Jobs are good things. It's a shame most people do not love their work and salary is prized over accomplishment, but jobs are good things. People want them. People get them. People use them to feed themselves. Jobs are popular with most demographic groupings and effortlessly straddle the red-blue divide. Barring national security, job creation is always trumps in American politics.

New casino. Opposed to it two years ago? Think it will increase traffic, crime and tax the poor? Did you know it comes with 2700 new jobs? We thought you'd like that.

The idea of a prison in your small, rural community not sitting well with you? Did you note the jobs it brings are vastly better paying than the local average? Eric Schlosser did and he pointed out, with his usual thorough and uncompromised reporting, in the December 1998 Atlantic Monthly that it fueled a prison-building boom during the '80s and '90s. (Prisons, it just so happens, have a place in our story.)

For all that, there are some jobs that we do not want to create more of. There are some jobs that, if we were to tilt our heads and look at things objectively, we would acknowledge should be eliminated. Prison guard is one of those jobs. An ideal society would rehabilitate criminals, create good, fair jobs to level inequality, write sane prohibition laws, chisel away at increasingly obsolete prisons and, slowly but surely, fire every last prison guard.

It's not going to happen. I can accept that. But increasing the prison population six fold is a drastic and needless step in the wrong direction entirely. It is also exactly what has happened in progressive, sunny California over the last 20 years. Some of it might be the result of better sentencing for violent criminals and tougher police work. Some of those inmates may be translating into safer streets. But given those factors, and even throwing in population growth, a jump in prisoners in one state from 25,000 to 160,000 in two decades is the result of something much more philosophical: a shift in thinking about who belongs in prison. Not everyone behind bars in California is making the streets safer. Even the toughest on crime would not argue that the state is six times safer. Violent crimes in California have dropped by only a third over the past decade. Good progress, but not as impressive as the hike in prisoners.

As the prison population has grown, so has the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. The CCPOA is a union. It is, by many measures, California's most powerful union. Like any good union, it advocates for its members. It also works toward the bottom line, like any good company: fill membership ranks, collect more dues, lobby more, fill membership ranks. In this case, however, the surest way to fill membership ranks is to create more prisons. The way to create more prisons is to imprison more people.

Ergo: There is a powerful union in California working to create more and more jobs of a variety we should all be working to eliminate. It is as helpful to society as a bookies' union.

Like all thoroughly bad ideas, this one is bad even in the ways it's supposed to be good. This one is supposed to benefit the good of society. The state is supposed to be spared grief and frustration. Yet, financially, hassle is exactly what you get when you construct 21 new prisons in 20 years. Not to mention staffing those prisons. The cost of housing one inmate for one year was $31,000 in fiscal 2004-5. The CDC (that's California Department of Corrections to you, Atlanta) consumes 6% of the state's budget and is creeping up toward $7 billion a year. After education and health services, that is the biggest single bite from the state's budget pie. And, as Gray Davis' ouster made very clear, Californians are worried about their budget. They could save a lot of money by changing the way they think about prison. Try convincing them of that when they get around to Election Day. Or, better yet, save your energy. The CCPOA already has.

In 1994 California adopted AB 971, the nation's second and toughest Three Strikes law. It set a national trend, as so much California legislation does. The rest of the nation was not quite as harsh, however, and as a result California's overcrowding and recidivism lead the nation. 70% of California's parolees end up back in prison. There are 160,000 prisoners in facilities designed for far fewer. It doesn't seem all that surprising given that in 1976 the CDC amended its mission statement to remove the word "rehabilitation" and declare instead that "the purpose of prison is punishment." That's what California does. It uses prison as the default method of dealing with many, many offenders, the majority of whom are parole violators.

AB 971, appealing perhaps because it implies all the reason and ruled regularity of baseball, is not entirely accurate in its naming. That is, the implied And You're Out doesn't really hold up. The first and second strikes will get you out, too, if out means time in prison. Criminals are not allowed to run up the count. The law also applies to felons across the board, not just those convicted of violent crime. That means three convictions for possession of drugs and your chances of dying in prison become frighteningly high. According to the Justice Policy Institute, by 2003 "there were more third strikers serving 25-years-to-life for drug possession (672) than third strikers in prison for second-degree murder (62), assault with a deadly weapon (379), and rape (119) combined." The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice adds that 16% of the two and three strikes offenders are doing very hard time for drug possession. The only genre of crime with a similarly high percentage is robbery. On top of all that, Schlosser points out that punishment for possession is hardly blind justice. Black men are five times more likely to get arrested for drugs than white men, despite similar use patterns. And if, it's true the first time, it's most certainly true the second and third time. Which means, AB 971 has a strong racist component. It may do an alright job locking up violent white criminals, but by definition it is also snaring a high percentage of black drug addicts and dealers in its draconian net.

AB 971 continues to send those charged with felony drug possession to longer and longer prison sentences. And with rehabilitation being expressly dropped from California's prisons, spending ten years inside is not the best way to prepare oneself for a clean and sober life. That revolving door metaphor seems more and more apt. The CCPOA, in fighting to protect AB 971, would be insuring bloated prisons and dangerous working conditions for its members. Make no mistake, however, fight for the law is exactly what the prison guards' union did.

On November 3, 2004, California voted on Three Strikes reform. Proposition 66 would have given more leniency to judges in sentencing and removed some felonies from AB 971's harsh mandate. At first, the measure seemed sure to pass, but opponents began arguing that murderers and rapists whose third strike was possession would be set free. They littered the television and the internet with profiles of specific, nasty prisoners who would be injected directly into elementary schools if Prop66 passed. Two groups spearheaded this fight against Prop66 and the CCPOA was both of them. "Californians United for Public Safety -- No on Proposition 66", a political action committee, received lots of money from lots of different law enforcement bodies, sheriffs to D.A.s to municipal police, but none came close to rivaling the $600,000 CCPOA donated in the 4 months leading up to the election. Overall, only two groups gave more than the CCPOA. Schwarzenegger's reform PAC, the California Recovery Team, is a huge player in the proposition fundraising game. It doled out 8 figures in the last election cycle to fund its fight against "chronic budget deficits in California [that] are the result of unrealistic formulas for spending money." Henry Nicholas the billionaire who, purportedly, only sleeps three hours a day and, definitely, made a huge amount of money betting on broadband, founding Broadcom and making chips for cable modems, also out-donated the CCPOA.

If the CCPOA provided the money, Crime Victims United of California provided the emotional heft that opposition to Prop66 needed. The Victim's Rights movement is a powerful force in the state and a tireless proponent of tough crime legislation. ("Victim's Rights" is a phrase that usually stands in for "Family's of Victims' Rights" since many of the members and icons of this movement have lost loved ones to violent crime. Indeed, AB 971 was born out of the passion of two fathers who lost their daughters in high profile murder cases and chose to slake their grief in a pool of vengeance and political lobbying.) Populated with people who have lost their families to brutal attacks, CVUC and its peers are understandably outraged every time a murderer slips through the justice system. Weeping members also make for moving television images and subplots in otherwise dull policy stories. No one in Sacramento wants to appear to be insensitive to their emotions and frustrations.

So, when CVUC, in the name of Public Safety, fought Prop66 politicians and voters listened. In the end, with a lift from a teevee ad campaign starring the conveniently telegenic governor, AB 971 was saved. In the beginning, however, the CVUC received 95% of its funding from the CCPOA. Other victim's rights groups have been similarly blessed with the union's largesse.

Public Safety, that elusive quality that both the CCPOA and the CVUC are fighting for, is California's equivalent of National Security. It is cock of the walk and sanity and reason bow before its awesome political clout. Budget concerns melt at its very mention. Civil liberties and the rights of warriors/prisoners begin to melt away and emotion gains the upperhand over reason. Crime Victims, in this analogy, become the Families of 9/11: a political force no one wants to cross, that has the emotional weight to win any draw and that, ultimately, may have entirely different goals than the politicians so eager to get on its good side. Still, like 9/11 Families against Iraq, groups like Families to Amend California's 3-Strikes never seem to capture the media and public's imagination the way their more vigilante-styled peers do. They also do not have the financial backing of a multi-million dollar enterprise like the CCPOA.

But if Schwarzenegger and the union saw eye to eye on Three Strikes, they have spent most of the rookie governor's term bickering. Schwarzenegger did not take special interest money in his bid to oust Gray Davis, a governor who, in his last election, netted a cool million from the CCPOA. So, the union might well have thought it was losing a friend in Sacramento, just as the voter might well have thought she was getting a governor free from CCPOA influence.

Schwarzenegger did come out swinging at the CCPOA by targeting them and the CDC for reform. Davis' administration had struck a new collective bargaining agreement with the union before he was pulled from office. The deal gave CCPOA members 11% raises over 2 years. (Apparently, that was one million dollars well spent.) When the new governor started looking for a place to trim the state's budget, however, this plump deal seemed a good place to begin. As good a place as any if you're a young politician looking to get into a emotional catfight with an experienced and powerful union which is the state's number one political donor. (For a good time, go here, enter "CCPOA" and count the millions.) Don Novey was the impresario behind CCPOA's rise from obscurity to political powerhouse. He was president for 22 years and under his guidance membership swelled from 3,000 to 30,000. During that time, the union also developed its "Toughest Beat in the State" marketing strategy. When Correctional Officers salaries lagged behind ChiPs and other law enforcement agencies, Novey began lobbying for raises, arguing that his men and women went toe to toe with criminals and offenders every day. Cops might run into criminals. Prison guards were certain to be surrounded by them all day. Shawshank the California prisons are not, this thinking argued. Raises have been a part of CCPOA's lifestyle ever since.

Ironically, it was a reversal of this argument that finally brought the union and its clout under closer examination. Graphic videotapes of prisoner abuse at Pelican Bay prison made the inmates seem more at risk than the prison guards. The scandal also made for nice thick headlines and the union's ability to protect even their most aggressive members, coupled with sudden concern over the budget, dragged the CCPOA into a critical light.

Despite having a guaranteed contract, the CCPOA did come back to the bargaining table and made the following concessions: the scheduled prison guard raises would be staggered over two years, making for a healthy 5% bump every six months in 2004 with more to come this year. The governor's concessions: local chapter presidents were allowed one day off to work on union business, the CCPOA has access to prison videos for marketing purposes and the state cannot layoff any prison guards unless inmate populations drop precipitously. With the defeat of Prop66, that isn't going to happen. Schwarzenegger managed to postpone a costly payday by a few months and in return the union tightened its control over prison management and entrenched their power structure a little more deeply. The next time the governor crossed the CCPOA's path he was again reminded of the fallacy in thinking that he was free of their influence just because he had not campaigned on their dime. At the Annual Crime Victim's march last month, Mike Jiminez, Novey's successor as CCPOA president, lamented Schwarzenegger's nonattendance by saying, "This administration sends a very clear message with its absence." The CVUC had spent weeks tearing into the Governor on teevee and a few days after the march Schwarzenegger called uncle.

At particular issue was a plan to cut down on recidivism and imprisonment of parole violators. Schwarzenegger's team designed a plan to keep technical parole violators out of prison. Technical parole violators are people who have missed meetings or failed drug tests, not folks who have committed a crime while on parole. Schwarzenegger, flashing that socially liberal side we hear so much about, was trying to divert these people to drug treatment, half-way houses and electronic monitoring systems. Save money, cut down on chronic over-crowding, stop sending people to prison for having drug addictions, the upsides were obvious.

To the CVUC and CCPOA, so were the downsides. The CVUC did most of the public fighting on this one since they were in a better position to claim parolees in half-way houses would terrorize sleepy Pacific communities. The CCPOA's resistance was a bit more naked in its ambition. Overcrowding should make that Toughest Beat even tougher. Prison guards should be happy to unload potential prison gang members and black market drug fuel, but overcrowding, even in stingy California, leads to new prisons. And new prisons mean new jobs and new members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

When Schwarzenegger's administration canned parole reform it was allegedly because it wasn't working. But the fledgling plan was given less than a year to succeed after the governor had originally marked prison reform as a way to save money in a state that badly needs to do just that. As of last week, the governor's vaunted CDC reform was reduced to a new name and a reshuffling of the administrative deck.

It is a real testament to the CCPOA's clout that it can continue pressing its own agenda and rugged maintenance of the status quo in the face of the state's fiscal malaise. State Senator Jackie Speier, a Democrat from Hillsborough who leads the charge to de-throne the CCPOA has more traction than ever, leveraging fiscal worries, the Pelican Bay incident, a growing sense that something needs to change in AB 971, and a governor who needs to save money and soon. Increasingly, however, Spier looks to be swimming upstream. She has been challenged by an assemblyman who, thanks to that 2002 (renegotiated) contract, can return to his job as a parole office and member of CCPOA (with new raises) when his time in Sacramento is done. The CCPOA has a hand in almost every senate district race in the state and, though Spier is a virtual lock for re-election, her opponent in 2006 is likely to have at least one strong donor behind him. Getting the CCPOA out of Sacramento might mean getting rid of quite a bit of Sacramento, as well.

The union's mutually beneficial relationship with Gray Davis, after years of backing Republican gubernatorial candidates, shows the CCPOA is willing to work with any side of the aisle that is anxious to get tough on crime. They fight liberal minded reform, true. But they are also dead set against conservative-promoted privatization of prisons because they are, of course, looking out for themselves. If they were to represent the employees at private prisons they would have to disclose their tax records, while currently, as a union for state employees, they are free from this burden. Certainly, dogged partisanship is not a good thing in a union. They should be advocating for their members dusk to dawn. But this assumes that the union is acting as a balance to management, which is looking after its own bottom line.

In this case, the employer is the state of California and the taxpayers are a surprisingly malleable group for an ownership concern. They may have one eye on the bottom line, but they have the other on the pictures of slain girls on their television and at least one ear on the pleas for Public Safety (who doesn't like to feel safe in public?). A management group that can so prioritize the emotional pleas of the few, even if it means bankrupting themselves, is not exactly what Mother Jones had in mind.

But the CCPOA has another party caught in the scales of their massive negotiating power. The state's offenders and prisoners also stand to lose and gain based on the union's advocacy. And while traditional management certainly has a voice in negotiations, and, through their proposition process, the voters have a strong hand in the process, the prisoners have no institutionalized voice. Prison guards need representation and advocacy, but the clout they wield now is all out of proportion. The CJCJ points out that when the teacher's union moves on the political front classes shrink or tenure entrenches itself. "When the CCPOA exerts power, more people are incarcerated." Balance is not coming from the voters, from Sacramento and certainly not from the 160,000 and growing state prisoners. The only member of that equation with the power and authority to assert itself and equal the mighty influence of the CCPOA are California's voters. If only someone can get them to stop thinking about Public Safety and start thinking about Public Good.

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