Do you have a source for the Prison Workers Union lobby in CA quote, guerilla?
A lot of my info comes from
NORML. Also, "
American Drug War" is a must watch movie if you smoke pot. Highly recommended.
Ironically, I don't smoke pot. I'm just interested in human liberty.
Here is some source material
BeeSource.com | POV | Joe Traynor | ALMOND GROWER NEWSLETTER - Jan. 05, 2004
CCPOA Rules our Valley
Why all the prisons up and down the Central Valley? The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. is the driving force behind many of these prisons. We all know of the big political donations made by special interest groups and the CCPOA makes some of the biggest. In 1998 CCPOA forked over $2 million to Gray Davis and another $3 million to various other candidates. According to a recent book, the prison guards
were the political muscle behind the 1994 "3 strikes" legislation and initiative, the act that mandated a sentence of 25 years to life for any 3rd degree felony conviction, even for crimes as minor as growing a marijuana plant on a windowsill or shoplifting a bottle of Ripple.
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UCB Institute for Governmental Studies
Another part of Gov. Schwarzenegger's key prison reforms was dropped in April 2005 under pressure from the CCPOA and their allies. The governor's plan targeted parollees and involved sending parole violators to halfway houses or community-based drug abuse programs instead of returning them to prison.
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California Sentencing Reform Initiative Draws Powerful Opponents, Reformers Dramatically Ahead in New Poll
Analysts with the state legislature say the initiative, if passed, would save the state between $100 and $150 million per year by reducing the prison and jail population. In addition, the initiative would generate a one-time savings of nearly half a billion dollars in foregone prison construction costs.
In the opinion of interested observers surveyed by DRCNet, the most formidable opposition to the initiative will come from the politically potent and deep-pocketed prison guards' union, the California Correctional Peace Officers' Association (CCPOA).
"They are the 800-pound gorilla of California politics," said CNDP's Dave Fratello. "They are the only force that matters on the other side," he said, "and they have the capacity to put six or seven figure sums into the campaign."
"Virtually no political body in California will stand up to them," said David Macallair of the Justice Policy Institute. "They are perceived to be law enforcement and they have a lot of money and they spend it lavishly."
"If you oppose them," Macallair continued, "they will label you soft on crime and anti-victims."
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Declaring War on the Drug War | The American Prospect
Proposition 36 has the endorsement of the California Nurses Association, the state's alcohol and drug abuse counselors, some local medical societies, and the state AFL-CIO. It also is supported by a smattering of California politicians, most (though not all) of them Democrats, including Senate President Pro Tem John Burton. But the opponents, led by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), the state's politically muscular prison guards union, and including virtually every other major law enforcement organization in the state--police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys, drug court judges--will be formidable.
Because the CCPOA not only has a reputation as a major player in California politics but has a membership with an obvious financial interest in keeping the prisons full, it's tried to lower its profile: For a few weeks this summer, you couldn't find the organization on any of the opposition lists. "We're seriously involved in the campaign," said CCPOA Political Director Jeffrey Thompson, "but we're not going to give them an easy target." But in the cat-and-mouse games of initiative politics, that could easily change. The screws, who put more than $1 million into Republican Governor Pete Wilson's last campaign and ponied up more than $2 million for Democratic Governor Gray Davis's gubernatorial campaign two years ago, could easily write another big check before it's over.
