It's the system that needs corrections and rehabilitation

It was kind of like asking a captured robber to voluntarily handcuff himself without the threat of authority, or expecting a rabbit to hold still while you aim and fire. Today, the prison guards distributed a survey asking if we'd be interested in voluntarily transferring to out of state joints to help them ease overcrowding.

The survey said, as if we didn't know, that the prison system is dangerously overcrowded and voluntary transfers would help relieve the pressure. The stakes are high, so they want us to help dig them out of this mess.

So, let's say the needed 5,000 of us agree to transfer. The problem is temporarily countered. Yet laws like Three Strikes continue to gobble up petty thieves for life, the Board of Parole Hearings, which is designed to actually parole people, continues to release its annual 2 percent trickle and the newly released continue to get tripped up on technical violations and recidivate. Before you know it, we're up to the brim again. Then what?

Meanwhile, for the rest of us, there's little by way of job training, or rehabilitation or drug treatment - though 85 percent of offenders have drug or alcohol directly or indirectly related to their imprisonment. Opportunities to gain productive skills are slim to none in California prisons, so we abide in a world of idleness where violence reigns as a result.

That pretty much describes the cycle every time they build a new prison as well. California has been trying to build its way out of overcrowding - without releasing lifers or rehabilitating those with fixed sentences for over 20 years. It hasn't worked in the past and nothing suggests that failure won't repeat itself with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's two proposed prisons or multimillion dollar extensions to existing sites.

The survey listed 28 applicable states, from Alabama to Wisconsin, none of which lock up their citizens for 25 years to life for video game theft or other such petty offenses.

So "what do we get out of the deal?" was the echo on the yard. Or how does the taxpayer benefit, for that matter? It's just a shell game, but with bodies. Just more of the same.

They should honor the punishments originally meted out and start releasing the thousands who have met their Board of Parole Hearings requirements. The legislature should enact sentence reform, and implement genuine rehabilitation like other states with successful prison systems.

I checked the "Not Interested" box on the survey without the slightest hesitation. In spite of the myriad of criminal allegations we see those in power spin their way out of, they hold us responsible to the nth degree for our slightest slip ups. I say it's time we finally hold them accountable for something; namely this overcrowded, mismanaged, wasteful and out of control prison system they've created that now needs a good dose of correction of rehabilitation itself.

Source: Jennifer Warren and Jordan Rau, "Prison Reform Plan Falls Short," Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2006, B1, B7 (need rehab, forced transfers unconstitutional)

MIM replies: We join this prisoner's call to hold the Department of "Corrections" responsible for the mess of overcrowding, mismanagement, and inhuman conditions they have created in California's prisons. But we don't agree that there are other states with successful prison systems. The entire criminal injustice system in the United $tates is a failure at doing anything but propping up imperialism by locking up oppressed nations. It is true that some states are less brutal and have a lower recidivism rate than California, and it is good that some states actually grant parole dates to their prisoners. But there are no states that have comprehensive rehabilitation programs for all prisoners. And small improvements do not excuse the injustice system for the large crime it is perpetuating on the Black and Latino nations within U.$. borders.