January 3, 2014, 11:51 am
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Announces the Allocation of $513 Million to Build New Housing Units
Total of 2,376 beds will provide space for inmates with disabilities, mental health needs.
Sierra Sun Times
January 2, 2014 - SACRAMENTO —California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) today announced the locations of three new Level II housing unit facilities, a total of 2,376 beds, to be built at two existing prison sites.
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Final Requests
In California, terminally ill inmates can apply for compassionate release to spend their last days with loved ones. But few ever make it out.
Tom McNichol, California Lawyer
Robert Lee Dana, California inmate #B81537, was the rarest of prisoners, at once serving a seven-years-to-life sentence and condemned to death as well.
Dana's life sentence was imposed by the state of California for two counts of first-degree murder, stemming from a drunken argument he had in 1976 with a friend and the woman his friend was involved with. The death sentence came from a prison doctor earlier this year who determined that Dana's cancer gave him no more than six months to live.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
Food As Punishment: Giving U.S. Inmates 'The Loaf' Persists
Eliza Barclay, National Public Radio
In many prisons and jails across the U.S., punishment can come in the form of a bland, brownish lump. Known as nutraloaf, or simply "the loaf," it's fed day after day to inmates who throw food or, in some cases, get violent. Even though it meets nutritional guidelines, civil rights activists urge against the use of the brick-shaped meal.
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January 6, 2014, 10:47 am
REALIGNMENT
L.A. County struggles with issue of felons bolting from probation
Nearly 20% of former state prisoners now under county supervision have outstanding arrest warrants for absconding.
Abby Sewell, Los Angeles Times
Peter Azevedo is a hard man to keep on the straight and narrow.
Released from state prison in early 2012, he has been in and out of L.A. County jail at least half a dozen times, serving a few days, a few weeks or a few months for skipping out on probation, using drugs and carrying a knife. As of Christmas Eve, he was gone again.
Probation chief encouraged by realignment report
Dana Littlefield, U-T San Diego
SAN DIEGO — Mack Jenkins, chief probation officer for San Diego County, is encouraged by some of the data revealed in a report on California’s big public safety realignment effort.
County to mull contract for prison transition services
Allison Gatlin, The Californian
Realignment efforts are under way in Monterey County where 60 near-release inmates soon could benefit from job skills training and additional reentry services per an agreement with a Soledad prison.
Report: Fewer Repeat offenders in Santa Cruz County
Stephen Baxter, Santa Cruz Sentinel
SANTA CRUZ -- There were fewer repeat offenders in Santa Cruz County during the first year of the state's prison overhaul, according to a recent report from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Historic Prison Reform Raises Fundamental Questions
Daniel Weintraub, Fox & Hounds
California’s historic experiment in prison reform remains a work in progress, raising new questions about the exact combination of law enforcement, prison time and rehabilitation that will achieve the lowest crime rates.
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Effort emerging to bring arts back to California prisons
Mary Plummer, Southern California Public Radio
About a dozen men sit in a makeshift classroom in Norco. Canvases are draped across their desks, and dabs of paint sit atop sheets of wax paper perched beside them.
Teen killers -- sentenced for up to life terms in San Quentin Prison -- speak out
Aaron Kinney, Bay Area News Group
MICHAEL NELSON doesn't look like a killer.
He is handsome and well-groomed. His voice is gentle, his demeanor polite. You wouldn't flinch if he approached you on a dark and empty sidewalk.
CALIFORNIA PAROLE
San Diego program matches parolees with at-risk teens
Marisa Agha, The Sacramento Bee
SAN DIEGO -- A bespectacled man in a red tie and gray argyle sweater vest leaps up from his chair and tells a room of teenage boys dealing with substance abuse that he just got out of prison for killing a man.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
National support for death penalty at 40-year low
Emiley Morgan, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY — Public defender Ralph Dellapiana remembers the first time he really grasped the consequences of the death penalty.
California lawmakers face water, prison and budget issues in 2014
When California legislators return from break, water bonds, prison overcrowding and a budget debate will be on their to-do list.
Melanie Mason and Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times
SACRAMENTO — Returning to the Capitol on Monday after a four-month recess, state lawmakers are set to tackle water issues, prison overcrowding and a budget debate that will be shaped largely by the state's rosier economic outlook.
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January 7, 2014, 10:59 am
CALIFORNIA INMATES
A runner's high in prison
Greg Eskridge, KALW Public Radio San Francisco
KALW has partnered with radio producers inside California's oldest prison to bring you the San Quentin Prison Report: a series of stories documenting life in the prison, written and produced by the men inside.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
2 AB109 suspects arrested on weapon, resisting arrest charges
abc 23 Bakersfield
At about 11 p.m. Saturday, Bakersfield police officer Hageman attempted to stop a vehicle for traffic violations.
The driver of the vehicle, Roniele Delouth, 27, of Bakersfield, failed to stop the vehicle until he drove to 2600 Chandler Ct. where he and his passenger, Deo Harris, 29, of Bakersfield, fled from the vehicle on foot into the apartment complex, officers said.
Violence in Jails and Prisons Can Inflict Lasting Trauma on Victims
A Rutgers researcher studies abused inmates’ psychological damage
Carrie Stetler, Rutgers News
Ashley Schappell remembers hearing about the prisoner who was beaten and stomped by a fellow inmate in the cafeteria before his attacker poured a scalding pot of coffee on his head. Other inmates described random fights that culminated in stabbings.
In '14, fix prisons, campaign finance
Tom Elias, The Record Searchlight Redding
Like swallows returning to Capistrano, state legislators come back to Sacramento as each new year begins, ready to peck away at what they see as the state’s problems.
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January 8, 2014, 11:46 am
REALIGNMENT
Recently Released Felon Now Suspected In Murder, Armed Robberies
CBS Los Angeles
*Note: CDCR has confirmed that the inmate in this story served the full sentence imposed by the court. No inmates have been released early from any prison as a result of Realignment. Realignment only dictates that inmates convicted of lower level crimes serve their sentence in county jail, while those convicted of more serious crimes are incarcerated in state prison.
HIGHLAND PARK (CBSLA.com) — A 19-year-old man who may have been recently released in a prison realignment program may have gone on to murder and steal in northeast Los Angeles.
Fresno Supes OK New Jail Plans
Toni Tinoco, KMJ
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to continue with plans to build a new jail in downtown Fresno with state funds.
A 5-0 vote authorized the County to move ahead with a proposed 300-bed West Annex Jail project.
Assembly member Manuel Pérez Introduces Public Safety Legislation
Imperial Valley News
Sacramento, California - Today, State Assembly member V. Manuel Pérez introduced a new piece of legislation, AB 1449, a public safety bill aimed at helping local jurisdictions handle several implementation challenges related to state-mandated public safety realignment.
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
Supervisors OK prison transition program
Allison Gatlin, The Californian
Monterey County’s Board of Supervisors rubber-stamped an agreement Tuesday that creates a transition program for men paroling out of a Soledad prison.
By next month, Jeff Frye hopes to have the program off the ground at the Correctional Training Facility, a mid- to low-level offending prison in Soledad. The program replaces the pre-release program, which was phased out last year because of budgetary concerns.
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Ask Sacto 911 crime Q&A: Was suspect convicted in slaying of stock broker at Arden Park home?
Cathy Locke, The Sacramento Bee
About nine years ago, a financial adviser with Morgan Stanley was killed in his home on Fair Oaks Boulevard when he came home for lunch from his nearby office. A manhunt ensued that ended up with a suspect swimming in the American River before he was caught. Was he ever convicted?
CORRECTIONS RELATED
Robert Vick: Escaped Inmate Turns Himself In To Escape Freezing Temperatures
INQUISITR
Robert Vick was an escaped inmate who had a sudden change of heart when he was trapped outside in this week’s frigid temperatures.
Vick escaped from a minimum security prison this weekend in Kentucky, but ended up outside in the middle of the arctic vortex that sank the area into single-digit temperatures.
A Tale of Two Prisoners
Tracy Rosenberg, Huff Post
Meet Prisoner A: Incarcerated at Soledad Prison in California for a botched armed robbery committed in the thrall of an expensive drug addiction, Prisoner A is 3 years into a 10-year sentence. Committed to rehab and clean and sober for two years, A tries to keep in regular touch by telephone with two people: the aunt who raised him from a toddler in Oakland, CA and his 8-year old son, who has relocated with his ex-wife and her new husband to Oregon.
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CALIFORNIA INMATES
California Prisoners Could Be Moved Out Of State Due To Overcrowding
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO — California will have no choice but to move 4,000 more inmates to private prisons in other states if federal judges refuse to postpone a court-ordered population cap, state Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard said Wednesday.
REALIGNMENT
After Two Years, California’s Prisoner Reduction Efforts Fall Short
Crystal Shepeard, Care2
California has one of the largest prison populations in the country. The state’s prison system, designed to house approximately 80,000 inmates, has operated at extreme overpopulation levels for more than a decade. At its peak, 173,000 inmates were housed in its 33 state facilities, more than 200 percent of capacity. This led to deplorable conditions, described as appalling and inhumane, with suicides averaging one per week and numerous deaths that would have been prevented if basic medical care had been administered.
Parolee arrested with meth
Highland News
*Note: No inmates have been released from state prison as a result of AB 109. Under the Realignment legislation, those convicted of lower level crimes serve their sentence in county jail or, in the case of substance abuse convictions, in local treatment programs.
Another of those AB109 release prisoners has been arrested in Highland, this time with a no bail felony warrant already issued for his capture.
Deputy Mark Green reports that on Wednesday, Jan. 8, at 3:54 a.m., he conducted a vehicle check near the intersection of Base Line and Golondrina Drive.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
Brown's budget proposes paying down state debt
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal for the coming fiscal year calls for an 8.5 percent increase in general fund spending coupled with a dedication to pay down the state's debt by more than $11 billion, according to a copy of the document obtained late Wednesday by The Associated Press.
2013 marked the most deaths at Sacramento jails in years
Sicker inmates and lacking facilities contribute to spike
Raheem F. Hosseini, News Review
When David Larone Starling arrived at Sacramento County’s main jail last March, the suspected arsonist was already in poor shape. Housed in a private cell and confined to a wheelchair—because of what county coroner Gregory Wyatt termed as “significant” nontrauma-related health issues—Starling was admitted to a hospital in early December 2013 after apparently falling out of his wheelchair and banging his head.
Report Examines High Cost of Jailing Mentally Ill
Faith Communities Argue Practice is Inhumane and Wastes Money
Kelsey Brugger, Santa Barbara Independent
A Sheriff’s report to address jail overcrowding stated in 2008 that “[County Jail] has become the County’s de facto ‘mental institution.’” Last month, a report completed by CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice) reiterated that statement and argued that holding mentally ill inmates in County Jail is not only inhumane but also more expensive than moving them to treatment facilities.
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January 10, 2014, 11:06 am
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
California prison population expected to grow over next 5 years
Ten thousand more inmates are expected, complicating Gov. Brown's effort to abide by a court order to reduce the prison population.
Paige St. John, Los Angeles Times
SACRAMENTO — After declining for six years, California's prison population is expected to grow by 10,000 inmates in the next five years, complicating Gov. Jerry Brown's effort to abide by a court order to reduce overcrowding.
REALIGNMENT
The Public Eye: Rearrest rate unchanged under California prison realignment
Brad Branan, The Sacramento Bee
(Note: A recently published CDCR study found a drop of 2.7 percent in the arrest rate among offenders released in the 12 months immediately after the start of Realignment, compared to offenders released in the 12 months prior. The Sacramento Bee’s finding of no change in the 12-month arrest rate is based only on offenders released to PRCS and their presumed counterparts prior to the start of Realignment.)
As federal judges pressured California to relieve prison overcrowding in 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown pushed lawmakers to send tens of thousands of parolees and lower-level offenders to counties.
Police arrest one, seek second suspect in Lakeport burglaries
Lake County News reports
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Police Department has arrested a Northshore woman and is continuing to seek an Upper Lake man who is alleged to have been involved in a recent series of burglaries and attempted break-ins in the city.
Taft man arrested on drug dealing charges
Police went to arrest woman on warrant, say they found man with meth, too
Taft Midway Driller
When Taft Police went to arrest a woman in South Taft on warrant Tuesday, they got their suspect, but they also made a drug trafficking arrest when they found man in possession of about three-quarters of an ounce of methamphetamine.
High speed vehicle pursuit in Fontana ends with two separate collisions, two injuries and two arrests
Fontana Herald News
A high-speed vehicle pursuit in Fontana ended with two separate collisions, two injuries, and two arrests on Jan. 8, according to the Fontana Police Department.
CALIFORNIA PAROLE
Crime Fighters Manhunt: Jason Lewis
Carlo Cecchetto, CBS 8
SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - The CBS News 8 Crime Fighters are helping authorities in a countywide manhunt for a fugitive with an extensive criminal history.
Ripon police arrest wanted Sacramento man
The Record
RIPON -- Officer Ken Husman stopped a vehicle as it entered northbound Highway 99 from the Main Street Exit and determined an occupant was a wanted parolee at large, considered armed and dangerous.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
Operation Corridor: 22 indicted in Mexican Mafia prison gang sweep
abc News 10 San Diego
SAN DIEGO - Criminal complaints unsealed in San Diego Wednesday as part of a crackdown on the Mexican Mafia prison gang in Southern California charge nearly two dozen people with offenses ranging from heroin and methamphetamine dealing to conspiracy to commit murder.
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January 13, 2014, 10:16 am
CALIFORNIA INMATES
How Organic Vegetables Are Rehabilitating San Quentin Inmates
The Insight Garden Program reduces recidivism and gives incarcerated men a meaningful way to make the most of their sentences.
Andri Antoniades, Take Part
Food in the U.S. prison system is notoriously awful, and access to meals is often used as a tool to manipulate inmates. But a program taking place in San Quentin has flipped that script, using quality whole foods to empower the incarcerated.
Growing up behind bars
Edel Gonzalez, sentenced to life in prison at 16, now has hope.
Elizabeth Calvin, The Los Angeles Times
"It could have been anyone in this courtroom. Your mother. Your lawyer. It could have been me." The judge drilled down on the random murder of a woman for her car. Edel Gonzalez, a diminutive 38-year-old man, sat shackled in a prison jumpsuit before the bench and nodded in agreement. "It was brutal," the judge repeated with force.
REALIGNMENT
State budget sets sights on realignment
Governor’s proposal will set aside more money for counties, change sentencing guidelines
Joe Johnson, The Sentinel
HANFORD — With another deadline looming in the race to reduce state prison overcrowding, Gov. Jerry Brown is taking action.
His outlined budget for the coming fiscal year includes several proposals to assist counties with the influx of inmates heaped upon them by the state’s public safety realignment program
CORRECTIONS RELATED
Detractors say Brown’s budget spends too much on prison expansion
Beatriz Valenzuela, Press-Telegram
While many are praising Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent budget for spending more money on education and mental health, some are calling his plan to deal with prison overcrowding a step backward.Prison Population Cap Order Extended?
Limit ordered in 2009 to bring 'woefully inadequate' health care to minimal constitutional standards for inmates.
Sheila Sanchez, Los Gatos Patch
The head of California's prisons said this week that Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed $9.8 billion budget for corrections in the next fiscal year is aimed at creating a "safer, more efficient prison system" and reducing repeat offenses.
As conjugal visits fade, a lifeline to inmates' spouses is lost
Kim Severson, The New York Times
Parchman, Mississippi: To spend time alone with the man she married four months ago, Ebony Fisher, 25, drives nearly three hours through the flat cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta until she pulls into a gravel lot next to the state's rural penitentiary.
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January 14, 2014, 11:35 am
REALIGNMENT
Riverside County asks state for more jail money
Supervisors to ask for additional state funds for inmates
City News Service
Riverside County supervisors are slated tomorrow to back a Los Angeles County resolution calling on the Legislature and governor to make more public safety funding available to counties burdened with incarcerating and caring for inmates who until two years ago would have been the state's responsibility.
Three arrested for shooting stolen guns
Placer County Online
Three Loomis men were arrested early this morning after a Placer County Sheriff’s deputy watched them fire guns from their vehicle in rural Loomis. The guns, an AR rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun, were stolen from a Loomis gun shop Monday.
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
Judges Will Issue Ruling On California Prison Caps In Next 30 Days
The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration and attorneys representing inmates have failed to reach agreement on the best way to reduce overcrowding in California prisons, a panel of federal judges said Monday, leaving it the court to decide whether to grant the state more time.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
Virginia Federal Judge: Indefinite, Unreviewed Solitary Confinement Is Not OK
Nicole Flatow, Think Progress
Around the country, there are inmates serving time in solitary confinement for a variety of reasons. Some, as young as 13, are held in isolation purportedly for their own protection. Others as mental health treatment. Still others because they are considered a danger to others.
Challenges to Ohio lethal injection drugs not new
Andrew Welsh-Huggins, The Associated Press
COLUMBUS -- A condemned killer's attempt to stop his execution on the grounds he could experience a terrifying sensation of suffocation is the latest argument directed at whether use of a lethal drug will create an unconstitutionally cruel death.
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January 15, 2014, 12:13 pm
CDCR NEWS
New Report Shows California’s Recidivism Rate Declined Again This Year
California’s recidivism rate is now 61.0 percent
SACRAMENTO – The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) today released its 2013 Outcome Evaluation Report, the fourth in a series of annual reports tracking and analyzing the recidivism – or reoffending – rates of adult felons released from state prison. The report shows that the total three-year recidivism rate for all felons released during fiscal year 2008-2009 is 61.0 percent, down from 63.7 percent last year and down from 67.5 percent four years ago.
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
Declaring an impasse, judges to order solution on prisons
Gov. Brown and lawyers for inmates miss a court deadline to file negotiated proposals on prison crowding, so jurists say they will make their decision within a month.
Paige St. John and Anthony York, Los Angeles Times
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown and lawyers for state prison inmates have failed to agree on a plan to handle crowding in the state's prisons, and the judges who ordered the two sides into talks said they would now order a solution themselves.
REALIGNMENT
CALIFORNIA: Gov. Brown praises Riverside County’s handling of realignment
Jeff Horseman, The Press-Enterprise
Riverside County leaders rarely miss a chance to criticize Sacramento, especially when it comes to public safety realignment, which they blame for forcing them to release thousands of jail inmates early.
Assemblyman Holden's Prison Realignment Bill Passed First Committee Test
Melanie C. Johnson, Patch
Following numerous calls for change to the state’s prison realignment program, Assembly member Chris Holden’s (D-Pasadena) measure to prevent last-minute dumping of seriously mentally ill inmates on county streets, passed its first committee test today.
Violent, Property Crime Plummets in Downtown
Donna Evans, DT News
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - In a dramatic about-face from 2012, Downtown last year saw a sharp decline in violent and property crime — except for homicide.
According to LAPD statistics, Downtown Los Angeles generally became a safer place in 2013. Last year, part one crimes — a category that includes all violent crimes and serious property-related offenses — dropped 10% across the board compared to 2012 in Central Division, which covers most of Downtown. Violent offenses alone decreased 18%.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
More Ohio inmates earning high school diplomas
Rate is above national average
Associated Press
COLUMBUS — The number of Ohio prisoners earning their high-school equivalency diplomas is up over the past three years, and the achievement rate is higher than the national average, according to a new report.
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January 16, 2014, 9:42 am
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
Federal judges could decide to delay California prison inmate cap in 30 days
Beatriz Valenzuela, Press Telegram
A failure by state authorities and attorneys representing prison inmates to reach an agreement on the best way to reduce overcrowding has given the state a little more time to meet its court-ordered deadline to reduce the prison population.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration was ordered to reduce the state prison population to about 110,000 or 137.5 percent of prison capacity as a way to improve the quality of inmates’ health. To accomplish that, Assembly Bill 109, the state’s prison realignment law, shifted the responsibility of monitoring lower-level inmates from the state to the counties. It went into effect October 2011.
Judges Give up on Years of Failed Prison Talks, Will Craft Own Solution to Overcrowding
Ken Broder, ALLGOV
A panel of three federal judges, frustrated with California’s failed five-year effort to sufficiently reduce prison overcrowding, said they will draw up their own solution within a month.
The federal courts have jousted with the state over unsafe and unhealthy conditions they say violate prisoners’ constitutional rights. The federal government has been in charge of California prison healthcare since 2005 and overcrowding since 2009. The takeover followed years of prison horror stories, frequent inmate deaths, severe overcrowding, deficient health care, defiant mismanagement and, in the end, lawsuits.
Gov. Jerry Brown plans to ramp up spending on private prisons
Paige St. John, The Los Angeles Times
SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown plans to increase California's use of private prison cells and leases with local jails even if federal judges agree to give the state more time to meet crowding limits within its own lockups, his budget documents show.
Bill calls for condoms in prisons
Seth Hemmelgarn, The Bay Area Reporter
A proposal to distribute condoms in California prisons is making its way through the state Legislature.
Assembly Bill 966, authored by Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland), passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee 6-1 Tuesday, January 14.
CALIFORNIA INMATES
St. Helenan works with prisoners at San Quentin
Tom Stockwell, St. Helena Star
When the train stopped in El Paso, Texas all the passengers were reseated. Those who were non-white were moved to a second car — segregated for the rest of the trip. Tony Holzhauer, who was just turning 17 at the time, says that event — a common occurrence in the segregated world of the 1950s — stuck with him. But what can one individual do in the face of such a clear social injustice?
Jury sentences Ronnie Vang to death
Andy Furill, The Sacramento Bee
The jury deemed Ronnie Vang a liar, but it was the mere circumstance of his shooting and killing of Keith Fessler that accounted for the panel’s recommendation Wednesday that the convicted murderer be sentenced to death.
REALIGNMENT
Second chances
How prison realignment has led to life-changing programs in Butte County
Tom Gascoyne, Chico News & Review
When the state Legislature passed the prison-realignment law, Assembly Bill 109, in 2011, ordering those convicted of low-level crimes to be sentenced to county jails rather than state prisons, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office took heed. The 614-bed jail was going to be greatly impacted.
Report: Recidivism fell before prison realignment
The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California's recidivism rate dropped in the years before Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment law took effect, even though six of every 10 offenders returned to prison, the corrections department said in a report released Wednesday.Gov.‘s budget proposal puts money toward better public safety outcomes
Christopher Nelson, CAFWD.org
Gov. Brown’s most recent budget proposal doubles down on shifting decision-making power back to local communities. CA Fwd has advocated from the beginning that local governments needed more authority and resources to solve community problems so this is important reform. Better decisions are made closer to the people those decisions affect most.
Tehama County to pursue two properties
Rich Greene, Daily News
Presented with an either-or choice of two properties to buy for the temporary Probation Department Adult Day Reporting Center, the Board of Supervisors chose both.
The board directed county staff to proceed with an offer to buy property at 778 Antelope Blvd. to house the center, but also directed staff to examine the possibility of purchasing property next to the County Library at 715 Madison St.
County Board, CEO Look At Contracting With Private Correctional Facilities
AB 109 requires that non-violent, non-sexual offenders be housed in county jails instead of state prisons. At Tuesday's meeting, county CEO reported to the board on the possibility of contracting with public and private facilities to house offenders.
Allison Pari, KHTS
At the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors’ Tuesday meeting, County CEO William Fujioka reported on the county’s inability to contract with private community correctional facilities to house AB 109 offenders, following a request from Supervisor Michael Antonovich at the Dec. 17 meeting.
Higher property crime rates as state unpacks prisons.
Arvin Temkar, Monterey County Weekly
A rise in property crime coincides with California’s massive effort to reduce its prison population, a new study says.
Property crimes like auto theft and burglary rose 7.6 percent between 2011 and 2012, the first year of the prison reform measure known as “realignment,” according to a study by the Public Policy Institute of California. There was also an uptick in violent crime, but the study found no correlation between that and reform.
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January 17, 2014, 8:47 am
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Colby Fire: 27 county inmate firefighters assist crews battling Glendora fire
Beatriz Valenzuela, Press Telegram
Among the 800 fire personnel battling the raging Colby fire are 27 Los Angeles County Inmate Firefighters.
“They’ve been there since this morning and are an important part of the firefighting efforts,” Nicole Nishida, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, said Thursday.
REALIGNMENT
California Police Chiefs Sponsor Pérez Public Safety Legislation
Imperial Valley News
Sacramento, California - State Assemblymember V. Manuel Pérez is pleased to report that the California Police Chiefs Association (CPCA) has formally announced its support and sponsorship of his public safety bill, AB 1449.
State awards $500M in jail construction funds: Sheriffs want more resources, protesters want fewer jails
Rina Palta, KPCC
An unusually rowdy meeting of a state corrections board Thursday drew malcontent county sheriffs and anti-jail protesters to an L.A. County jail in Lynwood.
The Board of State and Community Corrections met at Century Regional Detention Facility in part to dish out $500 million in state grants for county jail construction awarded under Senate Bill 1022.
State awards county $33M for jail
Zachary K. Johnson, The Stockton Record
STOCKTON - A state panel voted Thursday in favor of giving San Joaquin County more than $33 million toward building a new, higher-security lockup to replace the County Jail system's minimum-security Honor Farm.
The award of $33.3 million in lease-revenue bond financing falls short of the $40 million the county asked for in a proposal to build a new correctional facility with space for increased rehabilitation programs.
San Mateo County to get state jail money
Michelle Durand, San Mateo Daily Journal
It’s official — San Mateo County will receive a hefty financial infusion from the state to expand its existing county jail to better accommodate mentally ill inmates and the longer-staying population that would have been housed in prison prior to criminal justice realignment.
Kings awarded $20 million jail grant
State funding will allow facility to expand with programs to reduce reoffender rate
Joe Johnson, The Sentinel
HANFORD — A state corrections board on Thursday approved a $20 million grant for Kings County to improve facilities at the local jail.
Sheriff Dave Robinson said this will fund plans for a jail addition focused on providing inmate programs and vocational training.
State turns down Contra Costa's request for new maximum-security facility at West County Jail
Tom Lochner, Contra Costa Times
A planned maximum-security addition to the West Contra Costa jail is on hold after it failed to make the grade on a list of projects endorsed by a state agency Thursday.
CDCR RELATED
Police arrest seven alleged gang members in Stockton operation
Zachary K. Johnson, The Stockton Record
STOCKTON - They were warned.
Law enforcement officials swept through parts of west and north Stockton on Wednesday, snapping up alleged members of street gangs police say have been responsible for a recent spate of shootings.
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January 21, 2014, 2:57 pm
CDCR NEWS
Fatal shooting spree, carjackings in northwest Fresno detailed by Chief Dyer
Carmen George, Marc Benjamin and Bryant-Jon Anteola, The Fresno Bee
Revolver in hand, the gunman walked up to the pickup's window in near-standstill traffic and fired. The bullets killed a husband and wounded his wife.The senseless attack Thursday evening that killed Nhia Lee, 65, of Fresno was part of a terrifying shooting and carjacking spree in northwest Fresno that left two people dead and two others injured, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said Friday.
CALIFORNIA INMATESInmates help renovate school garden
Staff reports
KELSEYVILLE -- The garden at Kelseyville Elementary School has been entirely renovated with the assistance of the CAL FIRE and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Conservation Camp program.
REALIGNMENT
Viewpoints: One county’s success story with realignment
James Austin, The Sacramento Bee
Something is happening, quietly, in Contra Costa County that should get the attention of the entire state. If it did, we could be on the road to much better, more cost-effective policies for keeping our communities safe.
Off Beat: Reassessing realignment: Is it working?
Harold Kruger, appeal democrat
The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation issued a little-noticed report right before Christmas about the effects of the prison realignment program.
Realignment's goal was to reduce the state prison population, leaving it to counties to house certain offenders.
County jails to get $500 million to upgrade programs
Stacy Haynes, abc 23
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - The Board of State and Community Corrections has approved awards totaling $500 million to 15 counties across the state to upgrade local jails.
State committee approves $24 million in funding for Maguire jail improvements
Max A. Cherney, SF Examiner
San Mateo County’s jail system is set to receive a $24 million injection of state funds for Maguire Correctional Facility upgrades from a state committee that oversees funding for jail construction, the county sheriff said.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love a Kosher Prison Meal
Lizette Alvarez, The New York Times
MIAMI — Captive diners know that a good meal is hard to find.
Airplane passengers, for instance, have been known to order kosher meals, even if they are not Jewish, in the hope of getting a fresher, tastier, more tolerable tray of food. It turns out that prison inmates are no different.
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January 22, 2014, 2:08 pm
REALIGNMENT
Kern lobbies for more prison realignment money
James Burger, Californian
Kern County has launched a campaign to grab more prison realignment money as a statewide organization reconsiders the formula for distributing more than $1 billion between the state's counties.
Realignment Part 1: No doomsday, impact unclear
Monica Vaughan, appeal democrat
In 2011, legislation was passed to realign where convicted felons were to serve jail and probation terms. In order to meet court-ordered reductions in state prison populations, California changed its philosophy on where sentences were served — in state facilities or in county jails.
Probation sweep conducted in Grand Terrace
Highland community News
The San Bernardino County Probation Department conducted a multi-agency probation compliance operation in the City of Grand Terrace between 2 P.M. and 10 P.M. tTuesday, January 21, 2014. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department also participated in the sweep.
CALIFORNIA PAROLE
California fugitive attacks public defender during Billings court appearance
Eddie Gregg, Billings Gazette
A man who is wanted in California hit the public defender representing him during a Billings court appearance Tuesday afternoon.
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
California Judges Issue New Order in Prison Population Debate
Correctional News
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Despite extensive negotiations, California Governor Jerry Brown and attorneys representing a group of prison inmates have yet to reach an agreement on how to reduce the state’s prison population. This impasse prompted the three-judge panel appointed to mediate the months-long talks released a brief statement on the matter on Jan. 13.
DEATH PENALTY
Prolonged execution renews debate over death by lethal injection
Ohio's 15-minute execution of Dennis McGuire sparks an outcry over new combinations of drugs used since manufacturers curbed distribution of traditional drugs due to death penalty protests.
Molly Hennessy-Fiske, The Los Angeles Times
HOUSTON — An Ohio inmate's drawn-out execution this week led to an outcry about the increased use of new lethal injection drugs by the country's 32 death penalty states, a practice that experts predict will lead to more problems.
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Was it suicide? Questions abound in death of pepper-sprayed inmate
Sam Stanton and Denny Walsh, The Sacramento Bee
IONE -- Sometime around 10 p.m. on Sept. 6, the guards at Mule Creek State Prison in Amador County decided to take action against Joseph Damien Duran, a mentally ill inmate who had been acting up inside his cell for hours.
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January 23, 2014, 10:34 am
REALIGNMENT
Santa Barbara County receives funding for an inmate transition and re-entry complex
The Santa Maria Sun
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department recently announced that the California Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) awarded the county full funding—almost $38.98 million—for construction of the Sheriff’s Transition and Re-entry (S.T.A.R.) complex.
CALIFORNIA INMATES
PONZI: Montecastro sentenced to 81 years, 8 mos
Debra Gruszecki, The Press Enterprise
No remorse. No apology. No look of contrition.
That was the courtroom scene as Hendrix Montecastro, a kingpin in the $142 million Stonewood mortgage and securities investment scam, heard Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Prevost impose an 81-year, eight-month term in state prison for his role in the Ponzi-style fraud that fleeced people in two states out of their homes and life savings.
Man gets 4 years in art heist at home of financier Jeffrey Gundlach
Paresh Dave, The Los Angeles Times
A man convicted in the theft of millions of dollars of artwork from the home of a prominent bond trader was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison.
In September 2012, Darren Agee Merager broke into the Santa Monica home of Jeffrey Gundlach, who's considered one of the world's top investment fund managers.
Judge orders hearing into death of inmate at Northern California's Mule Creek State Prison
The Associated Press
IONE, California — A federal judge has ordered a hearing on the death of a mentally ill inmate who was pepper-sprayed and left alone inside his cell at Mule Creek State Prison in Northern California.
San Quentin prisoner dies after plunge from fourth-story tier
Gary Klein, Marin Independent Journal
A convicted murderer from San Diego County died at Marin General Hospital on Wednesday following a four-story fall at San Quentin State Prison.
Thomas Curby Henderson, 60, fell off a fourth tier on Tuesday morning at the prison, where he was serving a life term with the possibility of parole, said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Former scout leader gets 6 years
Andre Byik, Daily News
A former Boy Scout leader was sentenced Tuesday to a six-year state prison term after pleading no contest last year to a charge of committing a lewd act upon a child.
CDCR RELATED
Ruling allows Mexican immigrant to stay in U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement sought deportation after prison sentence
Kerana Todorov, Napa Valley Register
A federal court has ruled that a Napa man who completed a three-year prison sentence for second-degree robbery and vehicle theft cannot be deported to Mexico because the man who raised him as his son is an American.
Prison: The New Mental Hospital
A California measure to reduce prison overcrowding reveals how America is, once again, failing some of its most vulnerable.
Mike Kessler, Take Part
Note: CDCR provides extensive mental health treatment to approximately one-third of all inmates, which ranges from outpatient counseling to in-patient acute care. CDCR also has constructed several new facilities over the last two years to increase mental health care, including an expansion of the California Health Care Facility in Stockton that is dedicated to mental health treatment and that is expected to accept the first of 1,100 inmate-patients in April, 2014. California has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to counties under AB 109, but local officials determine the allocation of funds between custody and treatment based on local priorities and needs.
When Lockinvar Jacobs stepped off the bus at L.A.’s Union Station last summer, he wasn’t quite sure where to go. The 49-year-old schizophrenic had just been released from state prison, where he’d done a five-year bid for felony drug sales. It wasn’t his first time getting out of the big house; he told me, when we spoke recently, that he’s spent between 16 and 20 years of his life behind bars for drugs and other nonviolent felonies, such as burglary. He couldn't be sure of the exact number, he said, because the Haldol and other meds have clouded his memory. What he was sure about was that this last time, he was released without his medication.
OPINION
Our View: What's apparent about realignment?
The Appeal Democrat
Today we're printing the second in a two-part report on California's public safety realignment. What's clear from the reporting we've done so far is that there's more reporting to do.
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January 24, 2014, 11:48 am
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
California seeks 2-year delay on prison crowding
Don Thompson, The Fresno Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Jerry Brown asked federal judges Thursday to give the state two more years to reduce prison crowding to the level set by the court, and said inmates could be released early if the state fails to meet its goals.
REALIGNMENT
Brown in Monterey on realignment
Samantha Gallegos, Capitol weekly
Gov. Jerry Brown, who said in his state of the state address that the state and the locals need to work together to make realignment work, is in Monterey today to meet privately with public safety officials.
CALIFORNIA PAROLE
CrimeFighters Manhunt: Sulee Winston
CBS 8 News San Diego
SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - The CBS News 8 CrimeFighters are helping authorities in a manhunt for a woman who's skipped out on parole.
Sulee Winston, 28, is wanted by the California Parole Apprehension Team for violating terms of her release.
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Teen who stole Fieri's Lamborghini gets life term
The Associated Press
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — A Northern California man convicted of a series of crimes, including attempted murder and the theft of celebrity chef Guy Fieri's Lamborghini, was sentenced Thursday to life in prison.
Inmate acts as attorney, then doesn't attend trial
Jennie Rodriguez-Moore, The Stockton Record
STOCKTON - Former death row inmate Blufford Hayes Jr. had an expensive heroin addiction that led him to kill and burglarize a Stockton motel manager more than 30 years ago, prosecutors said.
CORRECTIONS RELATED Liberating Henry Cowell's Music at San Quentin
Brett Campbell, San Francisco Classical Voice
For years, whenever pianist Sarah Cahill drove across the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge from her Berkeley home, she’d spy San Quentin State Prison looming off to the left, and she’d think about the four years one of her favorite musicians, the great California-born composer Henry Cowell (1897-1965), spent locked up there. “I really love the music he wrote there during those four years and think it's really underappreciated,” she explains. Cahill, one of the West Coast’s finest interpreters of 20th and 21st century American music, knew Cowell’s music well; she arranged a festival for his 100th birthday in 1997, recorded his work for New Albion, and has performed his compositions often since, including at the Other Minds Festival.
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January 27, 2014, 12:23 pm
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Cases offer peek into prison gangs
Teri Figueroa, U-T San Diego
NORTH COUNTY — Latino inmates who smuggle illegal drugs into prisons and jails know there’s a cost to doing business behind bars.
A third of their contraband must be “kicked up” to leaders of the Mexican Mafia prison gang, investigators said recently in a federal indictment.
REALIGNMENT
AB 109’s success hinges on evidence-based programming
Tom Hoffman, CA FWD
Research has shown that two basic assumptions must form the philosophical backbone of implementing the monumental criminal justice overhaul that is AB 109. First, that supervision must be rooted in evidence-based programming and intervention (a view widely held by academics). Second, that offender programming must be crafted through the use of a validated “risk and needs” instrument. These instruments most commonly identify risk and needs in three categories of criminal behavior: drugs, property and violence.
Car theft suspect in Pasadena found hiding in trash chute
Jason Henry, San Gabriel Valley Tribune
PASADENA- A two-hour search of a four-building apartment complex early Friday morning ended when police found the suspect hiding in a trash chute.
CALIFORNIA PAROLE
Parolee gets 96 years to life for deadly DUI crash
The Associated Press, Contra Costa Times California
MADERA, Calif.—A Madera County judge has sentenced a parolee to 96 years to life in prison for a DUI crash that killed three casino workers in August 2009.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
Colorado prison-trained dog turned autistic boy's life around
Kirk Mitchell, The Denver Post
Susy Tucker marks the time her autistic son, Zach, began hugging her again — after a lapse of four years — by the arrival of Clyde, a chocolate Labrador trained behind bars by a convicted killer.
U.S. senators push for 'murderabilia' law as Oregon prison officials review inmate memento sales
Bryan Denson, The Oregonian
A bill moving through the U.S. Senate would punish infamous murderers such as Oregon's Christian Longo, Kip Kinkel and Keith Jesperson if they knowingly profit from the sale of their letters, artwork or other memorabilia.
America on Probation
Bill Keller, The New York Times
In recent years Americans have begun to wise up to the idea that our overstuffed prisons are a shameful waste of lives and money. Lawmakers have recoiled from the high price of mass incarceration (the annual per-inmate cost of prison approaches the tuition at a good college) and some have recognized that our prisons feed a pathological cycle of poverty, community dysfunction, crime and hopelessness.
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January 28, 2014, 10:36 am
REALIGNMENT
Compliance checks net 8 arrests county-wide
KTVU
SONOMA COUNTY, Calif. — Law enforcement officials from across Sonoma County arrested eight people during compliance checks on high-risk felony probation and post-release community supervision offenders on Saturday, according to Santa Rosa police.
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Nuestra Familia Leader and Three Associates Plead Guilty to Drug Trafficking Charges
7th Space Interactive
FRESNO, CA—Shawn Cameron, 36; his wife Vanessa Mojarro Cameron, 26; and Jonathan Mojarro, 24, all of Hanford, and Carlos Enriquez, 34, of Lemoore, pleaded guilty today to drug trafficking offenses, United States Attorney Benjamin B Wagner announced.
Bid to provide condoms to California prison inmates clears hurdle
Sharon Bernstein, Reuters
(Reuters) - Condoms could eventually be distributed to California prison inmates under a bill passed in the Democratic-controlled state Assembly on Monday, setting the stage for potential pushback from Governor Jerry Brown, who vetoed a similar measure last fall.
OPINION
Editorial: State prisons should not be a modern Bedlam
The Sacramento Bee
The terrible death of Joseph Duran should erase any doubt that prisons are the wrong places for severely mentally ill prisoners, not that there had been any question before.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
States consider reviving old-fashioned executions
The Associated Press, CBS 8
ST. LOUIS (AP) — With lethal-injection drugs in short supply and new questions looming about their effectiveness, lawmakers in some death penalty states are considering bringing back relics of a more gruesome past: firing squads, electrocutions and gas chambers.
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January 29, 2014, 11:46 am
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Relief for Gang Member Sparks Strident Rebuke
William Dotinga, Courthouse News Service
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Releasing a lifer from a gang housing unit ignored evidence that he remained "the No. 1 man" in a prison's Aryan Brotherhood, the 9th Circuit ruled Tuesday.
State appeals panel provides clarity on three-strikes resentencings
Three judges from the fourth appellate district rule that three-strikers serving life in prison for being armed cannot ask for shorter sentences under Prop. 36.
Jack Leonard, The Los Angeles Times
A state appeals court panel ruled Tuesday that three-strikes inmates serving life in prison for being armed cannot ask for shorter sentences under a 2012 ballot initiative that softened the state's tough sentencing law.
SoCal counties face differing issues on enrolling offenders in expanded Medi-Cal
Paul Olalde, CA FWD
At yet another iteration of California Forward’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) themed convenings across the state, it was representatives from San Diego, Orange and Imperial counties who were focused on improving enrollment into expanded Medi-Cal programs.
REALIGNMENT
Judge talks prison realignment at Exchange Club meeting
Corning Observer
Tehama County Superior Court Judge Todd Bottke spoke to the Exchange Club during a meeting this month.
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January 30, 2014, 11:25 am
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
Valley State Prison only facility in state to implement new merit program
Marina Gaytan, Merced Sun-Star
Chowchilla — Valley State Prison has become the only prison in the state to fully implement a new merit-based program that offers incentives to inmates who behave well.
CALIFORNIA PAROLE
Three suspects arrested for two Lakeport homicides
Elizabeth Larson, Lake County News
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Three people charged with taking part in two homicides that occurred in Lakeport earlier this week have been arrested thanks to the efforts of law enforcement in Lake, Mendocino and Napa counties.
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Sex offender scheduled to be released
William Greggory Babb has served 73 days of a sentence for violating parole
Jim Holt, The Santa Clarita Valley Signal
A Canyon Country woman wants to know why the man convicted of molesting her son is being released from prison — again.
Use of force policy changes being implemented in wake of inmate's death, officials say
Sam Stanton, The Modesto Bee
With a federal court hearing set to convene Thursday morning in the Sept. 7 death of a prison inmate who was pepper sprayed by guards, state corrections officials say they have changed their policies on the use of force and are investigating whether action should be taken against officials at Ione's Mule Creek State Prison.
REALIGNMENT Committee pulls together $7.9 million for jail expansion
Allison Gatlin, The Californian
Monterey County’s Budget Committee approved a primarily procedural resolution on Wednesday to pull together $7.9 million locally as part of a planned jailhouse expansion.
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January 31, 2014, 10:23 am
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