Proposition 6: Local Law Enforcement Spending Requirement – NO

By Peter L. Stahl
Pete Rates the Propositions

Prop 6 is a spending mandate. It will require the state legislature to budget $965 million a year, increasing annually, for an assortment of local law enforcement, juvenile, offender rehabilitation, and victim assistance programs. Today these receive about $600 million, so Prop 6 represents a 61% bump.

As my regular readers know, I’m allergic to budget set-asides like this. Prop 98 (1988) requires the state to spend over $50 billion a year on education. Prop 42 (2002) stipulates $1.2 billion must go for transportation; Prop 49 (2002) steers half a billion into after-school programs; and Prop 63 (2004) sets aside $800 million for mental health services. With all this budgeting through the ballot box, there’s less and less room for the legislature to accommodate unexpected economic conditions, natural disasters, homeland security, and other surprises. A report by the California Budget Project concludes that “using a very minimal definition of mandatory spending, approximately two-thirds of state spending is mandatory and one third (35 percent) is discretionary … In reality, the Legislature is much more constrained.” With measures like Prop 6, it will only get worse.

These propositions can impose absurd priorities on state spending. Who really believes that after-school programs are more important than roads, hospitals, or clean water? Nobody. Yet Prop 49 forces the legislature to fund after-school programs before it considers more vital things, every single year. These permanent spending mandates just don’t make sense.

Does Prop 6 provide any new income for all this new spending? No, it does not. The measure simply requires the legislature to allocate a larger portion of the budget to its pet programs. What isn’t stated is that the new spending will necessarily come at the expense of other programs. So if you vote for Prop 6, you’re also voting against everything else that will have its funding cut as a result.

In addition to its spending mandate, Prop 6 also contains a sugar coating that proponents hope will distract you from the distasteful parts so you’ll swallow their arguments. This confectionery consists of toughening laws against methamphetamine and gang-related activities. Prop 6′s authors want you to feel so good about yourself for sticking it to the bad guys that you’ll ignore their outrageous, unfunded mandate. Please show them that you’re more intelligent than that. Otherwise we’ll continue to see this kind of subterfuge on every ballot from here to eternity.

Pete Rates the Propositions is non-partisan and unaffiliated with any candidate or organization. Pete remains obstinately undoctrinaire, considering each ballot proposition on its merits. He is proud to have offended (and persuaded) voters of all political stripes. This originally appeared on Pete Rates the Propositions and is republished with the permission of the author.

Posted on September 29, 2008

Drinking water safety a concern at CA prison

Drinking water safety a concern at CA prison
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

NORCO, CA — The discovery of coliform bacteria in two of eight samples of water taken from the California Rehabilitation Center at Norco earlier this month has raised the concerns of inmates and their families, according to a September 29 article in The Press-Enterprise.

“I guess my concern … was that some of the inmates were getting ill, and they have no choice — they can’t buy other water to be able to drink,” said Jill Morgan, the mother of an inmate and a member of the prison’s Inmate Family Council.

She said in the article there have been problems with the prison’s water since 2004, when the prison began getting its water from the city of Norco. That year, 20 inmates were diagnosed with Helicobacter pylori, bacteria which cause diarrhea and vomiting. Inmates claimed the water was the source of their illness, according to the article.

In June 2007 a damaged water main inside the prison caused the water system to be shut down, according to the article.

Officials say they believe that one of the test samples collected earlier this month was contaminated after collection. No subsequent tests have shown bacteria in the water, and the chlorination system is said to be working properly. No illnesses have been reported in connection with the most recent violation, according to the article.

To view the full article, click here.

For related information on this story, click here.

http://www.watertechonline.com/news.asp?N_ID=70693

Inmates could help resolve prison debacle

Inmates could help resolve prison debacle
By Kenneth E. Hartman, C- 19449
Artic le Launc hed: 09/ 28/ 2008 06: 45: 10 AM PDT

With all of Calif ornia ‘s crise s crowd ing the headl ines, it’s easy to forge t the multi – billi on dolla r fiasc o that is the Depar tment of Corre ction s and Rehab ilita tion ( CDCR) . The stark truth s of this state ‘s faile d priso n polic ies inclu de: the worst retur n- to- priso n rate in the count ry; feder al court s deman ding const ituti onall y adequ ate ( read, very expen sive) healt h care; dange rous overc rowdi ng and under staff ing; and a consi stent unwil lingn ess to admit mista kes.

At a recen t heari ng of the Calif ornia Rehab ilita tion Overs ight Board , highl y respe cted crimi nolog ist Dr. Barry Krisb erg of the Natio nal Counc il on Crime and Delin quenc y descr ibed the CDCR’ s lates t refor m plans as ” happy talk.
“

Here’ s some real talk.

I’ve serve d more than 28 conti nuous years in this priso n syste m. It is, funda menta lly, broke n. Absen t a genui ne parad igm shift in plann ing, opera ting and execu ting, there will be no chang e from the top. In fact, until the get- tough – on- priso ners mode is repla ced by get- smart – think ing, the syste m will only get worse , cost more money and turn out more parol ees wholl y unpre pared to re- enter socie ty and succe ed.

To his credi t, Gov. Arnol d Schwa rzene gger appoi nted Matth ew Cate the new secre tary of the CDCR. To his credi t, Secre tary Cate has expre ssed a willi ngnes s to liste n and recon sider . Now comes the tough part of his job: Cramm ing the idea of rehab ilita tion into an entit y desig ned to thwar t rehab ilita tion. Re- educa ting a massi ve burea ucrac y to rejec t the big stick will be a monum ental ly hard task.

Lucki ly, there are a few brigh t spots in this disma l pictu re. The Honor Progr am at the Calif ornia State Priso n- Los Angel es Count y, a priso ner- initi ated progr am that has garne red wides pread posit ive atten tion from the media and the Legis latur e and devel oped a loyal group of free- world suppo rters , is one of these oases of possi bilit y.

In a nutsh ell, maxim um- secur ity priso ners are expec ted to absta in from drugs and alcoh ol, rejec t viole nce and negat ive ( meani ng norma l priso n”) behav ior and parti cipat e in treat ment, commu nity servi ce and other meani ngful progr ams. Most impor tant to the succe ss of this model is the priso ner parti cipan ts have to volun teer. This last aspec t has never sat well with the old bulls who seem to belie ve that rehab ilita tion is simpl y a codew ord for yet anoth er big stick .

But rehab ilita tion will remai n an elusi ve goal until priso ners are sold on the idea. This means that posit ive behav ior needs to be rewar ded. (At prese nt, only negat ive behav ior gets any atten tion.
)

Bring ing priso ners on- board and into the proce ss is a revol ution ary conce pt to the curre nt crop of admin istra tors who conti nue to misma nage this syste m. It is not to the rest of the world of corre ction s. Calif ornia is bring ing up the rear on this idea, trail ing far behin d other state s. The truly aston ishin g aspec t of this failu re is how resis tant the CDCR has prove d to be, no matte r the court order s, no matte r the findi ngs of a dozen blue- ribbo n panel s, no matte r the disma l recid ivism rate. It is as if reali ty stops both outsi de the fence s of the priso ns and outsi de the doors to headq uarte rs in Sacra mento .

Of cours e, reali ty has a way of asser ting itsel f, and some kind of chang e is comin g to Calif ornia ‘s priso ns.

If the same old recal citra nce preva ils, it will be on accou nt of trage dy follo wed by court s order ing sweep ing, expen sive and humil iatin g chang e.

If fresh ideas are suppo rted, chang e could be in the form of real succe ss.

The Honor Progr am is the kind of posit ive appro ach to corre ction s that warra nts suppo rt. The delib erate infli ction of pain- and- suffe ring polic ies of the past 25 years have faile d and will conti nue to fail. Inste ad, put priso ners to work on refor ming thems elves , resto ring their commu nitie s and rewar ding those of us who accep t the chall enge. It is not compl icate d, and it does not cost a penny more to opera te.

And it works . I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

If the leade rship of the CDCR would only open their eyes, they would see it works , too.

They work for you. Tell them to open their eyes.

• The autho r is servi ng a life sente nce at the Calif ornia State Priso n- Los Angel es Count y, in Lanca ster, where he helpe d found the Honor Progr am. Visit www. prisonhonorprog ram. org.

http: / / www. thereporter. com/ opinion/ ci_ 10583 250

Fresno parolee left addiction for a passion

Fresno parolee left addiction for a passion
By Don Mayhew / The Fresno Bee
09/25/08 22:22:54
Every two weeks, like clockwork, scores of new parolees fill the training room of the parole office in Fresno.
Under the watchful eyes of parole officers, ex-convicts sit and listen to representatives from drug rehabilitation centers, government agencies and adult schools offer their services. The parolees are required to be here. Many scowl and fidget.
It’s a tough crowd, in more ways than one.
Despite all the help offered to them, about 80% will be back behind bars before their parole is up. With California’s prisons overcrowded to the point of bursting, repeat offenders cause a fiscal and psychological drag on the state’s judicial system.
A solution to the problem has been elusive. Success relies on the parolees’ readiness to change their lives.
Which is why a little-known program called VIP Mentors, which pairs lawyers and judges with parolees to offer guidance and friendship, calls on Sherian Garvin to tell her story whenever possible.
Garvin, 52, spent decades addicted to heroin and methamphetamine, winding up in prison for 4 1/2 years. But she’s also one of VIP Mentors’ greatest success stories, a Fresno graduate of the program who now sits on its board of directors. The voice of experience doesn’t get any more authentic than hers.
“I lost my kids,” she tells the parolees. “I didn’t see them for a long time, because I was a heroin addict. [But] I have it all back, because I changed my life.”
Garvin’s story is a dramatic example of what can happen when the right help is applied at the right time. According to VIP Mentors director Joanne Michelson, 70% of the parolees the organization matches up stay out of prison for at least a year. Four of five who don’t enter the program are likely to be reincarcerated.
The organization was founded in 1972 as an all-volunteer program, in response to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger’s challenge for the legal community to improve the criminal justice system. It became a nonprofit in 1991, now funded by grants, donations and a contract with California. Statewide, about 400 judges and attorneys volunteer as mentors.
The program doesn’t work for everybody. But for parolees who are ready, it offers encouragement and guidance available nowhere else.
“It reassured me that there are people that do care,” Garvin says.
Meggin Boranian, Garvin’s mentor, says being a lawyer — but not being Garvin’s lawyer — encourages open communication.
“It must be a pretty lonely place when you first get out of prison, if you’ve been in for a while,” she says. “You really question your own ability to talk to anybody outside, let alone a lawyer.”
Some mentors offer financial assistance — buying a bus pass for someone who has no other means of transportation, for example. Others help with clothing or job contacts. But mentors mostly offer friendship and a nonjudgmental ear.
“I’m impartial,” Boranian says. “If Sherian wants my opinion, she’ll ask for it. But I don’t have to give my opinion. I would just listen.”
She wasn’t the only one in Garvin’s corner. But getting to the point where Garvin could gain anyone’s trust took a long time — and a detour through hell.
A life unraveled
Garvin recites the details of her 30-year drug addiction stoically, perhaps to soften the toll they took. It’s a story she’ll retell Saturday at Soberstock, a free music festival at Fresno’s Manchester Center that celebrates National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month.
She was born and raised in Fresno, began drinking and using drugs at age 12, then first tried heroin at 16. By then, she had a year-old baby. A year later, she was arrested for the first time.
Thievery, selling drugs and prostitution became the means to the next fix: “I’d do whatever it took to get the drugs. Whatever it took.”
Fresno County Superior Court records indicate a steady string of arrests for drug use and prostitution. In between stints in jail, she married, had two more children, and divorced. Through it all, she remained an addict.
“I’d get out of jail, and I’d have nowhere to go,” she says. “You’d go straight back to the [drug] connection or to the same people you ran with, because you need a place to stay.”
She spent most of her time in Fresno. But a decision to move to North Carolina late in 1997 changed her life forever.
Garvin, then 41, got involved in running drugs between Virginia and Florida. Realizing she was in trouble, she returned to Fresno in March 1998. But it was too late. She was indicted in Georgia on various counts related to drug trafficking two months later.
Police began looking for her in Fresno, going so far as to search the home of her younger daughter, Renee Fouquet.
“I told her to run,” Fouquet says. Instead, Garvin called authorities and arranged to surrender at her other daughter’s apartment the next day, June 18, 1998.
Garvin remembers police cars pulling up to the building, lining the streets in both directions. At least 10 officers entered with guns drawn. She’d been arrested plenty of times. But she found the force and numbers the police used that day stunning.
“It was such a shock to realize, ‘Oh, my gosh — they’re coming for me like this,’ ” she says. “It was overwhelming. There was an awakening. … You realize, ‘Wow, I’m a criminal.’ “
That moment, Garvin decided she would come out of prison a different person.
“I was tired,” she says. “I was done. I was 42 years old, and I was looking at going to prison for however long.”
The original charges Garvin faced could have put her in prison for 64 years. Some were dropped, others reduced. She was sentenced to 30 years — 10 in a Georgia prison, 20 more on parole.
Being incarcerated 3,000 miles from home turned out to be a mixed blessing. She had not one visitor the whole time. But in her loneliness, she learned independence.
“I had to do things on my own,” Garvin says. “One of the things I learned is to forgive yourself. I had to forgive myself to let go of the guilt, because the guilt always makes you use. Guilt can kill you.”
She tried to take advantage of every educational opportunity she could in prison. She went through drug rehabilitation. She earned a GED. She took computer classes.
Garvin’s hard work paid off, and she was released in October 2002 after serving 4 1/2 years. When she arrived back in Fresno, her daughters and some of her grandchildren went to the bus station downtown to greet her. They didn’t recognize her when she first walked past.
“We’d never seen my mom with short hair,” Fouquet says. “She had put on weight. She looked healthy. She wasn’t real skinny and sucked up. She had her teeth fixed.
“I used to see my mom walking Belmont [Avenue], strung out on heroin. That’s what I was used to. It was a completely different person.”
But her transformation was far from complete.
Helping hands
Garvin didn’t make much of an impression on parole officer Ron Hill when they first met. She was just another parolee, one among 75 or 80 he’s typically assigned at any one time. Hill had no idea whether Garvin would take her situation seriously.
“She was very leery of what was going to happen with parole,” he says. “One of the things I remember her saying to me is, ‘Is there a way you can help me?’ I said, ‘Only if you can help yourself.’
“She said, ‘Yeah, I’ve already done that.’
“I said, ‘I’m not talking about what you’ve done inside.’ … A prisoner locked up will say or do or tell you anything to get out.”
It was months before Hill felt confident enough in Garvin that he recommended her to VIP Mentors. She was paired with Boranian, who’d been a mentor to a half-dozen other parolees over the years.
As is common within the program, they got to know each other slowly, spending a half-dozen hours a month talking over coffee or attending VIP-sponsored outings.
“Every time I saw her,” Boranian says, “she looked different. She had her hair cut. She had her nails done. She looked like she was moving forward. She had goals.”
In the meantime, Garvin had gotten a job with Salvation Army as a store clerk. She worked her way up to store manager, then shipping supervisor in the organization’ s Fresno headquarters.
At the beginning of this year, Garvin took over as manager for the Salvation Army’s rehabilitation residence for women in west-central Fresno.
It was a nice fit. Garvin believes sharing her experiences with the women in her house not only benefits them but keeps her focused on what’s important to her.
“I’ve taken a lot from this community for a lot of years,” she says. “It’s exciting for me to give back.”
Hill now is one of Garvin’s biggest fans.
“Before you can be successful, you have to give to someone else,” he says. “Sheri gave to other people, and that’s why things are coming full circle back to her.”
The story continues
Garvin has gone from taking drug tests to administering them to the 14 women who live at her facility. She’s gone from being shackled in the back of a van headed to Georgia to driving the van her residents ride across town. She’s gone from being mentored in the VIP program to serving on its board.
Ten years ago, she couldn’t have imagined any of it. Drug abuse narrows your life to one thing — the next hit.
“You don’t see a future,” Garvin says. “You don’t see that much ahead. You only see the next day, or if you’re going to have a place to stay for the next month. You don’t know where your future is — or if you have a future.”
Now she has one, and it involves helping others find their own. VIP’s Michelson says Garvin’s willingness to share her story uncensored, good and bad, touches lives.
She does a very good job of turning something very negative and very horrible into something positive,” Michelson says. “She can put that very concisely, in a way that people can understand.”
Michelson says successful parolees decide they must change on their own: “But that determination doesn’t do it without having some support along the way.”
Talking to the ex-cons at the parole office downtown, Garvin urges them to accept the help she knows is there. Most won’t. Still, she can’t help but hope what she says will click with someone.
“My story’s not over,” she tells them. “I’m back on parole until Jan. 11, 2028.
“But I’m not scared today. I’m not scared when I pull up in a neighborhood and the cops are all surrounding where I live or something, because I know they’re not there for me.
“I’m legal today.”

http://www.fresnobe e.com/263/ v-printerfriendl y/story/895492. html

In prison to heal, learn to live better

Colorado has pumped more money into drug, alcohol and job-training programs aimed at reducing the likelihood that ex-prisoners will re-offend

By Marcia Darnell

Article Last Updated: 09/26/2008 04:44:26 PM MDT

This month, my brother becomes a statistic, as an American serving a sentence in prison.

After suffering a personal loss, he chose to console himself with alcohol, which led to a job loss, which led to more drinking, which led to crime. Having lost everything but a few possessions, he’s now facing at least two years in prison.

That means the rest of my family and I will become statistics, too.

We’ll be on the outside, dealing with the limitations on letters and visits, and missing him at holiday gatherings. We will also work to support and encourage him to use this time to heal.

Fortunately, that’s easier than it used to be. Prisons today offer many resources to help inmates refocus and prepare for a more positive future.

Colorado prisons house more than 20,000 people, more than double the population of Alamosa. Gov. Bill Ritter is trying to decrease that number. Since he took office in January 2007, Ritter has pumped more money into drug, alcohol and job-training programs aimed at reducing the likelihood that ex-prisoners will reoffend. His hope is to get inmates to make the most of their time, instead of just doing it.

That work starts by identifying the causes of the criminal behavior.

According to the Colorado Department of Corrections, almost all Colorado prisons have a chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, and at least half offer Narcotics Anonymous.

“We also have mental health staff in each facility,” said Katherine Sanguinetti, spokesperson for the corrections department. “Every incoming inmate goes through an initial assessment, followed by appropriate treatment.”

Education is a high priority of the prison system, too. Inmates who lack a high school diploma or GED are required to go to class. For those with more education, like my brother, educational and vocational programs are tied into the community college system, meaning prisoners can leave the facility and slide right into a classroom.

And there are many job opportunities.

“There are correctional industries with over 50 different programs,” said Sanguinetti, “from training mustangs to building furniture.”

She explained that all this benefits society as a whole, as well as the individual offenders. People with more education and job skills are less likely to re-offend and return to prison. This makes for a healthier, and safer, society.

“Our focus has shifted toward offender re-entry from day one,” she said. “We’re giving them every opportunity to change their lives.”

This focus has been in place less than two years, Sanguinetti said, making it hard to measure success as yet.

“We have seen a decrease in the number of people coming into prison,” she said, “but it’s hard to say what one factor is.”

I’m sure one big factor is the desire to change. Since being arrested, my brother has logged more than 260 days of sobriety while awaiting sentencing. That’s a good sign, and a great start toward remaking his life.

I have a friend in Austin who served almost six years in federal lockup. He used his time to stop drinking, drop a ton of weight and get into shape, rack up several college credits, start sleeping regularly, and do a lot of writing. He now has a master’s degree, a rewarding career, and says he’s healthier than he was 30 years ago.

American history offers many examples of people who made a comeback after serving time, from actor Charles S. Dutton to Nathan McCall, author of “Makes Me Wanna Holler.”

I hope my brother uses his time in prison to get his head together. I hope he stays sober, and works on the reasons behind his drinking.

I hope he uses the options available to him: education, therapy, work. I hope he comes out healthier and stronger, and with a bright future.

Meanwhile, I’ll be here. Hoping.

Marcia Darnell (ink@amigo.net) of Alamosa is a freelance journalist. She was a member of the 2006 Colorado Voices panel.

http://www.denverpo st.com/opinion/ ci_10560975

SF: REENTRY TACTICS OF INMATES INTO SOCIETY TO BE ADDRESSED

SF: REENTRY TACTICS OF INMATES INTO SOCIETY TO BE ADDRESSED

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, D-5, and Sheriff Michael Hennessey will be among those who attend an event Monday to address strategies for helping former inmates find employment after release and avoid going back to prison.

Reentry Works: Creating Employment Opportunities for Formerly Incarcerated San Franciscans will unite elected officials, policymakers, nonprofits, academies, employers and former inmates to allow them to share information, practices and strategies for plans after prison, event officials said.

Of the approximate 9,500 adult probationers and parolees who live in San Francisco, 50 percent are illiterate; 27 percent need mental health services; 74.6 percent require substance abuse treatment; 79.1 percent require some level of housing assistance; and 70 percent have a high need for education and employment services, according to event officials.

Ex-felons can have a difficult time getting work. According to event officials, federal and state law forbids the hiring of ex-felons for certain occupations, and as a result they may resort to illegal means of getting money and have a greater chance of ending up back in prison or jail within a year.

Reentry Works will take place from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday at the Novellus Theater at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts at 700 Howard St.

http://cbs5. com/localwire/ 22.0.html? type=bcn&item=REENTRY- WORKS-bagm-

Law sometimes leaves little room for compassion

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez28-2008sep28,0,1530235.column

From the Los Angeles Times

When an 84-year-old man tries to lie down and die with his wife — who has severe Alzheimer’s and doesn’t recognize her loved ones — he’s treated like a common criminal, charged with attempted murder

Steve Lopez

September 28, 2008

Jimmy Wheeler, 84, is out on bail. The charge? Attempting to kill his wife.

I stopped by his daughter’s house in Carpinteria and he greeted me at the front door, ready to talk about what he intended as an act of mercy.

Wheeler shook my hand and led me to the dining room table. A pleasant smile was fixed on his tanned, lined face, but he was dabbing at his eyes.

And then he lost it on the first question.

I asked how he met his wife, Betty, whom he calls Beckie. He sobbed, his chest heaved and then he began his story. They were students at UCLA, he said, his memories still fresh. He never saw her on campus, though. The first time he laid eyes on her was at the beach in Santa Monica.

She was with friends, but they were invisible to Jimmy.

“She was cute, she was smart, she was happy,” he said. “And she had a nice shape.”

Wheeler drove a Model A station wagon painted UCLA blue and gold, and Beckie agreed to ride back to campus with this lanky young poli-sci major. He looked a little like Jimmy Stewart, with piercing blue eyes.

They were married two years later, at the height of World War II. Soon he was off to fly bombing missions over Europe. After the war, he finished school at Oregon State and got a graduate degree from Stanford. Jimmy then found work as a petroleum engineer, and he and Beckie raised a son and daughter in Carpinteria.

This is a love story, of course. The attempted murder notwithstanding.

It’s a story many of us find familiar in one way or another, particularly we boomers with ailing parents. I couldn’t stop thinking about — and talking about — my own parents as Mr. Wheeler and I chatted.

A hundred times in the last year, my siblings and I have wondered whether we’re intruding too much, or not enough, into our parents’ lives. Is it time to insist on home care? Should we insist it’s time to surrender driver’s licenses?

We’re much better at the questions than the answers.

Wheeler and his wife have been married 64 years, and they’ve enjoyed what he called “a wonderful life.” But Beckie, 85, has Alzheimer’s.

Jimmy Wheeler took good care of his wife, stealing all that he could from what was left of normal. They kept traveling, one of their great joys, until her illness made that impossible. Until quite recently, he and Beckie could be seen walking down the street to the beach, holding hands like young lovers.

But Beckie was fading into solitude, the world around her a growing mystery, and then finally Jimmy was a stranger to her.

“She wakes up in the morning and doesn’t know who the guy in bed with her is,” Wheeler told me with wet eyes, capturing perfectly the horror of watching a loved one disappear into a fog.

In a way it’s crueler than death itself, because there’s no moving on for the survivor. There is only this ghost, a constant reflection of love and loss.

“Are you OK?” Jimmy’s son-in-law, Stan Scrivner, asked him one morning when he came to the door in obvious distress.

“No,” Wheeler said. “Beckie’s gone.”

Scrivner asked what he meant.

“She’s gone,” Wheeler repeated. “She doesn’t recognize me anymore.”

Wheeler couldn’t bear to see her like that, and eventually he came up with a plan.

“She said she wanted to be with Jesus,” he said. “I just wanted to be with her.”

Although he has pleaded not guilty, the basic details of what happened next aren’t in dispute.

One night earlier this month, he turned on the gas burners in the house, according to authorities.

“It was Romeo and Juliet,” Scrivner said.

Except that it didn’t work.

Plan B, authorities said, was to run a hose through a window and into the house from the exhaust pipe on Wheeler’s ’99 Olds.

Wheeler wrote a suicide note and included instructions for cremation of the bodies. He left a check to cover the cost. He advised loved ones on how to handle his estate, says his attorney Steve Balash, cautioning them to be careful about probate lawyers who charge too much.

The exhaust might have done the trick, but a neighbor saw what was up and called police. Jimmy Wheeler ended up behind bars, charged with attempted murder and elder abuse. He slept on a mattress on the floor of the overcrowded Santa Barbara County Jail.

A county prosecutor called Wheeler a threat to himself, his wife and the neighborhood. Superior Court Judge George Eskin listened to that argument but at a recent bail hearing he said the case called for “compassion and understanding.”

“I am aware of the tragedy of Alzheimer’s,” Eskin told me by phone. He noted that unlike other countries and the state of Oregon, California has not embraced legalized options — including assisted suicide — for people nearing the end.

Eskin allowed Wheeler’s release on $100,000 bail pending a preliminary hearing Oct. 8, and ordered him to be supervised and undergo grief counseling.

“He’s not going to do her in,” Eskin reasoned, so the judge’s emphasis was on making sure Wheeler gets help to see if “he can find the strength to go on.”

Even if California had passed a death with dignity bill (the bill has failed three times, with strong opposition from doctors and organized religion), the Wheeler scenario wouldn’t have come into play. The proposed bill, patterned after the one in Oregon, would have required a terminally ill patient to be of sound mind and to self-administer the lethal drug. Alzheimer’s is not considered a terminal illness, and Beckie was in no shape to make the decision to end her life.

“Somehow they have to figure out how to create a new area of law that’s about compassion and mercy,” said Jeff Wheeler, Jimmy and Beckie’s son.

With good reason, he finds it incomprehensible that his father is being treated like a common criminal, prosecuted the same way as, say, a spurned boyfriend who gets a revolver and goes gunning for his girlfriend’s new love interest.

After three swings and misses, Assembly members Lloyd Levine and Patty Berg have given up on a death with dignity bill in California. But they now have one before the governor that would require doctors to give terminally ill patients information on all their options, including hospice care and sedation.

Let’s hope Gov. Schwarzenegger signs it. But still, it would be a far cry from what they’ve got in Oregon, and Californians might go on using bridges, guns, toxic cocktails and underground suicide options. Or they might make botched and bungled attempts like Jimmy Wheeler’s.

Kathryn Tucker, a lawyer with Compassion & Choices, says that patients in Oregon can sign an “advance directive” stipulating that in cases of progressive dementia, they would want no steps taken to keep them alive.

Here in California, we’ve got the prospect of an 84-year-old grandfather going to jail if a jury finds that he tried to lie down beside his wife and die with her. Sure, you could argue he had no right to decide for his wife whether she should go on living. But prosecuting him aggressively and sending him to prison would be a miscarriage of justice and a waste of tax dollars.

“I’m trying not to think about that possibility,” Wheeler told me.

I asked if he had considered taking his wife to a nursing home — she’s in one now — instead of trying to die at her side.

“My sister is in one of those convalescent homes,” Wheeler said. “Those people are just passing the time of day, not knowing what’s going on. That’s no kind of life.”

And what would he want to happen to him, I wondered, if he were as sick as his wife?

“I’d want to be gone,” Jimmy Wheeler said.

I understand completely.

If I ever get to where I don’t recognize the people I care about, I wouldn’t want to hang around. And I’d be grateful to any friend or family member who helps me move on.

I’d consider it an act of love.

Former RI prison guards sentenced for inmate abuse

Former RI prison guards sentenced for inmate abuse

Updated: Sep 26, 2008 07:35 AM EDT
http://www.eyewitne ssnewstv. com/global/ story.asp?
s=9074795&ClientTyp e=Printable

Two RI prison guards will be spending time behind bars after being
convicted of beating several inmates in 2005, and 2006.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – Two former state prison guards will spend
time behind bars after being convicted of beating several inmates in
2005 and 2006.

Gualter Botas and Kenneth Viveiros were fired from Adult Correctional
Institutions after the assaults in a minimum-security building at the
Cranston prison. Botas, who was convicted of three more counts of
simple assault than Viveiros, was sentenced to 18 months in prison,
while Viveiros got nine months.

Both men remain free on bail pending their appeal to the state
Supreme Court. A jury convicted 39-year-old Botas, of Pawtucket, and
56-yeaer-old Viveiros, of North Providence, in August, and a judge
later upheld the assault convictions.

Cason Point: Chew on this: Prison dental care beats funds for seniors

By Colleen Cason (Contact)
Sunday, September 28, 2008

As Congress debates the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, we on Main Street will do well to read the fine print, because the devil lurks in the details.

That is the hard lesson of the recently passed California budget. I was so relieved our elected officials actually completed the main task in their job descriptions — 85 days late — that I failed to chew over this fiscal sausage grind until rather recently.

Now that I’ve spent some time with it, I can tell you the fine print is not all that fine.

In one swipe of his pen, the governor deleted almost $55 million for the Integrated Services for Homeless Adults with Serious Mental Illness Program. Studies have shown this approach saves the taxpayers money by keeping the mentally ill out of our overcrowded jails and mental institutions. Loss of this funding can only be a setback for Ventura County’s hope-giving initiative to end homelessness by 2017.

But the real story of this budget unfolds in the uneven treatment of two of the state’s fastest-growing populations.

In California, the elderly have had their pockets picked by Sacramento in favor of felons.

They say money talks. And I say it seldom lies. How dollars are spent is a better indicator of a people’s priorities than anything that comes out of either side of the mouth.

Time-tested programs that improve the lives of our older population suffered deep cuts.

The budget basically ate seniors’ lunch. Funding for three meal programs, which includes home-delivered meals, was cut almost $630,000.

The ax fell hard and deep on the almost $6 million of state money that helps fund the work of the Long-term Care Ombudsman organization.

In Ventura County, this nonprofit lost every cent of the almost $50,000 it normally gets from the state, even though the program is mandated by the federal government.

For this small cost to the taxpayers, Ombudsman volunteers serve California’s most frail and vulnerable citizens by making at least one monthly surprise inspection of nursing homes.

They are the ones watching over the people who have served our country in times of war, raised and educated generations and cared for their own elderly parents.

And now, sick and old, they are shut away because their families are mostly unable but sometimes unwilling to care for them.

Ombudsmen also advocate for the elderly who believe their rights have been violated, so they are treated as patients and not as prisoners.

But someone in Sacramento is watching out for the convicts. The budget includes $79.2 million for prisoner dental care. This breaks down like so: $22.5 million to something called a “Phase IV of the Inmate Dental Services Program” and $56.7 million — and I quote the state’s own budget summary — “to provide salary enhancements for various dental classifications. “

I guess what it boils down to is all this pork must be bad for the prisoners’ teeth.

It makes me wonder if we could just start a prisonwide flossing program. How much can floss cost? My dentist hands it out to his patients for free.

And unlike parents who must plead with their children to floss, the prison guards can make inmates do it at gunpoint.

Much of this budget boost for inmate dental care came from two sources — lawsuits and a powerful prison guard union that does a great job guarding its best interests.

To most of our elderly, “court” is just another word for romancing. Theirs is not a generation by and large fond of litigation.

But the prisoners who are frequent fliers in our court system have nothing but time on their hands to pursue these jailhouse suits.

The prison guards union, which is trying to recall Schwarzenegger, is one of the most powerful unions in this state. And you can bet when the budget is being sliced and diced, they are there to protest every cut to their bailiwick.

Ventura County residents fighting the construction of a 1,500-bed adult prison hospital at the site of the current Ventura Youth Correction Authority in Camarillo are taking on powerful and well-funded sources.

When you read the state budget, you have to wonder if backers of the prison hospital have a lock on it.

You see, hundreds of millions have been allocated from the state’s general fund to build and renovate prisons under the provisions of a law enacted last year. It authorizes, among other things, the construction of a hospital, particularly on existing Department of Corrections’ facilities sites. It also authorizes the sale of billions in bonds to fund such construction.

So I know I am going to read the fine print of the bailout bill to ensure the Wall Street moguls responsible for this debacle are not rewarded.

Because in the California budget process, the prisoners made out like bandits.

— E-mail this Star columnist at ccason@VenturaCount yStar.com.

http://www.venturac ountystar. com/news/ 2008/sep/ 28/chew-on- this-prison- dental-care- beats-funds- for/

VT: My Turn: Only prisons profit in drug war

September 26, 2008

My Turn: Only prisons profit in drug war

By Ben Mitchell

I am Ben Mitchell, the Liberty Union candidate for lieutenant governor in the state of Vermont. If I am elected and the governor leaves the state for even 10 minutes, I will pardon all nonviolent drug offenders serving time in Vermont or Kentucky prisons. I think it is stupid to pay $45,000 a year to lock up drug users when we won’t spend more than $7,000 a year to educate our young people. Besides, I thought this was a free country.

I believe the current system is totally ineffective. During almost 30 years of the War on Drugs, we have seen an increase in prevalence of drug abuse and incarceration. The Bureau of Justice’s own statistics tell the story. In 2001, an estimated 2.7 percent of adults in the United States had served time in prison, up from 1.8 percent in 1991 and 1.3 percent in 1974. Three out of every four convicted jail inmates were alcohol or drugs-involved at the time of their current offense. Drug offenders, up 37 percent, represented the largest source of jail population growth between 1996 and 2002. More than two-thirds of the growth in inmates held in local jails for drug law violations was due to an increase in persons charged with drug trafficking.

Knowing that 75 percent of those serving time suffer from drug and alcohol addiction should suggest that the real issue here is addiction. We are using the criminal system to deal with a medical issue. I do not see any benefit in throwing people struggling with addiction into a population that will provide little help for the core problem and in most cases drives inmates to become more violent. If we were to focus on the problem of addiction, we could provide treatment that would be much less expensive and significantly improve the outcome. With the savings, we could focus our corrections budget on protecting society from those who are truly dangerous.

Also by legalizing drugs, we could tax and regulate them, providing a significant new income stream for the state and eliminating the criminal profit. The retail drug trade in the United States is estimated at $60 billion annually. The true criminals who make the profit are often shielded from the risk, leaving the addicts to serve the time. Also, if Vermont were to legalize marijuana, we would create a huge new revenue stream for the agricultural community. I am certain that our neighbors from New York and New Hampshire would be very loyal to the Vermont organic label given the opportunity.

It is time to acknowledge that the War on Drugs has failed. It is bad policy. Although profitable for the privatized prison system — who in some cases even exploits the inmates for slave labor — the War on Drugs is by every measure not only unsuccessful but increasing the problem. How stupid are we?

Ben Mitchell of Putney is the Liberty Union candidate for lieutenant governor.

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http://www.burlingt onfreepress. com/apps/ pbcs.dll/ article?AID= /20080926/ OPINION/80926030 7/1006