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A few years ago, actually, slightly longer than that, I was assigned to Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), California where one of my responsibilities was to perform anti-mortem and post mortem inspections of the locally raised cattle for the federal prison system. Within the boundaries of the federal property, stood the Lompoc Federal prison; a maximum security prison. Outside the walls of the so-called big house trustees worked at the abattoir. This is where I performed my inspections to assure that no diseased carcass entered the food chain.
Obviously, I worked close to convicted felons and was privy to talk with them unrestrained by any thou-shalt-nots. The first time I spoke with one of the inmates was right off the get-go… I wasn’t at VAFB a week when an inmate asked, “How do you like southern California?” My reply (having been stationed in California some three years earlier) was, “California is pretty nice however the cost of living is pretty high.” Without stopping to think about it, the inmate bounced back with, “You don’t worry about it, if you’re a crook!” “Good answer.” I said, “Good answer!” as I was amused at his naiveté.
While the above commentary would give the reader some trivial insight as to some of the goings on inside the prison system, the overall cost of supporting prisoners by the taxpayer is no trivial matter. Take the following comment by a prison employee…whether accurate or not, your insight to prison is that the costs are going out of sight! - Norman E. Hooben
I work in a California prison. Perhaps you should see how egregiously Californians are paying for the healthcare of these criminals where simply poor people, victims' families, and even veterans lack comparable healthcare.
These inmates get medical care that is far beyond what would be considered necessary. Unfortunately, prison doctors have to approve of these unnecessary treatments due to the ever present threat of law suits by opportunistic groups like the PRISON LAW OFFICE (www.prisonlaw.com), who have dedicated their work to the sheer welfare of rapists and murderers.
Unfortunately, it is only the occasional random deaths of inmates that the public hears about. Most Californians are shocked to find out that inmates get any healthcare, let alone the luxury kind that they get. Most prison employees like me, after they start working inside a prison, get amazed at the luxurious and great medical services the inmates get. If you have never spent time in a prison, you would not know this.
Tax-payers should find out about all the lotions, creams, dandruff shampoos, and moisturizers that these inmates get in the guise of medical care. They should find out about the thousands of inmates that get corrective minor surgery to their knees or shoulders (at 30,000 a surgery) for an injury that happened to them, say 20 years ago outside, but never bothered to fix - the kind of surgery that a pro athlete gets for improving his play. They should find out about the $20,000 nose jobs they get for a minor nasal septal deviation that happened to them 40 years ago as a child. California tax-payers should find out about thousands of inmates that get sophisticated radiology tests such as MRIs (at $3000 per MRI) for back, knee, or shoulder pain, which they fake in order to get special accommodations (like a bottom bunk which means a status symbol among prisoners). These are just examples of egregious extravagances that California tax-payers have to cover for their prisoners. If Californians were informed by the media about such things, they would write their legislators and force them to take a tougher stance against this wasteful insanity
The prison population has stolen the clause "Cruel and Unusual Punishment" out of its context of severe punishments over 200 years ago, to dupe the people of this state and country into giving them the luxuries of life inside America's Prisons. No wonder, over 70% of prison inmates are in there for not the first time. If prison had maintained its original meaning of a punishing environment, you would think more of them, having been there once, would do anything not to go back. Most career criminals in this state do not fear prison, and in fact look forward to being there.
Sure, give them life-saving treatment and treatment that would prevent major illness, pain and suffering, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Only a well-informed public could do this, through contacting their law-makers and fighting this at the Federal level, which is what is forcing California now to pay dearly. Last year, the State spent more than $7000 per inmate's healthcare! In comparison it spent less than $3500 per employee for state employees who are entitled to full medical benefits through their jobs.
Last month, a report by the Pew Center on the States came out that right now a record 1 in 100 Americans are in prison (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23392251). They cited reasons such as high crime rate, tougher laws, etc. But a very important reason was the higher recidivism. Most inmates in California's prisons, about 75% are there not for the first time. This is partly because inmates have managed to make prison a much more pleasant place, than say 50 years ago, when prison was still considered punishment. It is really time for the Supreme Court to draw a line on how civil lawyers can abuse the 8th amendment for its ban on "cruel and unusual punishment". Many inmates are using this clause to win the comforts and luxuries of outside life behind bars, really taking away the punishment factor out of prison. Prison should have a rehabilitative factor. However, a good part of this factor is contributed by its corrective and punishment elements. Purely rehabilitative services should be reserved for those who have destroyed only their own lives. Punishment should still be part of the action applied to those who have destroyed other people's lives. Civil attorneys on behalf of inmates will try to make people forget about this, and want to make prison’s purpose only a rehabilitative one.
Money hungry lawyers and uninformed activist groups and judges (like Tilton Henderson) have strived to make prison a pleasant place in this country, in some instances almost like a country spa or at least an all-inclusive motel. The good, law-abiding citizens of this state are in a lose-lose battle with the criminals, gangs, rapists, and murderers. These elements are either in free society victimizing free people, or inside luxury prisons costing them billions of dollars. Only a well-informed public and their representatives can put a stop to this debauchery. Perhaps an independent review of the scale of prison medical services can help the public and politicians by giving them the ammunition needed in their battle against activist judges and lawyers, in keeping society safe without bankrupting the State treasury.
The above comment was associated with: California Taxpayers to File Lawsuit to Prevent $12 Billion in Prison Construction Debt Payments
Related story...and should we be worried?
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Mystery Prison Buses in the Desert
By Ellen Brown
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Global Research, January 22, 2009
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On a recent visit to Tucson, Arizona, where I was invited to give a presentation on monetary reform, I was disturbed by a story of strange goings on in the desert. A little over a year ago, it seems, a new industrial facility sprang up on the edge of town. It was in a remote industrial zone and appeared to be a bus depot. The new enterprise was surrounded by an imposing security fence and bore no outward signs identifying its services. However, it soon became apparent that the compound was in the business of outfitting a fleet of prison buses. Thirty or so secondhand city buses were being reconfigured with prison bars in the windows and a coat of fresh paint bearing the “Wackenhut G4S” logo on the side.
The new Wackenhut operation is shrouded in mystery. It has been running its fleet of empty prison buses night and day, apparently logging miles on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contract. Multiple buses can be seen driving all over town and even on remote desert back roads. Oddly, except for the driver and one escort guard seated in front, these buses are always empty.
Wackenhut Services was founded by George Wackenhut in 1954 to provide prison guard services to state and federal governments. Wackenhut Services is now owned by the Danish corporation G4S.
Observers originally thought that the purpose of the new Wackenhut operation was to outfit prison buses to be distributed in other parts of the country. But it soon became apparent that none of the buses was leaving the Tucson depot. Recently, a passerby observed what appeared to be a training operation there. In what seemed to be strange activity for 10:30 PM on a Saturday night, the depot yard was fully illuminated, the entire fleet of buses was up and running, and drivers and guards were scrambling around the yard. The question is, what were they training for?
Wackenhut has never officially announced itself to the community, and the local news media have never mentioned its presence. Hiring has been discreetly conducted via the Internet, and an apathetic general public has taken little notice. Among the few who have noticed, one theory is that the prison bus depot is simply infrastructure for border security. But if so, where are the illegal aliens? Why are these buses always empty? What is the alleged justification for burning thousands of gallons of diesel fuel to run thirty decrepit, smoking buses night and day without passengers?
There is another interesting piece to this puzzle. On the desolate plain between Phoenix and Tucson is a tiny town called Florence, Arizona, which features a population consisting largely of prisoners. For decades, Florence has been the home of two of the largest county and federal prisons in the state; and in 2007, a vast new DHS prison was built there as well. Like the Wackenhut buses, this shiny new facility, which literally disappears into the horizon, has gone unannounced and unnoticed by the general public. A new facility for imprisoning illegal aliens? It is hard to imagine such expensive infrastructure being built for that purpose when U.S. policy has been to simply return illegals to their home countries.
Fraud and waste aside, this mysterious activity has sinister implications. Why the obvious secrecy? Since the World Trade Center disaster in 2001, the Department of Homeland Security has grown to monster proportions, claiming a projected $50 billion of the federal budget in 2009. DHS includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which earned notoriety in 2005 for its gross mishandling of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Al Martin, a retired naval intelligence officer and former contributor to the Presidential Council of Economic Advisors, has linked the remilitarization of FEMA to the civil unrest anticipated along with economic collapse. He wrote in a November 2005 newsletter called “Behind the Scenes in the Beltway”:
“FEMA is being upgraded as a federal agency, and upon passage of PATRIOT Act III, which contains the amendment to overturn posse comitatus, FEMA will be re-militarized, which will give the agency military police powers. . . . Why is all of this being done? Why is the regime moving to a militarized police state and to a dictatorship? It is because of what Comptroller General David Walker said, that after 2009, the ability of the United States to continue to service its debt becomes questionable. Although the average citizen may not understand what that means, when the United States can no longer service its debt it collapses as an economic entity. We would be an economically collapsed state. The only way government can function and can maintain control in an economically collapsed state is through a military dictatorship.”1
All of this is quite ominous. It is also a good argument for considering radical funding alternatives. There are other ways to deal with the federal debt besides relying on the waning appetites of the Chinese and the Japanese for U.S. securities. Some innovative alternatives for funding both the federal debt and President Obama’s new economic stimulus package will be the subject of followup articles. Stay tuned.
Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her earlier books focused on the pharmaceutical cartel that gets its power from “the money trust.” Her eleven books include Forbidden Medicine, Nature’s Pharmacy (co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker), and The Key to Ultimate Health (co-authored with Dr. Richard Hansen). Her websites are www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.
1.Al Martin, “FEMA, CILFs and State Security: Shocking Updates,” www.almartinraw.com (November 28, 2005)
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.
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