A judge and peace officer leader, who visited San Quentin recently, said they want to support reforms in the criminal justice system.
They visited the Comparative Religion class at San Quentin to observe up close one of the prison’s more than 70 rehabilitation, educational and vocational programs.
“You guys are here of your own accord, on your own time,” Chuck Alexander told the students. He is president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA).
He was accompanied by Judge Steve White of Sacramento, who spent time talking with individual students.
Their visit came after an invitation from Prison University Project Executive Director Jody Lewen.
Both Judge White and Alexander understand public anxiety about: crime, sentencing reform, the impact of the Three Strikes Law, and mandatory sentencing.
Both want to analyze data and inquire into what things are being done wrong in the current justice system process.
Judge White wants to change the influence of law-making that historically was emotionally driven and instead use data that will rationally influence law-making and criminal justice policy.
Alexander, a successor to CCPOA President Don Novey, advocates that stakeholders in the prison system work together and focus upon programs that will benefit public safety. Alexander said he strongly approves of the educational opportunities such as Prison University Project’s program at San Quentin.
Historically the CCPOA has been a very effective and influential lobbying organization that pursued an agenda that made correctional officers some of the highest-paid and benefit-endowed public servants in the state.
The Don Novey era of the CCPOA influenced policy-making legislators to pass laws that did eventually lead to state prisons becoming overcrowded to the point federal jurists determined prison conditions had become unconstitutional.
Statistics have shown inmates that educate themselves have much lower rate of recidivism, which translates into savings for the state. Studies show that job skills learned in prison translate into employability on the street.
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