Thousands March Against School Cuts
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Doctors afraid, schools ignored
The State Legislature passed into law Assembly Bill 1539 in October, 2007 and Governor Schwarzenegger signed it.
This bill would extend the Compassionate Release law to not only release from prison those who are within six months of dying. It would allow the Chief Medical Officer of the prison to recommend to the prison board those inmates who are very sick and cannot perform the daily living activities. The doctor's recommendation would then, when approved by the prison board, be sent to the original sentencing Judge to rule if the prisoner could be released based on their prison record. It would also be determined first if the family were willing to take care of this prisoner and their health care or if the prisoner would be sent to a long term skilled nursing facility for the rest of their life.
The cost of skilled nursing verses prison confinment and the large salaries of prison guards is a major savings to the State of California. It would also reduce the overwhelming cost of prison health care for the very sick and dying inmates.
I for one, would take care of my dying son and relieve the State of the cost of his care, but guess what? The Chief Medical Officer is afraid of losing his job if he should make a recommendation for release to the Prison Board. This is exactly what he told me. "Remember I work for the CDC and I would lose my job if I made that recommendation".
The release of these extremely sick prisoners would save the State a small fortune. But will the CDC release these prisoners, NO. Because the more prisoners they have in custody, the larger their budget, the more prison personnel can be hired and the larger their union the more power they have over the State Legislatures and the Governor. That is exactly why Schwarzenegger ends up caving into the prison guards union for salary increases and building more prisons.
Remember the more prisoners they have in custody the more job security everyone has who works in the prison system. The prisons are an industry in California and the largest employer. No wonder it is called the prison industry.
