{"id":363,"date":"2011-09-29T01:00:40","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T01:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jlpp.org\/old_blog\/?p=363"},"modified":"2011-09-29T01:00:40","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T01:00:40","slug":"charles-mansons-cell-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/2011\/09\/29\/charles-mansons-cell-phones\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Manson\u2019s Cell Phones"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Credit: Eric Risberg of the AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\nCalifornia prisons are no strangers to bad press. Just a few months ago, the Supreme Court condemned the state\u2019s correctional facilities [PDF]<\/a> for violating inmates\u2019 Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment<\/a>. After Schwarzenegger took the governorship in California in 2003, he expressed outrage<\/a> at runaway incarceration in California, questioning the state\u2019s moral compass when it \u201cfocuses more on prison uniforms than on caps and gowns.\u201d\n\nThere is a paradox in the bad press: if we are spending<\/strong> so much on prisons, then how is it that prisoners are still living in conditions so deplorable<\/strong> that they violate the prisoners\u2019 Constitutional rights? It doesn\u2019t add up.\n\nCalifornia has a unique villain, an incredibly powerful lobby that has undoubtedly contributed to the severity of the state\u2019s prison problems: the California Correctional Peace Officers Association<\/a> (CCPOA).\n\nAs with any powerful lobby, money talks. The CCPOA has plenty of it<\/a>\u2014over 97% of the state\u2019s correctional officers are organized, and members pay $59 in monthly dues. With 31,000 members, we\u2019re talking $21.9 million annual income\u2014a veritable arsenal that has been the most valuable player in making the state\u2019s penal system more punitive in nature. \u201cWhile prison guards can appear as a less-than-sympathetic group in the public eye, the mother of a murdered child serves as a powerful tool when trying to strengthen punitive laws.\u201d CCPOA Info Sheet (PDF)<\/a>.\n\nEven in \u201cmaximum-security\u201d prisons, California\u2019s inmates are constantly caught with contraband drugs, weapons, and even cell phones\u2014which enable them to continue posing a threat to communities while locked up. Earlier this year, Charles Manson was caught with a cell phone<\/a>\u2014his second cell phone in two years\u2014at California\u2019s maximum-security Corcoran State Prison<\/a>. Just how are the prisoners getting their hands on this contraband? Moreover, how could one of the most infamous criminals in California history get his hands on a cell phone\u2014twice?\n\nThe day after news of Manson\u2019s second contraband phone hit newspapers, the Los Angeles Times called<\/a> prison guards the \u201cmain obstacle\u201d in the problem:\n
\u201cPrison employees, roughly half of whom are unionized guards, are the main source of smuggled phones that inmates use to run drugs and other crimes, according to legislative analysts who examined the problem last year. Unlike visitors, staff can enter the facilities without passing through metal detectors<\/strong>.\u201d<\/blockquote>\nWhile extensive airport-style security screens are required for all attorneys and inmates\u2019 visitors, security guards are not subject to these searches. When California legislators sought to change this, the politically powerful CCPOA pointed out<\/a> that they would have to be paid for the extra few minutes that a daily search would add to their workdays. This, according to the CCPOA, would inevitably add up to cost taxpayers millions.\n\nSo what is happening now? The guards are still walking in and out of California\u2019s maximum-security prisons every single day without being screened. Moreover, while smuggling cell phones is against prison rules, it isn\u2019t even against the law yet<\/a>.\n\nAccording to The Smoking Gun<\/a>, an online media outlet known for its controversial document leaks, the going rate for a smuggled cell phone in Manhattan-area jails is $2,500<\/a>. The corrupt guards who benefit from this scheme will lose a huge source of supplemental income should they be forced to undergo security screenings. Given the gains that guards stand to make when public policy is in their favor, it is no surprise that CCPOA\u2019s political activity routinely exceeds<\/a> that of all other California unions. The CCPOA has a lot to lose.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Behind California prison walls, greed trumps security because of an unlikely villain: the prison guards\u2019 union.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[248,249,250,276,280,424,1230,1354,1481,1599],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-blogs","tag-california","tag-california-correctional-peace-officers-association","tag-california-prisons","tag-ccpoa","tag-cell-phones","tag-cruel-and-unusual-punishment","tag-prisons","tag-schwarzenegger","tag-suzy-marinkovich","tag-unions"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}