California Correctional Peace Officers Association
The California Prison system is the third largest penal system in the country, costing $5.7 billion dollars a year and housing over 161,000 inmates. Since 1980 the number of California prisons has tripled and the number of inmates has jumped significantly. In the past few years controversies involving prison expansion, sky-rocketing costs, and claims of mismanagement and inmate abuse have put the California prison system under heightened public scrutiny.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) is the California prison guards’ union. In recent years the CCPOA has become a major player in California politics. Its political influence has grown to the point that it is widely considered to be one of the most powerful political forces in Sacramento. Its lobbying efforts and campaign contributions have greatly facilitated the passage of legislation favorable to union members.

San Diego Union Tribune
DATE: August 15, 2000
Have you ever wondered why California’s prison population grew from 23,264 in 1980 to 160,846 in July 2000? It is not because rapists and murderers are finally getting their due; for the most part, that was already happening. What has driven the growth of the prison system in California over the past two decades is the 25-fold increase in the number of drug offenders sentenced to prison under harsh new state sentencing laws for virtually every offense imaginable. Because of these laws, California now has the highest rate of drug offender incarcerations in the nation - 134 per 100,000. A rate that exceeds states such as Texas and Louisiana, where compassion and sympathy for law breakers is not highly prized (49 per 100,000 and 106 per 100,000 respectively). Although such a system seems counter to public safety interests, there are powerful political forces at work in California that promote and sustain the present system. Chief among these forces is the prison guard’s union. Because they benefit from prisons teeming with inmates, the guards lavish campaign contributions on political candidates. The influence that the prisons guard’s campaign contributions buys, allows them to pressure elected officials to enact sentencing laws that keep inmates in prison longer, thus expanding the overall pool of prisoners and creating a “need” for more prisons. The guards union blatantly uses its political influence to promote the funding of more prisons.

http://igs.berkeley.edu/library/htCaliforniaPrisonUnion.htm

It’s all one big cluster f!ck.

Where’s the reform? Maybe if had LESS laws and MORE public humiliation? Anything will work better than what they currently have.

Let’s get our minds off this crap.

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POLICEMAN: Leads, yeah. I’ll just check with the boys down at the Crime Lab. They’ve assigned four more detectives to the case, got us working in shifts! Leads…

Where are the Feds with corruption charges? are there any grounds by which the accused can sue the prosecutor AND the judge (howabout fed civil rights violations)?

You don’t think the FEDS do the very same thing??? No way are they gonna touch this. Steve

As for the prosecutor…. this is worse than the Duke case, IMO. The prosecutor should be going to jail.

I especially love the comment at the end about the DA planning to set up his own DNA lab. That’s one way to get results more to his liking.

It’s a shame that the worst thing these sleazy bastards face is a civil trial. They should face a really enthusiastic prosecutor and a “law and order” judge. Muahahahaha!