By Bob Walsh
The California Dept. of Corrections (and rehabilitation)
has been shrinking for many years, but the level of violence in the
prisons has gone up, way up, in the last several years. This is almost
certainly based on the bizarre attempts to mix and mainline various
security classifications of prisoners.
Back
in the day (19 years ago) when I was one of the people making these
decisions gang affiliation, history of violence and security level were
major indicators of housing. Especially since Gavin (God I Want To Be
President) Newsom has been ruling the state the idea is that the
department should treat criminals more like real people, and that this
treatment would elicit normative behavior from the prisoners. For some
strange reason it isn't working. As anybody who has actually walked a
tier could have told him.
They are now mixing high security gang members, medium security non-violent prisoners and people with developmental issues. And they are surprised that rapes, serious assaults, attempted murders and murders have gone WAY UP even though the numbers of prisoners has gone way, way down.
It
really is pretty simple. Prisons will continue to be unpleasant places
until we start locked up a better class of people. Putting violent
predators and heavy gang members in with burglars, white collar
criminals and mentally deficient prisoners will not end up well for the
guys who just want to program, do their time and get out. Pretending
otherwise is stupid.
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