Article: Prison spending vs Police spending

[packnrat]

we have a ex prison guard working at my job, even while working at another job he still gets FULL retirement pay and benefits, from the state tax coffers.
so hows this for double dipping.

and lets not forget now he can claim pay for ss moneys.

i say lock the convicts up in cells 20 hrs a day. out only for forced exercise, and shower (cold water).
feed them three times a day (cold food). nothing that needs a fork or knife, not even a spoon.
and all complainers get the cattle prod.. (need a smiley getting zapped).


.

 

[GAJ]

I don't shed one crocodile tear for prison guards. You want to talk about corrupt unions bleeding the state dry and influencing horrible policies, they should be the top of the list.

Forgetting for a moment the unprecedented benefits of CO's in this State, and simply looking at pay, CO's in this State make 57% more than the National Average for CO's...the cost of living in this State is 27% higher than the National Average, so, yeah, the CO's in this State are vastly overpaid.



http://www.ehow.com/info_7918250_prison-guard-salary-california.html

http://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/cost_of_living/index.stm

 

[tuxumino]

sounds like it isn't only more cops on the street but changing the way they police.
I'm glad to see LEOs starting to rethink how they do they're job and I hope this leads to a more concious approach to interacting with the citizensry and different approach to policing in this country.



After more than two dozen experiments around the world, criminologists generally agree that hot-spot policing is “an effective crime prevention strategy,” in the words of Anthony Braga, a criminologist at Harvard and Rutgers who led a review of the research literature last year.

Many experts also see it as the best explanation for the crime drop in New York. Although the city’s police did not participate in randomized experiments, they did use computerized crime mapping to focus on hot spots in the 1990s. This strategy was intensified with a program called Operation Impact, which was started in 2003 by Raymond W. Kelly, then and now the police commissioner.

 

[m_asim]

When Prison Guards in CA have a stranglehold on the legislature it's no big surprise.

"Roughly 2,000 students have to decide by Sunday whether to accept a spot at Harvard. Here's some advice: Forget Harvard. If you want to earn big bucks and retire young, you're better off becoming a California prison guard.

The job might not sound glamorous, but a brochure from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations boasts that it "has been called 'the greatest entry-level job in California'—and for good reason. Our officers earn a great salary, and a retirement package you just can't find in private industry. We even pay you to attend our academy." That's right—instead of paying more than $200,000 to attend Harvard, you could earn $3,050 a month at cadet academy.

It gets better.

Training only takes four months, and upon graduating you can look forward to a job with great health, dental and vision benefits and a starting base salary between $45,288 and $65,364. By comparison, Harvard grads can expect to earn $49,897 fresh out of college and $124,759 after 20 years.

As a California prison guard, you can make six figures in overtime and bonuses alone. While Harvard-educated lawyers and consultants often have to work long hours with little recompense besides Chinese take-out, prison guards receive time-and-a-half whenever they work more than 40 hours a week. One sergeant with a base salary of $81,683 collected $114,334 in overtime and $8,648 in bonuses last year, and he's not even the highest paid.

Most Harvard grads only get three weeks of vacation each year, even after working for 20 years—and they're often too busy to take a long trip. Prison guards, on the other hand, get seven weeks of vacation, five of them paid. If they're too busy racking up overtime to use their vacation days, they can cash the days in when they retire. There's no cap on how many vacation days they can cash in! Eighty officers last year cashed in over $100,000 at retirement.

The cherry on top is the defined-benefit pension. Unlike most Harvard grads working in the private sector, prison guards don't have to delay retirement if their 401(k)s take a hit. Prison guards can retire at the age of 55 and earn 85% of their final year's salary for the rest of their lives. They also continue to receive medical benefits."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576285471510530398.html

THIS x billion!

We are spending upwards of 6 billion dollars on prison industry AND have the highest rate of recidivism in the nation. Prisons are where petty criminals go to become hardcore criminals.

 

[Reli]

There should be no such thing as the private prison industry.

 

[}Dragon{]

This is old news but a good read to add on to this.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/california-prison-doc-patients-earned-777423-year/story?id=14062247

The highest paid state worker in 2010 worked for corrrections in Susanville:

"The highest-paid state employee in California last year, earning $777,423, is a prison doctor who isn't allowed to see patients, state officials said.

Dr. Jeffrey Rohlfing, 65, has successfully appealed attempts by the receiver who oversees California's prison health-care system to dismiss him and is working in the medical records office at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, said Nancy Kincaid, a spokeswoman for the receiver, J. Clark Kelso.

He hasn't seen patients since 2005 and has a history of mental illness, she said."

 

[Holeshot]

Alex's point is not about pensions, it's that more money is used on housing criminals than catching them. Prison is a bit too ineffective or accommodating, it would seem on the surface. What is amounts to, is that our criminal system has failed.

 

[jdhu]

Alex's point is not about pensions, it's that more money is used on housing criminals than catching them. Prison is a bit too ineffective or accommodating, it would seem on the surface. What is amounts to, is that our criminal system has failed.

Agree that the system is broken. I generally dislike tin foil stuff, but there is a true prison-industrial complex. For some reason, CA's recidivism rates are abnormally high. Who knows, maybe the COs, and others with an interest in maintaining high incarceration rates, oppose training/education/rehab funding for prisoners, or do their utmost to make it ineffective.

From my outside perspective, our state prisons are no more accommodating than others around the country. In fact, there is evidence towards the opposite (lawsuits over our prison conditions, prisons being in federal receivership, etc.).