Arkansas bureaucrat (essentially) calls state's rural residents "white trash"

In early November, the State of Arkansas announced the purchase of 815 acres in rural Franklin County where the Department of Corrections intends to build a 3000-bed prison.  The state government did not consult with people in the region about the decision when the land was being purchased and the project planned.  My understanding is that they announced it after the land deal was done.  

Since then, local opposition has arisen, most prominently from an organization called the Franklin County and River Valley Coalition (Franklin County straddles the Arkansas River).  That organization's Freedom of Information Act requests surfaced offensive emails from Jonathan Duran, Deputy Director of the Arkansas Geographic Information Systems office, a division of the Arkansas Department of Transformation and Shared Services.  Some prior coverage of the controversy is here and here. 

Below are some excerpts from today's coverage of the matter in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, beginning with more back story on the emails:  Duran  emailed his boss a "'white trash' clip from the satirical animated TV show "South Park..

With the subject line "Franklin County town hall meeting," the first email from Duran states: "Do you think a possible townhall meeting in Franklin County about the proposed state prison might go a little like this?"

Below that in the email is a link to YouTube to a segment from "South Park" titled "They Took Our Jobs!"

* * * 

One of the characters is labeled "pissed off white trash redneck conservative." The cartoon characters in the clip repeatedly chant, "They took our jobs!"

Below the link Duran provided in the Oct. 31 email to Johnson [his boss], Duran typed: "They took our land!"

Yesterday, the River Valley coalition released a second email from Duran.  It says, "Do y'all feel like spy plane pilots now?" A smiling face emoji with a wink is inserted at that point.   "Is that an outhouse or an old refrigerator to the right of the house in the drone pic?" 

The coalition commented: 

His email was intended to mock and belittle the hardworking, law-abiding citizens Duran serves, undermining the integrity of public service in Arkansas. Such a comparison is a gross disrespect to the people he represents.

The coalition is calling for Duran to be terminated because what he said "disrespects rural Arkansas."  Their statement read: 

A simple apology or reassignment will not suffice. Duran's behavior demands more decisive action: the complete removal of Jonathan Duran from his position.  We call on Governor Sarah Sanders to take immediate action to uphold the values of professionalism, respect, and fairness within Arkansas' leadership.

The coalition's attorney declared,"The people of Franklin County and the River Valley deserve public servants who treat them with dignity and respect."  I could not agree more.  

I looked up Mr. Duran, and I see he proudly claims his status as a native of Arkansas, and with a degree from the University of Arkansas at Monticello, he may be from rural Arkansas himself.   That makes it even more disappointing, in some ways, that he's now the city boy ridiculing his country cousins. 

It will be interesting to see where all of this goes--both the prison siting and the State of Arkansas bureaucrat ridiculing rural folks--given Governor Sanders' popularity with rural voters--at least up until now.   

Here is a link to the Arkansas Times coverage of these events, including information on the land purchase being concealed until it was a done deal.  And here is Arkansas Democrat-Gazette coverage from on December 12, revealing that most of the locations the state considered were in Western Arkansas--and several were metropolitan by some measure, including a number in greater Fort Smith, on the Oklahoma state line.  Here's the "short list"; note that the Alma sites are in Crawford County, which has a population of just over 60,000, but is part of the Fort Smith metropolitan area:  

* Alma -- ball field;

* Alma -- train tracks;
* Alma -- south of ball field;
* Clarksville [Johnson County];
* Fort Smith -- end of airport/industrial park;
* Fort Smith -- Stephens;
* Fort Smith -- Treece;
* Greenwood -- Holland Farm 2;
* Huntington -- Holland Farm;
* Mansfield;
* Menifee -- ruled out due to water availability;
* Mulberry; and
* Rudy

The story also notes the search criteria for a site:  

* Minimum of 250-300 contiguous acres, relatively flat and not in a floodplain;
* Not within 60 miles of an existing state Department of Corrections facility (to avoid workforce cannibalization);
* Available regional workforce based on commute times;
* Availability of primary infrastructure (water, electric, feasibility of wastewater treatment, etc.); and
* Proximity to emergency services and medical facilities.

The document states that the Franklin County site "meets or exceeds our search criteria."  However, "[a]ccording to the site assessment, research and the whittling down of an initial 25,000 'candidate parcels', 6000 were within "[two] miles of a U.S. or Interstate Highway."  The Franklin County site ultimately chosen is 22 miles from the nearest Interstate, which is I-40, via the city of Ozark. 

Rural New York prisons closing, too

Legal Ruralism has featured several posts in recent years about the closure of prisons in rural California and the implications for host communities.  Now North Country Public Radio (NPR) is reporting that some prisons in upstate, rural communities in New York state are also closing--and for some of the same reasons: declining rates of incarceration.  Here's an except from the story: 

Earlier this week, Governor Hochul released her proposal for the 2024-2025 budget. In it, she proposed closing up to five state correctional facilities.

Local North Country politicians on both sides of the political aisle have expressed dismay and frustration over the proposed closures.

Democratic Assemblyman Billy Jones told the Plattsburgh Press-Republican that he was “highly disappointed” by the governor’s decision to close more correctional facilities, and said the closures would not “mitigate the rise in crime or increase safety in prisons.”

 * * *

Jones also expressed concern about how closures could impact communities in the North Country “who support these correctional facilities and depend on them.” State prisons provide hundreds of good-paying jobs to North Country communities.

In his own statement, Republican State Senator Dan Stec echoed similar concerns. “I represent several correctional facilities and the men and women that work there,” said Stec. “Closing them [correctional facilities] would mean a loss of good-paying jobs and have a devastating effect on our community.

There are 44 prisons in New York. Eleven of them are in the North Country.

That’s a lot fewer than there used to be. Since 2009, the state has closed eight correctional facilities in the region.

Bye bye Blythe: California prison closure threatens small town

Much has been said about the closure of the California Correctional Center (CCC) in Susanville, California. You can read more about the CCC closure here and the city’s legal battle to save the prison here, here, and here. You can also find a discussion on rural prisons in general here.

Hundreds of miles away, down on the border of Arizona, the small city of Blythe faces the same dilemma.

In December 2022, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) announced the planned closure of the Chuckawalla Valley State Prison (CVSP) by March 2025. The desert town of Blythe, population 18,000, has been the home of CVSP since its construction in the 1980s.

Just like Susanville, Blythe could be described as “Prison Town, USA.” With over 800 employees, CVSP is the number one employer in the area. And just like Susanville, Blythe is the home of a second prison, the Ironwood State Prison.

While not every dollar spent by the prison goes into the coffers of Blythe or the hands of its residents, the prison still provides a major source of revenue. One study estimated that CVSP’s expenditures provided more than $65 million in economic benefits.

High-paid CVSP employees are unlikely to find other jobs in Blythe. Instead, they will seek reassignment to one of California’s other prisons, taking advantage of a CDCR policy meant to manage the department’s changing staffing needs. As one former prison official commented to Calmatters.org, “where am I going to get a job making that kind of money with a high school education?”

The ripple effect from losing CVSP will be felt throughout the community. Prison employees buy groceries, eat at restaurants, and shop at local stores, causing multiplier effects in Blythe – the absence of which will be devastating. A recent study estimated that the anticipated drop in enrollment from outmigration will cost the local school district nearly $5 million.

Local leaders also worry about the potential impact on the Palo Verde Hospital, the nearest hospital to Blythe and several other communities. It’s unclear if it will survive the closure. Likewise, Palo Verde College, which has a successful inmate education program, is poised to lose approximately 250 students.

Recognizing the potential severe adverse effects of the prison closure, the locals have banded together. “Save Chuck” has become a rallying cry as well as the name of a local coalition. State legislators representing Blythe and the surrounding community wrote a passionate letter to Governor Newsom pleading their case.

While the town of Blythe and Riverside County have asked the state to keep CVSP open, the town of Norco, also in Riverside County, offered their prison, the California Rehabilitation Center (CRC), as a sacrificial lamb.

Unlike CVSP, which was purpose-built as a modern prison in the 1980s, the CRC was a resort before it was made into a prison in the 1920s. CRC requires over $1 billion in anticipated repairs, more than double the cost of maintaining CVSP. More importantly, CRC occupies economically valuable land and facilities that could be developed for the benefit of Norco.  

While local residents and officials want the state to keep CVSP and close CRC, their cries have fallen upon a deaf statehouse. Governor Newsom refuses to do either.

Instead, the state will work with Riverside County to develop an economic resilience plan and provide the same kind of support offered to Lassen County in the wake of the CCC closure. Prison officials will be transferred to other institutions where possible. The community at large will receive grant money to boost economic diversification efforts and provide skills training for those who are losing their jobs.

The struggles of Susanville and Blythe illustrate a recurrent problem for rural America, one which Professor Michael Carolan, in his article "The Rural Problem: Justice in the Countryside," referred to as rural misrepresentation. There is a disconnect between the wants and needs of rural areas and state lawmakers seated in faraway urban areas.

Blythe’s Interim City Manager, Mallory Crecelius, told Calmaters.org that she filed more than 40 public records requests after the closure was announced. She wanted to understand the decision to shut down CVSP. Nobody had told her, or the rest of Blythe, why their prison was on the chopping block.

In a press release, CDCR says they selected CVSP for closure after agency leadership

carefully evaluated the options for prison closures, pursuant to the 2022-23 budget and Penal Code requirements, and took into account several factors including cost to operate, impact of closure on the surrounding communities and the workforce; housing needs for all populations; long-term investments in state-owned and operated correctional facilities; public safety and rehabilitation; and durability of the state’s solution to prison overcrowding.

While that is an extensive list of considerations, CDCR failed to seek input from the very people who would be impacted the most. Kathleen Fitzpatrick, a councilwoman of nearby La Quinta, lamented that the state would shut down CVSP “without even telling and consulting with the community.”

As Governor Newsom continues to reform California’s criminal justice system and state legislators continue their quest to curb state spending, California’s leaders have an opportunity to learn from their mistakes in Susanville and Blythe. Work with the local communities from the start. Involve local leadership in the decision-making process. Give the people whose jobs are at stake a fair opportunity to be heard.

Maybe that would prevent prolonged legal battles and extensive campaigns to persuade the state to reverse course. 

Giving closed California prisons to Black folks as a form of reparations? One state senator's proposal

Erika Smith's column in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, headlined "The craziest reparations idea you won’t find in the California task force’s report," reports on an interesting proposal by California Senator Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), a member of the state's reparations task force.  The proposal is to give the state's recently closed rural prisons to Black folks.  More specifically, Bradford describes the proposal thusly:  

The conversation I had with the governor’s office a couple of weeks ago was that we’re shutting down prisons in the state of California. What are we doing with that land? Why don’t we turn that land over to Blacks who have never owned property in the state of California? Why don’t we turn it over to developers and build homes?

The response when Bradford articulated this at "an invitation-only panel discussion earlier this month in West Adams," as reported by Smith, follows:  

The dozens of mostly middle-aged Black men and women in the room, all clustered around circular tables, sipping on coffee and water with lemon, suddenly burst into raucous applause.

The column has Smith writing in first person as an observer of all this:  

But not me. My mouth dropped open in shock just thinking about the optics of Black people, who are disproportionately in prisons because of bias in the criminal justice system, essentially colonizing the rural, often majority white and sometimes conservative towns where most state prisons are located.

Bradford barreled on, as my mind continued to spin.

“A lot of people are saying, ‘Where’s my check?’” he added, referring to the frequent refrain from attendees of the task force’s meetings over the last two years. “Reparations was never about a check. It’s about land.”

Here's an additional quote from Bradford: 

Why can’t we [let] African Americans set up businesses and build homes there? Do agriculture projects, whatever the case may be and let that be Black-owned, Black-controlled? Because, again, generational wealth is not through money, it’s through land.

* * * 

Bradford readily admits that state prisons, as a rule, aren’t in “the most desirable areas” in California. But it’s still land that isn’t being used that can be economically controlled by Black people, whether it’s for industrial buildings or cannabis grows.

“They don’t have any plan for it right now,” he said of state officials. “That’s why I gave them a suggestion of what they could do.” 

Smith provides additional context for what makes this an extraordinary proposal--but could also render it a sort of poetic justice.  She describes the litigation initiated by officials in Susanville, California to try to prevent the the closure of the California Correctional Center (CCC) there:  

Susanville officials were adamant about not losing 1,000 prison jobs, saying it would lead to economic ruin. That set up the narrative of a mostly white, conservative, already dying Northern California town arguing that its very survival depends on the incarceration of Black and Latino men from Southern California.

Smith quotes Shakeer Raham, a Los Angles-based lawyer who represented CCC inmates who signed an amicus brief in the case: 

The court is deciding whether a form of bondage, a form of cruelty, is going to continue based on the personal financial benefits of the people around the prison.  At every single turn, the judge and the city have silenced the voices of our clients in order to keep marching on in this decision-making that treats them as a source of revenue.

Thus Smith concludes, "giving Black people the land where the prison once operated as reparations could be seen as poetic justice. It also could be seen as a gift of trauma."

My Rural Travelogue (Part XXXIII): Rural gentrification--next to a prison, no less--in Iceland

I've been vacationing in Iceland for the past week, and I'm struck by how rural this country of less than 400,000 residents is.  In particular, Reykjavik, the capital city, has a population of about 140K, and the entire capital region is home to 248K residents.  Thus, some 140K Icelanders live in small cities/towns and rural areas.  Once outside Reykjavik and the peninsula on which it sits, farms dot the countryside.

We have spent the bulk of our time in southeastern and southern Iceland, where many towns are no larger than a thousand residents.  Our guide has told us that Selfoss (population 10K) is the fastest growing city in the country and the largest residential area in South Iceland.  It lies just about an hour south of Reykjavik, and wikipedia says it is a centre of commerce and small industries.  We were happy to do some grocery shopping there and also to enjoy the renovated downtown shopping area, where an outpost of a popular Reykjavik restaurant, Messinn, opened not long ago.  

Our guide has told us that most Icelanders have country cabins/cottages, and that those who don't are able to use the cabins belonging to their workers' unions.  Many such cabins are located around Selfoss, and we saw ample evidence of this phenomenon, with some cottages so close to one another as to give the appearance of little housing developments.  

One small town we passed through en route to Selfoss and just maybe 10-15 kilometers away is Eyrarbakki, population 570.  Our guide pointed out that many of the old homes here are being fixed up by folks from Reykjavik, some of whom commute.  Here are some of the old-style homes that are now fixed up:

And here, for comparison's sake, are an outbuilding and home on the same main street that have not been renovated: 

Here is a local (Reykjavik) blogger's post about the village and a very old timber home there, one built from a kit in the late 1700s.  

And here is the school, whit sits next to the sea wall:

And the church, across the street from the school:  

There is also an "old folks home," but I didn't capture a photo of it. I did, however,  get a photo of the cemetery.

And it was while photographing the cemetery that I caught sight of these buildings behind a high fence, which were to my back as I looked toward the cemetery, which our guide informed us is the country's largest prison, Litla Hraun, founded in 1929.  As you can see, it isn't very large.  Also, its population is not included in the town's population.  

I'll share more photos of rural Iceland in future posts.  

Central Valley city--prison and all--threatened with flooding from spring snow melt

A team of Los Angeles Times journalists reported this week from Corcoran (population 24,000), where the rise of water in the Tulare Lake basin is threatening not only the town, but also a state prison and the California Drug Use Treatment Facility.  Together those institutions house 8,000 men and employ many residents.   

Here's an excerpt: 

A bottle of Tums antacid tablets rattled in the cup holder of Kirk Gilkey’s truck recently as he drove around the area surveying the rising water.

Gilkey’s family has been farming in the area for generations. He said this is the first year in decades that his farm won’t plant cotton because of flooding. But what distresses him most is not the financial pain big farmers will experience but the hardship that will be visited upon workers and their families who are dependent upon agriculture for their livelihoods.

“People are scared,” he said. If “Corcoran floods, it’ll be a ghost town after. It won’t survive.”

City Manager Greg Gatzka, who for weeks has been waging an unsuccessful campaign to marshal state and federal funds to bolster the levee, said he is “beyond frustrated” by the difficulty of accessing emergency funding.

Local officials want to see the levee reinforced and raised by 3.5 feet — an engineering feat that would cost $21 million, according to Gatzka. 

In the meantime, the Cross Creek Flood Control District, which is responsible for the levee, has tapped reserve funds to begin gathering dirt to reinforce it. But Gatzka said the agency has exhausted its resources and needs state help. 

Corcoran is part of the Hanford-Corcoran metropolitan area, in Kings County, one of the poorest in the state.  Its population is majority Latino. 

A related Associated Press story out of nearby Leemore is here.

Here's a March story from CalMatters about state budget cuts for floodplains.

Another post about places imperiled by recent flooding and/or impending flooding from California snow melt is here. Another LA Times story about a community imperiled by snowmelt is here. 

How rural jails and prisons hurt rural communities

The rate of incarceration in the United States is higher than that of almost any other nation. California alone incarcerates more people than many countries in the world. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the U.S. has about two million people behind bars at any given time. About 540,000 of these people are locked up in local jails and another 1 million are in state prisons. Incarceration rates undoubtedly affect communities of color at disproportionate rates, a rural issue since rural communities are home to many Black and Latinx people, especially in the Deep South. 

An interesting phenomenon has been the rise of jails in rural communities. Economic restructuring of rural communities is an important piece in understanding and explaining the rural jail and prison boom. First, as some rural communities suffer from declines in industries that previously dominated such as farming, mining, steel, and coal, coupled with factory closures and a shift to the service sector employment, there have been many social and economic consequences for these areas further discussed here and here. Prisons as an economic development strategy for rural communities have been a way to bring jobs to towns. As the incarcerated population in America increased there was a subsequent demand for prison expansion and state prison and jail populations burgeoned. Prisons then became a convenient way to address the economic problems facing rural communities and a way for politicians to create a facade of aid and increased employment opportunities. 

According to the Vera Institute of Justice's Report of People in Jail and Prison in 2020 (here), the U.S. saw an unprecedented drop in total incarceration rates between 2019 and 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The decline however was "neither substantial nor sustained enough to be an adequate response to COVID-19." Furthermore, the largest and most sustained jail population declines were in rural areas. These declines were a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased awareness of the heightened public health issues prisons and jails face because of close quarters. However, even with these declines rural counties "still incarcerate people at doubt the rate of urban and suburban areas. Three out of 5 people incarcerated in local jails are in smaller cities and rural communities." Since 2013, jail populations have grown by 27% in rural counties. This rural jail boom has been attributed to many factors including the rural lawyer shortage, prosecutor hiring processes, and the rural justice system overall, some of which are addressed in previous blogs here. 

The prison and jail system operate as an arm of the state apparatus, often inflicting violence on rural communities in the form of separating families and continuing the cycle of poverty. Policing of rural communities continues to drive incarceration rates. This policing is skewed not only in urban areas but in rural ones too to affect low-income communities of color. A report by Vera shows that people in some rural areas are punished for not meeting system rules rather than violent or dangerous criminal charges. Prisons, and the nature of the criminal "justice" system in rural communities then become another mechanism to punish rurality. 

As Professor Beety discusses in Prosecuting Opioid Use, Punishing Rurality, unique prosecutorial charges such as drug-induced homicide, a popular charge amidst the ongoing opioid crisis "operate in largely insular and sparsely populated rural areas." Beety also makes clear that poverty impacts people of color in rural communities and these people of color are then over-represented in the criminal legal system.

 

The prison system is often wielded as a way to address problems that rural communities face, rather than addressing and understanding the systemic causes that lead to these problems. Overall, the notion that jails help rural communities should be challenged and other forms of justice should be sought to give these communities the healing they deserve. 

Vera Institute publishes results of rural jails project, with detailed finding out of two states

Vera Institute's web page about the project is here, where you can download policy briefs on recent studies in Georgia and Washington State.  

Here's the Georgia policy brief and here's the Washington policy brief. Both were written by Jennifer Peirce, Madeline Bailey, and Shahd Elbushra.  The research on which the briefs was based is by researchers at the University of Georgia and Washington State University, Pullman (Jennifer Schwartz and Jennifer Sherman).

Washington

A new report by the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) shows that punitive penalties for not meeting system rules are driving jail incarceration in rural Washington, not violent or dangerous charges. What’s more, the state’s mandatory arrest policy for domestic violence calls is likely having a significant negative impact on women: most jail bookings for assault are related to domestic violence, and these charges are the second most common reason that women were jailed.

The report draws on data from five participating counties analyzed by Washington State University (WSU), highlighting an often-overlooked problem. While Washington state has one of the lowest jail incarceration rates in the United States, the number of people in rural Washington county jails on the eastern side of the state has not declined. Charges like failure to appear for court and driving with a suspended license, due to unpaid fines, missed child support payments or minor traffic infractions, are among top reasons that Washington’s rural residents are being jailed. Assault charges also stand out in jail rosters, the majority of which are misdemeanors related to domestic violence.

The disparate impact of the justice system is also evident in the data from Washington’s rural counties: both Black and Indigenous people are overrepresented in jail admissions.

This analysis highlights an opportunity for state and local policymakers to address unnecessary criminalization of poor and vulnerable people and reduce jail populations. Vera’s policy recommendations include expanding the use of citations in lieu of arrest, reducing the use of money bail, curtailing prosecutions and criminal penalties for poverty related issues, eliminating mandatory arrest for domestic violence calls, and providing support and services to avoid unnecessary jail time and address root problems.

Georgia

A new report by the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) shows that punitive responses to probation, drug use, and poverty are driving jail incarceration in rural Georgia, leading to high rates of jail incarceration and stark racial disparities.

The research, which is based on the University of Georgia’s analysis of jail roster data from seven rural Georgia counties (Decatur, Early, Greene, Habersham, Sumter, Towns, Treutlen) reveals that 83 to 93 percent of jail admissions were for nonviolent charges. Notably, drug possession charges, particularly cannabis possession, in the state are more common than drug trafficking charges. Probation violations and traffic-related offenses also stand out in the jail data, with a significant number of charges related to driving on a suspended license.

The impact of probation on Georgia jail populations is no surprise, given that the Peach State also has the country’s highest rate of people on probation, with more than 350,000 (1 in 19) adults on probation or parole supervision. Harsh enforcement of probation conditions is likely sending a significant number of people to jail for not abiding by stringent conditions of probation, and this contributes to longer stays in jail.

Racial disparities in jail incarceration are stark in all seven counties, with the proportion of Black people being booked into jails far exceeding the Black percentage of the county population.

In each of the counties, the combined number of violent and DUI charges make up a quarter or less of jail admissions. While these cases often do have public safety implications, the details are likely more complicated. More than 90 percent of the violent charges landing people in jail were assault and battery charges, 19 to 60 percent of which were domestic violence–related. Assault and battery charges can encompass misdemeanors to serious felonies, with penalties ranging from 1-20 years of incarceration. What’s more, national evidence suggests that people arrested on domestic violence related charges are often themselves survivors of domestic violence.

In total, this research reflects the degree to which current system rules and available resources discourage safe alternatives to jail detention. Vera calls on state and local policymakers to reduce rural jail incarceration, by overhauling Georgia’s probation system, strengthening pretrial services, eliminating penalties for driving with a suspended license, and investing in behavioral health resources rather than bigger jails.

Earlier posts about the Vera Institute  and its work on the rural jails boom are here.  

Shortage of sheriff's personnel in rural California

The Union-Democrat of Sonora, California reported last week on a severe shortage of personnel in the sheriff's office of Tuolumne County, population 55,000.  Alex MacLean writes:  

Tuolumne County Sheriff Bill Pooley revealed on Tuesday that he’s currently unable to use half of the beds at the county’s new $51 million jail because one-third of the positions in his office are vacant, forcing him to send inmates to Calaveras County at a cost of $28,000 per month.

If the staffing situation in the Sheriff’s Office doesn’t improve by spring, Pooley said he will also have to “seriously look at either closing down or modifying our boat patrol division, so no patrols on our lakes.”

The information was relayed by Pooley during public comment at the end of a roughly 10-hour county Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, just before the board went into closed session to privately discuss labor negotiations with county-employee unions.

* * *

Out of the 59 funded deputy, corporal and sergeant positions in its Sheriff’s Office patrol division, Pooley said eight are vacant, six are out injured and not expected to return, and three more will be leaving soon — for a projected vacancy rate of about 17%.

Pooley said there are 47 deputy, corporal and sergeant positions in the jail, 13 of which are currently vacant, three are out injured and not expected to return, and two are leaving, for a projected vacancy rate of 31.9%.

“If you include those who are in the academy or in training, we can now only deploy 66% of our uniformed personnel,” he said to the board.

The Sheriff’s Office has already disbanded its narcotics team in 2020, taken deputies away from the team that supervises high-risk released offenders who are most likely to commit crimes again, and pulled back its school resources officer, Pooley said.

Pooley said the county has also paid Calaveras County a total of about $80,000 so far this year to house inmates because of only having enough staffing to fill half of the 230 beds at the new jail, known as the Dambacher Detention Center, which opened last year after decades in development.

Small city in far northern California loses legal battle to keep its prison

Hailey Branson-Potts reports for the Los Angeles Times on a decision by the Lassen County Superior Court to permit the State of California to follow through with its plan to close a prison in Susanville.  Here's an excerpt from the story: 

The state was supposed to close the California Correctional Center in Susanville by this June.

But it has remained open because the town — where local officials say they face economic devastation if they lose more than 1,000 prison jobs — sued the state last year, and a Lassen County judge issued a preliminary injunction halting the closure while the case moved through the court.

In a ruling issued Wednesday in Lassen County Superior Court, Visiting Judge Robert F. Moody dissolved the injunction.

Judge Moody wrote: 

The legislature and the CDCR both have had and have expressed policy reasons for closing prisons: there is a paucity of inmates, and the population of inmates is in continuous decline and the resultant reductions in required staff and physical plant make it fiscally imprudent to continue to maintain all or our expensive prisons.

The wisdom of such legislative or political policies are not and have never been the province of the courts.

California jail incarceration rates highest in sparsely populated counties

CalMatters reported yesterday that incarceration rates are highest in rural California.  Here are some excerpts from Nigel Duara's story, covering a new report from the Prison Policy Institute, a non profit seeking to end mass incarceration: 

The report takes newly available data from California prisons to show where inmates come from – not just their home counties, but their neighborhoods. The group’s stated intent is to show lawmakers where they can better direct public dollars.

The neighborhoods where incarcerated people come from often have a higher percentage of Black and Latino residents than the state average, according to the report, while the counties that host the prisons are predominantly white.

The effect has been “the siphoning of political power from disproportionately Black and Latino communities to pad out the mostly rural and often predominantly white regions where prisons are located,” the study found.

Unsurprisingly, the most populous counties send the most people to state prison. Los Angeles County had the most people incarcerated, followed by Riverside and San Diego counties.

I've written about this issue before here and here, among other posts. 

But in some counties, though they have fewer total people in state prisons, the rate of incarceration is much higher than the statewide average of 310 per 100,000 people.

Tiny Kings County in the San Joaquin Valley has the state’s highest incarceration rate at 666 per 100,000, the study found.

Shasta County ranked second among counties that send people to prison, with 663 county residents incarcerated per 100,000 people. The county of fewer than 200,000 is framed by mountains to its north, west and east. People move there for cheap land and open spaces, or burrow further into its hills to escape creeping modernity, Bowman said.

“And then we have those who have moved up here for political reasons and I’ll just leave it at that,” Bowman said with a laugh.  

Bowman is director of Shasta County's program to help "formerly incarcerated people transition back to life outside."  He says the three drivers of crime in that far northern California county are high housing costs, untreated mental illness and drug trafficking.  

In one Shasta County Census tract that encompasses most of the city of Redding, more than one in every 100 people is in a state prison.

To be clear, both Shasta County and Kings County are metropolitan counties, but they are sparsely populated compared to many in the state.  The screenshot captured above shows that an even less densely populated county, Mendocino, has a considerably lower rate of jail incarceration, and nonmetro counties like Mono and Calaveras also have low incarceration rates.  Incarceration rates in nonmetro Alpine and Amador are also low, but they creep higher in other sparsely populated nonmetros, like Plumas, Lassen, Sierra, Inyo and Mariposa.  In other words, it's not clear to me that there's a strong rural correlation to high jail incarceration rates.  Depends on how you define rural, including at what scale--at the scale of the county or below.  

Prior posts about rural jail populations are here.  

An update on the proposed closure of prison in rural California

Hailey Branson-Potts brought us an update this weekend in the Los Angeles Times on the fate of a prison in Susanville, California, population 16,278, which was slated for closure more than a year ago.  The town of Susanville responded by suing to keep the prison open, arguing that they'd face economic devastation if they lose some 1000 prison jobs.  A Lassen County judge issued a temporary restraining order to stop the closure.  Here's an excerpt from Saturday's LA Times story: 

As the outside world debates the future of the prison, the men incarcerated there say their voices must be heard.

This summer, prisoners tried to file an amicus brief in support of the closure, detailing problems in the facility.

An amicus brief filed last year by Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents prison employees, argues that if the facility were to close, workers “risk losing their livelihoods and will be forced to upend their lives and families, decimating their community in the process.”

The lawsuit — with a mostly white town arguing that its survival depends on the incarceration of mostly Black and Latino men — has “this kind of gross, unseemly character,” said Shakeer Rahman, a Los Angeles-based attorney who represented inmates who signed the amicus brief.

“The court is deciding whether a form of bondage, a form of cruelty, is going to continue based on the personal financial benefits of the people around the prison,” Rahman said. “At every single turn, the judge and the city have silenced the voices of our clients in order to keep marching on in this decision making that treats them as a source of revenue.”

The inmates are not challenging their convictions, Rahman noted; they simply want to report dangerous conditions that justify the prison’s closure.

The case in rural Lassen County could foreshadow conflicts to come as California’s inmate population declines and other prisons are considered for closure.

Earlier posts about the proposed closure are here and here, and embedded in them are links to  earlier posts about Susanville, like the ones here and here.   Here's one about the threat of last summer's Dixie fire to the Susanville prisons. 

New York Times turns to rural California prison closure

I've written about the proposed closure of a prison in Susanville, California here and here. Now, the New York Times has sent Tim Arango to cover the issue, and he has filed a terrific story that appears on the front page and leads with the economic impact on the community. I'm going to highlight here what Arango reports on the legal efforts to stop the prison closure:

On a brisk late-fall evening, Ms. Cobb huddled with a group of public officials and prison workers at a pizzeria. As a waitress came in and out, carrying pizzas and beers, Ms. Cobb ran down the fund-raising: $7,700 so far, mostly from small donations.

The lawsuit has achieved an early victory: a local judge has issued a temporary injunction halting plans for closing the prison while the case moves through the courts.

The injunction issued by the Lassen County judge is interesting. It's a lot of power to be wielded by a little old trial judge in rural northern California (which reminds me of this recent story out of Lake County, California).

Here's what he says about the economic impact of the prison, also giving a flavor of the place: 

When the California Correctional Center was built in the 1960s, many people in Susanville, which cherishes its small-town way of life — “we’re not rural, we’re frontier,” said one resident — relied on jobs at the nearby sawmills and on cattle ranches. Those jobs eventually disappeared, and now almost every aspect of the town’s economy and civic life, from real estate to local schools, depends on the prison. Over the years, the inmate population has counted toward political representation, and factored into the amount of money the town received from federal pandemic relief funds and state money to fix roads.

More fire coverage out of rural northern California, including two prisons where the fire is bearing down

Let me lead with the brilliant Hailey Branson-Potts' story out of Susanville, California, the county seat of Lassen County, population 34,895.  Branson-Potts writes for the Los Angeles Times, and she regularly reports out of rural northern California.  She recently reported stories here and here out of Lassen County, so she knows it well.  Remember that Susanville is home to two state prisons, one set for closure in 2022.  Here's the part of her story that touches on the presence of 5,400 prisoners in the literal line of fire, eight miles east of central Susanville at High Desert State Prison (with 3,220 inmates, it is at 139% capacity) and California Correctional Center (with 2,187 inmates, at 65% capacity).  The initial quote is from Dana Simas, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, about plans as of Wednesday afternoon:  

At this time, there are no directives to evacuate, and the institutions are in no immediate danger. We are also monitoring air quality and working with our public health and health care partners to ensure the safety and wellness of our population and staff.

Branson-Potts continues:   

Simas said the state corrections department is in “constant communication” with Cal Fire and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, as well as local officials, regarding the Dixie fire. Officials also are monitoring air quality and is providing N95 masks to staff and inmates at both prisons.

The institutions, Simas said, “have long-standing response plans in place to ensure continued daily operations, as well as the safety of our staff and incarcerated population through natural or other disasters.”

Simas said she could not discuss details about where and how prisoners would be relocated during an evacuation “for safety and security purposes.”

In other fascinating news regarding the prison closure, there is this about a court ruling out of Lassen County that could--and let me emphasize the could--be a game changer re the planned closure:

Earlier this month, a Lassen County Superior Court judge granted the city of Susanville a temporary restraining order halting the state’s plans to close the facility.

“It does not appear to the Court that the necessary requirements imposed upon the executive branch in facilitating the decision to close the California Correctional Center have been complied with,” Judge Mark Nareau wrote in his decision to grant the temporary restraining order. “The executive branch of the government of the state of California, like the citizens it serves, must comply with the law.”

In another story, Branson-Potts reports with Lila Siedman out of El Dorado County, where the Caldor Fire ignited over the weekend (as discussed in yesterday's post and in this coverage by Capital Public Radio) .  

The Caldor fire in El Dorado County has exploded to more than 50,000 acres, destroying a school, a church and numerous other structures.

Thousands of rural residents fled the flames, and two civilians were seriously injured Tuesday as the fire tore through rugged terrain with zero containment.

Caldor fire response spokesperson Chris Vestal said the blaze exhibited unusually high flame lengths and rapid spread. An incident report described its behavior as “unprecedented.”

* * *

It was at about 1,300 acres Monday afternoon when it began surging because of changes in atmospheric conditions.

Pushed by gusty winds, the fire hurtled north, and “unfortunately in the path of that fire has been communities,” said Mike Blankenheim, unit chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Amador-El Dorado Unit.

Lastly, the Cache Fire started this afternoon in Lake County.  A tweet with some photos of the destruction there is here.  The area near Hayfork, in Trinity County, is also on fire. 

What I'm hoping we'll get in the near future is a sense of the extent to which, as new fires have emerged, limited resources are moved from more remote and rural areas (e.g., Lassen, Plumas, and Lake counties) to more populous ones (e.g., El Dorado County).  

The Los Angeles Times covers the Susanville prison closure

I blogged here last month about the projected 2022 closure of a Susanville, California prison, and now Hailey Branson-Potts reports for the LA Times under the headline, "California’s prison boom saved this town. Now, plans to close a lockup are sparking anger and fear."  Here's an excerpt that sums up Susanville's economic situation:

Few places rely on a prison as much as Susanville, the only incorporated city in Lassen County. The nearest city, 86 miles away, is Reno.

Surrounded by forests, mountains and lakes, Susanville is a place of striking natural beauty. The air smells of pine trees. Deer wander through frontyards. But it’s an isolated town stuck in a long decline.

More than 45% of the employment in Susanville is at CCC [the prison slated for closure] and the adjacent High Desert State Prison, which opened in 1995. The average pay for non-management correctional staffers is $87,500, not including benefits and overtime — generous-paying jobs in a county where only 13% of residents have a bachelor’s degree.

Also of interest is this suggestion that Newsom might be punishing Lassen County for its conservative, pro-recall views:   

Many in town believe Newsom is retaliating against conservative Lassen County, which had among the state’s highest concentrations of people signing a petition to recall the governor and where 75% of voters cast their ballots for then-President Trump last fall.

The Newsom administration denies any such motive.  

Branson-Potts reports that Susanville plans to sue the State of California, but she doesn't provide any details of the cause of action, which leaves me wondering what on earth it (or they) might be.  I'm speculating something reliance-based, but we shall see.  

Coronavirus in rural America (Part CXXXIII): "The Fine Line: Rural Justice, Public Health and Safety, and the Coronavirus Pandemic"

Professors Jennifer Sherman and Jennifer Schwartz of Washington State University recently published this article in American Behavioral Scientist.  The abstract follows: 

In this article, we provide an early glimpse into how the issues of public health and safety played out in the rural United States during the coronavirus pandemic, focusing on Washington State. We utilize a combination of news articles and press releases, sheriff’s department Facebook posts, publicly available jail data, courtroom observations, in-depth interviews with those who have been held in rural jails, and interviews with rural law enforcement staff to explore this theme. As elected officials, rural sheriffs are beholden to populations that include many who are suspicious of science, liberal agendas, and anything that might threaten what they see as individual freedom. At the same time, they expect local law enforcement to employ punitive measures to control perceived criminal activity in their communities. These communities are often tightly knit, cohesive, and isolated, with high levels of social support both for community members and local leaders, including sheriffs and law enforcement. This complex social context often puts rural sheriffs and law enforcement officers in difficult positions. Given the multiple cross-pressures that rural justice systems faced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we explore the circumstances in which they attempted to protect and advocate for the health and safety of both their incarcerated and their nonincarcerated populations. We find that certain characteristics of rural communities both help and hinder local law enforcement in efforts to combat the virus, but these characteristics typically favor informal norms of social control to govern community health. Thus, rural sheriff’s departments repeatedly chose strategies that limited their abilities to protect populations from the disease, in favor of appearing tough on crime and supportive of personal liberty.

Rural Legal Scholarship: Jails, Sheriffs and Carceral Policymaking

Aaron Litman's article "Jails, Sheriffs and Carceral Policymaking," has just been published in the Vanderbilt Law Review.  Here's an excerpt from the abstract, highlighting the rural angle:

As this Article reveals, jailers, too, have their hands on the controls. The sheriffs who run jails—along with the county commissioners who fund them—have tremendous but unrecognized power over the size and shape of our criminal legal system, particularly in rural areas and for people accused or convicted of low-level crimes.

Because they have the authority to build jails (or not) as well as the authority to release people (or not), they exercise significant control not merely over conditions but also over both the supply of and demand for jail bedspace: how large they should be, how many people they should confine, and who those people should be. By advocating, financing, and contracting for jail bedspace, sheriffs and commissioners determine who has a say and who has a stake in carceral expansion and contraction. Through their exercise of arrest and release powers, sheriffs affect how many and which people fill their cells. Constraints they create or relieve on carceral infrastructure exert or alleviate pressure on officials at the local, state, and federal levels.

Drawing on surveys of state statutes and of municipal securities filings, data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, case law, and media coverage, this Article tells overlooked stories—of sheriffs who send their deputies out door knocking to convince voters to support a new tax to fund a new jail, and of commissioners who raise criminal court fees and sign contracts to detain “rental inmates” to ensure that incarceration “pays for itself.” It also tells of sheriffs who override the arrest decisions of city police officers, release defendants who have not made bail, and cut sentences short—and of those who would rather build more beds than push back on carceral inertia.

The articles uses the word "rural" 43 times, but who's counting? 

"Prisontown USA" (an actual place in rural California) in a panic after 2022 prison closure announced

The State of California recently announced that it would close the California Correctional Center in Susanville, population 17,974, in far northern California, in 2022.  According to a story by Jeong Park in the Sacramento Bee, this closure, along with that of another prison in Tracy (in the state's Central Valley), fulfills a campaign promise by Governor Gavin Newsom to close correctional facilities in relation to the planned reduction in prisoner population.  

Susanville is also home to a second prison, High Desert State Prison.  Both of Susanville's prisons were featured in the excellent 2007 documentary by Po Kutchens, "Prisontown, USA."  

But why did California choose to close the prison in remote Lassen County rather than, say, San Quentin, which sits on San Francisco Bay.  That's a question articulated by State Senator Brian Dahle (R), who is from the Lassen County town of Bieber and who represents a huge chunk of north eastern California, from Lake Tahoe to the Oregon state line.  He commented: 

The state would make a lot of money if it sells San Quentin. That seems to me like a better opportunity than to destroy our community up north. That’s a question that didn’t get answered. How was it prioritized?

Dahle's wife, Megan, is the recently elected California Assemblywoman for the district that includes Lassen County.  The Dahle's have been meeting with folks in that part of California, as reported in the Lassen County Times. Dahle commented:  

They totally took full responsibility for not being transparent and said they were sorry, and so that’s that.  They said, ‘we want to work with you.’ So, I would like to meet with Ana Monosano (the governor’s cabinet secretary) and Kathleen Allison (CDCR secretary) on Zoom on May 17. We’re going to have Richard (Egan, Lassen County administrative officer), and Dan (Newton, interim Susanville city administrator) for sure and both of the (union) reps from SEIU and CCPOA … We want to get some information on how they chose, what the criteria made that decision.

Egan commented, 

They’ve acknowledged the secretive process and said they’re sorry.

Brian Dahle continued, 

They didn’t say secretive, they just didn’t tell anybody.  ... 

Egan continued,  

… but even then they’ve acknowledged that as a shortcoming, they haven’t changed their behavior.  They’re still doing it. We’ve (Lassen County Board of Supervisors) asked for reconsideration. We’ve asked for an explanation, and we have not received a response — not even an acknowledgement of our request.

Megan Dahle said,

We put in Public Records Act requests a couple of weeks ago, as soon as we found out.

A final quote in the Lassen County paper is from Brian Dahle, 

We’re not going to give up on our community yet.  We want to negotiate. We’re want to go in there and say, "We’re about good governance. We think we do a good job up there (at CCC), and we want you to justify where you’re at." It’s really unfortunate how they treat their employees. You think when you go to work for the state, you’ve got a good job, you’ve got a union … not to mention what it’s going to do the community. We believe we can push back. We just learned CCC is one of the three prisons in the state that lives within its budget.

The Sacramento Bee story details some other ways the closure, which according to Megan Dahle implicates 10,000 jobs, will be devastating to the Susanville economy:   

Susanville could lose more than a quarter of its workforce — jobs that pay upwards of $90,000 in some cases. Some workers could find jobs next door at the High Desert State Prison, but many would have to move. The next closest state prison is more than three hours away in Folsom.

* * * 

Already, Susanville residents worry about the job loss cascading down to layoffs in schools and government, as well as businesses. Other rural towns whose economies depend on prisons are concerned as well, said Staci Heaton, acting vice president for government affairs with Rural County Representatives of California.

Other rural prisons at risk of closure include Sierra Conservation Center near Jamestown, one of the two biggest employers in Tuolumne County, and California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo County, which employs 1,800.  The Bee further reports:  

Taft in Kern County, which had its federal prison close last year, lost 18% of its population in 2020, the highest population loss in the state that year.

Interestingly, one of the themes of "Prisontown USA" was that Susanville and Lassen County saw relatively little economic benefit from the prisons because they contracted with non-local entities for supplies such as dairy products.  

The Bee story also covers the issue of whether these facilities can be converted for other uses--other enterprises that could employ some of the many correctional officers who will lose their jobs when the correctional facility closes.  Here's an interesting quote about  whether the prison can be repurposed and, if so, for what sorts of enterprises: 

The jobs created by the repurposing of prisons may also not pay as well as correctional jobs. Pay for junior cannabis growers, for instance, ranges from $30,000 to $70,000, according to a marijuana job site Hempstaff.

“You’re not going to get a correctional officer who just got laid off to go to work for a cannabis company,” said Amanda Autre, a Susanville resident who came to the Capitol last week to protest the closure. “You’re talking to very highly trained, skilled people that are out there, and their skills are very unique for what they can do."

And here's a story noting the need to help these communities transition economically when prisons close. 

Here is a related story out of Tehachapi, also a relatively rural community, this one in the Inland Empire. 

Other stories about the Susanville prisons are here and here.  An unrelated recent story out of Lassen County, this one about coronavirus testing, is here.  And another post about rural prisons in California is here.

Law and Society 2021 features four (yes, count them, four!) panels on rural issues

 Here's the line up, pasted from an email from co-organizers of the Law and Rurality Collaborative Research Network, Michele Statz (University of Minnesota Medical School Duluth) and Katie (Kathryne) Young (University of Massachusetts Amherst):

The Law and Rurality CRN (#24) is thrilled to sponsor the following panels at the upcoming Law and Society Association 2021 Annual Meeting. Please note that the times listed are CDT.

Thursday, May 27
11 - 12:45 pm
Session ID: 842: "Counter-Narratives of the Rural Access to Justice Crisis: Interrogating Hypotheses, Methods, and the Stories We Tell"
Session Chair: Katie Young
Panelists: Michele Statz, Brian Farrell, Daria Fisher Page, Andrew Davies, and Victoria Smiegocki

Friday, May 28
1 - 2:45 pm
Session ID: 299: "Law in Liminal Spaces"
Session Chair: Lisa Pruitt
Panelists: Emily Prifogle, Jessica Shoemaker, Mary Hoopes, and Smita Ghosh

Friday, May 28
5 - 6:45 pm
Session ID: 389: "Using Data and Collaboration to Address Growth in Jail Incarceration in Rural America: Initial Findings from the Rural Jails Policy and Research Network"
Session Chair: Jennifer Peirce
Panelists: Jennifer Schwartz, Madeline Bailey, Sarah Shannon, and Andrew Taylor

Friday, May 28
7 - 8:45 pm
Session ID: 204: "Access to Justice, Legal Institutions, and Everyday People: What's Different about the Rural US?"
Session Chair: Katie Young
Panelists: Jennifer Sherman, Katie Billings, Annie Eisenberg, and Maybell Romero

If you're not yet a member of the Law and Rurality CRN but would like to learn more, please visit our website and/or email Michele Statz at mstatz@d.umn.edu to join our listserv.

Coronavirus in rural America (Part CXV): More vaccine news

Efforts to get the coronavirus vaccine "into arms" has been a big story this week.  I'm going to briefly cover just a few of the news items I consumed on this topic.  

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday out of Mendocino County, California, population 87,841, where a freezer storing vaccines failed on January 4, 2021.  Anita Chabria reports under the headline, "Its freezer kaput, this NorCal hospital had two hours to give out 600 vaccine shots."  The hospital is in the county seat, Ukiah, population 16,075.

Here's an excerpt about the third of those doses that went to the county because they "belong to the county" and were merely being stored by the hospital.  Specifically they went to the county jail.   

Lt. John Bednar, who helps run the county jail, said his facility received 97 of those doses at about 1 p.m. The jail has been experiencing an outbreak, with about three dozen inmates out of 250 currently positive, he said. About a dozen staff have also fallen ill with the virus.

Faced with only an hour to use the shots, sheriff’s officials decided to administer them to staff and front-line personnel because they didn’t think there was enough time to gain consent and organize a safe protocol for inmates. Four county medical staff began giving the shots, said Bednar.

The story quotes Bednar regarding when the vaccines arrived: 

I was like, ‘Oh, boy, let’s get going.'  I think it went as well as it could.

NPR reported today on how well the immunization scheme is going in one rural Colorado town.  Kirk Seigler reports from Oak Creek, population 844.  He quotes Gene Bracegirdle, a firefighter and EMT in training, who is pleased to have just gotten the shot:  

The fact that it is here is kind of mind-blowing, like, they care enough to reach out to the rural communities. ... It's exciting to see the initiative being taken.  

The story acknowledges the spatial challenges in such places: 

The vaccine arrived in Oak Creek via a blue igloo cooler in a new mobile clinic set up by the local Routt County health department. Officials used CARES Act money to get things going. The task at hand is huge. Health officials must distribute the shots to a population of about 25,000 people spread across 2,300 square miles of northwest Colorado.

Another story yesterday commented on what West Virginia, popularly thought of as a rural state, is doing well in terms of vaccine distribution and immunization.  Yuki Noguchi reports from Morgantown, West Virginia.  She explains that CVS and Walgreens pharmacies, which the federal government has engaged to help with vaccine distribution to long-term care facilities, are not common in West Virginia.  Thus the state has had to look elsewhere for partners in its vaccine roll-out.  Noguchi quotes a pharmacist and clinical professor at West Virginia University, Gretchen Garofoli:  

We have a lot of independent pharmacies or smaller pharmacies that are in the more rural communities, so in order to get the vaccine out to some of those areas, we needed to follow something a little bit different.

The story continues: 

Many long-term care sites in the state already use local pharmacies for other vaccines and medicines as well as twice-weekly coronavirus testing of residents and staff. The state decided to piggyback off those existing relationships. Because those pharmacies already had data on many patients, it was easier to begin scheduling appointments in early December, securing consent forms and matching doses to eligible patients — logistics that are confounding efforts in many other states.

This story in particular features a rural lack-of-anonymity, reliance-on-community angle.