Some observations & questions about the plan for the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuillas to build an 8,400 bed prison on their reservation at the Salton Sea & lease it to the CA Dept of Corrections for $12 million a month. 1/ https://eu.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2020/07/12/torres-martinez-tribe-has-initial-plans-build-8-400-bed-prison-one-largest-us/5418357002/

1st, precedents: the closest thing to a deal like this currently operating in CDCR is their lease of a Corecivic prison in California City. The prison is privately owned, but publicly run & staffed. 2/

The Salton Sea Prison would be different in that it would be located outside California: on sovereign Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla land, similar to Australia’s “Pacific Solution” of holding detainees outside the legal boundaries of the nation-state imprisoning them. 3/

Gov. Schwarzenegger proposed building a state prison in México. His proposal was defeated, in part because he wanted non-US residents to work in the prison to save money. The off-shoring was also too similar to the CIA’s off-shore “black sites” for extradition & torture. 4/

1st question: when those incarcerated in the Salton Sea Prison bring lawsuits or try to have criminal charges brought against prison guards, are those matters for tribal court only? Do either California state courts or Federal courts have any jurisdiction? (McGirt v. Oklahoma) 5/

IF those incarcerated in Salton Sea will have even less protection under state or Federal law than those locked in other state prisons, does this plan violate the state’s promise to bring ALL people incarcerated under state authority back to in-state cages? 6/

The promise of a new prison replacing old prisons rather than adding capacity is a line that has been run on Californians since “replace” San Quentin with (Old) Folsom in the 1880s. Old prisons don’t just go away & aren’t so easy to repurpose. 7/

Early days of the pandemic recession with all the job losses and housing losses that are to come is no time to tempt the California legislature with an additional 8,400 prison beds, hoping that they’ll close Norco, CIM & CIW – a recipe for Prison Fix II. 8/

The visiting drive from LA would be an extra two hours each way compared to CIW, CIM & Norco (without traffic) -- roughly the distance from LA to the Corcoran prisons. 9/

This scheme is also related a bit to the lease-to-buy sleight of hand that private prison corps & states run on voters. “Our state isn’t building a new prison. We have incurred no new debt.” Correct only in the most technical sense: 10/

The state signs a long-term lease & lease payments pay the mortgage on the new prison, plus funneling some extra $$ to the group who put the deal together. At $12 million a month, how long will it take for California to pay off a $2 BILLION loan needed to build the prison? 11/

Finally a hydraulics question: tribal chairman Thomas Tortez says a project of this scale (8,400 people caged) is necessary to “bring (up) that much water” to resolve problems with the Salton Sea ecosystem. 12/

“That much water” turns out to be 640,000 gallons a day to be pumped out of the fragile desert aquifer, cycled through the new prison & its new water treatment plant, & then dumped in Salton Sea. 640,000 gallons/day. How about the 2017 Salton Sea Management Program instead? 13/13