Violent Prison Riots Are Only the Latest Sign of Our Dysfunctional Criminal Justice System

By Isaac-Davy Aronson, The Faster Times. Posted August 17, 2009.

This article was reprinted from The Faster Times. Faster. Smarter. Funnier: Go to TheFasterTimes.com for the latest in News, Politics, Science, Arts, Health, Nonsense, and everything else.

The recent riot at the prison in Chino -- the California Institution for Men -- was a terribly fitting capstone to months of downward spiral in the state. The overcrowded, underfunded prison, seething with racial tensions, exploded, leaving 175 inmates injured, one dormitory destroyed by fire and another smashed to uselessness, and all 1,600 prisoners evacuated with nowhere to go.

The prison situation is not California’s only socio-economic crisis, but it’s certainly one of the most instructive, showing how dysfunctional government, irresponsible politics, and incoherent policy can push a system to the breaking point. The riot came just days after a a court ordered the state to release over 40,000 inmates because the state’s overcrowded prisons violate Constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. And in the meantime, what few prison social programs there are that alleviate some of those conditions are getting slashed further in the latest round of budget cuts.

How did this happen? First, just consider the numbers. After California voters passed a number of get-tough-on-crime laws in the 1980s, the prison population in the state grew from about 20,000 (where it had been since the 1960s) to 167,000 today. That means that in 20 years, California found over 140,000 more people to put behind bars. And despite the boom in prison building, every single facility in the state is overcrowded. NPR’s Laura Sullivan, in a devastating report well worth listening to, points out that Folsom Prison, once looked to as a model for incarceration, now holds over 4,400 inmates in a facility built to hold 1,800:

Voters [in the 1980s] increased parole sanctions and gave prison time to nonviolent drug offenders. They eliminated indeterminate sentencing, removing any leeway to let inmates out early for good behavior. Then came the “Three Strikes You’re Out” law in 1994. Offenders who had committed even a minor third felony - like shoplifting - got life sentences.

And just as in today’s health care debate, no matter how bad things are, there are always powerful players invested in maintaining the status quo - in this case, the California correctional officers union. Sullivan reports that the union has grown from 2,600 members to 45,000 since 1980, salaries have increased substantially, and the union has poured money into advertising for get-tough-on-crime laws and the politicians who support them.  And yet despite the 30-year hiring blitz, the prison population has grown so much faster, there aren’t nearly enough correctional officers to guard it. At Chino, each dorm of about 200 inmates had as few as two guards, who were of course quickly overrun when the riot erupted.

Meanwhile, California’s recidivism rate is the highest in the country, at 70%. The court ruling ordering the release of inmates “accuses the state of fostering ‘criminogenic’ conditions that lead prisoners and parolees to commit more crimes, feeding a cycle of recidivism.” Shoplifters and small-time drug offenders and parole violators are being thrown in with violent felons, and essentially being assimilated into a culture of greater criminality.  Kara Dansky, Executive Director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, tells On Point:

See more stories tagged with: california, prisons, criminal justice system, three strikes laws, california institution fo, chino, chino riot, prison riots, folsom prison, prison overcrowding

Isaac-Davy Aronson is evening news host at WNYC-New York Public Radio, and a host of Newsweek On Air.

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