June 2010 News
June 30, 2010
DJJ’s Right-Sizing Rollercoaster
Fasten your seatbelts, you're in for a bumpy ride!
By Don Benegas, Supervising Field Rep, CCPOA Southern Office
As any Bargaining Unit Six employee in CDCR's Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) will tell you, the experience of enduring DJJ's down-sizing -- an action that management insists on calling “right-sizing” to describe the structural, operational, and economic overhaul of the entire Department -- truly has been a test of patience for most of the past year, and especially in the face of other uncertainties. The following is provided as an update to CCPOA's negotiations with the state on the status of right-sizing in DJJ...
June 30, 2010
GPS Failing to Follow Sex Offenders
This story remains more than heartbreaking, especially when we heard from the families of both Chelsea King and Amber Dubois at the sentencing of their admitted killer John Albert Gardner. At one point Chelsea's father even said, “I am not alone in my frustration with a justice system that 10 years ago identified this coward (John Gardner) as a serious and violent threat to young girls and failed to imprison him and monitor him for the rest of his life.”
Right now in California, more than 7,000 paroled sex offenders are wearing GPS trackers to monitor their movements and in the last four months alone, 31 thousand alerts sent out by these devices were reportedly not properly followed up on. Something that upset Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher...
LINK - FoxNews.com
June 30, 2010
Parolee problems: another high-speed chase, arrest
Police arrested a Vallejo man Tuesday for an alleged parole violation and possible kidnapping after a high-speed police chase through the city.
At one point, the man drove the wrong way on Mare Island Way between Brinkman's Marina and Daniels Street, sending other drivers scuttling out of the way to avoid being hit, officials said.
Santiago Borges Avalos, 26, of Vallejo was arrested at about 3:30 p.m. near the corner of Sixth and Cherry streets in south Vallejo.
No one was hurt and Avalos was not carrying any weapons. He was arrested on suspicion of evading police officers, a felony, and a felony parole violation, Sheriff's Sgt. Daryl Snedeker said...
LINK - TimesHeraldOnline.com
June 30, 2010
How The Recession Hurts Private Prisons
Baldwin, Mich., (population 1,107), will soon have more prison beds than full-time residents. On the outskirts of town, one of the country’s largest private prison companies recently spent $60 million to expand a former juvenile prison into a 1,755-bed facility meant to house illegal immigrants before deportation. This is the same town where every summer locals gather for a carnival nicknamed Troutarama at which teenage girls vie for the crown of Ms. Lake County. Thirty-two percent of Baldwin’s families live below the poverty line, in a state with a 13.6 percent unemployment rate, compared to the national unemployment rate of 9.7 percent. Baldwin residents were counting on the private prison to create jobs, but this past March, the federal government pulled back its funding on the bid. This left the Geo Group, Inc., with an empty fortress in the middle of rural Michigan, 85 miles north of Grand Rapids.
A similar scenario is playing out across the country, in states such as California, Oklahoma, and Colorado, where entire private prisons now sit vacant...
LINK - Newsweek.com
June 29, 2010
Washington brings last inmates back to state, out of private prisons
The state Department of Corrections says the last group of inmates housed in out-of-state prisons has returned to Washington.
At its peak, Washington housed more than 1,200 prisoners in privately operated prisons in several states. On Tuesday, a chartered plane with 116 prisoners landed in Spokane.
The department says the state prison population has leveled off in Washington, allowing officials to gradually bring back inmates.
Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail says prisoners who are regularly visited are less likely to commit a new felony after release.
LINK - SeattlePI.com
June 29, 2010
CDCR Closes parole program
An East Palo Alto program that has helped hundreds of state prison parolees transition back to life in the community will shut its doors on Wednesday - but only temporarily, if administrators have their way.
Funding for the pilot program, which was created in 2007 through a bill by Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, is set to expire this week but negotiations are under way to expand the program and revive it in the fall.
One of the people who helped shape the program was David Lewis, a former state prison inmate-turned-community leader whose shooting murder outside the Hillsdale Shopping Center in San Mateo earlier this month has rocked the community...
LINK - BayCitizen.org
June 29, 2010
Rolling Back Pension Costs: How Far Will It Go?
The Highway Patrol union that negotiated the most generous pension formula a decade ago, a trendsetter for police and firefighters statewide, has tentatively agreed to reduce pensions for new hires.
The "three at 50" formula, providing 3 percent of final pay for each year served at age 50, became the best-known part of a sweeping state worker pension increase, SB 400 in 1999, often cited by critics who say public pension costs are "unsustainable."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, applauding the Highway Patrol agreement last week, said once again in a news release that rolling back the benefit increase in SB 400 is one of the demands that must be met before he signs a new state budget...
LINK - PublicCEO.com
June 29, 2010
Colorado: State prison closes, public employee jobs lost to private prison
Most of the employees at High Plains Correctional Facility will lose their jobs after the state removes the last remaining inmates from the Brush women’s prison today.
“We have already notified our staffs that most of them unfortunately have to be laid off for now,” said Charles Seigel, spokesman for Houston, Texas-based Cornell Companies, Inc., which owns the Brush prison.
The local facility normally employs 83 people, Seigel said, but management has left about half of the positions vacant in anticipation of the closure...
LINK - Journal-Advocate.com
June 28, 2010
Parolee problems: druken parolee tased, returned to jail
A traffic stop led to a foot chase and arrest of a King City man early Saturday.
Monterey County Sheriff’s deputies said they stopped Michael A. Benavides, 24, of King City on the 46000 block of Meadowbrook Drive for a vehicle code infraction.
They said Benavides, who was driving a silver Chevrolet Impala, ran through a residential area...
LINK - TheCalifornian.com
June 28, 2010
Pay reductions useless, costly
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Re "Governor's threat triggers concessions" (Editorial, June 24): Helping the governor leverage labor contracts is not the controller's job. My job is protecting the state's pocketbook. Reducing state salaries to the federal minimum wage will do nothing to solve the budget deficit. But it will cost California billions of dollars in penalties and damages for violating the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the California Constitution.
Two examples: First, retirement contributions are constitutionally protected and must be paid in full and on time as if employees were receiving their full wages. Because employer and employee contributions are calculated as a percentage of the employee's gross pay for the month, those contributions will be underpaid...
LINK - Read the FULL letter @ SacBee.com
June 28, 2010
CHP releases new details of crash that killed local officer
The California Highway Patrol has released new information about a crash that killed a local CHP officer Sunday night.
Investigators say at about 5:45p.m. Sunday, Officer Brett Oswald was responding to a report that a vehicle had collided with a tree on South River Rd. near Spanish Camp Rd. The 47-year-old had arrived at the scene and found the vehicle was actually just abandoned there...
LINK - KSBY.com
June 25, 2010
Parolee convicted of bank robbery commited 9 days after last prison release
...The stolen money was recovered in the car and returned to the bank.
Miller had been released from prison Dec. 6 -- just nine days before the bank robbery. He'd served time in prison for petty theft and possession of a concealed weapon.
He remains in custody at the Merced County Jail...
LINK - MercedSunStar.com
June 25, 2010
CDCR Captain says the furloughs “really aren’t a bad thing”
Mary Jane Esponda, a 58-year-old business service assistant for the state Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation, said the furloughs — three mandatory unpaid days off a month — cost her the house she owned for nine years.
The furloughs “changed everything,” she said.
“I didn’t make enough money,” she said. “I couldn’t keep my house.”
Last July, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, looking to cut costs, ordered furlough days for about 200,000 state employees...
LINK - BizJournals.com
June 24, 2010
May - June Privatization Update
OVERALL PRIVATIZATION ISSUES
• The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that employees of private prison companies hired to run federal prisons can be sued for allegedly violating an inmate’s constitutional rights. An inmate at a federal prison run by the GEO Group slipped on a cart left in a doorway and injured both elbows. As GEO employees were preparing to transport him to an outside hospital, the inmate said they made him wear a jumpsuit and wrist restraints, despite causing him excruciating pain. The inmate is suing GEO and its employees for allegedly violating the Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment. (Courthouse News)
• A new study by a longtime privatization proponent claims that sending 25,000 California inmates to out-of-state, for-profit prisons could save the state up to $1.8 billion over a five year period. The report by The Reason Foundation-Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation states that California spends $162 per inmate per day vs. $42 in Texas, based on data from the American Correctional Association (ACA)...
June 24, 2010
Special State Board Meeting in Sacramento
Special State Board Meeting Saturday, June 26, 2010 Holiday Inn 300 J St. Sacramento, CA
June 24, 2010
Fresno Deputies Search For Armed and Dangerous Parolee
Fresno County Sheriff's Deputies are asking for the public's help in locating an armed and dangerous parolee.
Deputies are searching for 26-year-old Sonny Wayne Sanders, in connection with an attempted armed robbery and other felonies.
Sanders is accused of brandishing a handgun as he attempted to rob a recycling business back on June 18th, near Olive and Valentine...
LINK - KMPH.com
June 24, 2010
Parolee wanted for murder in Fresno
Fresno County Sheriff's investigators have identified two men wanted for a murder in Sunnyside.
26-year-old Edgar Campos was found shot to death early Wednesday morning at a home near Villa and Clay. Neighbors say they heard as many as five gunshots. Detectives believe there was some sort of disturbance earlier that may have led to the shooting.
The suspects have been identified as Ramon Vargas and Saul Rojas. They both have several tattoos. Rojas is also a parolee.
If you have any information, you're asked to contact the sheriff's office.
LINK - ABCLocal.go.com
June 21, 2010
Program for at-risk parolees at risk
Vicente Moreno could have turned back to the streets when he finished his prison term, but a program that slain East Palo Alto community leader David Lewis helped create saved him, he said.
"When I got out of prison I had nothing. I was struggling to find a job. My shoes were ragged walking everywhere trying to find work," he said.
Moreno has a small son and was determined to stay out of prison. He also wanted to marry his son's mother, but he had no money or prospects, he said...
LINK - PaloAltoOnline.com
June 19, 2010
Soledad prison cell-phone smugglers meet K-9 match
A metal locker is covered in rust, the cord of a small television hanging on its side.
In a dimly lit bunker at the California Training Facility, about a dozen of these lockers stand next to a set of bunk beds. The room is unassuming and quiet, except for the heavy panting of a black German shepherd.
The dog sniffs the worn mattress, then moves past a box filled with paper. After its handler, Officer Oscar Covarrubias, opens one of the rusty lockers, the German shepherd pokes its head in and immediately sits...
LINK - TheCalifornian.com
June 19, 2010
Vermont inmates at Tennessee private prison (CCA) act out
Vermont prisoners being held at a private prison in Tennessee had ongoing complaints about the facility before a lockdown in May when the inmates had to be subdued with chemical grenades, officials said.
About 35 Vermont inmates were put on lockdown on May 12 after they refused to return to their cells and started destroying sinks and toilets in their housing unit at the West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason, about 35 miles northeast of Memphis. Prison officials said no one was injured.
Vermont contracts with Nashville-based prison operator Corrections Corporation of America to house inmates in Kentucky, Tennessee and Arizona to alleviate overcrowding...
LINK - RutlandHerald.com
June 15, 2010
U.S. Supreme Court to take up California prison overcrowding case
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether federal judges had the authority to order California to lower its prison population by 40,000 to ease overcrowding and improve health care, putting any reduction on hold for another year...
LINK - SFGate.com
The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will take up the issue of whether the federal judiciary can force a reduction of California's prison population in order to improve inmate health care.
Briefing and oral argument will be in the court's 2010-11 term that begins Oct. 4...
LINK - SacBee.com
June 11, 2010
State Supreme Court to review worker furloughs
The state Supreme Court said Wednesday that it would review two of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's moves to slash state spending without legislative approval - cutting nearly $500 million from the budget and furloughing 200,000 state employees three days a month.
In separate orders, the court granted a hearing to Democratic leaders and social service agencies appealing Schwarzenegger's July 2009 line-item vetoes and broadened its review of the governor's furlough authority.
Schwarzenegger ordered most state employees to take two days a month off without pay in February 2009 and added a third furlough day in July, saying the state would save $1.4 billion a year...
LINK - SFGate.com
June 11, 2010
CCPOA Letter to Senator Steinberg
The following letter from CCPOA Executive Vice President Chuck Alexander to Senator Darrell Steinberg is in response to a letter written by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to Senator Steinberg regarding negotiations with public unions [see the letter at CaliforniaNewsWire.com - opens in a new window] CCPOA's letter is below - available to read online or download in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format.
June 11, 2010
CCPOA Comment Re: CO Robert McGowan
June 10, 2010
Another Hawaii inmate dead at CCA private prison in Arizona
A second Hawaii inmate has died at a private prison in Arizona this year.
Hawaii Public Safety Department's deputy director for corrections, Tommy Johnson, says investigators will travel to Saquaro Correctional Center in investigate the death of 23-year-old Clifford Medina.
He was pronounced Tuesday, half an hour after his cellmate reported him unresponsive. Medina was serving time for burglary, theft, jumping bail and assaulting a law enforcement officer...
LINK - KOLD.com
June 10, 2010
State agency rejects Schwarzenegger’s latest death penalty plan
In an unexpected development, a state agency has rejected California's new methodology for putting condemned inmates to death by lethal injection, and has given corrections officials until Oct. 6 to resubmit their proposal.
The decision by the Office of Administrative Law came Tuesday in a 21-page "decision of disapproval of regulatory action" and is the latest setback for the Schwarzenegger administration's beleaguered effort to resume executions.
The obscure agency is part of the state's executive branch and is run by two people appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It "ensures that … regulations are clear, necessary, legally valid, and available to the public," according to its mission statement...
LINK - FresnoBee.com
June 9, 2010
With prison hospital, Stockton learns how to bargain
If there's a bully in California government, it is the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The CDCR likes to pick on Stockton by dumping prison facilities here.
Unfair? Costly to you? San Joaquin County groans with three prisons already? Too bad. We're opening three more: a re-entry facility and two prison hospitals.
That's how the CDCR operates. CDCR is the unjust agent of a dysfunctional state that runs roughshod over poorer and politically weak communities.
This time, there was a second player: a court-appointed federal prison hospital receiver. For J. Clark Kelso, too, Stockton's needs were an afterthought...
LINK - Recordnet.com
June 8, 2010
Inmate Can Sue Agents of Private Prison Operator
Employees of a private company hired to run a federal prison can be sued for allegedly violating an inmate's constitutional rights, the 9th Circuit ruled on an issue that has yet to be "squarely addressed" by the Supreme Court.
Richard Lee Pollard, an inmate at a federal prison run by the private company GEO Group, slipped on a cart left in a doorway and injured both elbows.
As GEO employees were preparing to transport him to an outside orthopedic clinic, he said they made him wear a jumpsuit and a "black box" wrist restraint, despite his claim that both would cause him excruciating pain...
LINK - CourthouseNews.com
June 4, 2010
June state payroll won’t be withheld, administration says
State workers don't have to worry that their paychecks for June will be reduced to federal minimum wage, a Department of Finance spokesman said this week, ending speculation that an arcane state budget fix last year gave Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger the authority to order wages withheld for this month.
July payroll, however, could be reduced if budget talks drag on much past the June 30 end of the fiscal year, said Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer.
State workers have been wondering if their June pay would be withheld to the least allowed by federal law, $7.25 per hour for most employees. Legislation passed last year to plug a $20 billion hole in the 2009-10 general fund budget included pushing this month's payroll expenses to the July 1 start of the 2010-11 fiscal year...
LINK - SacBee.com "The State Worker" Blog
June 3, 2010
El Monte police jail parolee after chase, crashes; suspect had been released under new guidelines
He was treated for minor injuries and booked into jail at the El Monte Police Department.
Estrada was released from prison under the state's new "non-revocable parole" status, officials said, meaning he did not have the traditional oversight given to parolees in the past. The program began in January as a way to reduce the state's over-crowded prison population.
Parolees released under this status cannot be returned to prison for simple parole violations, but must commit a new crime to be re-arrested, according to parole officials. The program is limited to convicts considered non-violent and "low-risk..."
LINK - SGVTribune.com
June 3, 2010
APNewsBreak: ACLU, Idaho settle prison lawsuit
The American Civil Liberties Union has reached a settlement with the Idaho Department of Correction in a lawsuit over violence at a privately run prison near Boise.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of America and the state earlier this year, saying the Idaho Correctional Center is so violent that inmates refer to it as "gladiator school" and that guards deliberately expose prisoners to brutal beatings from other inmates.
The ACLU's lawsuit against CCA still stands...
LINK - WashingtonPost.com
June 2, 2010
CCA docked $2,600 a day for using unqualified counselors
Corrections Corporation of America has been fined more than $47,200 and counting for not having qualified drug and alcohol counselors at a prison that it manages in Idaho.
The $2,600-a-day tab will continue to run until the Nashville-based prison operator addresses the problem by getting staff members accredited or by hiring more qualified people, said Jeffrey Ray, a spokesman for the Idaho Department of Correction.
The department for whom CCA operates the 2,080-bed Idaho Correctional Center south of Boise imposed the damages after CCA had failed by May 13 to meet certain requirements for counselors under its contract...
LINK - Tennessean.com
June 2, 2010
Furlough Case Update/Briefs
The following briefs from the CCPOA furlough case are available for our members below. We apologize for the oversight in not posting these items sooner, however these are the final briefs on the furlough case. The case is now fully submitted and we are waiting to hear back from the court on this matter.
June 2, 2010
Inspector General Slams CDCR Parolee GPS monitoring procedures
The state Inspector General is again criticizing corrections officials for lapses in how they monitor parolees through GPS, saying in a report issued today that parole agents did not properly supervise John Gardner before he killed two teenage girls in Southern California.
Proper supervision may have prevented the crimes for which Gardner is now serving a life sentence, the Inspector General's report found...
Read the full Inspector General's report at www.oig.ca.gov.
Original story (above) reported at: SacBee.com
June 1, 2010
ICE investigating sexual assaults at CCA-operated private prison
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is investigating allegations that a guard at a central Texas detention facility sexually assaulted female detainees on their way to being deported.
Agency spokesman Brian Hale said Friday the guard has been fired and Corrections Corporation of America, which manages the prison, is on probation pending the investigation's outcome.
Several women who were held at T. Don Hutto detention facility in Taylor, Texas, were groped while being patted down and at least one was propositioned for sex, ICE said...
LINK - KansasCity.com
