Judge ‘Disappointed’ With Prison Reforms
U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, who placed the state prison health care system in receivership, canceled his next meeting with the acting corrections secretary after he was "deeply disappointed" that a memo to employees did not include reform priorities, including the system's health care crisis, the Contra Costa Times reports.
Henderson in a memo to Corrections Secretary Jeanne Woodford said he would cancel a meeting scheduled for March 22 and would be "reconsidering the best manner for conducting judicial oversight" of state prison reforms.
Henderson also said he has told a court-appointed special master overseeing the reforms "to report to the Court immediately" if he finds deteriorating quality (Contra Costa Times, 3/15).
A spokesperson for Woodford said that the memo she sent was intended to be "general in tone" and excluded many priorities and reforms but that such issues are important to Woodford (Warren, Los Angeles Times, 3/15).
In related news, KPBS' "KPBS News" on Monday reported on a study finding that care for elderly inmates costs three times as much as care for other inmates. Demographic projections estimate that by 2030 one-third of the U.S. prison population will be geriatric, KPBS reports.
The segment includes comments from Brie Williams, geriatrics clinical fellow at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (Ford Roth, "KPBS News," KPBS, 3/13).
The complete transcript is available online. The complete segment is available online in RealPlayer.