Case example revealing modern-day slavery and the intentional causing of crime for profit
By James Kor
This essay is being written to illuminate the truth, the likes of which is kept secret through the complicity of mainstream media. Those agreeable to seeing government lies and phony posturing demolished should read on. But the terminally apathetic and “I believe everything the government says” types need to read to further; what follows is a trip into the reality zone.
For decades, and reaching a state of twice the national average, the California prison/parole system has sustained the highest rate of recidivism in the nation (source, U.S. Dept. of Justice statistics). That abysmal rate of FAILURE is not and has never been the result of accident, anomaly, or naturally developed consequence. No, it has been intentionally caused for the sake of political power and to paint a false air of legitimacy around what is tantamount to extortion of obscene amounts of tax dollars from citizens. Armored in shamelessness, those responsible for this scheme continue to prove that they do not care that pursuit of their selfish interests has harmed the public.
Though there are different ways to prove what is or isn’t true, one of the more 
compelling and reliable ways has been recognized for at least a couple thousand years and that is how it will be done in this instance. Ex ungue leonem is Latin for, “From a claw may we judge of a lion, from a part we may judge of the whole.” I am one person, one example, one “part.” But my case speaks quite loudly about the FAILURE that has been calculatedly engineered into the California prison/parole system. It also sheds light on the scope of the wrong involved and why the public should become loudly insistent upon more meaningful changes. If justice is to be done, there should be relief for those who’ve suffered and/or consequences for those who’ve profited from causing harm.
In 1983, six weeks before I was to be paroled from San Quentin, I suffered a severe fracture of my left collarbone and a pin had to be surgically implanted to ensure proper healing. Prison officials did not want to pay the cost of the operation. Instead, they chose to keep me doped up on a powerful narcotic known as Dilaudid for the remainder of my sentence. I was then dumped back into society in such bad shape I could not work at the construction job I’d secured for myself; I was addicted to the narcotic. In dire straits, no employment, residence, or income, I had an alcoholic relapse and then was taken back into custody after trying to sell a firearm I’d owned before going to prison. That arrest landed me back in prison on a parole violation.
Upon being released in 1985, I had neither a residence nor a job in the county I was paroled to (Marin). However, I had managed to get myself hired and was working two jobs in another county (Contra Costa) where I also had a stable residence. I was doing good. My California parole agent told me that if I didn’t return to Marin County, where I had no resources, residence, employment, or support system, he would issue an arrest warrant and return me to prison as a parole violator. I was forced to leave both of my jobs and residence to go where my so-called parole supervision had me homeless, jobless and with no support network from which to begin getting on my feet in the world. People? It is as certain as the laws of gravity; desperate human beings do desperate things. So, out of the kind of “protest” Dstoyevsky linked to crime in his famous book Crime and Punishment, I did something desperate. I took a test-ride on a motorcycle that was for sale and led the California Highway Patrol on a 115 MPH chase. That landed me back in jail; food and residence problem solved self-destruction.
Angry and frustrated at the California system’s brand of justice supposedly being perpetrated in the name of California citizens, I ignored both the judge’s and defense attorneys’ advice and pled guilty to the vehicle theft at my very first court appearance. This virtually never happens so it caused surprise and increased attention towards my case. I then told all of the underlying details to a conscientious public defender.Through him, a lot of people found out about what had been done to me by California parole officials. Not being timid or apathetic, like too many people are these days, they made themselves heard. One of them was a doctor who said he would put me to work in his office as I do have some background in the medical field; specifically as a clinical lab tech. He and others advocated work furlough as my sentence and a rare, decent judge agreed that I should not be returned to prison under the circumstances.
Having been publicly humiliated through exposure of what he’d done to me, the parole official maliciously used his influence with a corrupt Marin County Honor Farm supervisor to get me unfairly excluded from the work furlough program. There was no disciplinary problem on my part to justify such an action. That Honor Farm supervisor has since been sent to prison because, like some responsible for my incarceration, right now, he was and is a criminal in a position of authority.
In the context of California’s “three strikes” game, these facts should be looked upon as California parole officials ripping the baseball hat (opportunity) out of my hands as I was stood up for an “at bat” needing to get on base in the world. The refusal to provide me the previously mentioned medical care was also like standing a person up at the plate while the system had made sure that swinging a bat was impossible.
Deprived of the opportunity to benefit from the work furlough program, I was released from jail months later to find that the position in the doctor’s office had been filled. Once again, I had no job, no bank account, no home. Two of the main points I hope to make clear are these: First, there is a very big difference between the morality and decency of citizens making up the general public and the apparatchiks and cogs employed within the California Criminal Justice System. Those personnel do wrong, tolerate wrong, and maintain a scary conspiracy of silence about wrong done to prisoners, parolees, and defendants—EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK. Secondly, it has been a crime against society, on the part of California officials, to have irresponsibly dumbed hundreds of thousands (if not millions over the years) of unprepared, ill-equipped, desperate-to-survive human beings back into the communities. The easily predictable probability of their desperation leading to drug and/or alcohol abuse, then return to criminal activity, at the expense of public safety, has been ignored by the worst of criminals, in the government. In fact? They have relied upon it to facilitate job security and to maintain political power. As to the intentional engineering of these kind of probabilities? They are proved via “Bayes’ Theorem” (probability distributions).
After floundering on the streets and relapsing into alcohol abuse I participated in the robbery of a drug dealer and wound up back in prison with a seven-year sentence. I swore to myself that would be my last time being incarcerated and I requested participation in any and all rehabilitation programs available. Repeatedly, I was told there were none for me. I had also vowed that I would not allow myself to be dumped back into the world again in dire straits so I did not give up. I went on a letter writing campaign to get myself accepted and enrolled in any college or university in California. Admissions personnel at Sonoma State took an interest in me, agreed to admit me, then assisted me in getting enrolled in a full class schedule. They helped me get my tuition, books, meal vouchers, and on-campus housing; all that I needed for my schooling. Finally, it looked like I was going to have the one fair and realistic chance I have never, ever had. Through nothing but my own willpower I had created real hope of changing my life for good, as opposed to being dumped back out into the world at a high risk of failing.
A couple weeks before being paroled, Sonoma State notified me that, due to overbooking of two of my classes, I would have to choose either Chico or Humboldt State in Arvata as an alternative campus. I chose Humboldt State. Upon my release, I showed my parole agent my university papers and told him I needed an immediate transfer of my parole as my classes were to begin in eleven days. I also showed him the prison counselor’s signed approval of the CDC 1233 form that detailed my “parole plans” for attending a state university and living on campus. Inflicting California Parole System justice on me, once again, the official refused to transfer my parole. Furthermore, he said that if I went to Arcata for school he would put a “parolee at large” arrest warrant out for me and I’d be sent back to prison. I was as angry as I’d ever been in all my life. I felt like my best chance to get a fair beginning in this society was being maliciously ruined. At the same time, I knew in my heart that the things done to me by this predatory parole board were not the sort of things California citizens were served by or would approve of if they knew about them. So I went directly to the ABC affiliate in San Francisco, KGO Channel 7 and told them the whole story. They did feel the injustice and had me tell the story again the following day in a lengthy interview which they televised in a two part series. I made sure to emphasize the main point which remains true to this day, California prison and parole officials are doing a major disservice to the public. Much of what I said and predicted, then in 1992, has been acknowledged or become self-evident.
There are a couple of quotes that perfectly punctuate the message I am conveying, but before citing them I lay this truth down in blunt, clear terms. It has been no accident that the quality of public schooling in California has dropped so precipitously from being the best when I was a kid in the 1950’s and 1960’s to a rank of either 48th or 49th in the nation. That drop directly correlates with the prison population explosion in the state which went from under 25,000 at the end of 1980 to 175,000 by 2007. The seeds of FAILURE were purposely down while some parole and prison personnel went so far as to openly denounce rehabilitation. Intentionally, those officials did cause the previously static rate of repeat offenders to skyrocket (recidivism) .
Higher recidivism means more crime, more victims, and a less safe society, just as 2+2=4. But it also means job security and exorbitant salaries for the system’s cogs and artificially-generated political power for the puppeteer politicians pulling all the strings. artificially-generated political power for the puppeteer politicians pulling all the strings. From my front-row seat to this circus, I’ve come to believe that 80% of the people in prison could and would salvage their lives, change for the better, if afforded the realistic opportunity to do so and given the message that FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION. But the problem has been the huge conflict of interest previously referred to; successful rehabilitation on a large scale, such as a responsibility vigilant and properly-informed society would demand, would result in less political power for the fear and failure mongers. It would also shrink the portion of the public funds through which they all greedily gorge themselves at. Who are “they?” Well, here are those two quotes mentioned:
“Worse than traitors in arms are those who…feast and fatten on the nation’s ills.”
-Abraham Lincoln
“It is the foulest of creatures—the double parasite—that lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich.”
-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
If my personal story is not persuasive enough for those who are in denial, if naive gullible citizens think there is some benign explanation for this which I have described; or if a lack of courage is shrinking of civic duty conveniently lies beneath some people’s apathy, here is a bit more, verifiable truth from other sources: In 1997, the State shut down its “Boot Camp” program at San Quentin. However, conscientious staff and some responsible citizens began saying things and asking questions about why it was closed down. The program had been proving itself to be a success with 76% of its parolees having been successfully reintegrated into communities. A Northern California newspaper called the Pacific Sun had a writer named Steve Heimoff do an investigative journalism story on the matter. No surprise at all, the employees from the program he spoke to, including guards, a counselor, and medical staff, all said the very same things: The program had been working; all of them were proud and felt there was genuine worth to the work they had been part of for California’s citizens. No reasons had been given to them for the closure and they had all been instructed not to speak to the media about the issue.
Hopefully, those reading this can and will recognize the ominous parallel between California officials’ deliberate sabotage of rehabilitation and the racist laws prohibiting the education of black people before the Civil War. Not only is the primary motive identical—the perpetuation of profit and power through oppression and subjugation but people of color are also, again, the ones suffering disproportionately. The stench of institutionalized racism is no coincidence.
The culpable officials I write of behave as adherents of Machiavellian politics. They have coldly engineered what can be described as a hybrid, abstract form of cannibalism and modern-day slavery combined. They view human beings, particularly underprivileged, disenfranchised Blacks and Hispanics, as a commodity to be consumed as fuel for the horror machine they all profit from. Perhaps the system’s most terrible trademark is its often subtle crippling of people in order to cause the predictable probability that most will falter and when they do, they are then food for the California criminal justice juggernaut to devour (See the apt Biblical metaphor in the Old Testament at Micah 3:1-3.) It is calculated evil.
Like they ripped baseball bats (opportunities) out of my hands as I was stood up at the plate in their “Three Strikes” game, they have crippled vast numbers of others through the purposeful sabotage and curtailment of education and rehabilitation programs. The cost has been staggering both in terms of harm to the public and cost in tax dollars. All the while they have viewed the public fisc as their own bank account to be looted of money every time they can craft a new way to bleed more out of iit.
Note: In 2003 the United States Army’s Chief of Central Command, four-star general Tommy Franks earned a government salary of $145,000. That same year, as part of the most dangerously counterproductive, obscenely expensive, scandal-plagued prison/parole system on the planet, a Clifornia prison guard was paid $203,000 and many others made more than General Franks. It is truly Orwellian; FAILURE IS SUCCESS to them.
Before concluding, I speak to what I wondered about as a kid when first learning of the horrors of the Holocaust. The biggest problem I and other smart kids around me had at the ages of 7 and 8 was how could an entire nation of people consent or allow their government to do such evil on such a large scale? Over half a century later, I no longer wonder about “how.” I have seen how right before my eyes from a front-row seat and might have been hurt very badly by it. I see the deadly efficiency of the propaganda, the masses being misled, misinformed, like too many “good Germans” allowed themselves to be. I witnessed what the famous author Herman Wouk deemed to be the greatest facilitator for such far-reaching evil: a society’s “will not to believe” their government would systematically engage in such a scale of wrong. Like here where, through the intentional crippling of a targeted class of human beings (poor and predominantly ethnic minorities) the system creates license to exact a cruel and merciless vengeance upon the products of its own failing policies, the last dominoes to fall in the cause-and-effect equation. All the while, its mindless, heartless cogs play the role of the “good guys,” protectors of the public. They are not the “good guys” to me nor is their malevolent, corrupt authority deserving of anything less than righteous defiance being spat in its face along with these damning truths. Consider it being done with this writing.
James Sumel Kor, P-13834
SATF Corcoran
P.O. Box 5248, B1-7-5 Low
Corcoran, CA 93212
All comments, feedback, and questions will be appreciated and will be responded to. For more prompt communication, go to gettingout.com and register as a contact with me using the above. “SATF” is the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility at Corcoran, CA. Besides access to email, I can also call but need a phone number first. Snail mail works as well.
