DON'T LET THE FELONS OUT

Keeping felons confined

Fairfield Daily Republic June 9, 2011 By Kelvin Wade

In a recent 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered California to release 33,000 prison inmates due to overcrowding and violations of the 8th Amendment against cruel and unusual punishments. The result of our Three Strikes Law and truth-in-sentencing measures is that we have 143,000 inmates in 33 prisons designed to hold 80,000.

The most damning and obvious impact of dumping such a large number of inmates back into society before their original release dates is that someone, somewhere is going to be victimized who otherwise wouldn’t have been.

There is a plan. Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 109 that would allow those convicted of nonviolent and nonsexual crimes to be sent to county jails so none of these felons are released. Solano County Sheriff Gary Stanton has said we can handle that. The Claybank jail is earmarked for an $89 million expansion.

The problem? The money to pay for this is being held hostage by Republicans in the Legislature who won’t allow a tax measure to be voted on. The measure extends taxes that are already in place. Voters would still have to approve it.

Perhaps it’s time for a radical change in criminal justice. We obviously can’t produce prisons as fast as we produce criminals. When we lock up an inmate, we have to pay for their food and upkeep. We have to pay for their medical care. Taxpayers pay about $50,000 per inmate per year.

Maybe we need to use our limited jail space to house violent and sex offenders. And perhaps for the rest we should use house arrest on a massive scale with bright red ankle or wrist monitors. The prisoner would be allowed to work to earn his own room and board. He or she would be responsible for his or her own health care. After work, they’re confined to their place of residence. Sounds like a winner to me.

Sure it costs money to monitor inmates. But we’re already paying 50 grand to house them with the state. Surely it won’t cost that much to monitor them.

We must do something. This past weekend, Suisun City resident Corey Reitmeier was arrested after allegedly being involved in a brawl at a house party he hosted. Reitmeier was already on probation for the vicious 2005 beating of a homeless man, Joseph Pettaway, who had been sleeping in his car at Parkway Community Church. Pettaway was left brain-damaged, legally blind and lives in a nursing home.

Two decades ago I worked with Pettaway in the school district maintenance department. To think of the tall, easygoing guy I knew reduced to a state where he can’t even sit up by himself makes me want there to be plenty of jail space for the Corey Reitmeiers out there.

Last year, a man contacted my then-13-year-old granddaughter online and tried to lure her into a sexual relationship. I found out about it and alerted her mother, who called police. That man has since been arrested, has to register as a sex offender and got probation. I’m not thrilled about that. I want there to be jail space for people like this. House arrest, probation and treatment are good options for white-collar crime, nonviolent offenses and drug users. But for predators and the violent, we need the space to lock them up.

We don’t have a lot of great options. If we don’t implement this plan to release these felons to jails, we could end up releasing them into communities. Who wants that? Peace.

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ADDITIONAL NOTES: No good options. I mean, we could repeal the 8th Amendment and build a giant national city/prison in the Nevada desert with a 50 foot wall around it, surrounded by 25,000 paramilitary correctional officers with heavy armaments including surface to air missiles to thwart helicopter escapes. Let the inmates live and survive in this huge city/prison. Dump all the nation's prisoners there. It'd be like "Escape from New York." OR we could develop the technology to put prisoners in suspended animation. Feed them intravenously. Use some kind of pharmaceuticals and electrodes to stimulate their muscles to keep them from atrophying too much. Someone has a twenty year sentence? Put them under and there ya go. No escaping. No fighting in prison. No gangs. No danger to correctional officers. When their time is up, wake them up and give them like a two month reorientation period where they're reeducated about society and all of the new developments. Sort of like "Demolition Man."

Okay, enough with the fantasy. This is tough because, like I said, the cost of putting people on the street is you're creating victims who otherwise wouldn't be. Times are tight and no one wants to open their wallets to pay for prisons. The money to pay for the relocation to county jails is money that's already being collected now. The tax measure would just keep those revenues in place.

If someone has a better idea, let's go with that. Don't say execute the 700 people on death row because...come on..this is California. We don't have capital punishment here.