Offender-in-Chief Arnold Schwarzenneger speaking at California Institution for Men at Chino. Left is CDCR Secratary Matthew Cate. Right is Aref Fakhoury, acting warden.
If I asked how Arnold Schwarzenneger, generally acknowledged to be the governor of California, and Phil Spector, currently convicted murderer in prison, were alike, you’d probably say they both come from the pop culture entertainment industry. Schwarzenneger made movies. Spector made music. And you would be correct. But today they are also people in denial sending messages from prison.
The Los Angeles Times shows Schwarzenneger standing in a riot-torn dormitory at California Institution for Men at Chino. He is quoted as blaming it all on “politicians in Sacramento,” apparently hoping we don’t notice he is a politician in Sacramento. I was glad to see the newspaper point out the misleading aspect of his statement. It went down like this:
Schwarzenneger says: “We have one of the highest rates of recidivism in the nation….The politicians in Sacramento have swept the problem under the rug for so long. California is quite literally losing control of our prisons.”
The newspaper immediately pointed out: “Schwarzenegger has failed to bring the prison system under control since his election almost six years ago, despite pledging to do so. A federal judge seized control of inmate medical care on his watch. The governor reorganized the corrections agency to emphasize rehabilitation, but recently suggested gutting rehab programs to save money.”
Speaking from California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran, Spector, in a letter to “friend and music journalist Steve Escobar,” is quoted as wanting “… to get a better prison with people more like myself in it … instead of all these lowlife scumbags, gangsters and Manson types.”
While the messages from both men may sound different, they look the same to me. Behavioral psychologists, I believe, would suggest both men were in denial about their current situations. Spector is now a convicted murderer. He is now considered by society to be a lowlife scumbag. On a much larger scale, Schwarzenneger denies responsibility for the riot at Chino specifically and the odious prison mess generally.
Spector is exhibiting the typical early adjustment period of imprisonment. He denies his guilt, and therefore he denies that he belongs in a place with people who are guilty just like him. Accepting your place in the prison system can take years, and for Spector, a man accustomed to wealth and unusual autonomy over many years, he may never reach a point of acceptance. I give him a pass on his statements.
Schwarzenneger, on the other hand, deserves no such pass. He has been given the prestige and power of the highest office in the most powerful state in this nation. Yet he is not a big enough man to admit his own failure. Spector profoundly affected many lives; he caused much emotional trauma and pain. Schwarzenneger continues to cause pain to millions; inmates die, officers die and are injured, children grow up with no possibility of connection to fathers and mothers, the citizens of California are uncertain about the viability of their own government and the very laws that support it.
It’s okay with me if Phil Spector is in denial. It’s not okay with me when the governor of this state is in denial.
Prisoners All 
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