CALIFORNIA INMATES
Defy Ventures program provides mentorship from business executives to inmates
Dana Griffin, KCRA 3 News
VACAVILLE, Calif. (KCRA) —Behind the barbed wire, some Solano State Prison inmates spend time working on their bodies while others put their minds to work.
For months, these entrepreneurs-in-training have been participating in the Defy Ventures program, which provides mentorship from business executives and a chance to win money for their ideas.
But first, they have to impress a group of venture capitalists from Silicon Valley.
Dom Pruett, The Reporter
To the outside world, California State Prison-Solano is a medium security prison located on the outskirts of Vacaville: One of 33 links in what is the vast California prison system. For the 2,000 plus men who inhabit its concrete confines, it is home.
On Wednesday, its denizens welcomed some guests.
Employees from Defy Ventures, a national nonprofit organization that offers leadership development, business advice, and mentoring for offenders, and roughly 50 volunteers joined a select group of level three inmates in the prison’s gymnasium for a Business Pitch Competition.
Female inmates learn new skills through in-prison apprenticeship program
Rob McMillan, abc
CORONA, Calif. (KABC) -- An in-prison apprenticeship program in Corona is giving female inmates the tools they need to build a better life upon release.
The California Institution for Women held a graduation ceremony Tuesday to present certificates to 30 women who learned carpentry and other skills in the months-long program.
State officials estimate that 93 percent of the women who finish the program will never be behind bars again.
Eva Trieger, SD Jewish World
SAN DIEGO — The Playwrights Project has once again proved that it does not shy away from weighty or unpopular topics. “I’M GOOD: Incarcerated Men Getting Over Obstacles Daily,” is the collaborative effort of the playwrights of the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. Partnering with the SDSU School of Theater, Television and Film, William James Association, and SDSU’s Criminal Justice Program, the 90-minute workshop production is part of the Playwrights Project Out of the Yard program. Sponsors of this program include California Arts Council, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and it is made possible through the support of the James Irvine Foundation, as well as an anonymous foundation.
The inmates’ stories were portrayed by student actors and every performance was sold out. The 175 seat Experimental Theater is located in the heart of the San Diego State University campus. Following each performance the audience was invited to a talk back. The Spartan set held only a few chairs in a semi-circle and two smaller hassocks that the crew cleverly manipulated to serve as a car, a bunk, or table as needed.
Leslie Brinkley, abc
FAIRFIELD, Calif. (KGO) - More than 30 years after a young boy was kidnapped and held for ransom, his family finally has answers.
Three-year-old Clark Toshiro Handa was abducted from his Fairfield bedroom in August of 1984 and was never seen again. There was a ransom note, but the kidnapper never showed up.
Police Tuesday announced an arrest and now his father is reacting to this major, long-overdue development. The man who police say kidnapped and killed a little boy is already in state prison and will be arraigned next week.
Kyle Bonagura, Mark Fainaru-Wada, ESPN
Kenny Clark Jr., all 6-foot-3, 314 pounds of him, settled as best he could onto the hard, courtroom bench inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in Santa Ana, California. The former UCLA defensive tackle squeezed in between his mom and brother, with his twin sisters and a cousin nearby. Soon after, his father, Kenny Clark Sr., walked into the room. The resemblance was uncanny -- two immense figures with big smiles and large, round faces. Except that while Kenny Jr.'s frame was easy to make out underneath his short-sleeved, green button-down shirt, his father's was not. Kenny Sr. was wearing a baggy, bright-orange jumpsuit: In 2005, he was convicted of second-degree murder. His sentence was 55 years to life, with no chance of parole. Escorted into the room in shackles by a pair of U.S. marshals, he smiled and nodded at his family before falling into a seat next to his attorneys from the federal public defender's office.
It was the first time in nearly 12 years that the Clarks had shared a room outside of a prison.
Victim identified as Canadian national
Steve Almasy and Artemis Moshtaghian, KCRA 3 News
(CNN) —California police now know the real name of "Jane Doe No. 59" but who her killer was remains a mystery.
Was it a member of the Manson Family? Charles Manson gave investigators no answers when they talked to him about the 46-year-old cold case last year.
The victim's name was Reet Jurvetson, a Canadian who was 19 when she went to Los Angeles a short time before she was stabbed to death.
Jurvetson's sister, Anne, wrote on a memorial page that she was "a lovely, free-spirited and happy girl." Jurvetson also was naive and trusting of others, Anne Jurvetson wrote, and the teenager loved adventures.
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
Jono Kinkade, New Times
For most people who watched the green grass at Dairy Creek Golf Course turn brown, it’s easy to blame the typical suspect—California’s drought.
And it’s true: Around the time the ongoing drought began, the course reduced irrigation. But while that played a minor role, it’s not the culprit. Instead, another ongoing California process was to blame: prison realignment. A declining population meant a reduction in water coming out of the neighboring California Men’s Colony (CMC), the course’s primary water source.
After Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 109 in 2011, California began reducing the state’s severely overcrowded prison population by sending low-level offenders to county jails and by implementing other diversion programs.
Eduardo Santiago, KYMA
CALIPATRIA, Calif. – Two visitors were arrested in separate incidents suspected of trying to smuggle marijuana into Calipatria State Prison Saturday.
Officers say the first arrest happened after a prison guard noticed a strong smell of marijuana coming from Michelle Autumn Gray’s car. Gray was visiting inmate Mackenzie Dent, who is in prison for robbery.
The 35-year-old from Garden Grove, California consented to a search of her person and car, according to officers.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
CVBJ
SACRAMENTO — Manteca’s Brian Pinneo, 42, has been appointed to the Commission on Correctional Peace Officer Standards and Training.
Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Pinneo who has served as a correctional sergeant at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton since 2013. He served in several positions at the High Desert State Prison from 2005 to 2013, including correctional sergeant and correctional officer.
Pinneo also served as a correctional officer at Salinas Valley State Prison from 2004 to 2005. This position is unpaid and does not require Senate confirmation.
Glenda Anderson, The Press Democrat
A Lake County judge on Tuesday ruled that a 71-year-old man was wrongfully convicted 18 years ago of child molestation, declaring the man “factually innocent” of the crime, a formality that improves his bid to seek almost $1 million in compensation from the state for the time he spent in prison.
The action came after the woman who accused Luther Jones of molesting her when she was 10 years old came forward in February and recanted her allegation. Jones was released from a Central Valley prison hospital shortly after, but Tuesday’s ruling was a critical step to clearing his name in the crime.
KPCC
The California state Senate on Monday rejected a bill that would end a practice of extending jail and prison sentences for repeat drug offenders.
Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, said the bill would help address the disproportionate incarceration of minorities. She brought it amid a national debate about the effectiveness of the war on drugs and its effects on minority communities.
"As we now know, this drug war strategy has failed at decreasing drug availability," Mitchell said. "Controlled substances are now cheaper, stronger and typically more widely available."
Jean Casella and Sal Rodriguez, The Guardian
Solitary confinement is the practice of isolating people in closed cells for 22-24 hours a day, virtually free of human contact, for periods of time ranging from days to decades.
Few prison systems use the term “solitary confinement”, instead referring to prison “segregation” or placement in “restrictive housing”. As this may be done for punitive, disciplinary or purportedly protective reasons, the names vary. Whatever the terminology, the practice entails a deliberate effort to limit social contact for a determinate or indeterminate period of time.
How many people are held in it?
OPINION
Adam B. Summers, OC Register
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which represents more than 30,000 state prison guards and parole agents, is one of the most powerful public employee unions in the state, behind the teachers unions. Its latest contract proposal hammered out with Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration may provide more evidence of that clout.
The proposed memorandum of understanding would offer a 9.3 percent raise over three years, and employees with at least 17 years of experience would receive an additional 1 percent boost in pay. The bargaining unit previously received a 4 percent raise in fiscal year 2014-15 and a 3 or 4 percent raise in 2013-14. If approved, the MOU would meet Gov. Brown’s goal of paying down retiree health care liabilities by shifting away from the current “pay-as-you-go” system to a “pre-funding” system, similar to the state’s pension systems, whereby the prison guards would start contributing 4 percent of their pay, which would be matched by the state, to a retiree health fund by 2018-19. It would also increase the vesting period by five years.