SQUANDERING LIFE AND TREASURE

"Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
-Nietzsche

Under the guise of Tough on Crime during difficult financial times Taxpayers are becoming the victims.

PRISON POLICY INITIATIVE (PPL), Mass., is an esteemed NGO prison watchdog organization that monitors, nationwide, inhumane and prodigal prison practices. Their research, reports and statistics are invaluable in navigating bureaucratic roadblocks.

PPL's CENSUS OF LIFE IMPRISONMENT reveals the Lifer prisoner population of every state in the U.S. going into 2025. Second Place goes to Texas with 18,358 however California holds a solid First Place with 37,022.

An inquiring mind might say "How can this happen?" Looking behind the curtains of obscurantism: In December 2023, PPL, reported California's Parole System's grade as "a solid 'F'," "California's Parole System is more of a box office bomb than Hollywood hit." Still bombing into 2025.

Looking deeper behind the obscurantism curtains, On October 20, 2020, Court of Appeal of California, First Appellant District, in re: Staich, A160122 filed an extensive opinion on CDCR and Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) history of denying release of elderly prisoners, concluding a lengthy citation of facts contributing to BPH's failure closing with: "..the Elderly Parole Program does not appear to have had much practical influence on the parole process .." with a denial rate as high as "73%."

Deeper behind obscurantism's curtain, in BPH's "2020 REPORT OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS," [ignoring the Court of Appeal] BPH proudly reported, page #7, denial of Elderly Parole supplicants as high as "82%." This continues into 2025.

Then, here is the ugle collateral damage due to this bureaucratic hubris. California's First Place position of most Lifer prisoners in the U.S. is drawing $14 billion on the state's annual budget, 20% of that 37,022 population are elderly prisoners recognized as "Low-Risk" to society, while CDCR is spending $282K per-year per-each elderly, or $2 billion dollars a year to protect society from them.

California taxpayers are paying $282K per year for each elderly prisoner in their 70's 80's and 90's to be punished to death when psychologists have deemed them "Low-Risk" to society.

You, might want to ask your legislators WHY? does the Fox assure us "ALL CHICKENS ARE DANGEROUS!"

3 March 2025

Robert H. Outman
Prisoner P-79939
http://betweenthebars.org/blogs/895/

SOURCES
California Parole Board
Prison Policy Initiative
CDCR Offender Data Points
California Department of Finance
Legislative Analyst Office
Elderly/Compassion Parole