TO: The Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor
State of California
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
FROM: Lorraine Bradley, Author
State Secrets
P.O. Box 543
Newport, VT 05855
SUBJECT: "Blowing Up Boxes."
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,
It is said that, "Actions speak louder than words" and it is this simple, axiomatic, philosophy that is at the heart of the bipolar relationship between the California Department of Corrections, the United States District Court and the looming specter of Federal Receivership.
If there is one thing that Rod Hickman, YACA Secretary, and Jeanne Woodford, Director CDC, are good at, it is the continuing regurgitation of established Departmental and Agency mantra, portraying a diseased correctional system which pretends to be self-sufficient and self-healing if given adequate time. However, the continuing actions (or inactions) of the Department of Corrections sing a much different song in this ongoing dichotomous opera. A fact which is not lost on Senator Jackie Speier who, in a recent article, published in the Mercury News, stated:
``The question I keep asking is why does it take a lawsuit being filed for the governor and his administration to do the right thing?'' asked Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, who has presided over oversight hearings into the state's $6 billion-a-year prison system.
``The only reforms that have taken place,'' she asserted, ``are a result of lawsuits or special-master reports or district court judges demanding that certain steps take place.''
These observations of Senator Speier are, once again, validated in the recent Alameda County Superior Court adjudication of a Public Records Act lawsuit in favor of Stephen James, Investigative Journalist for the alternative weekly "Sacramento News and Review". Mr. James was, unlawfully, refused access to parolee records by the California Department of Corrections, access that is guaranteed under the California Public Records Act as well as the Department of Corrections internal policies1. Once again, as the result of a lawsuit which should have been unnecessary had the Department of Corrections done their job properly, a Judge had to instruct the Department of Corrections to do the right thing - and how to do it. Once again, the taxpayer has to take it on the chin and pay ALL court costs due to the childish tantrums of Departmental leaders.
Through all of the rhetoric extolling its "New and Improved" proactive management strategies, YACA remains reactive and defensive in their continuing failure to rehabilitate an agency with no credibility or moral fiber, thereby inviting continuing judicial intervention.
The Youth Adult Corrections Agency and their subsidiary, the California Department of Corrections, can't seem to get it right. Too many years of Sacramento's Central Office being allowed, with impunity, to circumvent its own, as well as public policy, has certainly taken its toll. California is left with an agency which has fallen down and can't get up, continuing to wallow in their own corruption despite their prevarications of progress towards a glorious future.
Intentional failure to release public record information, a release which is well within unambiguous Departmental policy, unquestionably constitutes an act of employee misconduct by one or more employees within the Central Office, Sacramento, of the California Department of Corrections. Further, this misconduct may constitutes a cause for employee discipline in conformance with the Government Code2. However, if past history is any measure of future events, I seriously doubt that the office of the Director of Corrections, the office of the Secretary of the Youth/Adult Corrections Agency, the office of the Inspector General or the State Personnel Board will be up to the task of determining who was culpable, much less holding those responsible to any degree of accountability.
The guilty scoundrel(s) will, once again, hide behind the apron strings of the Administrative bureaucracy, secure in the knowledge that accountability for them will never come. Comforted by the awareness that cronyism will protect them. After all, today's scoundrel will become tomorrow's Director or Secretary, a maxim which persists, year after year, decade after decade. The power brokers in Sacramento have an established track record of sweeping their dirt under an ever expanding rug.
Even the report by the Corrections Independent Review Panel, part of the California Performance Review, officially acknowledges the existence of only an institutionally based code of silence, totally ignoring the shenanigans and cover-ups occurring by the Sacramento Administration.
Refusing to address Central Office misconduct will have far greater deleterious consequences as those contemplated by the Corrections Independent Review Panel when the code of silence is practiced within California's institutions, because we lead by example. What kind of following has this type of leadership produced over the years? If, in fact, there is an institutionally based Code Of Silence, who were the architects who's actions and immunities fostered this institutional misconduct? Why isn't Sacramento's misconduct acknowledged, exposed, investigated and dispatched in similar fashion to alleged misconduct by line employees? A stalwart Russian axiom reminds us that, "A fish rots from the head".
Perhaps the refusal to acknowledge the "Sacramento Code Of Silence" lies in the composition of the Governor's blue ribbon panel, all former and retired members of the "Sacramento Club", none of which were willing to cast aspersions on their powerful politico pals, heaping all of the sins of the Correction's agency on politically vulnerable institutional line staff.
A human sacrifice which applies only to the lowest levels of State Service, while the administration in Sacramento persists with their shouts of "Let them eat cake". The classic conflict between the privilege of the bourgeoisie and the suffering of the proletariat, is maintained and perpetuated by the Sacramento Insider's Club.
As with their predecessors, maintaining the Sacramento Code Of Silence will be the combined legacy of both Jeanne Woodford, Director CDC and Rod Hickman, Secretary, YACA and, like their predecessors, they will probably spend their golden years either dodging Federal Indictments or lounging at the V.I.P. table at CCPOA's Annual Conventions.
It has been my experience that the higher one climbs the ladder of success in California State Service, the lower are the standards and expectations of conduct.
The decades old reliance on the courts to do the administrative thinking for the Department of Corrections has debilitated the correctional system to a point where the courts must now command them to perform even the most rudimentary functions mandated by their own internal policy. Like petulant children, Department of Corrections administrators refuse to follow their own procedures and guidelines. Like a bunch of churlish kindergartners on a field trip to the court, a judge must read and explain their own policies to them. All of this while the taxpayer continues to foot the bill for this Sacramento Romper Room.
Since, through their own inaction, the Office of the Director of Corrections and the Office of the Secretary of the Corrections Agency have become vestigial, little more than extraneous middlemen for the courts, the next logical and cost-effective step would be their downsizing or, perhaps, their eventual elimination in favor of Federal Receivership. Conceivably, through Federal Receivership of the California Prison System, adults can regain control over the "Lord Of The Flies".
After all, toddlers have no place in prison.
____________________
1Departmental Operations Manual, §13010.11; Title 15, Division 3, California Code of Regulations, §3261.2
2Government Code §19572 (d) & (t)
Lorraine Bradley, Author
State Secrets, The Website.
State Secrets, The Book.
lbradley282@msn.com
http://prisoncorruption.blogspot.com
"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
Paul Simon, "The Boxer"
Cc:
R. Hickman, Secretary
Corrections Agency
Jeanne Woodford, Director
California Department of Corrections
Jackie Speier, Senator
Gloria Romero, Senator
Stephen James, Investigative Reporter
Sacramento News And Review
Copy posted to:
http://prisoncorruption.blogspot.com
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