By Just A Guy
Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His dispatches typically run twice a week, when he is able to communicate from behind bars.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve blogged, but Tim was on vacation so my contact was away.
I suppose a lot has happened, but has it really? Assembly Speaker Karen Bass has postponed voting on prison cuts because the Assembly does not have enough votes to pass the bill that would enable releases.
It seems that the stumbling block is the reduction of some crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The majority of the reductions seem to be property crimes, where the likelihood of violence is very slim. The glaring problem, at least to me, is the possession laws, which aren’t included.
I just feel that this state is run by such a bunch of morons I don’t really know why I write about it. Everyone is so afraid of actually facing the problems of the prison system that they just do nothing. In my business we call this “paralysis by analysis.”
“We walk the toughest beat.” Isn’t that the mantra of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employees? What a crock.
The CDCR spends so much time trying to protect itself from itself it’s a wonder the operation can get anything done at all. It is, seriously, the most ineffective bureaucracy I’ve ever seen, with petty infighting from the rank and file all the way up to the senior administration. It’s a place where the product is the people that they are supposed to be protecting the public from — but the reality is that they have mastered putting the public in greater danger through creating a self-perpetuating machine in which their product becomes ever-more violent, thus ensuring CDCR’s future for the long hall.
What else has happened? Oh yeah, can’t forget about the riot down in Chino.
Surprisingly, Arnold attributed the riot to the overcrowded conditions and didn’t automatically use it as a mechanism to say how bad we all are and how this proves our incorrigibility.
I am not in a particularly good mood. I am so disgusted by this state, by CDCR, by the people who purport to have integrity but are willing to further their cause using any measure, irrespective of who gets in the way. I can’t wait for the day I am able to write about everything freely, and will get my chance to shed the true light on what’s happening at CDCR.