Prisons and the brick wall

IF ANYBODY COULD FIX THE MESS that California has made of its prison system, Roderick Q. Hickman seemed like the person. A former prison guard, he came to his job as state corrections secretary with management experience, insight into the workings of the reactionary guards union and the strong backing of a governor who vowed to fight the interests that have turned the state’s corrections system into a national disgrace.

But over the weekend, Hickman gave up.

Running this state’s prisons is a thankless job. On one side are legislators demanding quick fixes to intractable problems and federal courts that are dividing up responsibility over the prisons piecemeal; on the other is a guards union wielding its enormous political clout to squelch most changes. Hickman, standing in the middle, had only one ally he could count on: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who now seems to have moved on to other things.

A bruising fight with the guards union has taken its toll. Schwarzenegger’s Proposition 75, which would have reined in the political power of public employee unions, was soundly (and sadly) defeated at the polls, and other measures aimed specifically at the prisons have been rescinded under heavy union pressure. After resigning Saturday, Hickman said he didn’t think that the governor had the will any longer to fix the system’s problems.

It’s distressing to see Hickman go, but at the same time, it’s hard to think of a single important thing he accomplished in his two-year tenure. He may be remembered as a man who said all the right things but did few of them, buffeted as he was by competing interests and problems beyond his control.

One example is illustrative. In 2004, the state expanded a program begun under Gov. Gray Davis to send nonviolent parole violators to halfway houses, home detention or jail-based drug treatment programs. It was a badly needed effort to reduce the prison population and cut recidivism by helping addicts get the kind of treatment they weren’t getting in prison. A year later, as a victims’ rights group, heavily supported by the guards union, was running misleading commercials claiming that the program was endangering the public, Hickman abruptly dropped it. Then he had to revive it two months later under orders from a federal judge.

One piece of good news is that Hickman will be replaced, at least temporarily, by his second-in-command, Undersecretary Jeanne S. Woodford. She, like Hickman, has a reputation as a reformer committed to rehabilitating inmates rather than sending them through a revolving door from prison to the community and back to prison. But unless Schwarzenegger returns his full backing and strong attention to repairing the broken prison system, she doesn’t stand a chance.