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NEWS & LETTERS, June -July 2007Prison activists rallyOakland, Cal.--On May 23 dozens of prison activists protested at the State of California building here, giving voice to the over 3,300 prisoners who signed a petition opposing an ominous turn in the continuing struggle against this state's inhuman prison system. California's legislature and Gov. Schwarzenegger reached an "agreement" early in May to build 53,000 new prison and jail beds at the cost of $7.9 billion! Prisoners are speaking out even though they are the ones now suffering unconscionable overcrowding and are subject to retaliation from the guards. This completely undemocratic agreement once again poses prison construction as a solution to an out-of-control failed prison system, which is under a threat of federal takeover and facing a federal judge's impending order to cap the prison population. This deal was reached with no public hearing, no public debate, and the Legislature had no bill language before their vote. The funding via revenue bonds bypassed voter approval (California voters consistently voted down spending more money on prisons in recent years). Servicing the debt will cost hundreds of millions of dollars annually, one expert estimating $330 million a year by 2011, money that will have to be taken from budgets for higher education or other state priorities. California is the first state in the nation which will soon spend more on prisons than on universities. The shocker with this deal is that while all unions, except the guards' union (CCPOA), have always opposed prison expansion, this time SEIU did not oppose it. Apparently the prospect of a few more dues-check-off jobs has become irresistible to SEIU leadership (see <a href=wstJun07.doc> Workshop Talks column </a> for more on SEIU's complicity with capital). Conditions in prisons are steadily worsening: women prisoners at Central California Women's Facility, for example, are housed eight to a cell (built for four). They have recently lost their gym to house more beds and now more beds are being put in their day-rooms. Prisoners say that food portions are reduced, so many are hungry. All rehabilitation programs have been cut, and even Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings have been reduced to once a week, virtually ensuring that prisoners leaving the institution will come right back. There is no way to "fix" this problem within the current system. Politicians are not listening to common sense reforms, such as reforming the parole board, reforming the 3-strikes laws, releasing non-violent offenders, etc. Prisons are an expression of the completely anti-human direction in which capitalist society is heading: giving the "surplus" population the choice of either dying in war or being warehoused in prison. --Prison activist |
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