Bob Walsh
Stockton, CA
Male, 60
I worked for the California state system, starting as a Correctional Officer and retiring as a Lieutenant in 2005. I now write for the PacoVilla blog which is concerned with what could broadly be called The Correctional System.
Rehabilitation is, and has pretty much always been (IMHO) a joke. "The system" can provide opportunities and tools, but a person has to WANT to change. True change comes from within, it can not be forced on a person. Most of the people in prison view themselves as criminals. That is their "job". That is what they do. That is what they want to do. That is what they like to do. Eventually they will get too old, or too slow, or too sick, or just get tired of the madness and decide to change. Or else they die. Either way the problem is self correcting, though it takes time and money and pain to get there.
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I have been retired now for many years so I am not up on the current communicable disease response scenario. Since there are almost no vacant beds anywhere in the system the normal response would be to quarantine in place and isolate those infected as best they can.
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Happens all the time. Staff, including C/Os, are jacked up or fired for all sorts of things. Smugglng things in or messages out is not wildly uncommon, IN appropriate relationships, including sexual relationships, are not unknown. Passing confidential information to inmates is not unknown.
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We have to take a class in that.
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We are peace officers under a different section of the penal code than "street cops." Our authority is limited to the course of our employment, which is, generally speaking, persons and locations under control of the department. We could arrest a person who interfered with, say for instance, the transport or medical treatment of a prisoner off grounds.
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It has been a LONG time since I have worked in the system but..... Back in the day inmates on A status could spend a full monthly draw assuming they had the money on the books. The more of a screw-up you were, the less money you were allowed to spend. An inmate on C status could spend just enough to buy some things like tooth paste, deoderant, shaving cream, etc. Of course they COULD still spend in on fig newtons and soda. It was, and presumably still is, a flawed system. Like many privileges it gave staff a handle, something to take away if the inmate screwed up. A very modest carrot-stick approach.
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Damned if I know. I have been retired for 15 years. Back in the day we did issue gloves but I strongly suspect anything that needed PPE equipment would be handled by medical, not custody.
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