wait a year and reassess.
or, of course, you could do absolutely nothing but sit on your hands and wait for the next — and the next, and the next — riot to break out. and maybe next time you all won’t be so lucky. and when the next riot is over you might well yourself hauling bodybags out by the truckload. guards and prisoners and administrators alike.
that can’t be what you really want — SO TAKE A STAND AND MAKE A CHANGE. somebody over there, somebody with some clout in that system, would you please for god’s sake put your balls on the line and try to do the right thing here.
be a shining example for the rest of this prison-happy country. change has to start somewhere. it can start with california.
DO IT.
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Here’s some stats for you:
http://www.sentencingproject.org/map/statedata.cfm?abbrev=CA&mapdata=true
On the following pdf from 2007 you’ll find these pages intriguing: PDF by the California Department of Corrections
Page 25 (bed capacity)
Page 29 (Felons incarcerated by crime type)
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Reports_Research/Offender_Information_Services_Branch/Annual/CalPris/CALPRISd2007.pdf
.-= Dez´s last blog ..GDW: Part IV: Reasons =-.
Such a thoughtless rant.
Having worked in these prisons (starting at this one where they rioted) I know the issue is far more complex than your sophomoric rant would suggest. When you open the gates and let 40,000 prisoners go one day, what happens to them the next day? These aren’t people with supportive families and jobs waiting for them. For the most part, they’re socially inept people with poor educational foundations and almost no work skills — even if jobs were available. What they do is to go back to what they know to survive — selling drugs, using drugs, petty thefts, burglaries, grifting, etc. And they do that until they are caught — and then they are returned to prison with longer sentences based on their prior records. Doesn’t sound like such a good long-term solution now, does it?
And when they hit the streets, who supervises them if they stay on parole? The parole division is overwhelmed as it is, and they can’t adequately supervise all current parolees. So, we add more to their workload? Or do we hire more parole agents? If so, where do they come from? Do you know how long it takes to train an agent to a point where he is actually effective?
The solution is systemic. The whole concept of a penal code needs to be reevaluated. Sentencing laws must be changed. The concept of rehabilitation must be recreated, and it must be done locally, not in a statewide prison system. Parole must be overhauled completely. And most importantly, families and schools must be confronted on their responsibilities in raising adults rather than children.
It’s fun to rant, but reality always intrudes. Sorry to throw cold water on your gleeful I-told-you-so party.
thoughtless? i am calling for california to lead the charge by taking a bold step toward changing what we both agree is a systemic problem.
though i cannot agree that none of the inmates are capable of handling life in the outside world, as you seem to suggest. i called for the release of “40k nonviolent potsmokers”. parents and shopkeepers and college students alike end up in jail over marijuana, not just uneducated street thugs.
the idiotic war on drugs — i thought it went without saying but perhaps i should erferenced it in this piece — is the root cause of this prison system overload, and not just in california. LA just happened to be the city where the first example of what this kind of overcrowding eventually, almost inevitably, leads to.
i’d be interested in understanding what inspired you to construe this particular post as “gleeful”.
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