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Life In Prison: A Project Envision Documentary

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    --Hello everyone. I'm Joanne Faryon.
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    Welcome to this Envision special
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    Life In Prison
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    About one in five of all inmates in California are serving life sentences.
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    Combined, they could potentially cost taxpayers in this state $140 billion
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    over the course of their sentences.
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    Lifers are getting more expensive because they're aging in prison and rarely paroled.
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    It's all adding up to record health care costs for inmates.
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    Tonight, we explore the cost of California's tough on crime legislation.
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    It's lead to so much overcrowding in state prisons the federal courts have stepped in.
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    You'll meet some lifers - men who were sent to prison
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    when Lyndon B. Johnson was president and they're still there.
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    This is not a report on whether they should be paroled - it is an examination
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    of how much it costs to lock people up and rarely let them out.
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    Especially when locking them up means you're responsible for their healthcare.
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    At first glance this could look like a nursing home.
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    The wheelchairs and walkers have a way of fooling you.
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    This is the California Medical Facility, one of California's 33 prisons.
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    CMF operates the largest prison hospital.
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    It is where many of the states old, sick and dying inmates will end up.
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    And these days, those old and sick inmates are growing in number.
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    California faces a problem that touches nearly every aspect of society -
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    from our economy to our safety to our health - one that forces us to take sides
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    between punishment and redemption.
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    We have too many men and women in our prisons.
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    The statistics say so and so did a federal court in 2002.
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    There are 170,000 inmates in prisons that were built for 100,000.
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    One in five serving life sentences.
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    TERRY CAMPBELL (Inmate): My name is Terry Campbell.
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    I'm in prison for murder, first-degree murder, and I've been in prison for 44 years.
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    GLENDA VIRGIL (Inmate): "My name is Glenda Virgil, and I'm serving a 15 to life sentence.
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    I've been here 23 years.
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    --And how old are you?
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    And I'm 63 years old.
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    RICHARD LAURENZANO (Inmate): Being 62 in prison is a struggle, it's a struggle.
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    --Why?
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    First of all the reflection of losing 27 years of your life but you get sicker.
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    --Richard Lauranzano represents the fastest growing segment
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    of the inmate population: men over 50.
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    He's also among the most expensive.
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    He's been sick and has been treated at hospitals outside the prison system.
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    LAURENZANO: I had cancer about four years ago, stage 4.
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    The prison system saved my life.
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    They sent me to outside hospitals they never hesitated.
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    --Glenda Virgil has had surgery.
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    VIRGIL: I've had major back surgery.
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    I was in the hospital with two guards 24 hours a day for 11 days.
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    I can't imagine what that cost.
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    But that just for the guards alone I would imagine that was over $200
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    you know because that 2 guards - because I'm a lifer - 2 guards for 24 hours everyday.
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    --Terry Campbell has had seven operations.
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    CAMPBELL: My back.
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    My shoulders because I broke bones in both my back and shoulders.
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    My hand, twice.
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    CLARK KELSO: We're dealing with a corrections population that is aging in prison.
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    --Clark Kelso is in charge of health care in California's prisons.
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    So we've seen explosion in Cardiovascular problems, and that a lot of Diabetes,
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    we have the results of Hepatitis C, there was ephydemic exposure in the 80's,
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    we began to see the results of that now.
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    We have a lot of inmates who have very serious liver disease
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    as the result of an abuse of drugs and alcohol.
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    But they're all at the age now where you have those issues plus other chronic conditions
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    that simply require a different type of care.
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    --A federal judge made Kelso a receiver
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    and put him in charge when a court ruled inmates did not have access to health care
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    and mental health services because California's prisons were so over crowded.
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    The court ruled lack of health care was cruel and unusual punishment
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    and violated inmates' constitutional rights.
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    A panel of federal judges has since ordered California to come up with a plan
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    to reduce its prison population by 40,000 inmates.
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    Both decisions forced the state to confront its overcrowding problem and challenged the public
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    to contemplate the health care debate in a whole new way.
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    If we as a country can't decide whether health care is a right for all free citizens -
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    why is it so easily determined as a right for convicted criminals?
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    It's a question Clark Kelso has been asked many times.
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    KELSO: The technical legal answer is there's a huge difference
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    between government's responsibility to you a citizen, a free citizen,
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    and government's responsibility to someone that government is incarcerating.
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    Once you have incarcerated someone, government has a constitutional obligation
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    under the 8th amendment to provide certain levels of acre
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    and that what the state has to do.
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    --Since the receivership assumed control of health care
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    in prisons three years ago spending on medical treatment for inmates has almost doubled -
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    from just over one billion dollars a year to nearly two billion dollars.
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    And that budget will increase if the state is to continue providing health care
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    to its growing geriatric population.
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    One independent report projects the number of men
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    in California prisons over age 60 will triple by 2018.
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    KELSO: The state of California and the people of California have made consistent judgments
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    that certain types of crimes or certain patterns of criminal conduct need to be punished
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    with life in prison and that's a judgment that has to be respected from my perspective is
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    that needs to realize those decisions come with a cost
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    that you can't have a prison population 16 or 20 per cent of which in a maybe a decade
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    or to are going to be 55 and older, you can't do that unless you're willing
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    to devote a very substantial portion of the general fund to their health care
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    because those aging prisoners are going
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    to have health care needs that are very expensive to meet.
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    --There are about 35,000 lifers in California prisons.
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    Using government statistics, KPBS calculated how much money the state pays
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    to imprison inmates for a life sentence.
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    If Inmate X is incarcerated at age 37, he costs taxpayers about $49,000 a year.
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    But as he ages, his health care expenses will increase.
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    At age 55, he could cost the state $150,000 a year.
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    If he lives until he's 77, he will cost California taxpayers
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    as much $4 million to keep him in prison for life.
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    FARYON: So, when you were first convicted and sent to prison did you expect to still be
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    in prison when you were sixty-five?
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    CAMPBELL: No, not at all.
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    No, I believed the hype that if you change while you're in prison and prove to us
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    that you're capable of functioning in society by doing the programs that we provide,
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    showing us that you've rehabilitated and the CDC staff supports
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    that effort, then you will be paroled.
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    --Lifers rarely get parole.
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    In 2008, 7,303 lifers were up for parole.
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    The board granted 294.
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    But the governor has the right to reverse those decisions or send them back for review.
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    In 2008 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied 81 lifers parole
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    and sent more than 30 cases back for review.
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    Fewer than 60 inmates were released.
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    The year before even fewer were paroled and in 2006, fewer still.
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    --To understand why Californians developed this tough on crime mantra,
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    you have to go back to the days of Charles Manson.
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    At the time homicide rates were on the rise -
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    nearly doubling from the mid sixties to the late 70's.
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    HARRIET SALARNO: Because the high crime,
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    murder was on the rampage and people were getting furious.
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    FARYON: Harriet Salarno was raising a family in San Francisco at the time.
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    She and her husband owned an electronics store.
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    They kept a gun because stores like theirs were often the target of robberies.
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    It was the gun her daughter's killer would use in 1979.
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    SALARNO: And he shot her and murdered her execution style.
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    And he went up to his dorm didn't call any help or anything watched her try to call and she died
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    and finally another student found her and it was too late.
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    FARYON: When Salarno learned her daughter's killer was up for parole
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    after just serving 10 years, she began a life-long campaign
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    for tougher sentencing laws and stricter parole policies.
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    Her victims rights group raises enough money to employ a full time lobbyist in Sacramento.
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    SALARNO: Public safety is in our constitution
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    and it's the priority and it must be served first.
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    We will back right there lobbying as heavy
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    as we can every morning we will have a new case we will be able to discuss with a legislator
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    because somebody was murdered it will be on the morning news as it is every morning.
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    And that's their obligation.
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    Their obligation as legislators is to do this.
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    FARYON: Dozens of changes to sentencing laws in the last few decades have all contributed
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    to California's highest rate of lifers in prison.
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    Two of the most significant, are determinate sentencing in 1977,
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    which imposed minimum sentences, and three strikes in 1994,
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    which allowed repeat offenders to be sentenced to life.
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    LINDA: My sentence is 15 to life.
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    FARYON: And you've been here how long?
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    LINDA: I'm in my 24th year.
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    FARYON: And Glenda?
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    VIRGIL: Fifteen to life, plus two for a gun allocation.
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    And I've been here for 23 years.
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    FARYON: And Marylinn?
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    MARYLINN: Mine is 15 to life for second-degree murder and I've been down 25.
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    FARYON: At the California Institution for Women in Corona California, a group of inmates,
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    all convicted murderers, all women, talk about what its like to grow old in prison.
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    LINDA: The change is for me my health.
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    My health has declined and the getting around that I don't have anymore.
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    I didn't think that I'd ever grow old.
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    That my hips wouldn't work, that I couldn't get down or get up anymore, or my legs.
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    MARYLINN: And never in my life did I think I'd be sitting in prison and going,
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    wow I'm 70 years old and I don't even have a retirement plan.
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    I don't have to go to work everyday because that's the program.
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    That's what you have to do.
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    Or that I would have lost my whole family behind these circumstances.
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    That I would no longer have a family to reach out to.
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    FARYON: The women are part of a group called the Golden Girls,
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    inmates over 55 who are granted special privileges
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    like a double mattress on their metal cots.
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    And they're first in line during meals.
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    But this is still prison.
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    And there are rules.
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    Like getting down on the floor when an alarm sounds.
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    This happened while we were there.
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    59-year-old Linda can barely make it down or back up again.
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    DR. JOSEPH BICK: Prisons weren't built to make it easy
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    for mobility-impaired people to get around.
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    Prisons were built to safely incarcerate individuals whoa re sent away
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    and keep them from escaping.
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    So we're trying to deal with things how do you accommodate activities of daily living
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    of somebody who's in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.
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    Simple things like getting their clothes on, going to the bathroom,
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    ambulating down the hallway to the dining halls.
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    Having enough time to eat.
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    Having more than 15 minutes to consume a meal.
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    FARYON: Dr. Joseph Bick has been working as a prison doctor for 20 years.
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    He tends to patients at CMF's hospital and the prison hospice,
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    where he's held the hand of many dying inmates.
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    DR. JOSEPH BICK: I'm not privy to inmates' commitment offenses as a clinician,
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    it's something I'm not particularly interested in knowing.
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    In fact I endeavour to not know because I think my job is
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    to provide the best quality of health care I can.
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    But I'm human too and I don't want to run the risk of being influenced
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    by knowledge of someone's commitment offense.
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    FARYON: We met two inmates in the prison hospice on the day of our visit.
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    Angelo Chavez has end-stage liver disease.
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    ANGELO CHAVEZ: I was hoping they would give me a compassionate release
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    and that's what I'm waiting for, to see if I can go home to my family.
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    FARYON: Chavez is a three striker and serving a life sentence.
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    His convictions include drug possession, robbery and manslaughter.
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    CHAVEZ: I would love to go home and die out there, than to die here.
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    FARYON: We also met Brian Long.
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    He has cancer and is expected to live another three months.
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    In 1993, Long was convicted of having sex with a minor and served six years.
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    In 2003 he was sentenced to 11 years for a second sexual offense against a child.
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    In California, inmates can be released for compassionate reasons
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    if they have less than six months to live.
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    Last year there were 57 requests.
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    Three were granted by the courts.
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    DR. JOSEPH BICK: People have very strong opinions on all sides
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    of this discussion you certainly have people who have been victims or their family members
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    of some very heinous crimes from some of the people who live in this facility.
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    And they strongly feel that it doesn't matter how old somebody gets or how sick they get
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    or what they're likelihood of reoffending is they should spend the rest
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    of their life in prison.
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    FARYON: But Dr. Bick says we can't deny them health care.
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    Not only is it the law, it is also a matter of public health.
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    DR. JOSEPH BICK: With so many people incarcerated we choose as a society
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    to incarcerate people that come to us with such an incredible burden of disease,
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    HIV and hepatitis and tuberculosis and mental illness
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    and substance abuse whoa re someday going to go home, to me the tragedy is
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    to somehow ignore them an put them off there and assume
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    because they're incarcerated they don't matter or they're not going
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    to somehow impact upon the general health at time of release.
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    FARYON: And how do you see your life playing out then here as you age?
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    CAMPBELL: I'll just grow old and eventually I'll die.
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    I don't see it as - you know I'm well adapted.
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    Institutionalized, if you will.
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    So I don't see a problem just existing.
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    Eventually I wont be able to function anymore and eventually I'll end
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    up in a hospital and eventually I'll die.
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    But in the meantime it's going to cost the state an awful lot of money to take care of me.
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    FARYON: Terry Campbell was convicted in 1966 of murder during an armed robbery.
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    He has two other convictions from 1968 and 1973, both while incarcerated.
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    He told KPBS he was mixed up with prison gang violence.
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    Since that time Campbell has earned two college degrees FARYON:
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    What's your biggest fear about growing old in prison?
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    CAMPBELL: I don't know if it's a fear, but my biggest concern about growing old in prison is
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    that I went through all the trouble - on a personal level I went through all the trouble
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    to change, to become a different person and now I don't know
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    for what reason other than personal satisfaction.
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    I can't give anything back.
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    VIRGIL: And being alone.
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    Dying alone where there isn't anyone who cares about you or knows you.
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    FARYON: Glenda Virgil was convicted of second-degree murder in 1987 for shooting
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    and killing the man with whom she had been involved.
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    She told KPBS she had been a battered woman.
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    LAURANZANO: They didn't give you life without,
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    they didn't give you the death penalty they gave you 25 to life or 15 to life
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    that means you get out at some point.
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    And if you do everything they say you should get out and be a functioning member of society.
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    FARYON: Richard Lauranzano was convicted of seven counts
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    of sexual assault with children under 14 in 1984.
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    While in prison he was also convicted of murder in connection.
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    He is serving a 50-year sentence but is eligible for parole in 2013.
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    Lauranzano's cancer is in remission, but he has heart trouble
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    and is consulting with experts about surgery.
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    GOVERNOR: 30 years ago 10% of the general fund went
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    to higher education and only 3% went to prisons.
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    Today almost 11% goes to prisons and only 7.5% goes to higher education.
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    Spending 45% more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future.
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    FARYON: But it will be a difficult ship to turn given California's 30-year history of support
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    for longer prison sentences and this administration's record of denying parole.
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    Plans to build a new billion-dollar prison to house old inmates who need chronic care
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    and inmates who need mental health services are now underway.
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    There isn't room for them anywhere else.
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    Clark Kelso is also looking at ways to get his outside hospital costs down.
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    Last year the state spent 500 million dollars on those visits - about 1,000 very sick
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    and dying inmates accounted for most of that cost.
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    KELSO: There are solutions I think the legislature
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    and the people need o become more comfortable with such as medical parole or other types
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    of programs that will get these unhealthy inmates these again inmates
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    who don't pose very much threat to the public in terms of recidivism very good numbers there,
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    we have to come to a better public understanding in California
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    with how to take care of those inmates.
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    FARYON: Kelso has been in talks with officials, including the governor's office,
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    about releasing some inmates to privately run secure nursing homes.
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    According to government statistics, people over 55 have less
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    than a four per cent recidivism rate which means they are the least likely of all inmates
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    to commit another offense and return to prison.
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    And once released from state run prisons, it's likely they'd be eligible
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    for federal health care subsidies.
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    KELSO: One way or another health care needs
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    of these people are going to be paid for by somebody.
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    FARYON: Should a life sentence mean a life sentence in California?
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    If they're not rehabilitated absolutely.
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    HARRIET: What are you going to do with them if you let them out?
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    Where are they going to go?
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    What are you going to do with them?
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    You're going to say they're not going to commit a crime if they can't get a job
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    and you're talking maybe 65 they need to make some income and they cant get a job
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    and they have no place to live what are they going to do they're going
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    to rob somebody's home, where are they going to get the money.
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    You just don't open the door here's your $200 go get the bus.
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    FARYON: Do you ever think you will get out?
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    CAMPBELL: No.
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    No I don't.
  • 24:47 - 24:59
    That saying about it doesn't really matter where you are, but it always matters who you are?
  • 24:59 - 25:00
    You know, that applies.
  • 25:00 - 25:11
    That applies to a lot of us that are in prison because there are a lot of lifers who came
  • 25:11 - 25:20
    to prison, who didn't get into trouble like I got into trouble
  • 25:20 - 25:28
    when I came to prison, who are still here.
  • 25:28 - 25:37
    And they're sitting around wondering, well what do I have to do?
  • 25:37 - 25:42
    What do I have to do to get out of prison?
  • 25:42 - 25:48
    How do I prove myself and who do I prove myself to?
  • 25:48 - 25:53
    And there's no answer.
  • 25:53 - 26:16
    FARYON: You can learn more about this issue by going to our website, kpbs.org/prisons.
  • 26:16 - 26:25
    And you can also leave a comment.
  • 26:25 - 26:30
    We'd love to hear from you.
  • 26:30 - 26:45
    For KPBS, I'm Joanne Faryon, thanks for watching.
Title:
Life In Prison: A Project Envision Documentary
Description:

This KPBS documentary already has an English transcript, so creating subtitles in other language should be a pretty straightforward process.

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Volunteer
Duration:
26:55

English subtitles

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