How California’s prisons became make-work projects for jailers

How California’s prisons became make-work projects for jailers

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Sullivan singles out California's Three Strikes You're Out law, which imprisons anyone convicted of a third felony, even non-violent offenders, for life. And behind the effort to make that law happen was one influential union: The California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

NPR reports:

In three decades, it has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. It has contributed millions of dollars to support Three Strikes and other laws that lengthen sentences. It donated a million dollars alone to Governor [Pete] Wilson after he backed Three Strikes. And the result for the union has been dramatic. Since the laws went into effect and the inmate population boomed, the union grew from 2,600 officers to 45,000 officers. Salaries jumped from 15,000 in 1980 to today, where one in every 10 officers makes more than $100,000 a year.
The state's huge prison officers payroll is at least in part to blame for the fact that California now spends as much on imprisoning its criminals as it does on educating its children, Sullivan points out.

"The notion that we are some prison industrial complex, or that we're recruiting felons or trying to change laws, is a misnomer," a union spokesman told Sullivan.

But Sullivan reported that "much of the funding to promote and push for the passage of the laws came from a political action committee the union created. It's run out of a group called Crime Victims United of California. Its director, Harriet Salarno, says they are independent from the union. But a review of the PAC's financial records show the PAC has not received a donation from another group besides the union since 2004."

Audio of NPR's report can be downloaded here (MP3).