CA Dems: Taking a Stand on Sentencing

We always like to talk about how a strong Democratic Party needs to be unwavering on specific issues to let the electorate understand the core concerns of the party and attract people to the brand. This is no less true in California, where the Democratic brand is somewhat invisible (better than the Republican brand, which is shot). This is a bold move on sentencing guidelines, and those who are supporting it are probably going to catch hell from the law-n-order crowd, but it's important to plant the flag for sane sentencing so that we don't turn massive percentages of the state into an unmanageable prison population.

Launching what promises to be one of the year's fiercest debates in the Capitol, the Senate's top Democrats on Thursday moved toward reforming California's byzantine criminal sentencing system.

Unveiling legislation to create a sentencing review commission, Senate leader Don Perata of Oakland and Sen. Gloria Romero of Los Angeles said California should join 16 other states now revisiting the question of who goes to prison and for how long.

The lawmakers also urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to use his executive powers to create an interim working group that would begin collecting and analyzing sentencing data as early as February.

"We can't wait," Romero said, noting that prison overcrowding is so severe that federal judges may impose a cap on the inmate population, now at 172,000. "Public safety is not served with a broken corrections system."

Schwarzenegger has already proposed a sentencing commission, but asked them to spend their first year looking at parole guidelines, which would have no effect on the prison population in a time of crisis. He's constrained by a base that already hates him, who would view loosening sentencing restrictions as a final betrayal. Democrats have little to gain from this proposal other than moving the state forward. Surely it plays into the ridiculous stereotype conservatives hold of liberals as coddlers of criminals. But the fact remains that the present system is incredibly dangerous, and Democrats in the legislature are being the grownups here by trying to do something about it. Not just TALKING about it, like the Governor, but taking it out of the realm of politics and into a solutions-based environment. There's a rapidly approaching deadline where a federal judge will start capping the number of people in prison. If something bold like this isn't done, you're going to see inmates let out of prisons in droves, and that STILL won't solve the long-term structural problem. Republicans want to live in this fantasy world where they can one-up each other on being "tough on crime" as if there are no real-world consequences.

In California, many experts have urged an overhaul of the sentencing system, calling it chaotic, unwieldy and complex. The nonpartisan Little Hoover Commission, which is poised to release a report on sentencing reform, found that California has added more than 1,000 laws and sentence enhancements — lengthening prison terms — over the last 30 years. Most of the changes were made by the Legislature, though some came through ballot initiatives such as the three-strikes measure of 1994.

Some critics say the state's fixed-term sentencing system should be altered because it compels the release of inmates regardless of whether they are rehabilitated. Under such a system, there is no incentive for felons to change their lives, some scholars say.

Other experts say the biggest problem in California is a lack of uniformity, with felons convicted of the same crime receiving different sentences in different counties.

"The system we have now is a hodgepodge, and we need independent experts to help us put some sense into it," Perata said. "Whether the Legislature has the political will to do that is another question. I'm skeptical."

The reductio ad absurdum of this "tough on crime" pose is this shocking report from CPR about forced sterilization (you heard me right) in the prisons:

Given California's shameful history with the forced sterilizations of thousands of people during the 20th century, you would think that bureaucrats would think twice before suggesting that the sterilization of an imprisoned woman could ever be freely chosen. And you would be wrong.

"Doing what is medically necessary" is how the Gender Responsiveness Strategies Commission of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation termed its July 18 recommendation to consider providing, in the course of delivering a baby, "elective" sterilization of women who give birth in prison, "either post-partum or coinciding with cesarean section."

To describe a sterilization performed under such circumstances as voluntary is absurd. One's ability to consent to sterilization, or anything else, during pregnancy and labor is limited in any setting, not to mention in a coercive environment such as a prison. Moreover, Robert Sillen, whom U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson appointed last year as federal receiver over California' s prison health-care system, has documented that a person dies each day in California prisons due to gross medical neglect. How, in such an environment, could we trust prison staff to ensure informed consent to such a procedure?

It's absolutely revolting, and it's what you get when you have this dehumanization of criminals, a lack of emphasis on treatment and rehabilitation, and a political environment where conservative frames on law enforcement are the only ones accepted as "serious."

As this crisis reaches a point of no return, it's not enough to just talk about blurring the lines on partisanship. You have to take a stand to do something about it. I have not been thrilled with the legislature's performance out of the gate on health care (save for the great Sheila Kuehl). Their response to this crisis has been solid, however, and taking stands like this will eventually resonate with the public as long as they're able to get out the message. I don't think the state's citizens are as conservative as law enforcement policy suggests. It's time to take back this issue, and call for sanity, call for determining consequences before action, and call for lifting up those who transgress, rather than trying to lock the problem away.