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It was just reported by an inmate at the CDCR facility at San Luis Obispo, the California Men's Colony, West Facility, that on Wednesday, September 6, 2006, at lunch time, after only two dorms had been fed, all inmates were recalled back to their housing units. The reason given was for a "Survey." The subject of the survey was, "If you had a choice, would you like to finish-out the remainder of your sentence in another state? And, if your answer is yes: which other state? The surveyors provided a list of other states - mostly, but not a11, Midwest and Southern States, including: Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Indiana, Ohio, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Florida, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Both Oregon and Nevada were conspicuously missing from the list. The question being asked by the inmates who were surveyed is: are they selling us to the private corporation prisons in other states? That scenario then raised concerns of prisoners' rights taking a back seat to the corporate profit motive. Many times it has been expressed by concerned citizens that prisons should be run by the government, that prisons and the accompanying human suffering and misery have no place being run by corporate America where the profit motive is king. One only needs to read the history of such out of state transfers to see that in the past these transfers were problematic. While such transfers may be beneficial to inmates who are originally from, or whose families reside in, those other states, the vast majority of inmates who would be transferred under such a program are moved quite far from family and friends. This implicates the most important factor in successful rehabilitation of an inmate, and his ability to successfully reintegrate back into society upon release. An area where California has failed dismally - as indicated by the State's high recidivism rate. It is well accepted by experts that the single most influential factor in successful rehabilitation is that of friends and family. When an inmate is denied such contact, as would be the case with out-of-state transfers, his or her chances of successful reintegration into society is severely diminished. We must not let this happen to California prisoners because they will come back worse than they were before they left. Tom Watson
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