Sacramento columnist Jill Stewart is certainly no fan of C.O.s. Read her insulting comments about C.O.s and the CCPOA in one of her columns at: http://jillstewart.net/issue0123.html

Send Jill your thoughts at: jill@jillstewart.net

Sacramento columnist Jill Stewart is certainly no fan of C.O.s. Read her insulting comments about C.O.s and the CCPOA in one of her columns at: http://jillstewart.net/issue0123.html

Send Jill your thoughts at: jill@jillstewart.net

Jill Stewart is my hero just for her insight into the extremely corrupt Dept. of Corrections. If you have no couldn't posssibly understand what she is talking about but she is very correct. Start taking an interest in where your tax dollars are going and you might learn she speaks the truth. There is nothing like spending the day around GED-mentality sarcastic, sadistic C/O's . There job is not to punish inmates and visitors, and yet they also retain what I like to call a Corcoran-like mentality because if the public thinks that that kind of abuse was an isolated incident to only that facility then they are sadly mistaken. THE ABUSE IS DAILY & VICIOUS. We as visitors are subject to it as well each and every visit. They brag about how much they make, they're mad because their raise won't come through as fast as it would have if the recall hadn't come about, and the fact that the public can't touch them because they buy each and every governor in office. Thank God for people like Jill that have the forum and the guts to stand up and expose one of the worst special interest groups in California. After having dealt with the prison system for over ten years now I can say with some expertice that people need to wake up and start listening and hearing what Jill and people like her have to say. Never say that I will never have anyone in prison that I know. Do you know how many times I have heard a new visitor say that they never thought they would be here. After about a month they to feel and see the atrocities that occur there. One thing I did not hear Jill bring up is that they also get time and a half if the inmates are on lockdown, on lockdown what can they do? It is just another way to get every penny they can out of our pockets. And believe me they put them on lockdown and keep them there as much and as long as they can. asked C/O one time if he was scared that some day all of this corruption will be discovered? His reply, "the public is too stupid, allthey care about is that we keep them locked out and out of their face," And he is not lying about keeping them locked up. When statistics could be done on the recidivism on lifer's being released 0.02% returned to prison, the rest got out and became productive society members. Statistics can not be taken anymore as they are not paroled anymore. The prisons like then because they keep the peace, do all the work and don't start trouble, still praying and hoping that someday things will change and they will not be held illegally after they have served time way over their matrix, have no violence on their records, the psychiatrist gives them a good report, for many it was their first crime, but we still keep them at a cost of over $25,000./ year because it makes the C/Os job easier and that is a lot of money per year per inmate and you can bet that all of that is not used on the inmates. All of the candidates running for Governor right now and in the past forget about the people out here that vote strictly on their isssues regarding prisons. There are approximately 191,000 inmates incarcerated in California at any given time and if they have just three people out here voting like myself and all the others that have someone incacerated we are at leat 573,000 strong and that is a lot of votes and believe me we vote.

I very much enjoy Jill Stewart’s columns. Her point of view is thought-provoking and usually objective. However, when it comes to the California Correctional Peace Officer’s Association (CCPOA), the union representing California’s prison guards, her objectivity goes out the window.

For example, in her January 23, 2003 column, Stewart called the CCPOA “the most bizarre prison guards’ union in the nation.” Its members, Stewart added, were “freaks of history and circumstance, lightly trained men and women” who, “though their positions require only a GED,” wield enormous power.

Questioning the intelligence of CCPOA members seems to be one of Stewart’s favorite tactics. In a more recent column (4-21-2004), Stewart notes again that guards, who “require no more than a G.E.D. and simple training, fail to control gangs or raging drug use in certain prisons and practice a code of silence.”

Certainly Stewart is justified in questioning whether a labor union should wield so much power in Sacramento and in speculating about the guards’ ability to do their jobs, but she weakens her argument by resorting to name calling and insinuating that an entire class of people are stupid. Even if we assume her generalizations to be correct, do the “highly educated” have more of a right to wield their political power and influence than do “regular folks”?