California prison guards have one of the best career-jobs in the state: decent pay, steady work and medical benefits.
A lot of correctional centers are located in remote regions like the central valley where unemployment is high and many factory and cannery jobs have disappeared.
The local prison helps sustain the economy in depressed communities.
The "prison industrial complex" has been growing fast in California which now has 173,000 inmates in over-crowded and dangerous state-run facilities. The abysmal medical treatment inside has provoked a constitutional crisis with federal courts demanding an end to the "cruel and unusual punishment" inflicted by crammed cells and bad health care.
For many working-class Californians, however, a job in corrections is a way up. And it’s also union work.
The 30,000 member California Correctional Peace Officers Association is among the most influential labor organizations in the state. CCPOA gives a lot of campaign money – and gets considerable political support – from both pro-union democrats and law and order republicans.
The CCPOA takes a tough stand on crime and is not a big fan of prisoners’ right; but the union is an advocate of workplace reform and obviously has a stake in improving conditions.
Critics of California incarceration rates and long sentences may see the CCPOA as reactionary.
This reminds me of a debate 30 years ago when industrial unions were forced to support pollution-gushing plants in order to save jobs.
These unions were often politically isolated, facing off against corporate interests eager to offshore manufacturing and clean air advocates who breathed easier when the old mills were converted to riverside condos.
I can even recall talk back then about "liberating" American factory workers from their mind-numbing routines.
I don’t want to overstretch the comparison.
You wouldn’t oppose more lenient sentencing and more sensible parole standards in order to save prison jobs.
But recent news stories implicating California prison guards in the illegal distribution of cell phones to inmates will certainly cast wide blame on these workers and the union which protects them.
I just think we should reserve some sympathy for these men and women whose best shot at a good-paying union job are inside these walls.