By Just A Guy
Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His reports run twice a week.
Tuesday night’s news reported on California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spending and, believe it or not, the anchor was actually outraged.
The report said that over the past three years, CDCR has spent 32 percent more — but the inmate population has decreased by one percent. over that same period of time.
CDCR claims that the increase in spending is due to an increase in the cost of health care for inmates as well as lawsuits and overtime.
Well, in the two years and change that I have been in the custody of CDCR, I have not seen the quality of health care improve one iota. For our perspective, it has not improved as it should with this purported increase in spending. At least not at the institution I’m in.
The federal courts seem to agree as well, since they have ordered the release of more than 43,000 inmates since CDCR’s overcrowded conditions are resulting in constitutionally inadequate health care.
For you whiners and corrections officers who say we get better health care than most people on the streets, and that we should consider ourselves lucky, blah blah blah: Just because are getting some “health care” does not mean we are getting better health care than the general public.
The state is obligated to give us health care. Just because we’re in prison doesn’t mean we should be denied health care. To do so would create misery for CDCR and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association anyway — it’s really in their best interest to keep us recidivists healthy to guarantee their jobs for the long haul.
The aging prison population still has to be watched, right?
For every one of us that does get an expensive procedure done, there are hundreds that don’t get shit done. Half the medical staff and doctors barely speak English well enough to be understood, and they use their broken language to try and convince you there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s not like CDCR hires the best and the brightest — working in prison for most health care providers is the bottom of the rung.
The overtime: The news said that there were seven CDCR officers — sergeants and lieutenants — who earned more than the director of CDCR, Matt Cate, who makes a salary of $225,000 a year. They also said that 8,400 staff made $20,000 or more in overtime last year. At $20,000, that’s $168 million. But how many made $30,000, or 40,000? How many earned between $10,000 and $20,000 in overtime? What’s the real overtime figure, $250 million? How many programs could be created to help out prisoners — or crime victims — for $250 million? How many college kids could afford to go to school for a year?
Lawsuits? What are they talking about? Are they talking about money paid out to plaintiffs and in settlements? If so, is that not indicative of a pretty big problem — so big that CDCR is losing lawsuits because of its ineptitude?
Just something to think about.