A few weeks ago I devoted this column to the comments and observations of my friend Dr. Earl Fuller about his experiences while volunteering at the women’s prison at Chowchilla. The interest in the column was high, and I wanted to share two responses with you were posted on the Daily Pilot’s website.
The first one was: “Finally, some of the horror stories that those of us who have loved ones in prison will be told. I have been sending my son’s story to newspapers for over 2 years, but not one of them has printed it. Maybe now someone will listen to the truth and the people will understand that things are still not right in California.” The second was “What would I feel if a dear one were in prison? I am worried daily because I know someone in prison and he is sick and not being given adequate medical treatment.”
Because Fuller also volunteered to provide medical care at Pelican Bay Prison in Northern California, which houses the most dangerous male inmates, I asked him to give us his observations about the medical care these men received, and to compare it with that received at Chowchilla by the women. The following is a summary of what he told me.
The medical needs and wants of the male prisoners are really quite different than for the women, and I believe the difference is explained on a psychological basis. Women see medical care as a desirable and important adjunct to their life. Having regular visits and care by a physician confers both status and medicine, and both are considered to be a valuable commodity. The male prisoners have a different mindset because the need to see a doctor and take medicine is seen as a sign of weakness. Thus the male inmates try to limit or ignore illness until it can be ignored no longer.
The psychology also differs in another significant way. The male inmates all seemed to be convinced that they would be killed on the outside by the time they were 25 years old. So it didn’t really matter what you did or to whom you did it because you were soon going to be dead anyway. But when they were caught before they could be killed and they were sent away for 50 or 60 years to prison because of one or a series of horrible acts, they were stuck continuing to exist without really ever having learned how to live.
This resulted in most of the inmates existing almost in a vacuum. Their entire day involved being in their special violent offenders housing unit, with breakfast being brought in early, and then watching television until lunch. In the afternoon they were often handcuffed between two guards and taken down to the yard, and then put into a cage of 10-by-25 feet to run around outside for 90 minutes before they were returned to their cells. But this almost always means that when they are eventually paroled at age 45 or 50, they have no skills, no ambition and no abilities. As a result, they are poorly prepared to lead an independent existence, and often almost intentionally return to prison because that is the only place where they feel comfortable.
The prisoners whom I saw medically fell into several categories, which were those with battle injuries mostly from fighting that could not be ignored any longer, those with infections that were getting worse, and those who had contracted diseases. Mostly their sores, cuts and bruises healed quickly, as you would expect in these young people, and the infections were equally responsive, once the inmates allowed us to use medications.
The regularly established clinics ran reasonably well for those afflicted with chronic diseases like diabetes, lung diseases, hypertension and AIDS. But like with the women’s prisons, the need to keep everything fast and cheap was always present. The prisons medically could do a lot more for their inmates, but it takes money that does not seem to be available.
The process used to get them to us to be seen was interesting. First the inmate would back up to his cell door, whereupon a small barred window in his cell was opened and he would be handcuffed. Then he was walked between two guards in flak jackets to my clinic. If he had to wait, he was placed in a waiting box made out of metal and a metal screen, which was about 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide, and also had a small built-in seat inside.
The inmate would be locked into the box until I could see him. He would then be re-handcuffed and brought to me, but I would have about four to six guards around me at all times. When I would ask to have the handcuffs removed so I could examine the patient, the guards wondered about my sanity. Generally, these inmates were not nice people, and some were overtly psychotic. Yet they still got sick and they still needed to be treated humanly, if only for our sake — if not for theirs.
Those are some of Fuller’s comments. What he did not address was the organized sexual abuse and violence that is often rampant in these facilities. But from my standpoint, all of his observations again strongly reinforce the need for us to provide positive mentors to all of our children — early and often — so that they do not get caught up in the hopeless “well, I’ll be dead anyway” lifestyle Fuller described.
So continue to make special efforts to support things like the YM and YWCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs, Scouting organizations, and after-school sports and academic activities. As was stated a few years ago in this column, a “stitch in time” truly does help to keep our children from this fate.
JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .
Showing posts with label prison system. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prison system. Show all posts
Monday, May 24, 2010
Monday, August 31, 2009
State has too many people in prison - by Judge Jim Gray
Most of us have heard that a federal court mandate is just around the corner requiring California to release as many as 43,000 of its about 160,000 inmates. What is the reason for the mandate? Because most of the prisons are housing almost double the number of people they were designed and built for, and there eventually comes a constitutional limit to the overcrowded conditions that we can or should force people to live in. Imagine almost 200 prisoners with ethnic and racial rivalries triple-bunked in hot weather in barracks designed for 100. That does not serve anyone’s legitimate interests.
California’s governor is right when he says that the state’s prison system is “collapsing under its own weight.” But because neither the governor nor the legislature has done anything to rectify this problem, it has been left to the courts. Many politicians, in trying to appear “tough on crime,” are spreading fear that this could cause imminent threats to our safety if this number of people were to be released. But the facts show that is all it is: fear-mongering.
Some politicians intentionally use fear to manipulate the voters and/or to promote their private interests. I am told that one of the most well-known political advisors who did this had a motto framed and hanging on his office wall that said “Keep ‘Em Scared.” That may be good politics, but it makes for rotten government. So gather the evidence yourself, and be cynical about people who deal in fear.
The evidence shows that, even dealing with the possible release of 43,000 inmates, there is simply no way that anyone who is a threat to our safety would ever even be considered to be set free. So relax, people like Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, Richard Ramirez and other murderers, robbers and rapists will safely stay where they are. You can count on it.
The reason for the overcrowding is that today we literally have tens of thousands of people in prison who simply should not be there. For example, and as we have discussed before in this column, right now there are literally thousands of people in prison who did nothing but smoke marijuana. For whatever reason, they were in prison and then released on parole, always with the condition that they use no form of illicit drug. Then, for one reason or another, they smoked marijuana, which is detectable by urinalysis testing for about a month after use. Thereafter, they either fail to show up to take their tests, or they do show up and test positive, and back to prison they go.
I am not discussing the stupidity of their smoking marijuana under these circumstances, but many of them had again found employment and were putting their lives back in order, and they were again supporting their families. So now all of that progress is lost, their families are back on welfare, and the taxpayers are spending about $40,000 per year once again to keep each one of them in prison. They could have been released yesterday without any threat to our safety.
Then there are other people in prison who are simply unable to be a threat to us. These are prisoners who are so old and feeble that the only thing they could do, if they had the strength, would be to throw their walkers at us. Their detention facilities look like old folks’ homes, with ramps instead of stairways, supporting bars on the toilets, chairs in the showers, and ground-up food on the tables. And, because of their medical problems, it costs taxpayers many hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to keep each one of these geriatrics in custody.
In fact, I recently received an e-mail from a friend who said that she had found the perfect solution to senior health-care problems. Obviously, you know that many seniors are told that they need to give up even the idea of receiving expensive medications for their blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, etc. And if they need a hip replacement, there is no way it will be funded, because the money will be spent on the younger generation.
Well, the answer is for people older than 70 simply to go out and commit a crime, and then be sent to prison. A roof over your head, three meals per day, and all the health care you can use. Need new teeth, great! Glasses? No problem! New hip, knee, kidney, lung, heart? Bring ’em on. Because if people are in prison, they are constitutionally entitled to good quality medical care. Of course, who will be paying for all of this? The same government that just said that you are too old for health care. And because you are a prisoner, you don’t have to pay any income taxes either! Problems solved!
You might think this is a joke, but that is exactly what taxpayers are now doing for thousands of people in prison. Many of them have been there for decades. On a case-by-case basis, some of the ones who have already spent many years in prison should be released, some to low-security halfway houses, and some should be released outright.
Of course, there are also thousands of nonviolent drug offenders who are spending years in prison for no good purpose. Remember prior columns in which we quoted the RAND Corporation that said, way back in June 1994, that taxpayers get seven times more benefit for their tax money when it is used for drug treatment instead of incarceration? Even for heavy-using drug offenders!
Again, on a case-by-case basis, we should release many of these nonviolent offenders from prison, with the strict condition that they participate meaningfully in a quality drug treatment program. That way, they will be much more likely not to be a drain on society, and the taxpayers can stop spending so much money without purpose. Please bear in mind that 95% of the people who are confined will be released someday. What kind of people will they be when that occurs?
And then there is a new philosophy that is beginning to sweep the nation, and that is the concept of “restorative justice.” This approach encourages a meaningful but much shorter time in custody for the offenders, but then has them released under a strictly applied program of formal probation. But, importantly, it also requires the released offenders, among other things, to get a job and make restitution payments every month to their victims, right off the top from their earnings.
Everyone wins by this system. The offenders are forced into the realization that there are costs for their misdeeds, and that it takes time and effort to pay them. The victims see that they are actually being reimbursed for their losses. That is both psychologically and economically comforting, because their insurance rates start to decrease due to the money being returned to their insurance companies.
And the taxpayers are given a big break because they are no longer required to pay for the continued incarceration of the offenders. So everyone comes out ahead except, of course, the prison guard union, which happens to be the strongest political lobby group in our state today.
Importantly, if violence was involved in the underlying offense, all bets are off. Prison is mostly meant to take violent offenders off the streets, and it should be used more fully for that purpose. But otherwise, we must understand that the United States has only 5% of the world’s population, but a full 25% of its prisoners! As such, we lead the world in the incarceration of our people. And in this case, “We’re No. 1!” should not make us proud.
So don’t let doctrinaire politicians and special-interest lobbyists spread fear about releasing even thousands of these prisoners without facing the evidence. Many of the people in prison shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and others have long since learned all the lessons that incarceration could possibly have taught them. Therefore, every thoughtful person should favor many of these offenders being released, on a case-by-case basis.
JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .
California’s governor is right when he says that the state’s prison system is “collapsing under its own weight.” But because neither the governor nor the legislature has done anything to rectify this problem, it has been left to the courts. Many politicians, in trying to appear “tough on crime,” are spreading fear that this could cause imminent threats to our safety if this number of people were to be released. But the facts show that is all it is: fear-mongering.
Some politicians intentionally use fear to manipulate the voters and/or to promote their private interests. I am told that one of the most well-known political advisors who did this had a motto framed and hanging on his office wall that said “Keep ‘Em Scared.” That may be good politics, but it makes for rotten government. So gather the evidence yourself, and be cynical about people who deal in fear.
The evidence shows that, even dealing with the possible release of 43,000 inmates, there is simply no way that anyone who is a threat to our safety would ever even be considered to be set free. So relax, people like Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, Richard Ramirez and other murderers, robbers and rapists will safely stay where they are. You can count on it.
The reason for the overcrowding is that today we literally have tens of thousands of people in prison who simply should not be there. For example, and as we have discussed before in this column, right now there are literally thousands of people in prison who did nothing but smoke marijuana. For whatever reason, they were in prison and then released on parole, always with the condition that they use no form of illicit drug. Then, for one reason or another, they smoked marijuana, which is detectable by urinalysis testing for about a month after use. Thereafter, they either fail to show up to take their tests, or they do show up and test positive, and back to prison they go.
I am not discussing the stupidity of their smoking marijuana under these circumstances, but many of them had again found employment and were putting their lives back in order, and they were again supporting their families. So now all of that progress is lost, their families are back on welfare, and the taxpayers are spending about $40,000 per year once again to keep each one of them in prison. They could have been released yesterday without any threat to our safety.
Then there are other people in prison who are simply unable to be a threat to us. These are prisoners who are so old and feeble that the only thing they could do, if they had the strength, would be to throw their walkers at us. Their detention facilities look like old folks’ homes, with ramps instead of stairways, supporting bars on the toilets, chairs in the showers, and ground-up food on the tables. And, because of their medical problems, it costs taxpayers many hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to keep each one of these geriatrics in custody.
In fact, I recently received an e-mail from a friend who said that she had found the perfect solution to senior health-care problems. Obviously, you know that many seniors are told that they need to give up even the idea of receiving expensive medications for their blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, etc. And if they need a hip replacement, there is no way it will be funded, because the money will be spent on the younger generation.
Well, the answer is for people older than 70 simply to go out and commit a crime, and then be sent to prison. A roof over your head, three meals per day, and all the health care you can use. Need new teeth, great! Glasses? No problem! New hip, knee, kidney, lung, heart? Bring ’em on. Because if people are in prison, they are constitutionally entitled to good quality medical care. Of course, who will be paying for all of this? The same government that just said that you are too old for health care. And because you are a prisoner, you don’t have to pay any income taxes either! Problems solved!
You might think this is a joke, but that is exactly what taxpayers are now doing for thousands of people in prison. Many of them have been there for decades. On a case-by-case basis, some of the ones who have already spent many years in prison should be released, some to low-security halfway houses, and some should be released outright.
Of course, there are also thousands of nonviolent drug offenders who are spending years in prison for no good purpose. Remember prior columns in which we quoted the RAND Corporation that said, way back in June 1994, that taxpayers get seven times more benefit for their tax money when it is used for drug treatment instead of incarceration? Even for heavy-using drug offenders!
Again, on a case-by-case basis, we should release many of these nonviolent offenders from prison, with the strict condition that they participate meaningfully in a quality drug treatment program. That way, they will be much more likely not to be a drain on society, and the taxpayers can stop spending so much money without purpose. Please bear in mind that 95% of the people who are confined will be released someday. What kind of people will they be when that occurs?
And then there is a new philosophy that is beginning to sweep the nation, and that is the concept of “restorative justice.” This approach encourages a meaningful but much shorter time in custody for the offenders, but then has them released under a strictly applied program of formal probation. But, importantly, it also requires the released offenders, among other things, to get a job and make restitution payments every month to their victims, right off the top from their earnings.
Everyone wins by this system. The offenders are forced into the realization that there are costs for their misdeeds, and that it takes time and effort to pay them. The victims see that they are actually being reimbursed for their losses. That is both psychologically and economically comforting, because their insurance rates start to decrease due to the money being returned to their insurance companies.
And the taxpayers are given a big break because they are no longer required to pay for the continued incarceration of the offenders. So everyone comes out ahead except, of course, the prison guard union, which happens to be the strongest political lobby group in our state today.
Importantly, if violence was involved in the underlying offense, all bets are off. Prison is mostly meant to take violent offenders off the streets, and it should be used more fully for that purpose. But otherwise, we must understand that the United States has only 5% of the world’s population, but a full 25% of its prisoners! As such, we lead the world in the incarceration of our people. And in this case, “We’re No. 1!” should not make us proud.
So don’t let doctrinaire politicians and special-interest lobbyists spread fear about releasing even thousands of these prisoners without facing the evidence. Many of the people in prison shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and others have long since learned all the lessons that incarceration could possibly have taught them. Therefore, every thoughtful person should favor many of these offenders being released, on a case-by-case basis.
JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Exploring an existing school of thought - by Judge Jim Gray
Since I wrote the column about the transcendental meditation program (“To a mind that is still,” Dec. 13), I have learned so many exciting things about how the technique is now being used both in schools and the criminal justice system.
For example, there is a K-12 school in Fairfield, Iowa, that has incorporated meditation into the regular schedule every day for students, teachers and staff. Everyone swears by the program, and the results support their enthusiasm. The Maharishi School Pioneers, which has only 300 students, requires its students, teachers and staff each morning and afternoon to meditate for 15 to 20 minutes. Basically that is the only difference that sets this open-enrollment and racially integrated school apart from any other (of course it also wisely requires the students to wear uniforms).
But using meditation works. The school has won state championships in drama, golf, history, math, a program called “Odyssey of the Mind,” photography and art, poetry and writing, science, spelling bees, tennis, and track, among other things. Why does meditation work? Because, as the staff says, the simple act of meditating on a regular basis settles and calms the mind and reduces stress, and when stress is reduced, children are happier and more productive.
So, as one student told me in an interview, meditation lets anger and stress simply “fly out of your body.”
Many of the older graduates continue to live in Fairfield expressly so that their children can profit from the same experience they had, and other parents who have heard about the school have moved their families to Fairfield for the same reason. In fact, some of these parents actually came from Laguna Beach.
The school is not religious based and does not pursue any particular beliefs or dogma. But the administrators of the school believe that meditation helps the electrical activity of the human brain to slow down. This makes thinking itself more clear and focused, and also allows the brain to develop more fully. And this, in turn, naturally promotes a higher state of interest and wellness in the students.
Once the technique is learned, meditation puts the students’ minds into a position of complete silence where thoughts do not happen. Soon the students are more aware of their mind settling down, and, eventually, of consciousness itself. This, in turn, increasingly allows the mind to become more clear and to experience more subtle thoughts, so everything around them more readily falls into place and becomes understandable.
The more scientific explanation is that when under stress, the pre-frontal cortex of the brain shuts down, and the primitive part of the brain with the protective “fight or flight” reaction is engaged. This also causes the brain to become flooded with adrenaline, so it is consequently not able to do such things as “analyze a five-year plan,” or even be rational. So stress is one reason why teenagers are more combative and resistant to learning. Then later, when the pre-frontal cortex kicks back in, the brain again gets back into the “I’m sorry” mode and other more calm states of analysis.
But transcendental meditation is successful by increasing the pathways of the brain, which, in turn, improves focus, attention, anger management and positive social behavior. This also makes transcendental meditation extremely effective for people who have ADHD, high-functioning autism, and adults who are bi-polar, and have post-traumatic stress disorders from military service.
The students from Fairfield that I spoke to in telephone interviews confirm these positive results.
For example, Essa said she watches the news and sees people in fights.
“But not here,” she said. “In our school we intermingle and are all supportive.”
In addition, she said that meditation not only helped her to be more athletic, it also gave her both the confidence and initiative to try something new. So she went into theater, and was successful.
Mickey’s family came from Knoxville. He is in the school’s Destination Imagination Club that has won national honors, and is now competing in a worldwide competition. In addition, the school also recently won the statewide science fair, three of its students won state honors in engineering, and one student is a finalist in an international creative arts competition (not bad results for a school of 300).
The school was partially founded with the assistance of the David Lynch Foundation. Lynch is probably known to many of you as the Academy Award-nominated director of “Elephant Man” and “Twin Peaks.” It is the mission of this foundation to eliminate violence and life-threatening stress in schools across the planet, and it already is responsible for the establishment of schools in the United States, Israel and Europe.
One of those schools is the Ideal Academy Public Charter School in northwest Washington, D.C. I spoke to its principal, Dr. George H. Rutherford, who told me that the David Lynch Foundation had sponsored three trainers about three years ago to come to his school and teach transcendental meditation to some of his students, teachers and staff.
And soon things really started changing — for the better! Now they have involved the entire school, and everyone’s attitudes have changed. The students are calmer, more disciplined, more interested in learning and their grades have improved.
Transcendental meditation programs have also been offered in San Quentin and Folsom State prisons in California. Like everywhere else, those programs are taught in seven classes, with the first two being lectures that focus upon the benefits, research and techniques of the method. The third is a personal interview, and the fourth provides one-on-one training. Then the last three are consecutive days of group follow-up. Pretty simple and straightforward, and the programs are not expensive.
But the results show that 90% of the graduates have not returned to prison. There even is a program of criminal sentencing in Missouri in which young adults have the option of using transcendental meditation which has seen similar excellent results with increased schooling, employment and lower recidivism rates.
So that is a further part of the story. Recently, former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with several other pop stars, raised more than $1 million in a benefit concert at the New York’s Radio City Music Hall to help establish more transcendental meditation programs around the world. They believe that meditation works for our children and for all of the rest of us. And if you learn more about it, I think you will too.
For more information about the sentencing program visit www.EnlightenedSentencing.org, and for the David Lynch Foundation and the transcendental meditation movement in general, visit www.TM.org or www.DavidLynchFoundation.org. Then tell me what you think.
JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .
For example, there is a K-12 school in Fairfield, Iowa, that has incorporated meditation into the regular schedule every day for students, teachers and staff. Everyone swears by the program, and the results support their enthusiasm. The Maharishi School Pioneers, which has only 300 students, requires its students, teachers and staff each morning and afternoon to meditate for 15 to 20 minutes. Basically that is the only difference that sets this open-enrollment and racially integrated school apart from any other (of course it also wisely requires the students to wear uniforms).
But using meditation works. The school has won state championships in drama, golf, history, math, a program called “Odyssey of the Mind,” photography and art, poetry and writing, science, spelling bees, tennis, and track, among other things. Why does meditation work? Because, as the staff says, the simple act of meditating on a regular basis settles and calms the mind and reduces stress, and when stress is reduced, children are happier and more productive.
So, as one student told me in an interview, meditation lets anger and stress simply “fly out of your body.”
Many of the older graduates continue to live in Fairfield expressly so that their children can profit from the same experience they had, and other parents who have heard about the school have moved their families to Fairfield for the same reason. In fact, some of these parents actually came from Laguna Beach.
The school is not religious based and does not pursue any particular beliefs or dogma. But the administrators of the school believe that meditation helps the electrical activity of the human brain to slow down. This makes thinking itself more clear and focused, and also allows the brain to develop more fully. And this, in turn, naturally promotes a higher state of interest and wellness in the students.
Once the technique is learned, meditation puts the students’ minds into a position of complete silence where thoughts do not happen. Soon the students are more aware of their mind settling down, and, eventually, of consciousness itself. This, in turn, increasingly allows the mind to become more clear and to experience more subtle thoughts, so everything around them more readily falls into place and becomes understandable.
The more scientific explanation is that when under stress, the pre-frontal cortex of the brain shuts down, and the primitive part of the brain with the protective “fight or flight” reaction is engaged. This also causes the brain to become flooded with adrenaline, so it is consequently not able to do such things as “analyze a five-year plan,” or even be rational. So stress is one reason why teenagers are more combative and resistant to learning. Then later, when the pre-frontal cortex kicks back in, the brain again gets back into the “I’m sorry” mode and other more calm states of analysis.
But transcendental meditation is successful by increasing the pathways of the brain, which, in turn, improves focus, attention, anger management and positive social behavior. This also makes transcendental meditation extremely effective for people who have ADHD, high-functioning autism, and adults who are bi-polar, and have post-traumatic stress disorders from military service.
The students from Fairfield that I spoke to in telephone interviews confirm these positive results.
For example, Essa said she watches the news and sees people in fights.
“But not here,” she said. “In our school we intermingle and are all supportive.”
In addition, she said that meditation not only helped her to be more athletic, it also gave her both the confidence and initiative to try something new. So she went into theater, and was successful.
Mickey’s family came from Knoxville. He is in the school’s Destination Imagination Club that has won national honors, and is now competing in a worldwide competition. In addition, the school also recently won the statewide science fair, three of its students won state honors in engineering, and one student is a finalist in an international creative arts competition (not bad results for a school of 300).
The school was partially founded with the assistance of the David Lynch Foundation. Lynch is probably known to many of you as the Academy Award-nominated director of “Elephant Man” and “Twin Peaks.” It is the mission of this foundation to eliminate violence and life-threatening stress in schools across the planet, and it already is responsible for the establishment of schools in the United States, Israel and Europe.
One of those schools is the Ideal Academy Public Charter School in northwest Washington, D.C. I spoke to its principal, Dr. George H. Rutherford, who told me that the David Lynch Foundation had sponsored three trainers about three years ago to come to his school and teach transcendental meditation to some of his students, teachers and staff.
And soon things really started changing — for the better! Now they have involved the entire school, and everyone’s attitudes have changed. The students are calmer, more disciplined, more interested in learning and their grades have improved.
Transcendental meditation programs have also been offered in San Quentin and Folsom State prisons in California. Like everywhere else, those programs are taught in seven classes, with the first two being lectures that focus upon the benefits, research and techniques of the method. The third is a personal interview, and the fourth provides one-on-one training. Then the last three are consecutive days of group follow-up. Pretty simple and straightforward, and the programs are not expensive.
But the results show that 90% of the graduates have not returned to prison. There even is a program of criminal sentencing in Missouri in which young adults have the option of using transcendental meditation which has seen similar excellent results with increased schooling, employment and lower recidivism rates.
So that is a further part of the story. Recently, former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with several other pop stars, raised more than $1 million in a benefit concert at the New York’s Radio City Music Hall to help establish more transcendental meditation programs around the world. They believe that meditation works for our children and for all of the rest of us. And if you learn more about it, I think you will too.
For more information about the sentencing program visit www.EnlightenedSentencing.org, and for the David Lynch Foundation and the transcendental meditation movement in general, visit www.TM.org or www.DavidLynchFoundation.org. Then tell me what you think.
JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Reworking prison system could save us - by Judge Jim Gray
OK, now that the voters have told the politicians in Sacramento in the recent election that they oppose the continual raising of their taxes, and also disapprove of the way government has handled our finances, where we should go from here?
My definite view as a Libertarian continues to be that instead of raising taxes, we should reduce the size and expense of government, and require it to be more responsible and prudent in the way our tax money is being spent.
Prior to the recent election, our governor was quoted as saying that if the ballot initiatives did not pass, governments would probably be forced to sell such facilities as the Los Angeles Coliseum, Orange County fairgrounds and San Quentin Prison. Finally a good idea! Well, the initiatives failed decisively, so let’s start by doing exactly that!
Why should governments own sports facilities or fairgrounds in the first place? If there is public interest and support for such facilities, the private sector will furnish and maintain them — and much more efficiently. And that would also allow us to disband the Coliseum Commission, which, you will recall, was so “successful” that it chased away such profitable tenants as the Los Angeles Rams and the UCLA football team!
With regard to closing San Quentin, from my perspective as a veteran trial court judge, there are far, far too many people in prison today than there should be. For example, we now have literally thousands of people in prison for doing nothing but smoking marijuana, at a cost to the taxpayer of about $30,000 per inmate per year. This is something we can no longer afford.
Officials in the law enforcement community constantly say that we never put anyone in prison simply for using marijuana, but that is not true. Why? Because when inmates are placed on parole for prior offenses, it is always with the condition that they use no form of illicit substances.
So if they smoke marijuana, even once, that is detectable by drug testing for about 30 days, and failing their drug test almost automatically puts them back into prison. Of course, this often also puts their families back on welfare as well — with all of this being at taxpayer expense.
On this subject, I often quote Pat Nolan, who is a former ultra-conservative assemblyman from Glendale who was convicted of an election fraud offense and sentenced to two years in prison.
He said upon his release that “We have many too many people in prison who do not belong there.” Then he went on to say that “We should put people in prison who we are afraid of, not people we’re mad at.” That is good advice.
Along those lines, since prison is always the most expensive option, I would also give serious consideration to the release of many prison inmates who are now elderly and frail. It costs taxpayers about $100,000 per year to keep those people in prison because of their high medical expenses, and most of them couldn’t actually hurt someone else at all — even if they wanted to.
I would also release many non-violent drug offenders from prison, such as those who were using marijuana and various other drugs. As a practical matter, if their drug usage does not harm anyone but themselves, they should not be in prison in the first place. What they have is a medical problem, not a criminal justice problem. But I would also make drug treatment available for anyone who requested it, since this would further reduce the costs to taxpayers in the long run.
We should also consider the release of many people who have been imprisoned for ridiculously long periods of time for non-violent drug offenses due to our mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Many of these people are women who ended up dating boyfriends who sold drugs and got them involved tangentially in their illicit business. Yes, they made a mistake and they have paid for it, but they are not a threat to our safety or well being. And five years in prison will serve as just as much deterrence and punishment as 10 or 20 years.
Historically, California from its inception until the year 1980 built only 13 state prisons. But since then, with the escalation of the war on drugs, we now have 33. Each prison costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build, and continues to cost additional hundreds of millions to staff. Because of its age, San Quentin is one of the most expensive prisons to maintain, so it would be a logical candidate to be the first one to be closed. And in addition, since it is on the waterfront just north of San Francisco, selling that property would bring in lots of revenue.
Picture this valuable property on the bay becoming a luxury resort or condominium complex, with a marina for boats. Then think of the property and sales taxes that this property would consistently generate. As a practical matter, San Quentin could become a new Catalina or Newport Coast. Why should we waste this valuable location on felons?
So yes, governor, closing San Quentin Prison would be the right thing to do! In fact, by following Nolan’s recommendation we could also close several other prisons as well, all without any material risk to our safety!
As a further matter, we should pass sunset laws for each of our governmental agencies, which is what I suggested in one of my earlier columns. That would mean that each governmental agency would be required to get an affirmative vote from the legislature every five or six years before its funding would be renewed.
Agencies that could not show productive results from their past activities, and positive and workable plans for the future, would have their funding either seriously reduced or even abolished. This routinely occurs in the private sector, so shouldn’t we adopt the same accounting approach in government? Continuing with bureaucracies that are not productive is a luxury that we can no longer afford — if we ever could. Think of the tax money we could save.
So that is my vision for the future in these difficult economic times. What’s yours? When contemplating that question, remember that although there is a definite need for governments to provide such things as police and fire protection, a justice system, and a stable form of currency, governments themselves do not produce wealth. If there is a need for goods and services, that need will be met by the private sector.
Instead, governments only take money from their citizens, keep a lot of it, and then distribute the rest of it to others. In my mind, individual people are in a much better position to decide how best their money should be spent.
So you decide where we go from here, because it is your choice.
JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .
My definite view as a Libertarian continues to be that instead of raising taxes, we should reduce the size and expense of government, and require it to be more responsible and prudent in the way our tax money is being spent.
Prior to the recent election, our governor was quoted as saying that if the ballot initiatives did not pass, governments would probably be forced to sell such facilities as the Los Angeles Coliseum, Orange County fairgrounds and San Quentin Prison. Finally a good idea! Well, the initiatives failed decisively, so let’s start by doing exactly that!
Why should governments own sports facilities or fairgrounds in the first place? If there is public interest and support for such facilities, the private sector will furnish and maintain them — and much more efficiently. And that would also allow us to disband the Coliseum Commission, which, you will recall, was so “successful” that it chased away such profitable tenants as the Los Angeles Rams and the UCLA football team!
With regard to closing San Quentin, from my perspective as a veteran trial court judge, there are far, far too many people in prison today than there should be. For example, we now have literally thousands of people in prison for doing nothing but smoking marijuana, at a cost to the taxpayer of about $30,000 per inmate per year. This is something we can no longer afford.
Officials in the law enforcement community constantly say that we never put anyone in prison simply for using marijuana, but that is not true. Why? Because when inmates are placed on parole for prior offenses, it is always with the condition that they use no form of illicit substances.
So if they smoke marijuana, even once, that is detectable by drug testing for about 30 days, and failing their drug test almost automatically puts them back into prison. Of course, this often also puts their families back on welfare as well — with all of this being at taxpayer expense.
On this subject, I often quote Pat Nolan, who is a former ultra-conservative assemblyman from Glendale who was convicted of an election fraud offense and sentenced to two years in prison.
He said upon his release that “We have many too many people in prison who do not belong there.” Then he went on to say that “We should put people in prison who we are afraid of, not people we’re mad at.” That is good advice.
Along those lines, since prison is always the most expensive option, I would also give serious consideration to the release of many prison inmates who are now elderly and frail. It costs taxpayers about $100,000 per year to keep those people in prison because of their high medical expenses, and most of them couldn’t actually hurt someone else at all — even if they wanted to.
I would also release many non-violent drug offenders from prison, such as those who were using marijuana and various other drugs. As a practical matter, if their drug usage does not harm anyone but themselves, they should not be in prison in the first place. What they have is a medical problem, not a criminal justice problem. But I would also make drug treatment available for anyone who requested it, since this would further reduce the costs to taxpayers in the long run.
We should also consider the release of many people who have been imprisoned for ridiculously long periods of time for non-violent drug offenses due to our mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Many of these people are women who ended up dating boyfriends who sold drugs and got them involved tangentially in their illicit business. Yes, they made a mistake and they have paid for it, but they are not a threat to our safety or well being. And five years in prison will serve as just as much deterrence and punishment as 10 or 20 years.
Historically, California from its inception until the year 1980 built only 13 state prisons. But since then, with the escalation of the war on drugs, we now have 33. Each prison costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build, and continues to cost additional hundreds of millions to staff. Because of its age, San Quentin is one of the most expensive prisons to maintain, so it would be a logical candidate to be the first one to be closed. And in addition, since it is on the waterfront just north of San Francisco, selling that property would bring in lots of revenue.
Picture this valuable property on the bay becoming a luxury resort or condominium complex, with a marina for boats. Then think of the property and sales taxes that this property would consistently generate. As a practical matter, San Quentin could become a new Catalina or Newport Coast. Why should we waste this valuable location on felons?
So yes, governor, closing San Quentin Prison would be the right thing to do! In fact, by following Nolan’s recommendation we could also close several other prisons as well, all without any material risk to our safety!
As a further matter, we should pass sunset laws for each of our governmental agencies, which is what I suggested in one of my earlier columns. That would mean that each governmental agency would be required to get an affirmative vote from the legislature every five or six years before its funding would be renewed.
Agencies that could not show productive results from their past activities, and positive and workable plans for the future, would have their funding either seriously reduced or even abolished. This routinely occurs in the private sector, so shouldn’t we adopt the same accounting approach in government? Continuing with bureaucracies that are not productive is a luxury that we can no longer afford — if we ever could. Think of the tax money we could save.
So that is my vision for the future in these difficult economic times. What’s yours? When contemplating that question, remember that although there is a definite need for governments to provide such things as police and fire protection, a justice system, and a stable form of currency, governments themselves do not produce wealth. If there is a need for goods and services, that need will be met by the private sector.
Instead, governments only take money from their citizens, keep a lot of it, and then distribute the rest of it to others. In my mind, individual people are in a much better position to decide how best their money should be spent.
So you decide where we go from here, because it is your choice.
JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .
Reworking prison system could save us - by Judge Jim Gray
OK, now that the voters have told the politicians in Sacramento in the recent election that they oppose the continual raising of their taxes, and also disapprove of the way government has handled our finances, where we should go from here?
My definite view as a Libertarian continues to be that instead of raising taxes, we should reduce the size and expense of government, and require it to be more responsible and prudent in the way our tax money is being spent.
Prior to the recent election, our governor was quoted as saying that if the ballot initiatives did not pass, governments would probably be forced to sell such facilities as the Los Angeles Coliseum, Orange County fairgrounds and San Quentin Prison. Finally a good idea! Well, the initiatives failed decisively, so let’s start by doing exactly that!
Why should governments own sports facilities or fairgrounds in the first place? If there is public interest and support for such facilities, the private sector will furnish and maintain them — and much more efficiently. And that would also allow us to disband the Coliseum Commission, which, you will recall, was so “successful” that it chased away such profitable tenants as the Los Angeles Rams and the UCLA football team!
With regard to closing San Quentin, from my perspective as a veteran trial court judge, there are far, far too many people in prison today than there should be. For example, we now have literally thousands of people in prison for doing nothing but smoking marijuana, at a cost to the taxpayer of about $30,000 per inmate per year. This is something we can no longer afford.
Officials in the law enforcement community constantly say that we never put anyone in prison simply for using marijuana, but that is not true. Why? Because when inmates are placed on parole for prior offenses, it is always with the condition that they use no form of illicit substances.
So if they smoke marijuana, even once, that is detectable by drug testing for about 30 days, and failing their drug test almost automatically puts them back into prison. Of course, this often also puts their families back on welfare as well — with all of this being at taxpayer expense.
On this subject, I often quote Pat Nolan, who is a former ultra-conservative assemblyman from Glendale who was convicted of an election fraud offense and sentenced to two years in prison.
He said upon his release that “We have many too many people in prison who do not belong there.” Then he went on to say that “We should put people in prison who we are afraid of, not people we’re mad at.” That is good advice.
Along those lines, since prison is always the most expensive option, I would also give serious consideration to the release of many prison inmates who are now elderly and frail. It costs taxpayers about $100,000 per year to keep those people in prison because of their high medical expenses, and most of them couldn’t actually hurt someone else at all — even if they wanted to.
I would also release many non-violent drug offenders from prison, such as those who were using marijuana and various other drugs. As a practical matter, if their drug usage does not harm anyone but themselves, they should not be in prison in the first place. What they have is a medical problem, not a criminal justice problem. But I would also make drug treatment available for anyone who requested it, since this would further reduce the costs to taxpayers in the long run.
We should also consider the release of many people who have been imprisoned for ridiculously long periods of time for non-violent drug offenses due to our mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Many of these people are women who ended up dating boyfriends who sold drugs and got them involved tangentially in their illicit business. Yes, they made a mistake and they have paid for it, but they are not a threat to our safety or well being. And five years in prison will serve as just as much deterrence and punishment as 10 or 20 years.
Historically, California from its inception until the year 1980 built only 13 state prisons. But since then, with the escalation of the war on drugs, we now have 33. Each prison costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build, and continues to cost additional hundreds of millions to staff. Because of its age, San Quentin is one of the most expensive prisons to maintain, so it would be a logical candidate to be the first one to be closed. And in addition, since it is on the waterfront just north of San Francisco, selling that property would bring in lots of revenue.
Picture this valuable property on the bay becoming a luxury resort or condominium complex, with a marina for boats. Then think of the property and sales taxes that this property would consistently generate. As a practical matter, San Quentin could become a new Catalina or Newport Coast. Why should we waste this valuable location on felons?
So yes, governor, closing San Quentin Prison would be the right thing to do! In fact, by following Nolan’s recommendation we could also close several other prisons as well, all without any material risk to our safety!
As a further matter, we should pass sunset laws for each of our governmental agencies, which is what I suggested in one of my earlier columns. That would mean that each governmental agency would be required to get an affirmative vote from the legislature every five or six years before its funding would be renewed.
Agencies that could not show productive results from their past activities, and positive and workable plans for the future, would have their funding either seriously reduced or even abolished. This routinely occurs in the private sector, so shouldn’t we adopt the same accounting approach in government? Continuing with bureaucracies that are not productive is a luxury that we can no longer afford — if we ever could. Think of the tax money we could save.
So that is my vision for the future in these difficult economic times. What’s yours? When contemplating that question, remember that although there is a definite need for governments to provide such things as police and fire protection, a justice system, and a stable form of currency, governments themselves do not produce wealth. If there is a need for goods and services, that need will be met by the private sector.
Instead, governments only take money from their citizens, keep a lot of it, and then distribute the rest of it to others. In my mind, individual people are in a much better position to decide how best their money should be spent.
So you decide where we go from here, because it is your choice.
JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .
My definite view as a Libertarian continues to be that instead of raising taxes, we should reduce the size and expense of government, and require it to be more responsible and prudent in the way our tax money is being spent.
Prior to the recent election, our governor was quoted as saying that if the ballot initiatives did not pass, governments would probably be forced to sell such facilities as the Los Angeles Coliseum, Orange County fairgrounds and San Quentin Prison. Finally a good idea! Well, the initiatives failed decisively, so let’s start by doing exactly that!
Why should governments own sports facilities or fairgrounds in the first place? If there is public interest and support for such facilities, the private sector will furnish and maintain them — and much more efficiently. And that would also allow us to disband the Coliseum Commission, which, you will recall, was so “successful” that it chased away such profitable tenants as the Los Angeles Rams and the UCLA football team!
With regard to closing San Quentin, from my perspective as a veteran trial court judge, there are far, far too many people in prison today than there should be. For example, we now have literally thousands of people in prison for doing nothing but smoking marijuana, at a cost to the taxpayer of about $30,000 per inmate per year. This is something we can no longer afford.
Officials in the law enforcement community constantly say that we never put anyone in prison simply for using marijuana, but that is not true. Why? Because when inmates are placed on parole for prior offenses, it is always with the condition that they use no form of illicit substances.
So if they smoke marijuana, even once, that is detectable by drug testing for about 30 days, and failing their drug test almost automatically puts them back into prison. Of course, this often also puts their families back on welfare as well — with all of this being at taxpayer expense.
On this subject, I often quote Pat Nolan, who is a former ultra-conservative assemblyman from Glendale who was convicted of an election fraud offense and sentenced to two years in prison.
He said upon his release that “We have many too many people in prison who do not belong there.” Then he went on to say that “We should put people in prison who we are afraid of, not people we’re mad at.” That is good advice.
Along those lines, since prison is always the most expensive option, I would also give serious consideration to the release of many prison inmates who are now elderly and frail. It costs taxpayers about $100,000 per year to keep those people in prison because of their high medical expenses, and most of them couldn’t actually hurt someone else at all — even if they wanted to.
I would also release many non-violent drug offenders from prison, such as those who were using marijuana and various other drugs. As a practical matter, if their drug usage does not harm anyone but themselves, they should not be in prison in the first place. What they have is a medical problem, not a criminal justice problem. But I would also make drug treatment available for anyone who requested it, since this would further reduce the costs to taxpayers in the long run.
We should also consider the release of many people who have been imprisoned for ridiculously long periods of time for non-violent drug offenses due to our mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Many of these people are women who ended up dating boyfriends who sold drugs and got them involved tangentially in their illicit business. Yes, they made a mistake and they have paid for it, but they are not a threat to our safety or well being. And five years in prison will serve as just as much deterrence and punishment as 10 or 20 years.
Historically, California from its inception until the year 1980 built only 13 state prisons. But since then, with the escalation of the war on drugs, we now have 33. Each prison costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build, and continues to cost additional hundreds of millions to staff. Because of its age, San Quentin is one of the most expensive prisons to maintain, so it would be a logical candidate to be the first one to be closed. And in addition, since it is on the waterfront just north of San Francisco, selling that property would bring in lots of revenue.
Picture this valuable property on the bay becoming a luxury resort or condominium complex, with a marina for boats. Then think of the property and sales taxes that this property would consistently generate. As a practical matter, San Quentin could become a new Catalina or Newport Coast. Why should we waste this valuable location on felons?
So yes, governor, closing San Quentin Prison would be the right thing to do! In fact, by following Nolan’s recommendation we could also close several other prisons as well, all without any material risk to our safety!
As a further matter, we should pass sunset laws for each of our governmental agencies, which is what I suggested in one of my earlier columns. That would mean that each governmental agency would be required to get an affirmative vote from the legislature every five or six years before its funding would be renewed.
Agencies that could not show productive results from their past activities, and positive and workable plans for the future, would have their funding either seriously reduced or even abolished. This routinely occurs in the private sector, so shouldn’t we adopt the same accounting approach in government? Continuing with bureaucracies that are not productive is a luxury that we can no longer afford — if we ever could. Think of the tax money we could save.
So that is my vision for the future in these difficult economic times. What’s yours? When contemplating that question, remember that although there is a definite need for governments to provide such things as police and fire protection, a justice system, and a stable form of currency, governments themselves do not produce wealth. If there is a need for goods and services, that need will be met by the private sector.
Instead, governments only take money from their citizens, keep a lot of it, and then distribute the rest of it to others. In my mind, individual people are in a much better position to decide how best their money should be spent.
So you decide where we go from here, because it is your choice.
JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .
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