CDCR NEWS
Jeremy Childs, Ventura County Star
A California budget proposal to add a fire training camp for parolees near Camarillo has drawn opposition at the local level due to financial and safety concerns.
The project proposes to take a California Conservation Corps camp in unincorporated Ventura County and convert it into a training facility that would host 80 parolees training to become professional firefighters. The camp currently houses 77 state inmates who are utilized as an auxiliary firefighting workforce.
Camarillo city officials said the proposed training program is better suited for more remote areas.
“They can do whatever they want with the program; I just don’t want it here,” said Mayor Charlotte Craven.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the Camarillo City Council voted to send a letter of opposition to the governor’s office as well as lawmakers involved in approving the proposal on the budget. Local officials hope to alter or remove the project from the budget before it is enacted June 15.
As planned, parolees would undergo 18 months of training and receive entry-level firefighter certification along with a $1,900 monthly stipend.
The project was added to Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget for the 2018-19 budget year through a joint effort by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the California Conservation Corps.
According to the budget proposal, the project’s purpose is to reduce recidivism by giving parolees a new career path. It would also expand the hiring pool used by Cal Fire and other local, state and federal fire agencies.
The budget proposal would allocate $7.7 million to implement and operate the training program, as well as $18.9 million to fund the renovations of the conservation camp, bringing the total requested state funds to $26.6 million. If approved, the program would enroll the first 20 parolees in October and add 20 every three months until it reaches 80.
Although support at the state level helped get the proposal on the governor’s budget, the project has been met with ire from local officials, including Craven, who has openly spoken out against the camp.
“The governor wants to create a half-way house for parolees, some of whom may have committed burglaries and robberies, within walking distance to some of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Camarillo,” the mayor said in a news statement.
The proposed site for the project is at 2800 Wright Road, just outside the Camarillo city limits and just miles from its most expensive residential areas, including Sterling Hills and Spanish Hills.
The camp is also adjacent to a Department of Juvenile Justice high-security facility that houses 175 inmates between ages 16 and 23, including 25 females. Of the 77 conservation camp inmates, 30 are also female.
In the letter submitted to state officials, the Camarillo City Council cited the proposed site’s location as the chief complaint of the project.
The city said it was concerned for the safety of the girls at the Youth Correctional Facility and the California Conservation Corps center as well as the residents of Camarillo, especially those who live near the facility.
As a compromise, the letter suggests the idea of hosting the fire training camp at an alternative site in Amador County that is more remote than Camarillo’s.
Ventura County Board of Supervisors members Kelly Long and John Zaragoza sent their own joint letter to lawmakers.
“It is our understanding that no similar program currently is being operated in the state.
Given the absence of evidence that this program would result in improved outcomes for the parolee population, we believe the program may put public safety at risk in the surrounding areas,” the letter stated.
Long, whose district covers the city of Camarillo, said she was concerned the training would not guarantee the employment opportunities described in the proposal. She cited a 2013 study by the RAND Corp. that found the Los Angeles Fire Department received 13,000 applications for fewer than 100 open positions.
“The governor’s office is adamant this will work, but how do we confirm that’s going to happen?” Long said.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office, a third-party state agency that provides a nonpartisan assessment of the California budget, also published a report in February criticizing the project.
“We find that the proposed program is unlikely to be the most cost-effective approach to reduce recidivism,” the report states.
The report cites five reasons for the negative assessment of the program, such as that the firefighter training does not target high-risk, high-need parolees and is not based on a program proven to be effective at reducing crime recidivism.
The report also states that the training would not likely lead to employment opportunities for all trainees due to the competitive job market. Finally, the assessment determines that the program includes funding for resources that are not fully justified and is not cost-effective.
“The proposed program would cost $6.3 million annually to operate, or about $80,000 per parolee,” the reports states.
Several community meetings have been planned to inform local residents about the project.
Zaragoza will host a special meeting for the community of Nyeland Acres on April 5 at the Nyeland Acres Community Center, 3334 Santa Clara Ave. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m.
Another information meeting has been scheduled April 10 for Camarillo residents to learn more about the project. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at the Camarillo City Council chambers, 601 Carmen Drive.
The Camarillo meeting will be hosted by state officials from the governor’s office as well as Cal Fire and the Department of Corrections to answer questions and provide informational materials to those in attendance.
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
Ryan Sandler, Corrections.com
Kern Valley State Prison is latest CDCR facility to implement aspirating smoke detection, which stops nuisance alarms, speeds detection, and requires minimal maintenance
Under the guidance of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the largest nonfederal correctional system in the nation, Kern Valley State Prison is now joining a growing number of correctional facilities implementing aspirating smoke detection technology for fire protection.
Specified by the CDCR in the bidding process, aspirating smoke detection systems draw in air through small flexible tubing secured in air ducts. The air is analyzed continuously for the presence of minute smoke particles in a remote area up to 300’ away that is inaccessible to inmates
This advanced technology not only provides faster, more sophisticated smoke detection, but also eliminates several costly and troublesome operational issues associated with traditional in-duct smoke detectors.
In-duct smoke detectors are prone to accumulate dirt and dust, particularly in inmate housing areas. Because the particulate can be mistakenly interpreted as smoke, it can trigger recurring false alarms. To resolve this, costly ongoing maintenance is required to access and clean each detector, a process that must be repeated when the build-up occurs again.
In some prisons, the problem is so severe nuisance alarms are ignored, even disconnected. In others, maintenance can become backlogged, leaving inmates effectively unprotected except for the vigilance of guards.
“Among traditional in-duct smoke detection systems, a large number of false alarms can be triggered when accumulated dust and dirt cover the sensors,” says Queen Gonzalez, a co-founder of Intelligent Fire Systems & Solutions, Inc., a Southern California based fire and life safety solutions company. Her company won the competitive public bid for the Kern Valley State Prison project involving aspirating smoke detection.
At Kern Valley State Prison, a Level IV facility in Delano, CA, Gonzalez says the fire safety project entailed replacing cell exhaust duct mounted smoke detectors with an advanced aspirating smoke detection system in an inmate housing unit. The scope of this involved about 16 pods, with about 64 cells per pod, for a total of nearly 1024 cells.
The air samples taken through the flexible tubes located in ductwork or return air chases are transported then analyzed using sophisticated laser-based technology at a central unit located within 300’. A single aspirating system supports up to 40 sample points and can be extended to 120, if needed.
As a multi-channel, addressable system, the central unit of the aspirating system can pinpoint the exact location of the alarm. This can enhance safety by speeding detection, investigation, fire suppression, security management, and evacuation if necessary.
Furthermore, an aspirating system offers earlier detection than photoelectric technology detectors. The system is able to detect minor particles in the air much faster, even before a fire begins to flame and burn.
For the project, 32 of the central units were used. These were located in a secure mechanical space behind the prison cells.
According to Gonzalez, it is a relatively simple installation. After each existing smoke detector is removed, tubing connected to air sampling points takes its place. This involved running tubing in the return air chase above all the cells. The tubing, suspended on hooks, drops off into each individual duct.
Another benefit of the system is that it can effectively deter inmate tampering, says Gonzalez.
“If there is a way for inmates to tamper with smoke detectors, they will,” says Gonzalez. “Inmates can even block ducts so in-duct smoke detectors will not work. Any system installed must be as tamper-proof as possible.”
To deter vandalism, the system will send a fault signal indicating the air flow is blocked in the event an inmate is able to cover a duct or sampling point.
“Even if prisoners could see the air sampling point, they would have no clue what it is because it is so small and looks nothing like a standard smoke detector,” adds Gonzalez.
Correction industry leaders also appreciate the very low maintenance required for aspirating smoke detection systems.
For instance, tubes on an aspirating system are self cleaning and detect any blockages or breaks in the tubing. Even if dirt, dust, or lint enters the tubing system, the filters for all the sampling points are located at the central unit in a restricted area. Cleaning the filters takes only about a minute, so there is no need for maintenance personnel to crawl into ducts to clean the detectors.
The system not only stops false alarms due to dust or dirt contamination of sensors, but also can distinguish between smoke, fire, and other airborne contaminants, which further reduces nuisance alarms.
Annual National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) inspections are also simplified. Unlike traditional smoke alarms, aspirating systems do not require testing of each sample point annually at its location in the duct. Instead, the tests can be conducted at the central unit.
Whether correctional facilities aim to minimize false alarms and maintenance or improve safety and security, aspirating smoke detection systems are gaining favor over traditional systems.
Kern Valley State Prison joins Corcoran State Prison in California as well as Fort Dodge Correctional Facility in Iowa and Pennsylvania Correctional Facility in adopting aspirating smoke detection.
Gonzalez, who is currently bidding on another aspirating smoke detection project for a prison in Arizona, concludes, “There is increasing interest in this technology, and it will only grow as more correctional facilities, engineers, and architects become aware of its benefits.”
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
Fresno State’s Graduate Art Studios will display artwork produced by men incarcerated at Avenal State Prison Friday through Sunday from noon to 4 p.m., beginning on April 5 through April 22 at the M Street Complex in Downtown Fresno.
The exhibition, which is part of the Center for Creativity and the Arts, is called “Insider Art: Exploring the Arts within Prison Environments,” and it will showcase over 100 pieces of art. There will also be an opportunity for attendees to see and hear performances by incarcerated men displayed on monitors.
Criminology department Chair Emma Hughes along with Fresno State’s College of Social Sciences; the College of Arts and Humanities; the Center for Creativity and the Arts; the department of art and design; and Project Rebound got together to showcase the artwork.
“It seemed a shame that so much beautiful work … was being produced in this environment, but that only a few people were getting to see it,” Hughes said in a news release. “It just seems really beneficial for people in the community to see it and for the men who produced this work to have a wider audience.”
A discussion panel will be held on April 4 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Alice Peters Auditorium as part of the exhibition. The panel will include Avenal State Prison warden Rosemary Ndoh and Doug Snell from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The exhibition will also be part of ArtHop on April 5 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Marianne Napoles, Chino Champion
A 50-bed mental health facility is expected to be built at the California Institution for Men in Chino in approximately four years.
The prison entrance is located at 14901 Central Ave. at the end of Chino Hills Parkway.
“The first dirt to move on this is at least two years from now and finished construction is at least four years away,” said Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Bill Sessa.
The 48,000-square-foot hospital will be built inside the existing prison at a cost of $56.6 million, Mr. Sessa said.
An old building that has outlived its usefulness will be demolished to make way for the facility, he said.
The hospital will be self-contained to provide the care that 50 inmates at a time would require, he said. It would include accommodations for doctors, nurses, and administrative staff.
He said the project will be budgeted in phases. Working drawings and preliminary plans are budgeted at $3.6 million and will probably be completed at the end of 2019, he said. The actual construction costs will be budgeted in future cycles.
Mr. Sessa said the Department of Corrections (CDCR) is required by law to provide mental health care to inmates, from counseling to medication to crisis beds.
He cited a case called Coleman vs. Brown that covers all inmates with serious mental disorders housed in California state prisons.
He said the hospital will be CDCR's second such facility in southern California. The other one is in the Richard J. Donovan state prison in San Diego, he said.
There are currently 373 beds in CDCR prisons, he said.
“We have a need for these beds in southern California for inmates who need short-term acute care,” Mr. Sessa said. “We have an imbalance at the moment. We have facilities in northern and central California but not in southern California.”
This isn't the first time the community has been faced with a prison mental hospital. Back in 1973 it was announced that the Youth Training School on Euclid Avenue, which was being closed by the Youth Authority, would house a psychiatric and treatment center, a proposal that was nixed under local pressure.
A decade ago, the state was working on plans to use a vacant unit at CIM for a mental health hospital. Local leaders, headed by Mayor Dennis Yates, went to Sacramento to strenuously oppose it. The pressure, plus a reduction statewide ion prison population and a cutback in funds, shelved the proposal after several years of local hearings and opposition.
Residents who are interested in learning more about current affairs at the prison may attend the next citizens advisory committee meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 10 at Chaffey College Chino Community Center, 5890 College Park Ave.
The meetings are held the second Tuesday every two months and are open to the public.
The citizens advisory committee for California Institution for Women meets at 9:30 a.m. following the men’s meeting.
On April 20, Scott Kernan, secretary for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, will come to Chino for a meeting about CIM and safety concerns as a result of the January escape of an inmate.
Mr. Kernan is expected to meet with city and police officials from Chino Hills and Chino at the prison.
CALIFORNIA PAROLE
Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office
On 04-01-18, at approximately 7:30 am, correctional deputies were working in the maximum security unit in the Humboldt County Correctional Facility when 31 year old Kristopher Jett exited his cell for his allotted time out in the dayroom. Upon opening his door, Jett attacked one of the correctional deputies by hitting him in the face several times. The correctional deputies were able to restrain Jett and place him back into his cell.
The correctional deputy was transported to St Joseph’s Hospital for evaluation and treatment and has since been released.
Jett was originally in custody on a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation parole hold. Jett has been booked for Battery on a Custodial Officer and his bail has been set at $25,000.
Anyone with information for the Sheriff’s Office regarding this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Sheriff’s Office at 707-445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at 707-268-2539.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
Meet Thomas Bigbee, the face of over 100 arrests in Santa Cruz CountyMichael Todd, Santa Cruz Sentinel
SANTA CRUZ – State laws have changed since 1976, when then 20-year-old Thomas Bigbee of Boulder Creek was fined $125 on suspicion of reckless driving. In 1983, the 26 year old was sentenced to a year of probation for disturbing the peace.
In 1991, Bigbee was sentenced to nine months in county jail and five years probation for drunken driving, the Sentinel reported.
The trend has continued and Bigbee, now 62 with no known address, has been arrested or detained in Santa Cruz County 13 times this year, including four times in March. Bigbee is one of “many, many frequent flyers” in Santa Cruz County; some have rap sheets too long — with 25 arrests or more — to be transmitted to the Santa Cruz Public Defender’s Office, attorney Ted Fairbanks said.
Bigbee’s repeated interactions with law enforcement account for 100 booking photos — some showing fresh bandages and scars on his usually bearded face — on mugshotssantacruz.com since 2014 and 68 Santa Cruz County Superior Court cases since 2007. His rap sheet has 66 traffic or criminal cases, according to the Santa Cruz County Superior Court online portal. But his arrests, documented in Sentinel archives, predate the court filings online.
DRUNK IN PUBLIC
Most recently, Bigbee was detained about 10 p.m. March 28 on suspicion of disorderly conduct and public drunkenness, according to Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office arrest logs. He was released a few hours later. Information about that case was not available from the Sheriff’s Office last week. The actual number of times Bigbee has been arrested, cited or detained is unclear.
Many law enforcement officers and social workers interviewed knew Bigbee but all of those interviewed declined to talk about him specifically.
Bigbee has no phone number listed in public records and none of the numbers listed for his relatives were functional.
A TREND
Sheriff Jim Hart has said alcohol, drugs, mental illness or homelessness are at the core of most criminal cases in Santa Cruz County, which is home to only 14 hospital beds dedicated to behavioral health patients. Criminal-justice reforms starting in 2011 in California placed an average of 70 inmates convicted of low-level felonies up to 12 years in county jail, changing the demographic of who is incarcerated in Santa Cruz and other counties.
And Proposition 47, passed in 2014, reduced some drug-possession felonies to misdemeanors and mandates misdemeanor sentencing for petty theft, receiving stolen property and forging or writing bad checks when the amount involved is $950 or less, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Proposition 57, effective last year, is giving inmates time credits and parole considerations for good behavior.
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The sweeping reforms — most designed to reduce prison and jail populations — likely affected some of Bigbee’s cases as Santa Cruz County re-entry services also have evolved.
DIFFICULT TASK
Services for substance-use disorders are a separate challenge, said Jorge Sanchez, a longtime recovered heroin addict and program manager of Santa Cruz Residential Recovery and Si Se Puede.
“It’s a cycle,” Sanchez said. “A lot of them aren’t going to get hired and, if they end up back on the streets, they’re going to start using again.”
Many substance users don’t qualify for available services, Sanchez said. And to get sober, it takes employment and housing, he said.
“Do we see a lot of them in and out of the system? Yes, we do,” Sanchez said. “Some of them have been through every program in Santa Cruz County.”
There has been an increase in the number of addicts with mental health problems, Sanchez said.
SOBRIETY SOUGHT
In 1993, when Bigbee admitted he had three previous felony convictions of driving under the influence, he was directed to complete the Sunflower House Santa Cruz Community Counseling Center, which offers substance-use treatment and a group home. That year, a judge ordered Bigbee to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous “on a daily basis,” according to court documents. He also stayed later for a few months at a sober-living center in Capitola.
Ben Lomond behavioral health professional Michael Fitzgerald said the criminal-justice system fails each time someone is released after committing crimes to finance substance-use disorders. Fitzgerald knows about Bigbee’s situation.
“We’re letting people die in these conditions and we’re considering it their right,” Fitzgerald said. “People who get arrested over and over just get buried. There is no way out. The system isn’t rooting for you.”
He said “to get sober, you have to drop everything in your life.”
“He’s going to need a total change in his environment,” Fitzgerald said, referring to Bigbee or anyone struggling with addiction. “They have to have a reason to get clean.”
Santa Cruz Police Chief Andy Mills said his staff has been identifying repeat offenders in more serious criminal cases than alcohol offenses for which Bigbee is prone.
“As a community, we have to make a decision about who we want to have in jail: the person trespassing or the person breaking into homes?” Mills said. “The courts are in a tough spot. You’re not going to solve this thing immediately.”