TIME KEEPS DRAGGIN' ON
DOYLE, JEFFREY
Correspondence Time Keeps Draggin' On As a former correctional officer, past vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), and owner of a controversial CCPOA...
...California Penal Code states: "Robbery of the second degree is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or five years...
...moreover, none of these offenders is serving life without possibility of parole...
...I did not see prisoners sleeping in hallways, but CDCR director James Tilton says that's what happens in some locations...
...Joe Salzgeber Brunswick, Ohio...
...Second, DeVoss implies the "Three Strikes" law, adopted 13 years ago, is the "main tool" responsible for a 25-year incarceration trend...
...Correspondence Time Keeps Draggin' On As a former correctional officer, past vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), and owner of a controversial CCPOA blog, I believe David DeVoss's "California Behind Bars" (April 9) is factually deficient...
...But the overwhelming majority of the overcrowding is in converted gymnasiums and dayrooms, certainly not in hallways...
...I suppose we should be thankful he didn't mention the horns protruding through our uniform caps...
...And I'm sure CCPOA members are jovial, but during my visit I saw no smiles—or horns...
...Third, DeVoss implies housing inmates in "hallways" is routine...
...As though this term doesn't paint a sufficiently negative image in the reader's mind, he describes e weekly them as "grim faced guards" whose "idea of rehabilitation is to keep people in a cage and poke them with a stick" for added measure...
...David DeVoss responds: Statistics on the capacity and population of the Lancaster prison came from information published by the prison itself...
...Later on, we find that these cells are double-bedded, but the 2,200 figure cited by William Sullivan assumes the cells were designed to house a single offender...
...Sixth, DeVoss claims inmate Saint James Harris Wood is "serving 23 years for second-degree robbery...
...Jeffrey Doyle Rocklin, Calif...
...Harris Wood was sentenced for multiple counts of second degree robbery...
...Further, he claims "thousands of the state's most violent offenders have been locked away for good" under that statute...
...The truth is, less than a thousand have been committed to indeterminate sentences under Three Strikes...
...According to the California Fair Political Practices Commission and former CDCR director Roderick Hickman, the CCPOA contributed most of the money to defeat amendments to the Three Strikes law...
...And not once does DeVoss refer to correctional officers (the official and correct title)—he uses the pejorative "prison guard" instead...
...If Wood is serving 23 years, he was convicted of crimes not cited by DeVoss...
...The importance of "Three Strikes" and sentencing enhancements in getting felons off the street is beyond dispute...
...Dems vs...
...Fourth, DeVoss says that the CCPOA union single-handedly "defeated a proposition that would have limited the Three Strikes law to violent felonies...
...First, the warden DeVoss quotes lists the "capacity" of Lancaster Prison at 2,200 and the population at 4,300...
...Democrats do not want to be placed in the uncomfortable position of attacking such a diversity selection, so they want to use the attorney firings flap to destroy Gonzales before he can be nominated to the High Court...
...Gonzales Regarding Terry Eastland's "Waiting for Gonzales" (April 9): With another Supreme Court vacancy possibly looming, Senate Democrats know that President Bush will likely present them with a "diversity selection" by nominating a well-qualified Hispanic candidate like Attorney General Gonzales—who previously served on the Texas Supreme Court...
...In fact, the proposition was defeated by a coalition of victims' rights groups, CCPOA, and other law enforcement associations, and the original statute is limited to violent felonies—only the instant offense may be "nonviolent...
Vol. 12 • April 2007 • No. 31
