A SHAMEFUL ATTACK ON CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS AND THEIR UNION

Sagar Jethani accuses every correctional officer of abusing California’s prison inmates

Sagar Jethani is a global marketing executive who studied political science and philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago and business at UCLA Anderson. He lives in Woodland Hills, California. Recently Jethani posted “Union Of the Snake: How California's Prison Guards Subvert Democracy” on the website ‘policymic.’ The article excoriated the California Correction Peace Officer's Association (CCPOA) and California’s prison guards.

Jethani blamed CCPOA for the large number of prisons, accusing the union of lobbying the state legislature to build more prisons so that the state would have to hire more prison guards so as to fill its coffers with more dues from its members. He holds CCPOA responsible for prison overcrowding because it was a strong backer of the ‘Three Strikes’ law. And because, as he claims, California pays its correctional officers about 60 percent more than the national average, Jethani blames CCPOA for “off-the-charts pay levels” and “outrageous paychecks.”

After blistering CCPOA, Jethani turned his attention to excoriating California’s correctional officers, citing a recent Office of Inspector General report which detailed 117 cases of wrongdoing by prison guards, including “guards planning prisoner assaults and murder, buying prisoners drugs and alcohol, groping and grappling prisoners, and soliciting prisoners for sex.” And, of course, Jethani took great pleasure in citing a 2010 legislative analysis by saying that “the main source of smuggled cellphones is — you guessed it — prison guards.”

Jethani ends his long article by declaring: “The prison guards union thinks it can abuse the people of California the same way it abuses the inmates placed in its care. It's time to show them who's in charge.”

In my opinion, Sagar Jethani is nothing more than intellectual pond scum. While I’m not too fond of labor unions, he is giving CCPOA a bad rap. Below you will find Jeff ‘Paco’ Doyle’s response to Jethani’s attack on the union. For my part, I want to say something about the 117 incidents of wrongdoing by correctional officers.

There are thousands of California correctional officers and 117 officers constitute an infinitesimal number out of the total. To besmirch all prison guards for the wrongdoing of 117, or for that matter let’s say 300 just to make Jethani feel good, is nothing but a downright dirty rotten shame! And Jethani goes way beyond that, because when he says “the same way it abuses the inmates placed in its care,” he is accusing every correctional officer of abusing California’s prison inmates.

Here is Jeff ‘Paco’ Doyle’s response to Jethani’s attack on CCPOA:

While Mr. Jethani's article is nothing more than a regurgitation of the anti-incarceration Left's Talking Points, I found it interesting insofar as the author speaks with absolute certainty–He truly is convinced a relatively small labor union wields the power to influence the Legislature, Executive and Electorate to do their bidding. This is one of the most anti-intellectual arguments I have read from a so-called intellectual.

Let us consider, as Jethani did not, that SEIU has ten-fold the political action warchest of CCPOA and has been lobbying and otherwise influencing government for decades longer than CCPOA, which only entered the PAC arena in the early 80′s.

The Teacher's union wrote, sponsored and wheedled the continuing fiscal disaster known as Proposition 98 which mandates 40% of general fund be directed to an ever declining school system. CCPOA, the behemoth bully led the charge against Prop. 98 yet it passed handily. How can this be? The corrupt prison guard's union calls the shots, right?

Bottom line, all the repeated hysterics over a supposedly dominant CCPOA is nothing but Leftist hyperbole. CCPOA never had the funds, juice or gravitas to single-highhandedly carry an initiative.

This is yet another example of the Left's scotoma when it comes to public sector unionism. Political action by all other public sector unions isn't a problem in the eyes of Sagar Jethani and his contemporaries–It is only when perceived conservative professions are empowered that a red flag is thrown.

CCPOA never sponsored a ballot initiative — It only hopped on sympathetic bandwagons and threw its weight in when it came time to push. Can any of the Brand X, big labor bargaining units say the same?

Moreover, since the Schwarzenegger Administration, CCPOA has suffered one failure after another–Only the election of a milquetoast, two-faced governor may be seen as an eventual ‘win' yet the union has nothing but cuts and givebacks to show for it. Thus, any validity Jethani's argument may have is a matter of history, not current affairs.

Borrowing from Yogi Berra, to those who say CCPOA isn't as powerful as it used to be, Paco says it never was — CCPOA has very little clout these days. Paco suspects Jethani knows this as well as anyone on the Left. However, prison guards make a great scapegoat owing to a perpetually negative public image. So, blame it on the guards…the public will buy it–The same public that supposedly passed all those tough-on-crime bills at CCPOA's behest. Hmmm.

In any case, when you are on the job, look around at everything that is wrong with the system and take stock of the reality it is all your fault as a member of the powerful prison guards union.