A Great Act - Public Safety & Rehabilitation Act of 2016

Great news! An incredible act called the Public Safety & Rehabilitation Act of 2016 (PSRA) is trying to improve public safety, and save California taxpayers money by reducing frivolous spending on our correctional system. One pivotal point of this act, is to transfer the power back to the judge and away from the District Attorney, to decide whether a minor of 14 years of age or older should be tried as an adult. Key factors have to be considered when making this decision such as: the minor's family and school life. It has to be a clear process to decide the outcome of the minor’s life.

Next, for those who are incarcerated with non-violent offenses, Public Safety & Rehabilitation Act of 2016 will add funds for rehabilitation, and will give credit for completion of educational programs with an early release. Ultimately, it is the next step to improve Prop 47.

Altogether, 1 million signatures need to be collected in order for this act to make it on the ballot in November. Governor Brown supports and is willing to sign this act, but requested 100,000 signatures by the end of April 2016 be gathered.  

Equally important, collaborative help is needed for the collection of the mandatory signatures from all that are in support of this act. Let’s be overt, prison reform is needed in the state of California, and this is a productive step towards obtaining that goal. 

For more information or to support the (PSRA) contact Vanessa Rhodes at vanessarhodes@gmail.com or visit SafetyandRehabilitation.com.

By: 

Porscha N. Dillard

Special Project Coordinator 

Time For Change Foundation

California Corrections Spending Still High Despite Reforms

In recent years, California has made significant progress in reducing the number of people involved with the state correctional system. These declines resulted from criminal justice reforms adopted by state policymakers and the voters following a 2009 federal court order requiring California to reduce overcrowding in state prisons.

This Issue Brief examines changes in corrections spending from the 2007-08 fiscal year — when the numbers of incarcerated adults and parolees peaked — to 2015-16, which began this past July. While total corrections spending as a share of the state budget is down slightly since 2007-08, spending for adults under state jurisdiction — which comprises more than 80 percent of total corrections expenditures and includes security and operations as well as health care — remains stubbornly high.

Significantly — and permanently — reducing corrections spending will require the state to take additional steps. These could include further reforming California’s sentencing laws, particularly with an eye toward cutting the length of prison sentences. This would reduce the number of incarcerated adults, which would allow the state to close one or more prisons and could help to lower prison health care spending.

Read the Issue Brief. 

Via the California Budget & Policy Center, November 2015 report

http://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/corrections-spending-through-the-state-budget-since-2007-08-still-high-despite-recent-reforms/ 

TAFT Correctional Facility to Reopen

TAFT, CA - Taft's Community Correctional Facility will reopen within the next two months. The city council approved a contract with L.A. County Tuesday to house its inmates. The agreement will bring back dozens of job and millions of dollars to the city of Taft.

Taft's Correctional Facility has sat empty for two years, but now it's about to reopen.

"This is a huge weight lifted off our shoulders," said Taft Mayor, Paul Linder.

In a unanimous vote, the Taft City Council approved a contract with L.A. County to house up to 512 low-level offenders for the next five years. 

"It's a relief. It's a big relief," said Taft Police Chief Ed Whiting. "Personally, I don't see why a jail should sit empty."

The state stopped housing inmates in the facility in November 2011, which cost the city money and jobs. Now, most of that is coming back.

According to the contract, Taft will add about 62 positions and get more than $11 million a year from L.A. County.

"This is good for them. It's good for us. It's also good for the inmates," said Chief Whiting.

Taft's Police Chief said it's good because the extra bed space will allow L.A. County to ease its jail overcrowding, and the inmates in Taft will have the option to work in the community like Kern County inmates, either picking up trash or doing road work.

"It gives the inmates something to do except sit in the cell all day," said Chief Whiting. "They'll get to work, and they'll get credit towards their release."

A work release Taft couldn't have done if they would have agreed to house the state inmates the California Department of Corrections wanted to send to Taft.

"It's just a better deal, and we're trying to the do the best for the community," said Mayor Linder.

"It took a lot of work on both ends and we're finally happy it's come together," said Chief Whiting.

Inmates could start coming to Taft as soon as November 18.

Check out video at: http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/Taft-correctional-facility-to-reopen/r6ZF7zgae0mQpcvOmv9xzQ.cspx

Stop Prison Spending and Reinvest in our Communities: Take Action Now!

Today, the Governor and Legislative leaders announced a "compromise deal" to address the court order to reduce prison crowding. They've given the Court an ultimatum: either extend the deadline or we will expand the prison system.

The Assembly will be voting on the plan this Wednesday, and we need our voices to be louder than ever: California does not need any prison expansion. Reduce the prison population and restore the cuts now.  

We are having a big impact. Our pressure forced Brown to agree to add millions in investments to rehabilitation and diversion if the Court deadline is extended. But as it stands, this bill will delay any real reductions to the prison population. And unless we cancel the state's plans to build 3 new prisons will mean an expansion of the prison system. We need to demand that the administration prioritize the prison population reduction strategies we know will work today.

All of our events statewide are still happening so please join us in the streets at an action near you:

  Sacramento: Tuesday - September 10 - Press Conference at 11:00am at the North Steps, Capital Building, followed by legislative visits. Please contact emily@curbprisonspending for more information.

  Los Angeles: Tuesday - September 10 - Preschool Not Prisons Press Conference & Rally at 9:30am at Twin Towers Jail, 450 Bauchet. Please contact info@raisingcaliforniatogether.org for more information.

  Los Angeles: Tuesday - September 10 - Virtual Townhall at 6:00pm – 8:00pm at Community Coalition and Homeboy Industries. Please contact Karren Lane at karren@cocosouthla.org for more information.

Los Angeles: Wednesday - September 11 - Press Conference at 10:30am – 12:00pm at the Ronald Reagan State Building, 300 South Spring Street. RSVP on Facebook. Please contact diana@curbprisonspending.org for more information.

  Los Angeles: Saturday - September 14 - Free Our Sisters: Community Solutions, Not Jail Construction at 2pm at Art Share LA, 801 E. 4th Place. Please contact diana@curbprisonspending.org for more information.

It's a crime to house the mentally ill this way

July 17, 2013, 5:00 a.m.

If you routinely hear voices, hallucinate, sink into suicidal depression or suffer inescapable torment, Los Angeles has a place for you.

The county jail.

On Monday, the jail held 3,200 inmates diagnosed with a mental illness and accused of a crime. Most have not been to trial, many have waited months for their day in court, and the majority have cycled through at least once before. There's no longer enough room to house them all in segregated areas, so 1,000 mentally ill men and 300 women are housed with the general population.

Sheriff Lee Baca has said for decades that he runs the nation's largest mental hospital, but we've heard it so often that the shock has worn off. We know there's something inexcusably wrong with the system — something backward and inhumane. But we shrug and move on, and the failure of public policy persists, at great public expense, while Los Angeles County officials order up another round of studies.

On the seventh floor of the Twin Towers, some of the most severely ill men stood in the locked single cells of a dorm-style bloc Monday, staring into space, banging on walls or howling. On the fifth floor, cells were filled to capacity and bunks were squeezed into the common dining area to handle the overflow. Some of the bunks are two beds high, some three. Privacy and quiet do not exist for inmates or their jailhouse therapists.

If you're trying to figure out what makes for a desirable therapeutic environment, said Sara Hough, who runs the jail clinical program for the county Mental Health Department and takes pride in trying to deliver desperately needed care, "this ain't it."

County sheriff's Sgt. Julie Geary pointed out an inmate who thinks that he's Abraham Lincoln and that he's possessed by a spirit. Nearby was a man who's been in and out of jail so many times, Geary is on a first-name basis with him. "You're back," she recalled telling Herman. And she knows which inmates can be expected to complain that poisonous gas is being piped into their cells.

On the fifth floor, a 49-year-old inmate squatted and spoke to me through a small opening in a locked door. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as a young man, he said. I asked how many different times he's been in jail since then.
"About 15," he guessed.

And the total amount of time he's been locked up?

"Sir, to be honest with you, about 27 years."

While I spoke to him, another middle-aged man kept gesturing through a window that he wanted to talk, too.

"Sir," he said, "I'm just trying to get into a drug program."

He rattled off a list of diagnoses he's received, including bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder. Like the 15-timer, he's been in jail so many times he could only guess at the number.

"About 10," he said.

Clearly, locking these men up over and over again isn't working, and it isn't cheap. But it's what the system has been doing for years in Los Angeles County and in jails and prisons across the country.

Therapists know it. Judges know it, because they see the same offenders churn through their courtrooms, many of them for drug possession and minor offenses in which the underlying cause is often a mental illness. And jailers surely know it, though the problem is not of their making or of any other single agency's.

"We're on the same page here," sheriff's Cmdr. David Fender said Monday when I met with him and mental health officials at the jail. "The entire leadership" of the Sheriff's Department "believes we've got to do something about this."

No doubt, so what's the plan?

The county Board of Supervisors is pushing ahead, after years of delay, with plans to update jail facilities in hopes of fending off possible federal intervention following myriad reports of inmate abuse and deplorable conditions. Earlier this year, the supes hired a consultant to make proposals for demolishing the dungeon-like Men's Central Jail, building a new facility in its place and updating other detention centers. At Tuesday's board meeting, five proposals were aired, including construction of a jail devoted entirely to inmates with medical and mental health problems.

But would that be a new direction, or the same failed strategy in a new and improved building? Even when inmates get counseling and meds in jail, the majority of them leave with no long-term recovery plan or supervision on the outside, so guess where they end up.
The costs of the proposals ranged from $1.32 billion to $1.62 billion, and no doubt some upgrades are needed. But several dozen demonstrators at the meeting called for no new jails, and many of them stepped to the mike to demand a greater investment in steering people out of detention.

One of the speakers, Marsha Temple, cited an earlier study recommending community treatment centers rather than incarceration for many of those with mental health problems. She points out that permanent supportive housing and treatment would offer a far better chance at recovery, and would cost a fraction of what it takes to throw someone into a jail cell.

"Why are we locking up people who are mentally ill?" Temple asked me rhetorically Tuesday afternoon, her tone suggesting the practice is nothing short of barbaric. And she said declining birth rates and crime rates make her fear that more jail space will lead to more warehousing of those who ought to be in treatment rather than in jail.

Temple runs the L.A. nonprofit Integrated Recovery Network, which contacts inmates before their release, then follows them back out with supportive services like housing assistance, job training and mental health counseling. But her group can handle only a fraction of the need. Temple has been strategizing with judges, attorneys and treatment providers to push for similar services at the time of arraignment, with the goal of avoiding incarceration altogether, particularly for nonviolent offenders.

That's already being done on a small scale, with the county's Homeless Alternative to Living on the Streets program. But 3,200 people with a mental illness are behind bars (17% of the jail population).

That's shameful, and once you've looked into their eyes, you're haunted by the conviction that many of them are serving time for the crime of being afflicted. If the supervisors have trouble finding the will to do right by such a vulnerable, stigmatized population, maybe they should take one more tour of the nation's largest mental hospital.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times