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California Parole Violators Will Return to Jail

By Jeralyn, Section Inmates and Prisons
Posted on Mon Apr 11, 2005 at 09:18:26 AM EST
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Despite attempts by Gov. Arnold to push rehabilitation over punishment, particularly for drug offenders, correction officials have decreed that beginning today, parole violators will return to jail instead of being afforded alternatives such as drug treatment programs.

Beginning Monday, parole violators will no longer be diverted into drug treatment programs, halfway houses and home detention instead of being returned to prison...

Officials say there was no evidence the alternative programs worked. It sounds like what really happened is that crime victims advocates and the all-powerful Prison Guards Union teamed up to cause a ruckus.

The shift in parole strategy probably will please the state prison guards union. At a Senate hearing on the issue last month, Mike Jimenez, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., called the diversion approach a flop and a danger to public safety.

Leaders of a crime victims group heavily supported by the union agreed. Two weeks ago, Crime Victims United of California began airing television ads accusing Schwarzenegger of abandoning those who have suffered from crimes and suggesting his parole policies put communities at risk.

Informed of the change Friday, the group's president, Harriet Salarno, was ecstatic: "You're kidding! You mean my commercial did it?" she said. "I am so thrilled. This is step one, but we have a lot more to do."

What will the effect be?

Eliminating alternative sanctions as an option for parole violators will undoubtedly drive up the inmate population and exacerbate overcrowding in the California prison system, already jampacked to nearly twice its design capacity. Experts say such conditions — with inmates stacked in triple-decker bunks and wedged into gyms, hallways and other spaces not intended as housing — are a recipe for riots.

Already, California prisons — the nation's largest system, with about 162,500 men and women — report nearly twice as many assaults behind bars as Texas, which incarcerates nearly as many people.

Gov. Arnold's laudable efforts are detailed here and here.

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    California Parole Violators Will Return to Jail | 4 comments (4 topical)
    Re: California Parole Violators Will Return to Jai (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 11, 2005 at 09:55:46 AM EST
    I find it sad that so many politicos want to second guess those in the know. With so many financial problems they alway have money to spend on the jails! A guy smoke a joint the state has to feed and house him for X amount of years. Real bright, dumb politicians.

    Re: California Parole Violators Will Return to Jai (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 11, 2005 at 10:40:55 AM EST
    methinks Gov. Arnold’s novelty has worn!

    Re: California Parole Violators Will Return to Jai (none / 0) (#3)
    by anon55 on Mon Apr 11, 2005 at 11:39:33 AM EST
    In California, no court judges parole violations. A parole officer (who is a member of the prison guards union) decides that a parolee has done something wrong, and he's put back in jail. In a few days, he goes back to the state prison, where he sits around for up to 60 days while more members of the guards union decide if he's violated his parole or not. If they say he has, and they almost always do, then he gets more prison time, up to one year per violation, for a maximum of four years over four violations. By law, any appeal goes to the Board of Prison Terms, the same people who don't parole any lifers. They'll take at least two months to turn it down, and only then can an inmate go to court over it. By the time any court would actually rule on it, the short term is over and the court dismisses the petition as moot. The entire system is designed to put all the power for parole violations in the hands of the prison guards union, and to keep the courts out of it. The last I heard, half of the people in California prisons were there on parole violations, with no court or judge having ruled they'd done anything to send them back to prison. The guards union used this capability in the past two decades to fill the prisons way past capacity and push compliant legislatures to build dozens of new prisons, which they then filled to capacity with more parole violators that they miraculously found. Ever wonder why California has far more parole violations than other states? Eliminate the parole violations and California already has enough capacity for all of its inmates. Drop it to the same level as other states and it has the same level of overcrowding as other states, not 100% overcrowding - and you need fewer prison guards. Now that Ahnuld has started to stand up to these people and refuse to keep building more prisons as a guard-employment program, they've pulled out the "soft on crime" rhetoric against him, and have unilaterally decided they'll just put more people back in prison to keep the inmate counts high. Some of the people who run the guards union are on the wrong side of the prison bars.

    Re: California Parole Violators Will Return to Jai (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Apr 16, 2005 at 09:41:07 AM EST
    I have the same views as anonymous, who posted above. Especially, the last part.

    California Parole Violators Will Return to Jail | 4 comments (4 topical)