Take action on parole issues

Dear Editor:

Glad to see someone saying the unspeakable--"Ripe for Cutting: Prison Budgets" 2/10/02. The writers could have also mentioned that Gray Davis refuses to approve his own Parole Board's recommendations for release of a few qualified, very long-serving "term to lifers." By "a few qualified," I mean perhaps 350 out of the almost 20,000 prisoners who have 7-to-life, 15-to-life, 25-to-life-with-the-possibility-of-parole sentences. 

Believe me, if the Parole Board, which is almost exclusively made up of former law enforcement people, recommends someone for parole, it means that individual has jumped through a lot of hoops, including public safety. But Gov. Davis is held back from allowing the parole process to function normally by his political timidity and by his deep financial obligation to prison interests. 

Let's see, 350 prisoners times the $25,607 it costs annually for incarceration comes to $8,962,450 that could be cut from the prison budget and added to education or health care. Ripe indeed.

Deborah D. J

Dear Editor: 

A sentence is pronounced, end of trial, end of story. But not really. We know the convict will be off our streets for a while, good riddance, and will be locked up in a well-deserved cage. We assume that he’ll do his time without torture and at least minimally clothed, fed, housed, and doctored. 

Maybe we suspect, if we think about it, but don’t honestly care, that he’ll live in a world of hostile inmates, hostile guards, insanity, drug availability, gangs, rape, poor food, and scant medical care. Oh, well, he made his choice, we say. Look what his victim suffered. Let him rot. The trouble with this sentiment is twofold: first, most convicts serve their term and are released. Do we want them back on our streets sicker mentally and physically than before? Secondly, medical neglect, beside lacking humanity, results in lawsuits and costly settlements. 

Just this week Sacramento confirmed that in settlement of a class action suit claiming medical neglect in all California prisons, the state will be forced to improve medical care. That shouldn’t be hard. A prisoner I know well fell ill a few months ago with a temperature of 104. For five days, during which he wasn’t able to eat or drink anything, he tried to ride it out, and no staff person offered help. Finally, with difficulty and in defiance of normal procedures, he walked to the clinic, where he was yelled at for showing up without a life threatening condition. He did get some medicine.

Deborah D. J

Dear Editor:

Justice is a tricky balancing act. Our practice of it is clumsy at best. Whether it's bombs over Afghanistan or life behind bars in California ("Retribution is Not a Solution" by B. C. Bird 1/6/02) our aim seems to be revenge. OK, we blast a certain group and incarcerate a criminal. Then the dust settles and we ask, Are we safe now? What if the group reorganizes, more determined than ever, or the prisoner's term is up and he's survived by joining a gang or an existing mental/physical/addiction problem has not been addressed? Are we safe yet?

Here's where a concept called "restorative justice" has occurred to criminal justice reformers over the last few years. It involves victims, offenders, and communities in repairing the damage done by the crime. It seeks to restore wholeness to the victim and bring the offender face to face with the consequences of his act. Programs might include victim/offender mediation sessions, resulting in compensation to the victim; conferences amongst victims, offenders, their families, and representatives of the community; services for victims as they recover and go through the criminal justice process; services for the offenders both while in prison and after release; and community crime prevention. 

Keeping justice in balance is not as simple as locking a cell door, but the more refined our attempts to achieve it, the surer our future safety.

Deborah D. J

Dear Editor:

Feeling insecure? Do policemen on every corner look good to you? Does locking up anyone for any length of time seem ok? In the heat of the moment, we had better clear our heads and think about consequences. 

Repressive laws become entitlements to law enforcement agencies and are hard to roll back. Look at Three Strikes. Look at the law requiring Gov. Davis to sign off on parole for term-to-life prisoners. Three hundred or so--out of 20,000--meet the criteria of the Parole Board but will not get release from an arch politician worried about his tough image..

Deborah D. J

Dear Editor:

An inch of room for rehabilitation. That's how our parole laws for term-to-life prisoners were written, rightly coming down hard on the side of public safety. ("Parole Board Defies Davis" 7/23). That inch of possibility to improve and become a contributor to society, instead of a locked-up burden, is there on the books. You can't earn it just by serving time. You have to prove mental and academic progress, genuine remorse, and absolute non-violence--despite incarceration in a world of bad attitudes, gangs, drugs, crazies, tough guards, and metal bars. A few individuals actually succeed. Their parole should not be opposed by our Governor, or any of us.

Deborah D. J
 

(Published 7/5/01 in The Reporter)

Dear Editor:

If two inmates are confined to the same cell and one turns up murdered next morning, guess who did it. An easy decision for a recent Solano County jury. What shouldn’t have been so easy was deciding that James Diesso was sane when he killed Jeffrey Ford. No fewer than three doctors had testified to Diesso’s insanity, and prison records going back many years bore out their opinions. Either way, Diesso will spend the rest of his life incarcerated. But to mandate him to “regular” prison instead of psychiatric confinement cannot be in the best interests of the general prison population, the prison employees, or Diesso himself.

Bigger questions related to this case affect all of California’s 160,000 state prisoners every day. What was prison staff thinking when they put a guy, who a year before had stabbed another inmate 17 times and was known for acting out crazily, in an 8’-by-8’ cell with a guy who had recently fought twice with guards? Was this business as usual in today’s prison management? Are they so tired of bad actors that they don’t care what happens? Was there an element of revenge against Ford? How many inmates sleep with one eye open every single night because their “cellie” may be James Diesso, unmedicated and unconfined to psychiatric care?

Deborah D. J

Dear Editor:

Poor Gov. Davis. It's not fair to make a politician choose between following the rulebook and self preservation. Back in 1988 we voters passed a proposition requiring governors to sign off on parole for murder convicts. We should have been looking out better for our governors.

It sounded like an ok idea: why not further ensure public safety? But didn't we know that the Parole Board is composed of former law enforcement officers, tough-as-nails types who hardly grant parole? Didn't we know that the only new factor our most visible politician would consider in each case was how it might affect his own political future? After all, it's not fun to hand your opponent the opportunity to say, "Gray Davis let 30 murders out of jail." Even if each of them had satisfied unbelievably strict suitability criteria including public safety. 

It's really a shame to have put Gov. Davis in the position of needing to set aside politics for a minute in favor of the law and common sense. Can he do it?

Deborah D. J

Dear Editor:

We're not a patient society. We hurry everywhere. We like one-line explanations and instant cures. Somebody hurts us or robs us and we lock them away forever. It's so much easier to see what you get when you build a prison than when you counsel and train at-risk youth or release a qualified inmate on parole. Maybe you read Attorney Cheryl Montgomery's op-ed (March 18th) about Gov. Davis' virtual refusal to parole people once sentenced to "life with the possibility of parole," and you said, who cares?

Of course, there are many individuals too dangerous to release. But our parole laws rightly recognize many gradations of crimes and criminals, and "the possibility of parole" incorporates belief in man's potential for reform. The Governor's "not on my watch," no-parole policy may make a good one-note political posture, but human lives and community wholeness require so much more.

Deborah D. J

(Published 2/21/01 in The Reporter)

Dear Editor:

Did Bonnie Carter's op-ed "Prisons cannot continue inhumane treatment" sound overwrought to you? Then you are one more citizen who knows nothing, and maybe cares nothing, about California's huge prison population and huge prison industry.

Do you know what happens to the trash you put out for collection every week? Out of sight, out of mind, good riddance. Thus it is with criminals. The only problem is that the vast majority of inmates will parole and will be back amongst us. Don't we want them back saner, less addicted, better educated, more self-aware, trained in a job skill? Or do we just want to beat them for being bad and dream that it will teach them a lesson?

Deborah D. J...

Dear Editor:

D.A. Steve Cooley is doing what Gov. Gray Davis should be doing--carrying out the spirit of the law instead of just its cold letter. I hope every one of your readers on 12/20 saw both the article by Twila Decker on Cooley's new, more reasonable policy for applying the three-strikes law and the article by Jenifer Warren on the parole, against the wishes of Davis, of a model "lifer" named Eugene Sylve.

Cooley's new policy seeks to apply the three-strikes law to those it was written for--violent criminals--and to deal with lesser offenses in a more rational manner. Gov. Davis needs to apply our parole laws in the same spirit and allow release for the estimated 200-300 other model "lifers" like Eugene Sylve, who show no likelihood of violence and have worked hard to qualify for parole under California regulations. 

Deborah D. J...

Dear Editor:

At the heart of deficient medical care for state prisoners ("Imprisonment Should Not Be Revenge" by B. Cayenne Bird 9/29/00) is the same shortsighted, isolationist mindset that bred every crime those men and women committed. It says, I don't care about tomorrow, I don't care about the guy next to me, I'm all that matters. All the hate, all the discrimination, all the violence that tears apart our society begins with that premise.

All the good that characterizes American society, our generosity, our wealth of opportunity for those of all origins, our expectation of progress in all facets of life, voices the opposite. It says, we are all in this together and the future of our world depends on our hard work and wide vision.

The wide vision in regard to crime must include treatment and rehabilitation for convicts and prevention programs in our communities--simultaneous with outreach to victims and respect for our police force--that our society may feel healing, rather than pain, in its gut.

Deborah D. J...

Dear Editor:

Big deal, Gov. Gray Davis is letting one battered woman out of prison.

Never mind that there are, by conservative estimates, 200 other deserving cases of men and women who have served many, many years in prison and would not be a threat to society.

Never mind that Davis' "zero-parole" policy has nothing to do with public safety. It has everything to do with three awesome influences: 1) his political ambition, which he perceives to be safeguarded by the toughest of tough-on-crime images; 2) his political ambition as financed by the California prison guards' union (CCPOA), 3) his political ambition as supported by victims' rights groups, whose undeniably good purpose should not be in conflict with legal due process.

The big deal would be for politics to let our conservative parole procedures out of jail.

Deborah D. J

Dear Editor:

Former Kern County District Attorney Albert Leddy's recent Viewpoint article, "Governor refusing to uphold the law" is to be commended. The author showed courage and integrity. He is the single, only former Board of Prison Terms who has come out and said what they all know — that during Pete Wilson's and Gray Davis' terms parole hearings for term-to-life prisoners have been hamstrung shams. 

California has well-balanced, careful regulations on the books laying out the criteria for earning parole. Dangerous, uncooperative, bad actors are never going to meet the criteria. No one advocates their release. 

But something is way out of whack when a prisoner serves many years longer than the guidelines indicate for his specific crime, the D.A.'s office does not oppose parole, the psychological reports are positive, the original crime — for example, involved driving the get-away car or murder following years as a battered woman — and our governor is too afraid of being labeled "soft on crime" to authorize lawful, reasonable paroles. 

Deborah D. J...

Dear Editor:

Periodic alarming headlines to the contrary, I hear with comfort that violent crime is down in California. Politicians have rightly read the public’s desire for safety. The additional tax dollars dedicated to law enforcement seem to be paying off.

State Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) has introduced legislation (SB128) to address the one negative side effect of this otherwise laudable effort. The last decade has seen a virtual halt to paroling of long-incarcerated prisoners who are serving life-with-possibility-of-parole sentences--not only the dangerous ones who will never be released but also those who are not violent individuals and have demonstrated positive behavior and personal improvement over many years. Sometimes when politicians build up momentum, especially in a successful direction, a less than perfect balance is maintained.

SB128 seeks not to make less strict the criteria for parole but to require the Board of Prison Terms to lay out plainly for each indeterminately sentenced prisoner exactly what it would take to earn parole and then, when the prisoner is not dangerous and has met the criteria, to grant parole consistently. We need to urge our state senators and assembly members to support this very conservative and responsible legislation.

Deborah D. J...

Dear Editor,

In this article Aaron Kipnis recommends that young men receive mentoring, rolemodeling, valuing, encouragement, opportunity and love as means to lure them from the world of gangs and drugs. One thing for certain, when these young men are thrown into our California prisons, they are feed for sick, sadistic, power-hungry egos, both inmates and officers alike. Prison culture is antisocial. The absence of a balance of power and accountability among officers breeds Injustice and cruelty. And yet, despite this reality, when a parolee reoffends (at a rate of near 90% recidivism), we shrug our shoulders with hopeless disbelief, wave a blaming finger at him and continue to throw millions of our taxpayers' dollars to endorse a failed "correctional" system that harms men and women, rather than corrects them.

Rose Mary C

Dear Editor:

A miracle of criminal justice has just occurred in California. That the performer of the miracle is the Parole Board, is a miracle in itself.Imagine you are a Parole Board Commissioner appointed by Gov. Davis. Your salary is $95,000-plus a year. Your job is to travel amongst our 33 state prisons, sitting on a 3-member panel hearing men and women, who were once sentenced to 7-to-life, 15-to-life, or 25-to-life, plead that they have turned their lives around and deserve parole. You listen to 6 or so of them a day, more than 2,000 a year

Some very obviously are too dangerous to release. Some haven't been serious custody problems but also haven't made any attempt to better themselves or demonstrate remorse for their crimes. Some make good arguments in favor of release based on factors involved in their commitment offense, educational and self-help gains, positive behavior, and long time served.

As a Commissioner you know what the legal criteria for release are. You also know who appointed you to your high-paying job and that when he took office, he stated to the press that no one, no matter what the particulars, who was once convicted of murder, would be paroled. As you listen to a battered woman who has been in prison 15 years for the killing, by a friend, of a guy who abused her for years, you think, this woman is no threat to the public and has done her time.

BUT you also think, the Governor might not reappoint me if he thinks I'm not supporting his political stance. Then you hear a plea from a man who drove the get-away car in a robbery that went bad, whose cohort unexpectedly shot someone, and who's done 20 years during which he's gotten some education and trade skills and behaved exceptionally well. You think, this man has more than done his time and at his age is not the young kid who was convicted of accessory to murder.

BUT you also think, the Governor might not reappoint me if he thinks I'm not supporting his political stance.Through this political mine field has just walked an abused woman named Jane Woods and in a week or two she will continue on out the prison gate. May her journey be the harbinger of a fair number of lawful, responsible paroles to come.

Deborah D. Jimenez,

Dear Editor,

In response to Susan Fisher's opinion about indeterminate life sentences, I would like to say that if no one deserves parole then why are we, the taxpayers, paying for a parole board? If the parole board finds an inmate suitable for parole after serving, say 25 years of a 7 to life sentence and this person was only guilty of being in the same place where the crime was committed, then why shouldn't they be granted parole?

Every crime is as individual as the perpetrator and should be judged as such. There is no "across the board, no pun intended, punishment. Every case and every situation is different. To judge all and to punish all the same way is not only unjust, it is inhumane....Yes Susan, we need prisons, some should never see freedom as we know it again and then there are those that have paid their debt and then some to society and are worthy of another chance.

We pay the Board of Prison Terms to do just that. Shouldn't the Governor trust those that he has appointed to make those decisions?

Susan Davis Viewpoint/Albert Leddy:
Governor refusing to uphold the law Filed: 08/27/2000

The Bakersfield Californian

Twenty-five years as a deputy, assistant and district attorney for Kern County, and nine years as a member, commissioner and chairman of the State Board of Prison Terms have not turned me into an advocate for prisoners' rights.

But today I am opposed to Gov. Gray Davis' expensive campaign to eliminate life prisoners' rights to a fair hearing before the Board of Prison Terms and himself on issues of setting parole dates. Now it is the governor who is flouting the law.

The Legislature has enacted laws on homicide that set 15 years to life for second- degree murder and 25 years to life for first -degree murder, and death or life without possibility of parole for especially heinous murders. Life without the possibility of parole is considered a near equivalent to death.

Gov. Davis has announced that no one convicted of murder and given a sentence that includes a right to parole is going to get a parole. He has followed this up by denying parole to every prisoner who has been given parole.

He has guaranteed all these men an unfair hearing, and he has manipulated the Board of Prison Terms to see that they do everything in their power to also deny prisoners a fair hearing.

To achieve this end, he has usurped the right of the Legislature to set the punishment for crimes, and defied the U.S. Supreme Court, which has stated that prisoners are entitled to fair hearings on parole issues.

His obvious purpose is to make himself look tough on crime and enhance his own political aspirations.

There is almost no evidence that murderers are likely to be recidivists. Almost all of the 80 prisoners let out on the streets during Deukmejian's term in office ended up being employed taxpayers.

Gov. Davis' position has left taxpayers paying the $90,000-a-year salaries of up to nine members of the Board of Prison Terms, who serve on a board with no discretion to exercise. It also has left taxpayers burdened by the cost of feeding, housing and providing other care for aging prisoners who are awaiting a fair hearing.

The law says that at a parole hearing unless the district attorney proves that a prisoner is a present danger to the public, he is entitled to have a parole date set. Now, even if the prosecutor stipulates that the prisoner is not a danger to the public, the board members are denying parole.

The governor and the board must follow the law or we can expect a lot more expenses for lawsuits. Albert M. Leddy was Kern County's district attorney from 1971 to 1983. He served on the Board of Prison Terms from 1983 to 1992. He now lives in Santa Barbara.

 http://www.bakersfield.com/edt/i--1244209381.asp

Letters to the Editor: 9-3

The Bakersfield Californian

Some parole needed Former Kern County District Attorney Albert Leddy's recent Viewpoint article, "Governor refusing to uphold the law" is to be commended. The author showed courage and integrity. He is the single, only former Board of Prison Terms who has come out and said what they all know — that during Pete Wilson's and Gray Davis' terms parole hearings for term-to-life prisoners have been hamstrung shams.

California has well-balanced, careful regulations on the books laying out the criteria for earning parole. Dangerous, uncooperative, bad actors are never going to meet the criteria. No one advocates their release.

But something is way out of whack when a prisoner serves many years longer than the guidelines indicate for his specific crime, the D.A.'s office does not oppose parole, the psychological reports are positive, the original crime — for example, involved driving the get-away car or murder following years as a battered woman — and our governor is too afraid of being labeled "soft on crime" to authorize lawful, reasonable paroles.

DEBORAH D. JIMENEZ Santa Rosa

Dear Editor:

This is an open letter to Governor Gray Davis:I am writing this letter as a tax-paying, voting resident of California and as a member of U.N.I.O.N. (United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect).My purpose is to elicit your support for the parole of Robert Rosenkrantz from CMC-East, San Luis Obispo, per the Release Order issued last week by Judge Kathryne Stoltz of the Los Angeles Superior Court and in accord with a state appellate court opinion of last April.

What this issue of parole cries for is BALANCE and POLITICAL INTEGRITY:* Being tough on crime means dedication to the law, and the law in California provides parole opportunity for indeterminately sentenced prisoners.* Paroling deserving inmates does not diminish the care and attention that should be showered on victims.*

Better attitudes engendered in inmates by the hope of parole can only improve working conditions for officers and employees of our prison system.Please weigh in, not on the side of one interest group or another, but on the side of balance and fairness. Immediately, that means parole for Robert Rosenkrantz. Soon, it should also mean parole for a moderate number of deserving cases. Do not be afraid to do what is morally and legally right.

Sincerely, Deborah D. Jimenez March 30, 2000

  http://www.sacbee.com/voices/news/voices03_20000330.html

 Re "Chairman of parole panel on way out," March 14:

After I applauded the ouster of Nielsen by dancing in the streets and singing in high-pitched tones, I reflected upon his recent bypass surgery. All during his tenure I have doubted that he even had a heart, and it was no surprise to find that it was clogged. One day Nielsen will learn what it is like to stand in judgment and beg for mercy. I hope he is greeted with the same welcome as he dealt out on Earth for years and made to crawl up a flight of 1,000 stairs on his belly, then aptly treated as subhuman at the top.

Perhaps in his medical retirement he will be able to reflect on the thousands of families his cruelty destroyed. Let's hope Gov. Gray Davis, another man who will have some tall explaining to do one day to the Creator, does better this time with his selection to the Board of Prison Terms.

--B. Cayenne Bird, Sacramento

Dear Editor:

On Friday Sept. 15, 2000, Judge STOLTZ of the Los Angeles Superior Court ordered the California Department of Corrections to release ROSENKRANTZ from prison.   Governor GRAY Davis ordered that he be stopped at the gate and has denied his freedom.  ROSENKRANTZ remains today incarcerated and has thus become a political prisoner, a pawn used by Gov. Davis as a show of power. DAVIS MUST RELEASE THE POLITICAL PRISONER!!!

Rosemary C.

Dear Editor:

This is an open letter to Governor Gray Davis: I am writing this letter as a tax-paying, voting resident
of California and as a member of U.N.I.O.N. (United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect).

My purpose is to elicit your support for the parole of Robert Rosenkrantz from CMC-East, San Luis Obispo, per the Release Order issued last week by Judge Kathryne Stoltz of the Los Angeles Superior Court and in accord with a state appellate court opinion of last April.What this issue of parole cries for is BALANCE and POLITICAL INTEGRITY:*

Being tough on crime means dedication to the law, and the law in California provides parole   opportunity
for indeterminately sentenced prisoners.*  Paroling deserving inmates does not diminish the care and
attention that should be showered on victims.*  Better attitudes engendered in inmates by the hope of parole can only improve working conditions for officers and employees of our prison system.Please weigh in, not on the side of one interest group or another, but on the side of balance and fairness. Immediately, that means parole for Robert Rosenkrantz.  Soon, it should also mean parole for a moderate number of deserving cases.

Do not be afraid to do what is morally and legally right.

Sincerely,

Deborah D. Jimenez

Dear Editor:

Baloney! is the mildest pronouncement to be made upon the Attorney General's "apology" regarding no parole for Robert Rosenkrantz.  How many members of the A.G.'s staff have been up nights for the last week dreaming up some way to circumvent the Release Order issued on September 14th for Rosenkrantz's release?

And all they could come up with was to say that unbeknownst to them, the Board of Prison Terms had exactly on September 14th decided internally to reverse its court-mandated parole approval of June 30th?  They must think the California public is either very stupid or very inattentive.  And in either case, they obviously think that they are far above the law.  No wonder former Secretary of Insurance Quackenbush thought he could get away with unbridled shenanigans if playing farcical games with the law is standard practice in Sacramento!

Deborah D.J.

 [email protected]

Op-ed by B. Cayenne Bird 9/29 (Imprisonment Should Not be Revenge) reveals shocking conditions inside California's prisons. Is this California in the year 2000 or Germany, 1945? How can people emerge healthier, better adjusted from living conditions of disease, fear, intimidation and no education or rehabilitation to prepare them for meaningful work. How far can that $200 given to them at the gate really go to undo years of torment? The mentally ill are usually given 30 days of medication if and when they are released but they are back to prison in 45 days because there are no follow up programs in place for them. The author is correct.

"We are all responsible for allowing conditions that amount to nothing less than torture in California Prisons." Let the non-violent inmates go into other programs for mentally ill and addicts.

Jerry Baker
Sacramento

Writing is fighting! Congratulations for fighting for yourself by writing letters to the editor almost everyday for ten days straight.

Even when letters aren't published, they still count!

 http://www.sjmercury.com/premium/opinion/letters/letters2.htm

Unlock parole policy

BIG deal. Gov. Gray Davis is letting one battered woman out of prison (Page
1A, Sept. 25).

Never mind that there are, by conservative estimates, 200 other men and women  who have served many, many years in prison, who are deserving of parole and  who would not be a threat to society.

Never mind that Davis' ``zero-parole'' policy has nothing to do with public safety. It has everything to do with three awesome influences: his political ambition, which he perceives to be safeguarded by the toughest of tough-on-crime images; his political ambition as financed by the California prison guards' union; and his political ambition as supported by victims' rights groups, whose undeniably good purpose should not be in conflict with legal due process.

The big deal would be for politics to let our conservative parole procedures out of jail.

Deborah D. Jimenez

Santa Rosa