I’ll was on KPFK today at 8:40 to discuss the prison situation

by Brian Leubitz

Well, this is interesting, the Brown administration is allegedly planning to move prisoners to out of state prisons with or without the Legislature’s permission.  The LA Times got a memo sent out on Tuesday showing that the state was going to start preparations to move prisoners to private (mostly out of state) prisons:

“Every potentially eligible offender will be screened for transfer…. While a transfer may cause a hardship to you or your families, it is an action the state must pursue in order to comply with a court order,” reads a memo distributed Tuesday throughout the state prison system, signed by corrections secretary Jeffrey Beard.

In addition, the corrections department is reducing the time prisoners have to challenge such moves, a separate internal memo distributed Tuesday shows. Previously, inmates identified for transfer out of state were given the chance to consult a lawyer before the classification became official. Now, to expedite moves, legal consultations will not be offered until after a prisoner’s move has been approved. (LA Times)

Moving close to 10,000 prisoners is a very difficult logistical process, so no matter what happens in the Legislature, it shouldn’t surprise anybody that these preparations have begun. Yet, the optics are still not good, especially in the executive branch’s relationship to the Legislature. However, one hopes that this doesn’t stall any real progress towards a solution that everybody can live with.

That being said, the Senate’s plan is clearly the best situated at this point to press for long term reform of the system. Whether this case is the beginning of that overdue process is still in the air.