Michigan: Preparing a Prison for California Inmates


(image courtesy Cory Morse from the Grand Rapids Press)

The Michigan dream, which encountered some serious hurdles before getting back on track, is apparently becoming reality. Via Sara at the Prison Law Blog, here are some details about the preparations to receive California inmates at this new Michigan facility:

As The GEO Group Inc. prepares to reopen the site once known as a “punk prison” for youth convicts, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is getting ready to send nearly 2,600 inmates here to help solve the state’s prison overcrowding.

This time, the inmates will not be deviant youth, but adults who ran afoul of California law for a variety of reasons.

The prisoners coming to Baldwin as part of a $60 million-a-year contract with GEO will be medium-security inmates deemed not extremely dangerous. Still, their backgrounds may include everything from murder to sexual assault.

Michigan has been hailed as a model for inmate population reduction. Apparently, these commendable steps have put them, and GEO corporation, in a position to benefit from our failure to act similarly.

Who Benefits from Arizona’s SB 1070?

NPR reports:

The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce says the bill was his idea. He says it’s not about prisons. It’s about what’s best for the country.

“Enough is enough,” Pearce said in his office, sitting under a banner reading “Let Freedom Reign.” “People need to focus on the cost of not enforcing our laws and securing our border. It is the Trojan horse destroying our country and a republic cannot survive as a lawless nation.”

But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room.

This is quite a shocking story. It turns out that private prison corporations are among the main financiers of Arizona’s anti-immigration bill. This puts a shocking, cynical slant on what would be deemed a disgraceful bill even if it were sincere, and not profit driven.

Leno on Recidivism

I’m at the Students for Sensible Drug Policy West Coast Regional Conference (at SF State — see http://ssdp.org/conference/westcoast) where Senator Mark Leno is currently answering a question about Proposition 19. This initiative would reduce California’s prison population by allowing adult possession and cultivation of 25 square feet of cannabis.

Senator Leno reminds us that California has the USA’s highest recidivism rate, 70%, compared to the national average of 35%. California’s prisons confine 170,000 inmates, 180% of their capacity of 90,000. Wow!

Impact of New CA Budget on Corrections

The California budget passed by legislature this week includes “$1.1 billion from public safety, largely in lower medical costs for inmates”.

The full budget report can be found here, and highlights the fact that the proposal to “realign” state inmates into local jails, which was strongly resisted by local authorities, has been abandoned.

How will medical costs be lowered? We’ll follow up on these issues in the weeks to come.

Education Protest Has Correctional “Edge”

Students, faculty and staff at UC Berkeley, my alma mater, are protesting fee hikes and layoffs today. Interestingly, one of the advertised rationales behind the protest is the comparison of yearly funding per student ($14,000) to the funding per inmate ($49,000).

Earlier this year, the Legal Analyst’s office examined a gubernatorial proposed measure to limit correctional expenditure to 7 percent of General Fund support and to set a minimum of 10 percent for California public universities. LAO found the measure artificial and fiscally unwise. However, the bottom line stands: Our expenditures are an expression of our social priorities.

I wonder if the students protesting this morning realize that the expenditures per inmate do not mean an intimate investment in inmates’ vocational and educational future, and that two thirds of the expenditure per inmate are medical costs, unevenly distributed among the inmate population and addressing primarily the needs of elderly, frail inmates, often incarcerated for unnecessarily lengthy periods. I also wonder what the students perceive as an appropriate solution for “evening out” the odds.

It was at UC Berkeley where I was privileged to study with Malcolm Feeley, Jonathan Simon and Frank Zimring, and was introduced to mass incarceration in the United States as an important social problem. I support the UC Berkeley struggle for funding, and my hope is that those participating in that struggle, who perhaps are reading us this morning, will realize that the university cuts are part of a broader flawed expression of social priorities.

Marijuana and Federalism: California a Test Case

On Friday, August 6, 2010 I attended a forum of the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers called “Marijuana and Federalism: California a Test Case.” The event was originally conceived as a chance for experts to publicly examine the implications of the state-federal conflict of the passage of A.B. 2254, Assm. Ammiano’s tax-and-regulate marijuana bill. Then, Ammiano withdrew 2254 in light of Proposition 19, a voter initiative legalizing marijuana and allowing local governments to tax and regulate sales.

Washington State Representative Roger Goodman, E.D. of the VCL, moderated the first of two panels, “Marijuana Legalization: A Clash of Federal Power and States’ Rights.” His excellent panelists explored the contours of the state-federal conflict, and its implications for potential legal challenges to Prop 19. First, Professor Robert Hirshon, who was president of the ABA during 9/11, spoke. Bob said that his “uber-blue-blood” law firm back in Maine had recently asked the Maine State Bar Association for guidance on the professional responsibility considerations of representing medical marijuana dispensaries (Maine has recently become the first American state to issue licenses to retail marijuana stores). The Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar responded with Advisory Opinion 199, advising that because marijuana is federally illegal, representing dispensaries could be a breach of the professional responsibility rules against knowingly assisting a crime.

Next Allen Hopper of the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project affirmed that representing dispensaries could arguably conflict with federal law and thus the PR code. However, he carved out an exception for attorneys who believe they are acting legally and in good faith. His best point came from his personal experience in representing WAMM, the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, in County of Santa Cruz v. Gonzalez. In that case, earlier this year, a medical marijuana collective and the county regulating it reached a settlement in which the federal government agreed to drop its prosecution.

Finally Professor Alex Kreit of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego composed the meat of the panel by summarizing the law review articles he has published on this topic. Alex bifurcated analysis of Prop 19’s two sections, one of which legalizes personal possession and cultivation of marijuana, and the other of which allows counties and municipalities to regulate and license marijuana sales. He referred to Section 903 of the federal Controlled Substances Act, which says that the CSA will only preempt state law in the event of a “positive conflict” between state law and the CSA (which prohibits marijuana etc.). Alex analogized that there is no “positive conflict” between prohibiting marijuana and allowing marijuana, since a non-user can comply with both laws — this is, at worst, a passive conflict — whereas a “positive conflict” would result from a state law requiring mandatory marijuana consumption (preventing anyone from being able to follow both state and federal law simultaneously). He supposed that federal prosecutors would likely go after locally-licensed marijuana retailers, but would probably lose. Alex also pointed out that the federal government simply lacks the resources to enforce this federal law, rendering the point largely moot. He mentioned his shortly forthcoming article in the Chapman Law Review on this topic, “Beyond the Prohibition Debate: Thoughts on Federal Drug Laws in an Age of State Reforms.”

VCL President Eric Sterling moderated the second panel, “Marijuana Legalization on the Ground: Practical Considerations.” First, Assm. Tom Ammiano discussed his marijuana legalization bill, which gained notoriety last year as AB 390 when it passed the Public Safety Committee. He mentioned that this legislation would pass in a “hallway vote,” highlighting his fellow legislators “cowardice” on this issue. He also explained to the audience the concept of “contingency legislation.” The legislature could pass a law or laws regulating marijuana sales this year, set to take effect only in the event that the voters approve Prop 19. Though the Supreme Court would be required to overturn legislation amending a voter-approved initiative, legislation that adds to an initiative and is within its spirit and intent is not only acceptable but good planning. In fact, Section 5 of Prop 19’s text specifically allows for new laws creating a statewide regulatory system.

Drug Policy Alliance Staff Attorney Theshia Naidoo (disclaimer: was recently my boss) addressed the main substance of the panel by raising numerous practical considerations related to the passage of Prop 19. She provided an overview of the legal issues, especially on the civil side, likely to arise. She also mentioned the social justice implications of legalization, as DPA has just released a new report, “Targeting Blacks for Marijuana: Possession Arrests of African Americans in California, 2004-08,” available here. African Americans are 7% of California’s population but 33% of all felony marijuana arrests.

Americans for Safe Access Chief Counsel Joe Elford discussed Prop 19’s effects on medical marijuana law. ASA neither supports nor opposes Prop 19, but is neutral. He used medical marijuana as a case study for potential legal challenges to Prop 19. Joe mentioned that the upcoming appellate ruling in Qualified Patients Association v. Anaheim could undermine retail sales (though the ruling, since released, did not). He focused on his “greatest loser,” Ross v. RagingWire, in which the California Supreme Court ruled medical marijuana patients can be discriminated against for purposes of employment. Joe’s main takeaway was that Prop 19 expressly does not change our medical marijuana laws, except that it would overturn RagingWire — and would likely lower the price of medicine for patients.

Finally, Sheriff Tom Allman of Mendocino County explained his opposition to Prop 19. He said he supports medical marijuana, but opposes the way it has been implemented in California: by patchwork. He explained that medical marijuana has brought money, and money has brought greed, and greed has brought violence. He sees Prop 19 bringing more marijuana money into the public eye, and thus leading to more violence. His specific stated example for opposing medical marijuana implementation in Mendocino County was “stench,” i.e., neighbors’ complaints about odor from cultivation.

What Inmates Think About Early Releases

This piece is about a week overdue, but I trust our readers will find it interesting. Our friends at PrisonMovement are linking to a New America piece in which two inmates express insightful, grim opinions about the prospect of early releases. One of them, Dwight Abbott, writes:

The facts today are now known by anyone who reads the newspaper; California’s Corrections Administration has always known them. Yet, it took a federal takeover to squeeze out an admission that “there are problems.” This from the same people who immediately after, refused to comply with demands to repair what is broken. All the while, both sides — the courts who have the authority to force the reform, and the state officials not wanting it to — appear to have forgotten the inmates who are continuing to die unnecessarily because of the inhumane conditions being wrangled over… Collateral damage.

End overcrowding? End warehousing and abusing incarcerated juveniles? Compel California to act on previous court orders issued through the years? The Administration has no fear of the courts, with good reason. No person calling the shots in this matter has yet to be charged (much less jailed) for being in contempt of a court mandate after refusing to comply. Until that changes, the children will not be “rehabilitated.” They will not be allowed an education (locked inside a 4’x4’ screened cage five hours a day), participate in therapy, or to partake in vocational training, watched over by an independent watchdog group assuring what is supposed to be happening. The 90% recidivism rate among juvenile offenders will not change. They are fodder to fill the state’s bloated adult prisons.

What programs could be brought to life to change this dismal, unending record of failure? In the long run, only a return to indeterminate sentencing, with built-in incentives (like early release) for prisoners to participate can work to reduce a cycle that no one seems able or willing to break. If prisoners knew that immersing themselves in programs that teach them to read, to address their addictions, to learn violence reduction strategies, to have access to vocational training that actually prepares a prisoner for meaningful employment, you would see a dramatic decline in the worst aspects of prison life, and a dramatic increase in legal and productive behavior when they hit the streets, as almost all will.

What to do right now about overcrowding? Admit parole is a fake! Under California’s sentencing guidelines, those today being paroled have, in reality, completed their sentence. The problem lies with the courts adding on years of parole, to be served after a sentence is completed. Implemented, perhaps, with the best of intentions, in truth, parole only serves a huge number of men and women employed by the state as Parole Officers at a cost of over a billion dollars annually. They in turn guarantee the CDCR its prisons remain overcrowded with “technical parole violators,” which then guarantees prison guards (whose annual salary ranges between $50,000 and $60,000) an opportunity to pad their checks with an additional $100,000+ of taxpayer’s money in overtime pay each year.

What should be obvious to anyone reading this: there is no need to release so much as one convict who has not yet completed his/her sentence. Instead, release those who have, and are presently among the 30,000 “technical” parole violators who, at any given time, languish in California’s overcrowded prisons for up to one year, trapped by a broken system which has recidivism rates of close to 70%, the highest in the United States.

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Props to Jerry Jarvis for the link.

Would Legalizing Marijuana Increase Revenue?

This morning’s Chron includes a story about a recently-completed RAND study on the expected fiscal effects of legalizing marijuana.

The upshot of the six-month study by the nonpartisan Rand Drug Policy Research Center is this: It’s anybody’s guess as to whether the state will suffer or prosper if voters approve Proposition 19 on the November ballot. The measure would allow local governments to regulate and tax pot sales and controlled cultivation, and to let adults over 21 possess as much as an ounce.

“There is just so much uncertainty, that while we could look at the data and create a scenario that could be very good from an economic standpoint, we could also create a very bad one,” said Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, co-director of the Rand center in Santa Monica. “The overall effect is a bit of a mystery.”

More information, directly from RAND:

While the state Board of Equalization has estimated taxing legal marijuana could raise more than $1 billion in revenue, the RAND study cautions that any potential revenue could be dramatically higher or lower based on a number of factors, including the level of taxation, the amount of tax evasion and the response by the federal government.

Past research provides solid evidence that marijuana consumption goes up when prices go down, but the magnitude of the consumption increase cannot be predicted because prices will fall to levels below those ever studied, researchers say. Consumption also might rise because of non-price effects such as advertising or a reduction in stigma, researchers say.

In addition to uncertainty about the taxes levied and evaded, researchers do not know how users will respond to such a large drop in price. Even under a scenario with high taxes ($50 per ounce) and a moderate rate of tax evasion (25 percent), researchers cannot rule out consumption increases of 50 percent to 100 percent, and possibly even larger. If prevalence increased by 100 percent, marijuana use in California would be close to the prevalence levels recorded in the late 1970s.

The full RAND report, which can be downloaded here, reaches the following conclusions:

  • The pretax retail price of marijuana will substantially decline, likely by more than 80 percent. The price that consumers face will depend heavily on taxes, the structure of the regulatory regime, and how taxes and regulations are enforced.
  • Consumption will increase, but it is unclear how much because we know neither the shape of the demand curve nor the level of tax evasion (which reduces revenues and the prices that consumers face).
  • Tax revenues could be dramatically lower or higher than the $1.4 billion estimate; for example, there is uncertainty about potential tax revenues that California might derive from taxing marijuana used by residents of other states (e.g., from “drug tourism”).
  • Previous studies find that the annual costs of enforcing marijuana laws range from around $200 million to nearly $1.9 billion; our estimates show that the costs are probably less than $300 million.
  • There is considerable uncertainty about the impact of legalizing marijuana in California on public budgets and consumption, with even minor changes in assumptions leading to major differences in outcomes.
  • Much of the research used to inform this debate is based on insights from studies that examine small changes in either marijuana prices or the risk of being sanctioned for possession. The proposed legislation in California would create a large change in policy. As a result, it is uncertain how useful these studies are for making projections about marijuana legalization.

The predictive model adopted by the paper considers a possible scenario: a $50 per-ounce tax (they do consider some alternative scenarios and intervening factors). The researchers find that, in this situation, marijuana consumption is elastic and might increase. This prediction is based on levels of usage in the past. Part of the challenge, as researchers admit, is that predicting changes in consumption is a difficult thing to do; it is difficult to tell how much of the usage level has to do with changes in price or regulatory regime (and, of course, whether changes in usage are going to be short-term or long-term.)

This is an interesting development. Before formulating the proposal, Tom Ammiano’s office had done some public polling, which suggested that the public was much more likely to support a legalization bill if it were marketed as a revenue enhancing measure (“tax and regulate” rather than “legalize”). This plan, however, might backfire in light of the results of the RAND report. However, it is important to keep in mind, when considering whether to vote for this proposition, whether there are not other reasons for legalization.

In Lieu of Parole Officers? LEADS 2.0

(image courtesy CDCR website)

CDCR has launched the usage of LEADS 2.0, the new version of a parolee-management database that is accessible to law enforcement agencies. The database is supposed to contain updated information about the status of parolees (at-large, deported, and anyone belonging to the new category of non-revocable parole) and allow simultaneous searches by multiple users.

Interestingly, the software is promoted partly as a mechanism to offset personnel loss, and in that respect seems to be a similar technological “save” as GPS monitoring.