A tour of county jail can be eye-opening
By Ted Long
I attended the second session of the Citizens Academy on Monday where we were introduced to the county jail and the communications center. For those of you just joining the discussion, I have been accepted as a member of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Citizens Academy, a 16-week program to inform and enlighten county residents of the operation of the sheriffs’ department.
This week, as with our last instructors, were very friendlily and longtime county employees; average time 25 years. The county jail session lead by Tim McClain and the communication section by Kathy Jacobs, both, as I have said very nice people.
Ted Long
In the communication we heard about the 911 system and the county’s emergency number, which should be used for police emergencies within the county – (530) 626.4911. If you call 911, your call is first sent to the highway patrol in Sacramento then rerouted to the county system. By law your call may only be transferred once to protect you from hang-ups or other technical problems that may be encountered during a failed transfer.
The more interesting discussion was about the changes in the county jail. While the building is not new, it is in fine condition, all concrete and stainless steel and very clean. While it does not extend a particularly strong welcoming feeling, it does look secure, a place where someone could disappear forever if it were used to silence dissent or disagreement, and a good reason to make it available for inspection by the public and organizations such as the grand jury.
The population problem is very large and growing. With the state system under federal control, many serious offenders are now being sent to county jails. It used to be that a one-year term was the maximum. For the county system, know they have prisoners serving as much a 15 years.
McClain told us that while most of the intimates are in for various crimes the real reason is drugs, and the need to raise the money to support their habit. It seems the “war on drugs” has filled our jails. One can only wonder if some drugs were legal, and the crime taken out of them, would we all not be better off? The addicted not subject to the high cost that illegality forces on them, and perhaps more important, the reduction in crime to the rest of us. Sounds a lot like the unexpected consequences of attempts to make alcohol illegal and cure societies woes with laws of the ’20s to me. A lot of average people suffering while a lot of criminals got rich.
Everyone should experience the impact of jail. It’s one of those areas where we need to remain vigilant, as most have no idea of the possibility and the impact of isolation within this concrete structure.
Ted Long is a resident of South Lake Tahoe, former City Council member and has been on the El Dorado County Grand Jury.
Mr. Long, regarding your statement , if some drugs were legal. Would we be better off, Meaning, less people would be in jail. I disagree with that. None of the people are in jail for smoking pot at home or while kicking back at the beach with friends. They weren’t using small amounts of other substances responsibly. No, they were trafficking drugs ( pretty small part of the inmate population). they were putting innocent people in harms way. Specifically, driving, beating wife’s, screwing up their kids, being disorderly in public. Pretty much all of the things bad drunks do. Selling drugs and stealing to support a habit happens every day. But, that’s not societies problem with the war on drugs. Our problem is we try to rehabilitate people who don’t want to be clean, in places that cost a lot and have to work under the states guide lines. Of which 3-5% actually get clean. Your right legalize it all, tax the crap out it. We’ve been shown by alcohol and cigarettes, that people will buy it anyway. Take the TV’s including HBO out of jail and make it more like jail. ( yes our jail has HBO) beat on Education for young people, that’s where your problem starts. The addict problem will take care of its self. An addict ultimately will die, go to jail or clean up all on their own. Just like alcohol.
‘The addict problem will take care of its self. An addict ultimately will die, go to jail or clean up all on their own.’
Mr. Aquilina, generally that is not true because the majority of addicts in our nation are addicted to Dr. prescribed medication and most of those folks live their lives without going to jail, as do most addicts addicted to illicit drugs, alcohol, gambling, and whatever other addictions that afflict our society.
And as to the dying part, well we ALL die ultimately, don’t we?
But I agree 110% about education over incarceration.
I agree with Frank Aquilina and we do need to be more pro active in finding the correct education for our children so they won’t take that road in life, We need more then what we are doing presently.
Has California has become a police state? Ranked the 49th least free state in the Union touring the jails might be a good idea. Californians need to see the results of the caustic civil environment you have created. Which in turn has helped create an underclass culture of thugs and hooligans, therego the rise of the police state. SLT is the poster child for what is wrong in California and it is not getting better.
The new report by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center supports other evidence that people are leaving the Blue states and moving to the freedoms offered in the conservative Red states. Read it for yourself here
http://news.investors.com/032813-649561-americans-are-migrating-to-more-free-republican-states.aspx
Here is a link to the interactive map ranking the states http://freedominthe50states.org
This is through 2011, since then new taxes and fees have gone into place that will add to California’s decline in the study update.
Biggerpicture,
While I agree with you that we’ve got zombies walking around on anti depressants and anxiety meds. I think that’s a whole other topic. Unless your talking about people using them incorrectly. Ie to get high by mixing them with booze. I think the conversation on inmates in jail being there un fairly because they’re using harmless drugs (pot). I’m saying, I know exactly what the majority of the people in jail are using. They are drugs that most certainly drive them to an early grave. But in most cases, not, before they drain their family and a piece of our society. I’m actually a clean addict that got real lucky and I’ve volunteered in the jail here in Tahoe for the last 6 years. I’ve talked to thousands of inmates. Some get lucky and the gift of desperation finds them and they become willing to fight their addiction. But sadly, most don’t.
I’m glad we all seem to agree on the education part. Really, it starts at home. Most addicts are well on their way before they’re 16.
Support education for our children with programs like THE DRUGSTORE PROJECT..
Well, it makes me happy knowing that at least 2 Meth addicts are behind those bars for burglarizing my home a few years ago, taking irreplaceable things from me to support their habit.
We live in a society where huge pharmaceutical companies want to have every man, woman and child on some kind of prescription medication on a daily basis. Every day we see another ad for litigation for “Bad Drugs”. Who are the real drug pushers? Is it any wonder kids are confused. The ” war on drugs” has become a self perpetuating entity where the main reason for arrests is to confiscate money and valuables to give to the organizations making the bust to fund their existence. Round and around it goes. As long as there is big money involved, everyone wants to get their hands in it.
Know what else has big money involved? Prisons. Locking people up for money is a HUGE business. Who better to get paid for than non violent drug offenders.
What we really need is a war on greed.
Why is my comment from this morning not posted?
Good discussion, but what I am suggesting is two fold. First, the jail is a scary place in the wrong hands and secondly, it did not work in the 20’s and it is not working now. The real profit makers, the Mexican cartels and others like them are not suffering at all, sort of like Al Capon and the problem gets worse every year not better.
Its interesting that you talk about the drug makers being greedy big business and the prisons as being big business but there isnt one mention about guns and how big of a business that is. The article the other day about the two local creeps that were arrested for pushing drugs stated they also had several illegal Altered)weapons. I think that guns are one of the worst things to have in society and I wish they were all confiscated and destroyed. Thats my opinion. The gun lobby and the NRA are the greediest corporation That exists today and they are involved in almost every crime in and out of this country. What about them and how they take responsibility for the level of crime in our country. All they do is point fingers at the gun haters and cry its my 2nd ammendment. Well screw that pittiful excuse
Agree with many comments here. Making drugs legal would be a disaster, addicts are fighting for their lives out there against these very destructive drugs, they don’t need anything else to further push them along.
We need to look at ourselves more as a society, why do Americans use so many drugs? Why do we need to check out so much? Why can we not live in our own skin? Why with all of our abundance (compared to pretty much every other country in the world), are we not happy?
We as a nation, and maybe more on a grass roots level need to get serious about addiction, because I feel the way we treat it now, is pretty much a total failure.
1. We raise kids often times using ourselves, one thing or another (pot, alcohol, Rx drugs). Then are all shocked when our kids turn into meth heads and heroin addicts, when we partially opened the door with our acceptance, and of course kids are going to try to one up it. Some will say this is not true, that an addict is an addict no matter what, but I bet there are some dormant addicts that grew up in a non substance abusing family, that just never tried anything to discover that they were an addict.
2. Our addiction treatment centers have become big business, and would be shut down for their failures if it were any other field. As mentioned by Frank above, the success rate is ridiculous, around 5%. Imagine you had cancer, and had to go off to an expensive treatment center, commit your time and effort, and you had a 5% chance of a cure? Think of all the addicts that go through 5, 10, 15 treatments, that are not successful, pounding it into their heads that they are failures, and unable to quit. We need to relook at this, and design something that has a better success rate, not perfect, but at least better. To start with the 30 day treatment standard, is probably grossly inadequate in all reality.
3. Our other way of dealing with addiction is warehousing addicts in prison. I’ve heard that almost all prisoners, something like 95% are locked up due to behavior caused by addiction problems. Our number of prisoners compared to other countries would be closer in number, if you took all the addict related crimes out. Again we have big business here, private prisons, good paying union jobs. I don’t know what the current rate is to house a prisoner in our state, but it’s always been compared to the yearly cost of an Ivy league education, so probably around $50,000/year. We’re paying on the back end folks, and we are handing our vulnerable, drug addled, addicted citizens on a silver platter to a whole group of lobbyists and private prison owners, to make a buck off, when these people should have had a better shot at changing their life around earlier.
I have one observation regarding one particular drug that I think is poignant. Despite decades of war involving religious fanatics, the Russians and the United States in Afganistan, the largest producer of heroin by far, the heroin trade has been unaffected. During WWII, could you buy a Mercedes or a Toyota? This seemingly small piece of information speaks volumes about the involvement of money in the international drug trade.
“Making drugs legal would be a disaster, addicts are fighting for their lives out there against these very destructive drugs, they don’t need anything else to further push them along.”
So you want to keep drugs illegal, which increases addiction rates and the problems associated with addicts?
Did you know that drugs are readily available in prison?
You need a reality check.
@Ted Long,
Jail should be a scary place. People in jail, unless they violated probation with a dirty test that includes alcohol which is already legal . Are in jail for breaking a law most likely while intoxicated on something. I would love to see drugs legalized. We could tax it, regulate who’s buying it and put drug dealers out of business.
I totally disagree that the Mexican Cartel is to blame for our problem. The addicts in question are crushing up RX medicine and ingesting it, using meth probably being made within 2-300 miles of hear, marijuana which is being sold here. Heroin is absolutely prevalent here. But, takes a back seat to the others.
People get clean for one of four reasons. Family disowns them, doctor scares them, financially destroyed or jail gets the best of them. Every addicts story has at least one and usually 2-3. If you want the judicial system to help an addict. It needs to be made as bad of an experience as possible. I had a guy last fall, who attended my meeting just to get out of pod (which is fine) want to leave early because his favorite football team was on TV that night. These guys have free medical, free food, in most cases free drugs in form of sedative, free rent and in most cases hanging out with their buddies. That’s disgusting! While all this is going on our little league field looks like crap, our streets have pot holes and our citizens our paying $300 tickets for rolling a stop sign.
Thing fish, addiction rates would most likely go up, but we can’t state either case would be true, as we have no information, past experience, or study to back it up. Crime would go down.
I’m fully aware of drugs in prison, as I have a family member there, on a drug charge.
And I have an adult child that is a practicing addict that I could get “that call” about anytime, so no, drugs are not fun to me, and no I would not want them legal and more acceptable ie more mainstream. Drugs do not do anything productive for a person or society, do they give you a little break from life? yep, that’s what they do, that’s it. I definitely feel they take away at least what that persons full potential was, but that’s your personal choice, if one wants to squeak by in life, and just get by, that’s ones prerogative, as long as they don’t hurt anyone else. The drug abuse I’ve seen is down right ugly, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
Digital Content,
California balanced it’s budget the 1st year after the entrenched conservatives got ran out. Can’t say that for the red feds. Remember Obama inherited a deficit. We just need to admit California is a battleground of the planet. Unfortunately, some of us were born here, raised here, or for some reason live here.
Dumbfounded,
Remember the Iran-Contra situation. Guns for money. The CIA basically breaking any law they wanted to finance covert operations. Anyone know where the planes full of CASH that were shipped to Iraq went?
Why is there still so much cocaine coming out of the backwoods countries of Central America?
Do you think these guys are gonna pass up on a cash cow like heroin from Afghanistan? Not likely!
Even after the fleecing of the people in 1929 and again in 2008, no one wants to teach the next generation that greed is the root of all evil. That’s diametrically opposed to the “American Dream” where anyone can reach the top through hard work and sacrifice. No sarcasm, it can be done. For the most part though, people are led down the path of life like lambs to the shearer. They get all the help they need to “grow their wool”, only to have it taken away by greedy “wolves” who knew what they were doing all the time. Now there is a bedtime story for the little ones. Then explain how drugs are there to ease the pain of getting “fleeced”. Maybe then they will understand how it all ties together. Only then might they have the understanding to “just say no” ( and add “Thank you” so as not to seem rude) to the greedy minded,manipulative, self serving individuals and corporations that push both drugs and lies down the throats of the ignorant ( no insult, literal meaning) people who follow blindly an ideology from either side of the political spectrum.
“Thing fish, addiction rates would most likely go up, but we can’t state either case would be true, as we have no information, past experience, or study to back it up. Crime would go down.”
I showed you numbers once that showed that the addiction rate has been unchanged throughout the entire war on drugs.
It isn’t intuitive, but addiction rate and use rates do not go up when all drugs are legal. Crime would go down, absolutely. Drugs are profitable because they are expensive and they are expensive because they are illegal. That statement is wrong on all accounts. The information does exist and it doesn’t support what you think it does.
You want to ramp up what we have been doing, which has been a complete failure.
Legal drugs doesn’t mean more socially acceptable. The people who live in the countries where drugs are legal don’t use any more drugs and they still look down on them.
Humans use drugs. They always have and always will. Throwing them in jails, where they can still get drugs, doesn’t solve anything. In our country it has made it worse.
Thing Fish, yes we did have an exchange of websites about drug addiction rates. In my opinion, your sources were not mainstream, middle of the road, commonly acceptable sites, they were in my opinion for those that want drugs to be legalized. They were pretty far left leaning, and I don’t lean either way, I am a moderate, and I want truth, not to be told what I want to be told.
The data on addiction rates came from the CDC…
I will agree to disagree.
With reality?
Its overrated anyway…