SEPTEMBER 2024

Column 58

    With the closing of death row at San Quentin, San Quentin is no longer called a prison. It has been re-classified as a rehabilitation center. The goal is to take prisoners who are getting close to being released from prison and prepare them to re-enter society.

Governor Newsom has been criticized by the pro-death penalty groups, the victim's rights groups and of course, those who oppose anything Newsom does, or attempts to do, just because they are at the other end of the political spectrum and feel that ideologically they have to fight whatever the Governor is trying to do, regardless of whether it a good idea, or not.

I have no idea if turning San Quentin into a center to prepare prisoners to rejoin society in a way that will help them be successful is going to work. At this point, no one can know the answer to that. The program at San Quentin has been called the Norwegian model and has taken some of the practices of the Norwegian prisons and are trying to use them to try and help the soon to be released California prisoners.

Maybe a good way to determine whether this will be successful is to look at the recidivism rate in California and compare it to the recidivism rate in Norway. Of course it won't be an instantaneous result in California. There have been decades of a failed prison system here in California that have to be addressed at the same time the programs at San Quentin are being implemented. The other California prisons have to begin grooming the prisoners for life outside of prison.

I think one of the battles the Governor is going to have is getting the CDCR to support what he is trying to do. Of course, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation administration is going to say they support what the Governor is attempting to do, but there are those in the prison system administration, from the top down to many correctional officers, who are happy with the status quo and don't want any changes to how things are now. They are waiting: the Governor will be gone in a couple of years.

I don't think it is realistic for anyone to expect a prisoner, who has been in prison for years, to suddenly be sent to San Quentin to be prepared for release and expect that person to miraculously adapt to a different way of thinking when in all the previous years of being locked up, it was an exercise in survival for that person. The changes have to start years before that person is sent to San Quentin. The changes have to happen in all the other prisons also.

In the late 1970's and early 1980's, California changed its prison sentencing laws. This was long before the three strikes nonsense. In the new sentencing practices, people were being sent to prison for decades and parole was made more difficult and considered only after having to spend more years in prison. Here we are 40-plus years later. The prison population is getting older with the additional medical issues that go with that. Most reasonable people see if all the money spent to keep the prisoners locked up had been spent on rehabilitation, training, education and mental health treatment and those had been the goals of the prison system, rather than the "lock them up and throw the key away" policies which happened instead, it would be a much better and safer place in California.

In the November election, there is a proposition on the California ballot, Prop 36 It is an attempt to go back to the “lock them up and throw the key away” policies that got California into this mess in the first place. No surprise that it is the same people attempting to do it this time that did it back in the 70's and 80's.

Thanks for reading.

My new address is below. If you have comments feel free to write or send an e-mail to the site. Writing directly to my address is quicker and easier for me.

All the best to you.

Dean Carter

September 9, 2024

California Health Care Facility
Dean Carter C97919
Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
USA