Prisons in Crisis

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2012

Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 10:00 AM EDT

Prisons in Crisis

Dozens of burned-out bunks are seen in a dormitory heavily damaged by fire, during a tour of the California Institution for Men in Chino, Calif., Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009. Blood-soaked mattresses, singed bedding and abandoned backboards and medical supplies littered the campus of the Chino prison Tuesday, a testament to the violence of a weekend riot that shut down part of the institution and injured nearly 200 inmates. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

Dozens of burned-out bunks are seen in a dormitory heavily damaged by fire at the California Institution for Men in Chino, Calif., on Aug. 11, 2009. Blood-soaked mattresses, singed bedding and abandoned backboards and medical supplies littered the campus of the Chino prison, a testament to the violence of a weekend riot that shut down part of the institution and injured nearly 200 inmates. (AP)

The scene at the prison in Chino, California last weekend was bloody mayhem and riot.

For four hours, in a prison stuffed to double its capacity, inmates rampaged out of control, fighting with shards of glass and broken water pipes, burning down a dorm, leaving 175 prisoners injured and 55 in hospital.

The United States has by far the highest incarceration rate in the world. Now, in deep recession, California and many other states are not sure they can afford it. Some are letting prisoners go.

This hour, On Point: The Chino prison riot, and its message on American incarceration.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

Guests:

From Los Angeles we’re joined by Carol Williams, legal affairs reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She’s been covering the aftermath of the Chino riot: see “At Chino, mute evidence speaks of violent riot” and “Report predicted violence at Chino prison dorm hit by race riots.”

Joining us from Berkeley, Calif., is Kara Dansky, executive director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.

Joining us from Washington, DC, is Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project. He’s author of “Race to Incarcerate” and editor of “Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment.”

And from Houston, Texas, we’re joined by Byron Price, professor of political science at Texas Southern University and Interim Director of the Barbara Jordan Institute for Policy Research. He’s author of “Merchandizing Prisoners: Who Really Pays for Prison Privatization?”

More links:

You can see the aftermath of the Chino riots, in panorama shots at the LA Times website: outside and inside.

The U.S. tops the world in both prison population and incarceration rate. This interactive graphic at NYTimes.com shows the data.

Bill

I lived in the Bay area for years and the amount of crime there eventually forced me to Texas. We have to have more people locked up and that’s just a fact of life in Califorina and the rest of the USA.
Mike

I lived in riverside California and the califorina prison systems and court of law there is terrible. they have a law call the three strikes where if you get three felonies you go to jail for life, and often times the second or third is for violation of parole, and small infringement. often drugs (weed) or not being able to pay for there paroll officers that can run 125 a month.

The Prison are run my private individual but funded by the government which is sad.

I recommend watching a show on MSNBC called Lock-UP it shows interviews and questions to the officers, and prisoners. Along with how different prisons are run.

Some of these prisons show that if systems,programs are in place to encourage and help inmates find a job, feel they can make a difference(like the puppy system who are train by prisoners for injured vets) The return rate goes down.
millard-fillmore

This was tried in a max-security prison in Alabama with positive results: http://www.dhammabrothers.com/film.html

Could the producers ask the guests on the show whether they’re aware of this film, or aware of similar approaches tried to solve the prison problem in California?
Thanks.
Putney Swope

It’s obvious that the so called “war on drugs” and the three strikes law is failing.

To lock up people for marijuana is just not working.
To lock them up for life while a murder can get parole is nuts.

It is clear the war on drugs has failed.

Then there are disproportionate amount of African Americans and Latinos in our prison system for drug offenses and they are a minority. It’s not that there are less white people being caught or using, in fact more whites use drugs than African Americans per capita.

The other issue is how many inmates are in prison due to mental illness?
Putney Swope

The program that was aired yesterday on addiction is missing. It’s a shame as it does play into this story on some levels. So is the Post Office show.

BUR is having some serious server issues.
I hope you guys can recover the comments on the addiction show, there was some good stuff there.

I forgot, rich people tend not to end up in prison.
If you look at the social economic backgrounds of the inmates an overwhelming majority are poor or working class.

It would have been good too have had Professor Glenn Loury on as he has some very interesting things to say on this subject.
frank stadler

A significant reduction on overcrowding of prisons nationwide could be accomplished quickly by legalizing marijuana and releasing those that are incarcerated for offenses related to the possession, use, and distribution of pot. If it were also regulated and taxed, there would be a tremendous economic benefit as well. It has been estimated that about 700,000 people are arrested annually at a cost of about $5 billion for enforcement alone, with secondary and tertiary effects at least doubling that figure. People who are in jail do not pay taxes, and their families are often forced to depend on welfare and public assistance. Repeal of prohibition in 1933 was motivated primarily by the depression, and it worked. Which is worse, the effects of pot or jail? Ask anyone who knows, and they will not choose jail.
Rex Henry

Prisons should be self sustainable (financially and environmentally). Prisoners could work and produce goods that would free the prison of our tax dollars and utilities. This social atmosphere would also be a step toward reabilitating inmates and giving them skills for the outside world.
Bottom line: Keep them busy doing something useful other than just wasting our money keeping them locked in a box.
Joe Harrison

Why is it that we do not have more community service ordered for non-violent drug users. It seems you have to be a celeb of some form or another to get community service for a crime. I mean if you are rich and can afford huge fines, you get light jail time and some community service. Meanwhile, the poor are given excessive jail time? What is wrong with that picture?
Andrew

It’s people with the attitude like the first poster here – thinking locking more people up is the answer to crime prevention and reduction, that have brought the U.S. to this embarrassing and deplorable state of American society. Our prisons are not for rehabilitating criminals – our prisons are nothing more than the country’s overflowing closets, filled with people, like things, we just want to forget about.
Caitrin

These have had awful implications, as a huge percentage of men in lower-income communities are in jail. These are the role-models for young boys, and the burden of raising entire communities is being placed on Women (mothers, aunts, and grandmothers).

It is ruining the fabric of our society, and these are the fastest growing populations.

We need a better plan.
We need to stop sending so many people to prison, and try working on developing children’s and adults emotional health, give them tools to deal with anger, stress, anxiety, and the tools to beleive that they can improve their lives, so that they can actually go ahead and do so.
Abby

Would legalizing marajuana help reduce the overpopulation problem in prisons?
http://www.madcowprod.com/ Greg L

It’s just dumbfounding that here, in the land of the free, we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. What’s the problem? “Duh,” everyone says. It’s the war on drugs and its attendant sentencing policy. As long as this has been obvious, the best change we can get from the people we elect is the chance they might turn their head the other way on marijuana, as Obama has done. If the broken mechanism of our system is so widely known, why do we not hold our leaders to account?

May I suggest that the Iran-Contra affair and Ricky Ross’ story were just a couple of rare moments we were accidentally allowed to see into the murky world of government sanctioned narco-trafficking. It is a fact that the CIA has trafficked drugs INTO this country for decades. I know it sounds kookoo, so please just dip your feet in the water with the following video of Maxine Waters hammering her point home before the House Intelligence Committee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ERlo1YnLU

Watch as she disputes the validity of a CIA-generated report clearing itself of involvement in ongoing narco-trafficking, post Iran-Contra. The committee was chaired by the now former CIA director Porter Goss, who ran South America for the CIA during the Cold War. Pelosi is in here too. Note the expressions of boredom/disdain on their faces.

It begs the question: If they KNOW this is going on, and the ends justify the means, then what exactly ARE the ends when they’re intentionally destroying / corrupting parts of our own society?

If you say, “yea, maybe, but that was in the past.” Dig in on Mad Cow, a news site which focuses on narco-aviation: http://www.madcowprod.com

We need to know why the government is saying one thing and doing another.
http://none W. Steele, PhD

1. There are 4 classes of persons in our prisons: Those that need not be there, those who need a short stay with education, those that need 1 to 2 years and the last group who are dangerous and need to be sequestered for a long time.
2. Any term over 24 months does damage to public safety! After 24 months damage is done, anger built, and the feeling that you (the public) owes me.
3. Jurisdictions with capital punishment reap two major effects: violence rates rise! And costs are 400% more than simple life terms. The initial costs of a trial where the death penalty is sought is many times the cost of life sentence trial. 95% of all death sentences are overturned. So the money spent on the initial trial was wasted.
4. The U. S. is in the midst of an anger addiction. Taking out our frustrations on the pot users, petty thieves is costing us billions and making us less safe!
5. There are effective community programs available: save money, save lives, retain parents at home, keep the offender as a working productive tax paying citizen. Restorative Justice is such a proven model.
The choices is ours: anger revenge and bankruptcy or public safety and community building.
W. Steele, PhD
Correctional Psychologist, Retired
Putney Swope

They already put prisoners in tents in Arizona.
BHA

One might want to consider that the number of prisons in CA was a lot lower 60 years ago because the population of the state was a LOT lower 70 years ago.

1941: 7,237,000
2006: 37,444,000

What was the percent of the population incarcerated in 1941 compared to today?
Thomas

According to “Neurotrauma and Critical Care of the Brain” (by Jallo & Loftus), 87% of persons incarcerated in the United States report a history of head injury. Please factor the cost of medical treatment after release of these prisoners into the cost of incarceration.
Ellen Dibble

If the CIA is narcotrafficking, one response is, “Go to it; the national treasury needs the money.” Even statewide, if a load of drugs is found, it seems a waste to destroy it. It’s burning money. Users will find some anyway.
Remember the photos posted on this site a few weeks back of all the sacks of opium in Afghanistan that our troops were burning? They didn’t want it to be used by the Taliban to fund their operations.
Maybe when people are trying to get off drugs, they can be restricted to government sources. Socialized distribution anyone?
To the person who posted that greater than 2 years locked up does real damage to an individual, I think judges in my state regard ANY time in state prison as detrimental. Even the jails (for misdemeanors) do not provide exactly inspiring and redemptive companionship, but they’re supposedly better.
Lilya Lopekha

We cannot have prisons full up to the capacity.

We should have some cells reserved for AIPAC (An Israeli Political Action Committee) who treathen our elected officials.

ps. we removed the word American, so that it can be registered as a “foreign” lobby
Greg L

Ellen, I’m taking your comment as sarcasm.
Putney Swope

Lylia here you go again. Who are “we”? How about adding something to the discussion instead of just posting ad hominem rhetoric. You are no better than the “AstroTurf” right wingers.
Ellen Dibble

Greg L, to some extent I’m sarcastic. I like to fish here to see if others come up with better solutions. In this case, as to the CIA’s involvement in “the murky world of narco-trafficking,” you made a point. It is possible to be too close for comfort to such a thing. Anyway, the government needs confidential informants, right? Leave it at that. But given the realities of human addiction and the economic realities, what then? Any suggestions?
Mark S.

Per Mike’s post, the second in this thread, I too am a fan of Lockup on MSNBC. If anything, seeing the seemingly endless cavalcade fully tatooed, incorrigible gang members of all races and backgrounds has made me less sympathetic to these individuals and more determined that hardcore gang members be locked up as long as it takes. Simply, these are evil, retrograde people who I do not want on the same streets, ever. Yes, if you are talking about minor drug offenses, locking people up is dumb and not cost effective. Issue citations. But when it comes to the Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings, Mexican Mafia, MS-13, Aryan Brotherhood, Crips, Bloods and other assorted human garbage, I want them in prison … and if there aren’t enough, build more. End the wars in Iraq and Afpak and spend the money here. This is where the real terror problem is, in the form of almost 1 million gang members in the US, according to a USA Today story last January.
Martha

I like the 3 strikes and your out law. I wish it was in every state. There are too many criminals and I don’t mind paying an extra 10 cents for a gallon of gas to lock them up.
Ellen Dibble

I’m waiting for an educator or law enforcement type to point something out, with more authority than I can: At the age when kids are affiliating themselves with gangs, what exactly are their options? Their parents are likely working, so the summer leaves them all sorts of time to develop alliances and purposes. There is an obvious way to go after money, and for this alliances are very helpful. To come of age is to find your niche in this world. The alternatives are so wimpy. In my town I got a call, please cough up 75 bucks for the police department to provide activities to keep the kids off the streets. I remember years of volunteering (when I had time) to that same end. That program, Volunteers in Retirement or something like that, folded. It certainly folded for the community I was connected with. A decade later, I can see things unfolding as if the several adults, salaried and unsalaried, had not spent the summers, the afternoons. Those kids could clarify to me a certain inevitability. I wonder if joining the military would be viable for some. Mostly they have preemptive entanglements with the law before that option opens.
If schools continued through the summers, it would ease things up for working parents up to high school, and ease things up for law enforcement thereafter.
The fact they have to turn to sort of self-policing because they are functioning outside of the law puts a lot of responsibility on still immature teens.
Marc

It’s disappointing that a lot of useful data on an issue is not used. C’mon NPR, you’re sounding like a bunch of light weight cable tv people.

What happens when “non-violent” felons are set free? My guess is a lot of very bad and expensive things. But it’d be useful to see if we’d be letting go some dangerous people, or just a bunch of self-destructive deadbeats who wouldn’t cause much harm.

How many illegal aliens are incarcerated? How many children of illegals are incarcerated? My guess is at least 20% for the first and higher for the second. And it is a guess. Knowing the former gives us a way of shrinking the prison population relatively quicky through better border control. Knowing the latter gives us an idea of how bad the problem will get.

Where drugs have been legalized and regulated, has crime increased and what other problems occured. BTW, I favor legalization.

I never attribute to bias that which can be explained by laziness. But this show certainly leaves out a lot of relevant information.
Putney Swope

Marc your making some inflammatory claims here.
If you have data to back up your claims please provide it.

One has to wonder what is going wrong in this country that we incarcerate so many people per capita when compared to other industrial nations.

Here is a link on the some interesting data on inmates with mental illnesses. It is now estimated that about 1.25 million people incarcerated are suffering from a mental illness.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/09/05/us-number-mentally-ill-prisons-quadrupled
Mike

worth reading as well

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111843426
Mark S.

“Here is a link on the some interesting data on inmates with mental illnesses. It is now estimated that about 1.25 million people incarcerated are suffering from a mental illness.”

Yes, Putney. Many are sociopaths…and as such incurable.
Mike

bang for your buck

“In three decades, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. The union has contributed millions of dollars to support “three strikes” and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions. It donated $1 million to Wilson after he backed the three strikes law.
And the result for the union has been dramatic. Since the laws went into effect and the inmate population boomed, the union grew from 2,600 officers to 45,000 officers. Salaries jumped: In 1980, the average officer earned $15,000 a year; today, one in every 10 officers makes more than $100,000 a year.”

from the link i posted.
Joe B.

I don’t give a rat’s ass about prisoners. They’ve killed, raped, and molested. They’re getting their just rewards.
Christopher

Great program, Tom.
Stephanie

I am not able to access the show due to technical diffulties of the website. From the point of view of your northern neighbour who is closer to the European view, it seems to me that there is a puritanical culture of justice, retribution and the gun which will severely inhibit your society. This attitude of everyone for themselves, brook no excuses, and pay for your sins, fails to the importance of society, and care for one and other.
For example listen to the BBC regarding the Libyan Lockerby bomber who is being let out on compassionate grounds.
There is too much righteousness and too little understanding. Read: Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.
Good luck. I hope you make it through your troubles and recognize circumstance and fallibility.
Putney Swope

Gee Joe B so much rage. So much BS.
Ellen Dibble

Putney, I’ll have to look around for one of these rage-meters you use on all the posters. You do propose that “help” will bring down the rage meter for all of them. I am thinking that Americans view democracy as a birthright to anger/rage. We don’t see it as a birthright to reasoned debate. No. We see it as: Whenever in any way threatened, get your blood pressure as high as you can and stop listening till you get your way.
That’s democracy.
Now Republicanism, that’s different.
Oh, I am SO sarcastic today.
How this attaches to prisons — prisons are the black heel on the throat of anger. So we reap the whirlwind there.
That’s overgeneralization, but Joe B, who seems have an open-wallet policy when it comes to taxing-and-spending on prisons, doesn’t see the vicious circle of the black heel approach: Tit for Tat (see silent movies of the 1930s) writ large. Tragi-comedy.
Mark S.

Admittedly O.T. “silent movies of the 1930s?” Which ones were those? Thought they were mostly talkies after “The Jazz Singer” in 1927… Some great prison pictures, too, by the way.
Ellen Dibble

Mark S, I think there is an actual movie called Tit for Tat. Are you teasing me because I am not looking it up on the web? The protagonists are as famous as Harpo Marx, but I can’t think of the name. It’s all visual antics, and it seems to me the pair were ALWAYS enacting tit for tat.
I don’t know movies at all. So.
Ellen Dibble

Laurel and Hardy, 1935. Tit for Tat.
Erupting in a Depression…
Mark S.

I wasn’t questioning that. I just looked it up too. It wasn’t silent.
R.M.

putney , the “we” is lilya and her big brother’s from hamas ……She is viciously hateful of jews
Capitalist

Put Prisoners to work!

Sitting around all day for years breeds lazyness, trouble making, and poor work habits.

For less dangerous prisoners, put this massive labor force to work. Either tackling societal problems… like trash on highways, habitat for humanity projects, license plates, ect.

Prisoners will learne skills that will be helpful when they are released.

Allow the prisoners to earn a small hourly rate so that when they are released theey ahve some starter money to get themselves on their feet.

Chanrge prisoners “rent” that they have to pay for with part of this salary.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=623966420 Paul Drake

When I clicked on “Listen to this show” I got some 6 minute piece on teachers, not On Point on prisons…

Happen to anyone else?