Reply #2: The uber corrupt CA prison guard union is one to bust up. [View All]

[alittlelark]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576285471510530398.html

California Prison Academy: Better Than a Harvard Degree

The job might not sound glamorous, but a brochure from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations boasts that it "has been called 'the greatest entry-level job in California'?and for good reason. Our officers earn a great salary, and a retirement package you just can't find in private industry. We even pay you to attend our academy." That's right?instead of paying more than $200,000 to attend Harvard, you could earn $3,050 a month at cadet academy.

It gets better.

Training only takes four months, and upon graduating you can look forward to a job with great health, dental and vision benefits and a starting base salary between $45,288 and $65,364. By comparison, Harvard grads can expect to earn $49,897 fresh out of college and $124,759 after 20 years.

As a California prison guard, you can make six figures in overtime and bonuses alone. While Harvard-educated lawyers and consultants often have to work long hours with little recompense besides Chinese take-out, prison guards receive time-and-a-half whenever they work more than 40 hours a week. One sergeant with a base salary of $81,683 collected $114,334 in overtime and $8,648 in bonuses last year, and he's not even the highest paid.

Sure, Harvard grads working in the private sector get bonuses, too, but only if they're good at what they do. Prison guards receive a $1,560 "fitness" bonus just for getting an annual check-up.


And don't forget about their political contributions....

http://capitalresearch.org/2011/09/the-price-of-prison-guard-unions/

The Price of Prison Guard Unions

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) staunchly defends California’s tough-on-crime policies, including strict sentencing laws and pro-incarceration policies. But CCPOA also defends its special interest: it protects the collective bargaining power, pay and benefits of prison guards. A small union with 30,000 members, it is also one of the state’s most powerful lobby organizations. CCPOA argues for a simple equation: stricter sentencing means more prisoners—and more prison guards. In California the results have been disastrous.

In 2010, The Economist magazine dubbed Don Novey the “most important man in California politics that no one had ever heard of.” A former prison guard, Novey was elected president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) in 1980 and held office until 2002. During that time California’s prison population exploded and so did the state’s hiring of prison guards.

Novey made his union a political powerhouse. Today, California’s prison guards union dispenses large amounts of money to political candidates, and it makes contributions to ballot initiatives and endorses or opposes policy proposals that will determine the number, salaries, and benefits of prison guards. Most importantly, the union uses its powerful bully pulpit to instruct California voters about crime and punishment, the two issues that determine how many prisons the state builds and how many prison guards the state hires and pays.

In 1980 California’s inmate population was 24,471. Within three years it grew to 34,640. By 1991, the inmate population stood at 97,309. In 1999 it was 165,166. Between 1990 and 2005 the prison population grew by 73 percent, three times faster than the state’s population, reaching a high of 172,000 in 2006.



Jerry Brown Gets It!