FACTS has a continuous battle for information and
struggles to get its message to the public |
 |
FACTS depends on information from prisoners in order to publicize the
injustice of the 3-Strikes law. The California Department of Corrections and
many of the "tough on crime" politicians, however, continue to promote policies
and legislation that hinder such information to be gathered. Also, politicians
that recognize the injustice of the 3-Strikes law but are afraid to appear
"soft on crime" are not giving any significant help.
In addition, FACTS has a struggle with the news media (especially TV).
Except for a very few reporters, they seem to ignore what is happening and
still find it easier to simply report crime than to investigate problems within
the criminal justice system. Hopefully the tide will start turning as the
truth comes out.
PLEASE SEND US NEW DATA AND ARTICLES IF YOU HAVE THEM.
CDC bans reporters from "face-to-face" interviews
with prisoners.
In November of 1995, the California Department of Corrections put into
place a regulation that "Inmates may not participate in specific face-to-face
interviews." The CDC invoked emergency procedures that claimed "operational
necessity" even though there was nothing resembling an emergency.
Regulations allow reporters to only question inmates they encounter at
random during prison tours, ask prisoners to call them collect or try to visit
during regular visiting hours. And reporters are not allowed to take in pens,
notebooks, cameras or tape recorders.
LATimes, 10/19/97
The procedures were so irregular that on Oct. 28 the state's Office of
Administrative Law refused to approve the restrictions. However, CDC
immediately announced it was readopting the restrictions without change, still
claiming an "operational necessity."
The troubling aspect of CDC's ban is that it is happening at a time
when the CDC is being investigated for many abuses.
The CDC has been so insistent on its actions that it is taking
legislative action in the California Congress to allow "face-to-face"
interviews to happen again. Linda Seebach, editorial page editor of the
Valley Times in Pleasanton and the San Ramon Valley Times in Danville, in The
Orange County Register, March 27, 1997, California Focus.
Wilson vetoes bill allowing interviews with
inmates
Saying prison inmates "should not be treated as celebrities," Gov. Pete
Wilson has vetoed a bill that would have allowed reporters to interview inmates
in California prisons, as they were free to do until last year.
The bill by state Sen. Quentin Kopp, I-San Francisco, was introduced
after the Department of Corrections instituted a new policy that virtually
banned inmate interviews with reporters.
Jim Ewert, a lobbyist for the California Newspaper Publishers
Association, said Wilson's veto will allow the department to keep a lid on news
stories of alleged poor conditions and official misconduct in the state's
prisons.
"This effectively limits the public's ability to monitor the
institutions," Ewert said. "Now the public is going to see only what the
department wants them to see." OC-Register, 10/14/97.
Letters sent to prisons returned as
"unauthorized"
FACTS sends letters to prisoners informing them of our progress in
trying to get the 3-Strikes law amended and asks them to write us concerning
their stories (which we then post on our web site at
"3-Strike stories")
In September and October of 1997 we have started to receive our letters
back from the prisons as undeliverable because they are deemed
"unauthorized."
FACTS believes that such non-delivery of the letters to be
unjustifiable. Once again, it is simply a way in which the CDC is abusing its
powers to prevent the freedom of information.
Assembly Committee hearing snubs FACTS
On October 14, 1997, there was an Assembly Public Safety Committee
hearing on whether the 3-Strikes law needed to be amended to be made "tougher."
The issue was whether judges should have their discretion limited in
disregarding prior strikes (as was allowed under the Romero
decision).
The hearing was not well publicized and FACTS was only able to find out
about it because a Sacramento lobbyist happened to call us.
Prior to and on October 3rd FACTS had requested to be a part of the
hearing and sent a letter to Jerry McGuire who was in charge of setting up the
hearings (click here to see a copy of the
letter).
Unfortunately, FACTS and the family members of 3-Strikers were
relegated to the end of the session after most of the people had left. When
questioned about this, the Chair of the hearing, Robert M. Hertzberg, said that
it was important to hear from the "experts" first and that because the hearing
went over the time scheduled, many had to leave to catch planes back to
Sacramento.
While FACTS appreciates the opinions of Hertzberg at the meeting (he
continuously attacked the justice of such a law), we take umbrage to the fact
that the people in the first part of the hearing were any more "experts" than
FACTS and its members. Members of FACTS have been at arrests, preliminary
hearings, jail visits, trials, visited 3-Strikers in prison, talked with
3-Strikers over the phone, sent and received mailings from 3-Strikers, and,
more importantly, most members of FACTS have personally experienced the pain
and suffering, anger and outrage of the injustice of the 3-Strikes law. FACTS
believes the only people with more "expertise" about the 3-Strikes law than
FACTS are the "3-Strikers" themselves.
FACTS appreciates many of the Assemblymen and others who spoke about
the injustice that is being committed by the 3-Strikes law. Many of these
people demonstrate they have learned to "talk the talk" (at least in an
unpublicized hearing)--but we wonder when they will get the backbone to "walk
the walk." When is somebody like Hertzberg or someone else in the Assembly
going to push forward legislation to stop the injustice of the 3-Strikes
law?
3-Strikers and the poor have a mute voice
against today's politicians and the rich
Where has the voice of the poor gone? Who is speaking out on
behalf of prisoners? Except for a few dedicated reporters, the poor and
prisoners have virtually no voice in mainstream news. Today we have
people in the media like George Will (whose wife was paid $199,000 in 1994 to
lobby for the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association), Cokie Roberts (who
was paid $35,000 to speak at a Junior League business conference in Fort
Lauderdale), Sam Donaldson (multimillionaire who gets $30,000 per speech at
corporate gatherings), David Brinkley ($18,000 per speech) and so on.
Even the supposed liberals on TV are really a bunch of centrists that are all
making a nice living from speaking engagements, and contracts with the big
money making media machines. See "Wizards of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain
of Mainstream News," by Norman Soloman and Jeff Cohen, Monroe, Maine: Common
Courage Press, 1997.
In addition, politicians and rich corporations can easily outspend the
poor and manipulate the media into favorable treatment for the rich and more
disfavorable treatment against the poor. The rich can put together slick
marketing public relations blitzes to get what they want, but if the poor try
to speak out, they are simply called "whiners." Microsoft was caught the
other day trying to put together a media blitz against the anti-trust
actions. Their elaborate plan was to make it look like their was a
ground swell of public support and grass root organizers in favor of Microsoft
(including all sorts of strategic opinion pieces articles and letters to the
editors to be sent to newspapers).
LATimes, 4/10/98.
This, however, isn't all that new. If anybody looked at public
relations departments of businesses, they would realize this kind of stuff
happens all the time. Does the government do it? You better
believe it! Do you think it is any surprise that government officials
always announces the most recent crime statistics every couple of months?
They, of course, get to plaster their quotes all over the place giving
theirreasons for why crime rates are declining. Do we get to have our
explanations published? Do we get to have press conferences and have the
press clamoring all over with microphones in our face? Heck no! We
consider it a good day if we have one reporter that will give us a paragraph or
two about a demonstration or Town Hall meeting and it is run on some back page
of the paper.
Please send questions or comments to factsla@sbcglobal.net.
Everything on this web site can be distributed to the general public,
reprinted, or reposted without permission of Families to Amend California's
3-Strikes.
Date last modified: 1/08/99.
