Schwarzenegger To Outsource California's Inmates

[theHandpuppet]

This is so wrong on so many levels, not to mention I wonder what the families of those being transferred 2,000 miles from home think about this?

Oct 21, 4:58 AM EDT
Calif. to Transfer Inmates Out of State
By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- California will begin shipping thousands of inmates to prisons in four other states next month at a cost of more than $51 million a year, corrections officials said Friday.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared an emergency this month to speed up the no-bid contracts with two private companies. He said the transfers are needed to ease crowding in the nation's largest prison system, where more than 172,000 inmates are crowded into space designed for about 100,000, forcing some inmates to sleep in gymnasiums and auditoriums.

The GEO Group Inc. of Florida will be paid an estimated $28.7 million a year to house as many as 1,260 inmates at its New Castle Correctional Facility in Indiana.

Tennessee-based Correctional Corporation of America will be paid a projected $22.9 million annually to house as many as 1,000 inmates at four prisons in Arizona, Oklahoma and Tennessee....

MORE

[liberalnurse]

1. There are serious health risks

involved with the acute overcrowding issue....Tuberculosis is one primary concern......Staph infections run rampant as wll....

Another thing, Federal inmates get moved all around the country all the time.....

[theHandpuppet]

3. Then California needs to address its own problems

Because something is very wrong when you have to send thousands of your inmates to Indiana and Tennessee. These are not federal inmates but "medium security" inmates and these tranfers must be horrible for families.

[liberalnurse]

4. Do they have plans in the works

for new prisons? A bit late I'd say.....If not, they will have to provide adequate housing or just release them......I sense they did not prepare for the overcrowding when they passed the three-strike rule. Additionally, the illegal immigrants are probably a major contributor to the overpopulation issue. Family bonding is not necessarily a priority over health concerns. This issue falls under Federal Standards.

[theHandpuppet]

5. You make some excellent points

The fact that we've become "Incarceration Nation" points to some deep problems in our society. Much easier to just lock people up and throw away the key rather than face the root causes!

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062805I.shtml
The USA: World's Biggest Prison
The Associated Press
Tuesday 28 June 2005

According to a report published on Monday from King's College, London, the United States continues to have the highest incarceration rate in the world.

With 714 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, the United States remains the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world, ahead of Russia and Belarus, according to figures published by the London University King's College International Centre for Prison Studies.

The United States has held first place in this ranking since 2000.

"In 200 years, the United States has succeeded in creating two million prisoners," frets researcher Anton Shelupanov. "It's a very worrying rate of growth."

Of nine million people imprisoned in the whole world, more than two million (22% of the total) are behind American bars.... MORE


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Prison_System/Prison_System.html
"The state of California has opened only one college since 1984 -- and twenty-one prisons."


http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.html
"Incareration Nation"

Other links:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/409/toohigh.shtml
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0601-01.htm
http://mediastudy.com/articles/incarceration.html
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/world.htm

[theHandpuppet]

6. Here's another great article, this one from the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4858580.stm

The world's biggest prison system
By Matthew Davis
BBC News, Washington

About the same time that President Bush was condemning the abuse of prisoners in Iraq as un-American, a year-long inquiry began into the mistreatment of prisoners at home.


The most secure prisons in the US are the notorious Supermaxes

The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons (CSAAP) issues its final report in about eight weeks time, but the testimony of violence, abuse and over-crowding it has already heard has shocked few familiar with the largest documented prison system in the world.

More than 2.1 million people are in jail in the US at any one time; that is about one in 140 Americans, or as many people as live in Namibia, or nearly five Luxembourgs - and it is a number that continues to rise.


One of the biggest drivers of the expanding population are the tough policies brought in over the last 20 years to tackle high crime rates - like the "three strikes" laws that hand out long, mandatory sentences to repeat offenders.... MORE

[enfield collector]

7. all part of the cost of the "war on (some) drugs"

[liberalnurse]

9. They; the county sheriffs offices,

rake in a fortune with property forfeitures, fines and such from drug busts...Why can they not provide effective drug treatment? I recall the successful programs from the 80's where people actually were treated and found real sobriety.

[pretzel4gore]

2. shwarzenegger belongs in prison....

the big stupid nazipooh porn star asshole! (i don't like arnie, fyi)

[fed-up]

8. watch his campaign donations carefully in the future-

supposedly he returned $32K from a prison in Florida, or was it $90K??? (see second story)

or have they figured out another way to funnel him the money, has he bought prison stock???

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_prisoners06.3972786.html

BACKLASH: Democrats, corrections officers and activists decry the plan to ship inmates out of state.
10:00 PM PDT on Thursday, October 5, 2006
By PAIGE AUSTIN
The Press-Enterprise
The governor's emergency order to transfer California inmates to other states to ease crowding sent private-prison stocks soaring Thursday while provoking the ire of Democratic legislators, corrections officers and inmate advocacy groups.

The state is poised this month to sign deals with private prison operators to house California inmates in states such as Indiana. The plan would send 2,200 inmates to other states almost immediately.

Campaign Money
It has already stirred the frustration of state legislators, who shot down a similar proposal during a special session on prison crowding in August. Amid accusations of cronyism and conflicts of interest, Gov. Schwarzenegger's campaign announced Thursday that he has returned $32,000 in campaign donations to a private prison slated to benefit from his proposal.
"The Governor has a strict policy against accepting contributions from persons or entities doing business with the state or seeking to do business with the state and in which he or his office might be negotiating the terms of such state contracts," wrote his attorney in a letter to The Geo Group. The Geo Group is a Florida-based private prison firm, and one of three firms currently negotiating with the state for three- to five-year, no-bid contracts to house inmates out of state.

...snip


http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/34312.html

Inmates to be sent out of state
Schwarzenegger declares an emergency to ease extreme overcrowding.
By Andy Furillo - Bee Capitol Bureau
Last Updated 12:16 am PDT Thursday, October 5, 2006
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1

...snip

"The governor showed real leadership," Spitzer said. "We're in a desperate situation here. He called a special session of the Legislature, but the Democratic leaders did nothing to address the issue."

Tilton said he expected the transfers to result in a net cost saving to the state, with the private firms charging about $60 a day on average to house inmates compared to $90 in California.

He identified the Corrections Corporation of America, Cornell Corrections and the Geo Group as the private prison companies that will receive the no-bid contracts to handle the initial movement of prisoners to the other states.

Geo had contributed more than $90,000 to Schwarzenegger over the years. Julie Soderlund, a spokeswoman for the governor's re-election campaign, said Wed-nesday that he recently returned the contributions to the company.