A profit cannot be made if the prisoners are given medical and mental health care, rehab, education or a decent diet, which is why the lawmakers don't want to do it. What a shameful business our state lawmakers created, one that prospers off the suffering of mostly medically and mentally ill citizens.
The State tapped the Crime Victim's Restitution Fund for $50 million last year, so we can see that a legislature mostly put into office with the votes and dollars of law enforcement labor unions is using the human bondage industry to help finance the bureaucracy. That's one reason why there is no place to go for help, even in a life and death emergency. Those who oppose the releases and a more healing approach are directly profiting off this slave-labor industry. Instead of prosecuting those breaking the state's own laws, people like AG Jerry Brown, Senator George Runner and CDCR Secretary Matt Cate are defending their criminal activity.
There are people dying right now who have families who want to take care of them and AB1539 was signed into law in 2007 to make compassionate release possible. Yet the prisons are still full of frail elderly, quadriplegics, people with Alzheimer's, cancer, AIDS and folks who cannot even do their own personal care. Why pay expensive guards to stand over people who can't even move?
Those who have families will take them right now and save this suffering and expense, not to mention tapping into some federal dollars for their medical care if they are released. Not everyone has a family of course, but even they could be placed into skilled nursing facilities instead of under ridiculous and expensive heavy guard.
Thank God for the UNION moms who reported the truth all these years and are standing up against a system that has broken our hearts and broken our budget with lawsuits.
Even when the lawyers lose, it still provides accountability that the rogues never get from the state, and it goes into their records for at least five years.
Thank God for the many jailhouse lawyers who are being tortured and invalidated right now to prevent their cases from winning in a court system that is as corrupt as the prisons and parole. One jailhouse lawyer is cut off from the courts through retaliation, which I will focus upon in a separate column.
How can we ever thank Attorneys Donald Specter, Michael Bien and their legal teams. How can we express the degree of gratitude that the wisdom of Judges Thelton Henderson, Lawrence Karlton and Stephen Reinhardt deserves for this historic ruling that should result in the release of tens of thousands of prisoners? Re-directing precious education and human services dollars to actual crime prevention programs makes far more sense.
What a gauntlet it was, what a gauntlet it still is, thank God that truth had a way of surfacing and that all the journalists who covered this decade-long, shocking case were able to survive it, although none of us will probably ever be the same. What the future holds depends on strictly on the willingness of the people hurt to organize the way that those who cared about chickens did while amending 3 strikes couldn't qualify for the ballot due to apathy.
What jolt will it take for the oppressed to recognize and realize their own power to change laws? As the three wise men ride off into the sunset, I can only say that their retirement is well-deserved. I shall never forget the courage and respect for constitutional law in their meaningful reform of a prison cap and release of people who are being tormented in unspeakable ways. No matter how hard anyone tries, it is impossible to punish medically and mentally ill people into being well. They can be healed, which uplifts us all. We'll need to elect different leaders that are smart-on-crime and organize to change the sentencing laws if anything will be possible in the future.
United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect
UNION
P.O. Box 340371
Sacramento, Ca 95834
http://www.1union1.com/Join_the_UNION.html
rightor1@aol.com
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