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/ 

L.A. County Board of Supervisors Form Prop. 47 Task Force

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to form a task force to help non-violent ex-cons update their records under Proposition 47 and to link them to jobs and services.

Proposition 47 — dubbed by supporters the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act — was approved by 59.6 percent of California voters in 2014. It reduced some non-violent drug and property crimes — such as shoplifting, receiving stolen property and writing bad checks of less than $950 — from felonies to misdemeanors.

Supervisors Hilda Solis and Mark Ridley-Thomas proposed the task force and Solis said it would bolster public safety.

“The primary purpose of the motion today is to reduce crime,” Solis said. “Jail and prison have become a revolving door.”

The task force will focus on connecting individuals coming out of jail and prison with jobs, housing, health care and mental health and substance abuse treatment and finding funding for those services.

“For the last 40 years, our broken criminal justice system has drained communities like South Los Angeles,” said Karren Lane of the Community Coalition of policies that doled out harsh punishments for drug and other non-violent offenses.

Solis highlighted the barriers faced by ex-offenders.

“Having a felony conviction makes it difficult to get work, to get housing, to get services and to put your life back together,” Solis told her colleagues.

Public Defender Ronald L. Brown said individuals in prison and jail suffer disproportionately from mental illness and substance abuse and told the board that treatment is critical to success outside of jail.

“Prisons don’t encourage inmates to address their drug problems,” Brown said.

Proponents say the proposition provides a more just penalty for low-level offenders. Anticipated savings from the law are intended to be spent on mental health and substance abuse treatment, truancy and dropout prevention and victim services.

“I think what we’re talking about is a hand up, not a hammer down,” said Bruce Brodie of the county’s office of Alternate Public Defender.

Other backers point to how Prop 47 has alleviated prison overcrowding and allowed more serious offenders to serve a greater proportion of their sentence.

However, opponents say Prop 47 puts dangerous criminals who should be behind bars out on the streets.

Supervisor Michael Antonovich pointed to criminals who are released only to commit new crimes, citing the example of one man who had been arrested 22 times after his initial release.

“Violent crime is up 4.2 percent,” Antonovich said.

Supervisor Sheila Kuehl challenged the idea that the proposition was linked to higher crime rates.

“There has been a lot of rhetoric about Prop 47 and a rise in crime rates and it’s just that, rhetoric. There is no data,” Kuehl said.

Kuehl said San Diego County hasn’t seen a rise in crime since Prop 47 became effective.

There are roughly 695,000 Los Angeles County residents who are eligible to apply to change their criminal records under Prop 47, according to Brown, who told the board that his office is overwhelmed by the need to help ex-offenders “become employed, tax-paying citizens of this county.”

One community advocate said many of those eligible were unaware of the potential to change their lives.

“Two out of three people who qualify for Prop 47 are not even aware” it exists, said Amber Rose Howard of All of Us or None.

The task force was also charged with trying to extend the deadline to apply for a criminal record change, currently set for Nov. 3, 2017.

The board directed staffers from the Office of Diversion and Re-Entry to work with the city of Los Angeles’ Office of Reentry to push for the region’s share of state funding from Prop 47 savings. A report back is expected in six months.

The board also asked the Auditor-Controller to audit the county’s savings as a result of Prop 47.

Time for Change Foundation Celebrates the One Year Anniversary of Prop 47 Passage

November 4th marks one year since California voters passed Proposition 47, which gives thousands of people across the Inland Empire a chance to reduce low level felonies to misdemeanors. 

Time for Change Foundation (TFCF) has been working to ensure that this victory translates into real change for local families. This includes doing public education and outreach at two major events this week: the first at a Holiday Job Fair organized by Congressman Pete Aguilar's office on Friday, November 6th from 9am to 12pm and at the Inland Empire Concerned African American Churches Health Fair on Saturday, November 7th from 10am to 2pm.

Earlier this year, Time for Change Foundation launched Creating Health Alternatives Mobilizing Prop 47 or CHAMP 47. People like Diane Sapp, resident of San Bernardino, have benefitted from a legal clinic that TFCF hosted in July and other informational events. "All of the felony convictions in my record held me back for several years," shares Diane. "It meant always submitting job applications and never hearing back." It wasn't until the July legal clinic when she was able to reduce 3 of her convictions, 2 drug related and 1 burglary related to misdemeanors. "I couldn't believe it finally happened. I was so happy because next I can file for a dismissal."

These record changes can help people in their job searches, securing apartments, receiving several professional licenses, student loans, and certain housing and government benefits so they can end generational cycles of incarceration.

In addition, Prop 47 ensures savings from lower incarceration at the state level and the county level will be spent on crime prevention and treatment for both drug addictions and the mentally ill. A study by Stanford Law's Justice Advocacy Project finds 4,454 state prisoners have been released since the law passed. The project also found that it will keep 3,300 offenders out of prison every year, saving the state $93.4 million a year. The savings for the additional number of county jail prisoner to be released translates to an estimated $203 million across the state.

The Prop 47 petition window for felony reductions ends in 2 years on November 4 2017. Those eligible should act now and visit www.Timeforchangefoundation.org for the petition toolkit.

Prop 47 Informational Booths at the Following Two Events

Holiday Job Fair

Friday, November 6th 9am - 12pm

Inghram Community Center

2050 N. Mt Vernon Ave., San Bernardino, CA

IECAAC Wellness and Resource Fair

Saturday, November 7th 10am - 2pm

New Hope Family Life Center

1505. W. Highland Ave., San Bernardino, CA



Time for Change Foundation provides essential resources through our programs and services to families who desire to change the course of their lives by making the transition from homelessness and recidivism to self-sufficiency. We accept all forms of donations; please call our office for more information at 909-886-2994 or visit us on the web at www.Timeforchangefoundation.org.

Via: http://www.highlandnews.net/news/political/article_742b6248-823d-11e5-9439-57b38ca59e1b.html 

Governor Signs New Law Ending Fee for Sealing Juvenile Records

On September 30, 2015 Governor Brown signed into law SB 504, "Starting Over Strong", authored by Sen. Ricardo Lara. This new law removes California's fee for juvenile record-sealing, so that youth who turn 18 no longer need to pay to file court petitions to seal records of juvenile adjudications.

"We seek to restore the civil rights of all formerly incarcerated people, and making record-sealing free will help young Californians get jobs so they can support their families," said Dorsey Nunn, executive director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC), a co-sponsor of SB 504.

Every year, thousands of California youth are arrested. When they turn 18 and apply for jobs, many are denied employment for past mistakes. People with minor (non-serious) records are eligible to have them sealed, but most counties have charged fees (up to $150) for this service, which was cost-prohibitive to young people who lack jobs but want to Start Over Strong. This change will save millions of dollars as young people become able to seal their records, stay employed, and stay out of jail. Every person who gets a job generates payroll taxes for the state budget, and also saves the state the extremely expensive cost of incarceration. The fee itself generated less than half a million dollars in state revenue annually.

This new law improves economic outcomes for California’s youth and, in so doing, protects public safety by eliminating an unnecessary barrier to reentry for youth who are eligible for and seeking the juvenile record sealing remedy. Juvenile records can create barriers to employment and housing. An unsealed juvenile record can appear on a background checks, and lead to an unfairly adverse employment or housing decision. Without stable employment and housing, there is a higher chance that young people will recidivate and become involved in the adult criminal justice system.

SB 504 (Lara) was co-sponsored by LSPC, Youth Justice Coalition of Los Angeles, East Bay Community Law Center, and the California Public Defenders Association.

LSPC organizes communities impacted by the criminal justice system and advocates to release incarcerated people, to restore human and civil rights and to reunify families and communities. LSPC builds public awareness of structural racism in policing, the courts, and prison system, and advances racial and gender justice. LSPC's strategies include legal support, trainings, advocacy, public education, grassroots mobilization, and developing community partnerships.



Via: Legal Services for Prisoners with Children

Don't miss the Riverside Strong Communities Forum!

Los Angeles Record Change & Resource Fair

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2015

11:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Exposition Park

Los Angeles, CA 90037

President Obama Promoting Criminal Justice Reform

This month we saw President Obama visit a prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, making him the first ever sitting president to visit a federal correctional facility. The effects of the recent initiatives made by both him and his administration to promote our nations need for criminal justice reform are already proving their indispensability for the roughly seven million Americans who are either currently incarcerated or on probation or parole. (htt)

For the first time in our Nation’s history, criminal justice reform, fairer sentencing, and a reduction in government spending on prisons and mass incarceration has become a bipartisan issue. In a recent USA today article, Republican House Speaker John Boehner backed prison reform legislation on the basis of U.S. expenses stating, “Some of these people are in there under what I would call flimsy reasons. And so I think it’s time we review this process.” (htt1)

 We live in a nation that thrives on the prison industrial complex, and because of that we are the leading country in mass incarceration at 25%. (htt3)

Our criminal justice system does very little for drug related offenders in regards to rehabilitation, recovery, and re-entry, and instead operates through outdated and largely ineffective policies and procedures that are reminiscent of Reagan era War on Drugs ideologies and misconceptions.

President Obama has proved in his recent initiatives that our response to nonviolent offenders should reflect a preventative and rehabilitative nature, instead of the punitive and borderline vindictive sentencing that this particular prison demographic has been facing for nearly four decades. Through signing the Fair Sentencing Act, to the Justice Departments “Smart on Crime” initiative, to commuting the extensive sentences of nearly four dozen non-violent offenders, a change is finally becoming evident.

At Time for Change Foundation we believe in the value of potential of the human being and that treatment, not punishment is the solution. We are people that have made mistakes in our past, and are thankful for second chances!

As prioritized by the President, “we’re just at the beginning of this process, and we need to make sure that we stay with it.” (htt4)

For many of us we are far from the beginning; we have poured out sweat, blood, and tears to get to where we are today playing tremendous roles in our justice system. And although we still have a long way to go, we will not give up or lose heart. We must stay active and aware of what is being done and continue our fight for fair, supportive, and rehabilitative policies and practices that promote healthy families and thriving communities. 

By: Abry Elmassian, Intern

Time for Change Foundation

Criminal Justice Reform A Bipartisan Issue Amongst 2016 Presidential Candidates

The Incredible, Bipartisan, Kumbaya Moment for Criminal Justice Reform

When George W. Bush was governor of Texas, the state built 38 new prisons, and the state’s annual corrections expenditure jumped jumped by $1 billion to $2.4 billion, a 71 percent increase. That’s what it was to be tough on crime. No one would ever describe Bush’s successor, Rick Perry, as a softie or a liberal, but in his 15 years as governor, Perry became a prison reformer: signing laws to benefit juvenile of fenders, approving new standards for forensic crime labs, and increasing compensation for exonerated prisoners. At a Conservative Political Action Conference panel in March 2014, Perry criticized tough sentencing guidelines and praised drug courts that help steer addicts clear of prison. “You want to talk about real conservative governance?” he said. “Shut prisons down. Save that money.”

Perry is one of 23 contributors to a book just published by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law. It is a surprising sort of kumbaya moment as the 2016 campaign gets underway, a rickety bridge across America’s partisan chasm. Solutions: American Leaders Speak Out on Criminal Justice Reform includes essays from a wide range of congressional representatives and public figures, Republicans like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, Texas Senator Ted Cruz—and Democrats like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. Perry calls for other states to “follow the successful example of Texas [to] eliminate our incarceration epidemic”—he, as well as Walker, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and former Virginia Senator Jim Webb seek to expand drug treatment as an alternative to prison. Paul, Cruz, and Clinton want to ease mandatory minimum sentencing. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee wishes to treat drug addicts, eliminate financial waste, and “address character.”

This is quite something to witness.

“We have to take a step back and see if there’s a better approach with a lot of these non-violent drug crimes.”
Former Senator Rick Santorum

And more than any individual chapter in Solutions, it is the foreword written by Bill Clinton that most powerfully depicts the momentum of change. In his first presidential term, Clinton signed into law an omnibus crime bill with a three-strikes sentence. (Hillary Clinton, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, as first lady advocated these “tough measures.”) President Clinton puts it delicately and a little defensively here—“By 1994, violent crime had tripled in 30 years. Our communities were under assault”—of course mindful of his legacy. But he does not absolve himself. “It’s time to take a clear-eyed look at what worked, what didn’t, and what produced unintended, long-lasting consequences,” he writes. “Too many laws were overly broad instead of appropriately tailored… Some are in prison who shouldn’t be, others are in for too long, and without a plan to educate, train, and reintegrate them into our communities, we all suffer.”

In an interview Wednesday with Christiane Amanpour, the 42nd president again took a measure of responsibility for over-incarceration. “We cast too wide a net and we had too many people in prison,” he said.

Also last week, Rick Santorum—a Republican about as politically distant from Clinton as can be—made a parallel remark. Speaking to Bloomberg's David Weigel in South Carolina, Santorum said, “We have to look at the huge rates of incarceration and the ability of a person to be successful in society. We have to take a step back and see if there’s a better approach with a lot of these non-violent drug crimes.”

Criminal-justice reform now seems to be a thoroughly bipartisan issue. Last summer, Paul joined with Booker to introduce a bill to make it easier for nonviolent criminals to get jobs after prison. In September, Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, proposed a sentencing-reform bill that would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. “Making smart reforms to our drug sentencing laws will save the taxpayers billions of dollars,” Lee said. That would be $4.36 billion, to be exact, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In February, Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, introduced legislation that would help ex-convicts with their transition back to civilian life following prison: the Corrections Oversight, Recidivism Reduction, and Eliminating Costs for Taxpayers in Our National System (CORRECTIONS) Act.

Also in February, Koch Industries—a massive private company owned by the conservative Koch Brothers—helped launch the nation’s largest criminal-justice reform effort, in apartnership with the liberal Center for American Progress—whose president, Neera Tanden, served as policy director for Hillary Clinton’s previous presidential campaign. Strange bedfellows, but these are days of harmony.

The Kochs have framed the push around fiscal conservatism. Policies that push down prison populations would save the government billions. Speaking recently at Columbia University, Hillary Clinton concurred. “The price of incarcerating a single inmate is often more than $30,000 per year—and up to $60,000 in some states. That's the salary of a teacher or police officer,” she said.

Certainly the emphasis on cost-cutting helps in making this a bipartisan issue. But seeing criminal-justice reform as mainly a cost-cutting strategy has its problems. Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig of the New Republic has written about the GOP’s prison reform plans, noting that a “2014 National Research Council report found that, in a number of states, the criminal justice system has become the main distributor of healthcare, drug abuse treatment, mental health services, job training and education for the most disadvantaged populations in America.”

The trick now is putting plans forward that provide these services more effectively and efficiently to the prison population, even with today’s focus on cost-cutting, and to guarantee that such resources are available to the general population. As Bill Clinton said to Amanpour this week, “We wound up...putting so many people in prison that there wasn't enough money left to educate them, train them for new jobs and increase the chances when they came out so they could live productive lives.”

Peter Edelman, a Georgetown University law professor, worked in Bill Clinton’s administration until he resigned in protest against the president’s signing welfare-reform legislation. (His wife, Marian Wright Edelman, the president and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, employed Hillary Clinton when she was fresh out of law school.) In a phone interview, Edelman told me that, while he values the bipartisan push toward criminal-justice reform, the “devil is in the details.” He pointed to the Republican push toward budget cuts. “It’s quite inconsistent,” he said, to push to reduce prison populations in the name of criminal justice, and to simultaneously “want to cut food stamps, and Medicaid.” Talking about police misconduct and the need to overhaul the criminal-justice system is one thing, addressing the ongoing cycles of poverty another.

Edelman grants, and appreciates, “a certain degree of bipartisan agreement around certainly aspects of what happens to ex-offenders.” Reading Solutions, it’s hard not to revel in the pleasing accord: presidential debates might have a soft spot after all. But of Republicans who are putting forward criminal-justice reforms, Edelman said, “Let’s say, good, and let’s hold their feet to the fire.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the month that a Conservative Political Action Conference panel featuring Rick Perry took place.

Via: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-11/the-incredible-bipartisan-kumbaya-moment-for-criminal-justice-reform

The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act of 2014

Proposition 47: The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act of 2014 is an initiative for the November 2014 California ballot. Over the last 25 years there have been 1,000 changes made to the California penal code, many of those have made misdemeanor offenses become felonies. As a result, people of color have been highly impacted and continue reap the negative affects of mass incarceration in California. Annually, we spend $10 billion on the prison system with more than 130,000 people in prison at a yearly cost of $62,396.

Proposition 47 will permanently reduce incarceration and shift one $1 billion over the next five years alone to K-12 school programs and mental health and drug treatment. More specifically, Prop. 47 will:

• Reclassify six petty theft crimes including: petty theft , shoplifting, receipt of stolen property, writing a bad check, fraud, and drug possession (all under $950). 
• Create retroactive sentencing to those currently incarcerated and not at risk to public safety and any Californian with prior felony convictions (listed above).
• Re-allocate funds that will support rehabilitation; 65% will be shifted into mental health and drug treatment; 25% will support K-12 school programs; and 10% will go to victim services.

Hundreds of thousands of Californians that have paid the time for their crimes will now be able to fix their records which will ultimately eliminate the barriers to employment, housing, student loans, and public assistance. Prop. 47 will save billions in tax payers dollars and reduce the rates of recidivism so that children will not continue in the cycles of incarceration. 

For more information on The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act visit: http://www.safetyandschools.com/

Meet The Companies That Just Promised To Pull 60 Million Dollars From Private Prisons

Three investment groups announced this week that they will divest from the two major private prison corporations that constitute a massive share of America’s prison-industrial complex.

Scopia Capital, DSM, and Amica Mutual Insurance have all pledged to remove their collective investments of about $60,000,000 from the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group — the two prison companies that own 75 percent of the nation’s private prisons. The decision to divest comes on the heels of pressure from Color Of Change, a racial and economic justice advocacy group that ran a campaign asking a total 150 companies to stop investing in the private prison industry.

“In accordance with the principles of the UN Global Compact, with respect to the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights, the pension fund has divested from the for-profit prison industry,” DSM President Hugh Welsh said in a Color of Change statement. “Investment in private prisons and support for the industry is financially unsound, and divestment was the right thing to do for our clients, shareholders, and the country as a whole. DSM is committed to good corporate citizenship and operating in a way that contributes to a better world.”

Sixty million dollars is actually a drop in the bucket for GEO and CCA. The groups together earn over three billion dollars annually on private prisons, and even more on immigrant detention centers. But the move signals a growing distrust in the ballooning private prisons industry, which grew by “approximately 1600% between 1990 and 2009,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Other groups have previously reportedly divested, as well, but this may be the largest single successful divestment campaign.

“It’s an important first step,” said Carl Takei, the private prison expert in the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “To the extent that investment firms are committing themselves publicly to divestment, that is a very important step. To the extent that investment firms are deciding that private prisons are a bad investment, that’s even more important.”

CCA lost four of its prison contracts with states last year — and that combined with slowly falling imprisonment rates may actually make private prisons not just morally questionable but financially unstable, Takei pointed out.

“We’ve started to turn the corner on mass incarceration and if that’s something that makes private prisons a bad investment, that’s important,” Takei added. He said that if investment firms chose to divest for ethical reasons, it is “an important first step,” but that “the financial reasons justification would be huge.”

Studies have found that private prisons spend millions on lobbying to send more people to jail for longer periods of time. The facilities are often rife with abuse and neglect, too; accusations against the companies range from wrongful death to bad sanitation and even forcing a woman to give birth in a toilet. They do no favors for states that support them, either; Idaho was one of the places that ended its contract with CCA after the company handed over a $1 million settlement for falsifying staff hours and leaving mandatory monitoring spots unattended.

Bids to shorten prison terms get bipartisan support (and opposition)

WASHINGTON — For decades the Republican Party prided itself for being tough on crime, often putting Democrats on the defensive by pushing for longer, mandatory sentences for convicts.

In 1988, that hard-line stance helped sink the presidential dreams of then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was blamed in Republican TV ads for having released convicted killer Willie Horton as part of a weekend furlough program. (Horton failed to return after a furlough and went on to commit robbery and rape.)

But now, as the U.S. Senate prepares to take up the most far-reaching changes in years to federal sentencing and parole guidelines, some conservative Republicans are flipping sides, driven by concerns about the rising cost of caring for prisoners and calls for compassion from conservative religious groups seeking to rehabilitate convicts.

A surprising number of high-profile Republicans are working arm in arm with Democrats on legislation to shorten jail terms and hasten prisoner releases. At the same time, in their own reversal of sorts, key Democrats are arguing against the legislation in its current form.

"It's a little counterintuitive," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a conservative former judge who is co-sponsoring a proposal to let tens of thousands of inmates out of federal prisons early if they complete rehabilitation programs.

Though prison sentencing was once a clear divide between the parties, politics around the issue have shifted in recent years, blurring old lines, he said. "This is one of those subjects there isn't any clear partisan divide on," Cornyn said in an interview.

Now that the drug-fueled crime wave that began in the 1960s and lasted through the early 1980s has abated, public opinion polls indicate that crime ranks well below the economy and other issues on the public's list of concerns.

But mandatory-minimum prison sentences and other tough-on-crime measures passed during that era have led to a surge in prison populations in state and federal facilities, causing costs to skyrocket. There has been an 800% increase in the federal prison population in the last 30 years, gobbling up a third of the Justice Department budget.

As a result of the growth, deficit hawks in the Republican Party began to rethink the issue. Nearly a third of the states, led by conservative Texas, have passed reforms to relax their sentencing laws in the past several years.

"Republican governors are seeing that they have to do something about corrections costs," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in an interview.

At the same time, evangelical Christians, partly led by the prison ministries set up by Watergate felon Chuck Colson, are helping to make the once-discredited goal of prisoner rehabilitation popular with the religious right.

"The 'lock them up and throw the key far away from you'" philosophy of old has gotten politically stale, Whitehouse said.

As soon as this month, the Senate is expected to take up legislation that combines two bills that easily passed the Judiciary Committee. One cuts in half mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, and the other makes it easier to win early release. The combined measure would also make retroactive a 2010 law that reduced sentences for those previously convicted of possessing crack cocaine.

The legislation has attracted strong support from Republican conservatives such as Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas. "I think it's a mistake for people to assume that all conservatives or all Republicans have the same view in this regard, that we should kill them all and let God sort it out," said Paul Larkin, a criminal justice expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

Sentencing nonviolent offenders to decades in prison is "costly, not only in dollars but also the people involved," Larkin said. "Sending someone to prison for a long time is tantamount to throwing that person away."

But the new politics of crime remain complicated, with some old-line Republicans still opposed to the proposals. "Do we really want offenders like these out on the streets earlier than is the case now, to prey on our citizens?" Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley said in a recent Senate speech, referring to the bill to ease mandatory-minimum sentences. Grassley, however, supports the early-release proposal.

In a twist, some key Democrats are also opposed to the efforts to relax mandatory minimums and allow early releases, while others remain on the fence. Facing a Republican campaign to seize control of the Senate this fall, Democrats are concerned about appearing soft on crime, a vulnerability that has haunted them in the past.

At least five Senate Democrats are fighting for their political lives in November, and proponents of the measures are not sure how many of them might vote against the bills, possibly jeopardizing passage.

"The ghost of Willie Horton has loomed over any conversation about sentencing reform for over 30 years," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), cosponsor with Lee of the mandatory-minimum cuts. Even Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) has voiced concerns about the early releases. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), another senior member, is also opposed to the current proposal. And Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a liberal Democrat from New York who for years has cultivated a tough-on-crime profile, is working to diminish some of the reductions in mandatory sentences.

Feinstein objected to the bill because it would allow the early release of prisoners who complete certain rehabilitation programs with no individual assessment of how dangerous a prisoner might be.

But Durbin predicted that changes to his bill currently being negotiated with Schumer and Republicans would lead to passage of the package in the Senate.

Legislation to make some of the same changes has also been introduced on a bipartisan basis in the House. But House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.) has so far taken a go-slow approach, using a task force — which he said will continue to meet for months — to examine the issues.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sentencing-politics-20140421,0,1398195.story#ixzz2zXuJHn6C

Analyst says Jerry Brown's prison plan is short-term fix

Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to reduce prison overcrowding may satisfy a looming federal deadline but it does not represent a durable long-term solution, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

In a victory for the Brown administration, the federal panel adjudicating the struggle over California's prison overcrowding recently gave the state two more years to reduce its population to constitutional levels.

While the LAO concludes that California is on pace to slip under the federal cap, the nonpartisan analyst faulted Brown's plan for relying too much on the use of county jails and private prisons. Brown's budget would spend $481 million to place just under 17,000 inmates in so-called contract beds .

A strategy combining contract beds with other changes, such as increasing good time credits and expanding parole for the elderly, inmates with serious medical conditions and second-strikers, will likely get California under a federally-mandated cap by the new 2016 deadline, the LAO found.

But the state's prison population is projected to climb again in subsequent years. Relying on contract beds will also place a costly burden on the state, the LAO argues, to the tune of about $500 million annually.

"The plan contains relatively few measures that would help the state maintain long-term compliance other than relying indefinitely on costly contract beds," the report concludes.

Given those risks, the LAO urged the Legislature to craft some longer-term policy solutions. 

Its recommendations include reducing certain sentences and converting some crimes to "wobblers" that can be charged either as misdemeanors or felonies -- an approach Brown vetoed last year - allowing inmates to earn more early release credits for good behavior, and expanding programs that allow adult men to serve part of their sentences outside of state prison.

The two-year extension, granted earlier this month, came after the governor secured legislative approval last year of his package allocating $315 million to house excess inmates.

But because California received the two-year extension, Brown's budget proposes taking some of the money approved last year to house more inmates and depositing it instead into a Recidivism Reduction Fund.

Specifically, Brown's budget also proposes channeling just under $50 million from the recidivism fund into re-entry hubs and around $30 million on substance abuse, rehabilitation and mental illness programs.

That infusion might help for the coming budget year, but it will quickly exhaust the recidivism fund, the LAO said. To sustain the types of programs Brown proposes funding, the Legislature would need to continue dipping into the General Fund on an annual basis.

"The Governor's budget proposals create or expand programs that would require ongoing funding to effectively reduce the prison population," the LAO report estimates.

The LAO also rejected both the governor's plan to fund re-entry hubs, which use education and treatment to prepare inmates nearing the end of their terms to reintegrate into society. 

The report cast doubt on whether re-entry hubs effectively reduce recidivism.
Similarly, the report urged the governor to discard his plan to spend $11.3 million on integrated drug treatment, calling the program unproven and overly costly.

Instead, the LAO recommends diverting the $60 million set aside for those two programs towards an initiative rewarding counties that keep paroled felons from returning to state prisons.


PHOTO: Inmates inside the jail cells in the old Stanislaus County downtown main jail in Modesto on Wednesday June 19, 2013.The Sacramento Bee/Manny Crisostomo.

Attend the Justice Reinvestment Hearing in LA

Dear Supporter,

“The Select Committee on Justice Reinvestment’s goal will be real data-based, long-term solutions that will help us stop spending excessive money on prisons and allow us to focus more on investments that grow our economy and provide opportunity.”  Speaker Pérez said.

Attend the next hearing in Los Angeles Hearing on Friday, February 28th.

Bring your stories and experiences; this is a rare chance for Committee members to hear from people who are not law enforcement or government officials. 

I served 45 years in prison, starting on Death Row. Almost two years ago I was paroled, I attempted to obtain employment within the city to no avail.  Like many former prisoners hunger and economic issues led down to a despairing path of homelessness.

Fortunately, I discovered a community based organization, they gave me what everyone needs: a fair chance!

We know how to reduce spending on incarceration and invest that money to expand alternatives like the Fair Chance Program that better serve communities all across the state!

My skills are being utilized in a meaningful way; I am properly housed, fed and very grateful. We need the Committee on Justice Reinvestment to hear our stories.

See you there,

Ernest Shepard III

Fair Chance Project a member of Californians United for a Responsible Budget

Gov. Jerry Brown wins two more years to reduce prison crowding

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday won two more years to reduce prison crowding, a significant victory in his protracted battle with federal judges over inmate numbers.

The judges gave the governor until the end of February 2016 to ease crowding to levels they consider safe and imposed a schedule for doing so. In return, the administration must immediately make more inmates — mostly the elderly and ill — eligible for parole.

Monday's ruling averts a potentially explosive showdown between Brown and the judges before the governor officially launches his expected reelection campaign. It also reduces the chances that Brown will be forced to release inmates early — although if the state misses any of the court's new deadlines, a yet-to-be-named official will have the power to set prisoners free.

"It is obviously very good news for the governor," said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State L.A. The prospect of public backlash over mass prison releases, even those ordered by a court, "did have potential for creating problems for what is largely a smooth reelection campaign."

The judges' first benchmark is June 30, by which time the state must shed 1,000 inmates from its lockups, despite an increase in the rate at which they are arriving.

California now has 117,600 prisoners in prisons built for 81,600, and just over 12,200 more are housed in contract beds scattered across four states. The administration's most recent projections show that without changes, California will add about 10,000 inmates in the next four years.

In agreeing to Brown's request for a delay, the panel of three judges — who last spring excoriated the governor for defying their orders — cite his proposal to end the legal tussle and to "consider the establishment of a commission to recommend reforms of state penal and sentencing laws."

The governor has not announced a concrete plan for the formation of such a panel.

cj

Lawyers for inmates say a constitutional crisis has been avoided now that the judges won't have to carry out their threat to hold Brown in contempt. But otherwise the attorneys found little to like.

"We're quite disappointed," said Michael Bien, lead lawyer for about 33,000 inmates in a class-action case over prison mental health care. "There is no justification for the delay. All of the things they are talking about doing now, they could have done years ago."

Republican critics of Brown's prison policies were upset that the state must now put more felons on parole, even through credits for good behavior.

"This court order is tragic," said a statement from state Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber), a frequent critic of Brown's criminal justice record. "Once released, these dangerous felons will threaten our local communities, where residents are already suffering from increased crime and where police agencies are overburdened."

But state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), who had worked independently to negotiate a settlement between the state and the court, called the outcome "the best of both worlds."

The state now has the time to invest in rehabilitation programs aimed at keeping offenders from returning to prison once they are released, he said, while the inmate population "continues to be reduced in real and enforceable ways."

Steinberg, an advocate for the revision of California's sentencing laws, nodded to political realities by adding, "There's no question sentencing reform has to be the twin of these investments.... It is probably better in a non-election year."

Brown also has acknowledged the political realities of the prolonged crisis. He has been meeting with law enforcement agencies and prosecutors across the state to talk about the effects of his first pass at reducing prison crowding — a law that since late 2011 has diverted lower-level felons and parole violators to county jails, many of them already overcrowded.

Under the judges' Monday order, Brown must immediately go forward with plans he announced last month. Those include expanding eligibility for parole for inmates who are medically incapacitated or those over 60 who have spent at least 25 years in prison.

He must also allow "second-strikers" whose crimes were nonviolent to shave off up to a third of their prison time through good behavior or participation in rehabilitation programs. And those prisoners must be considered for parole when they have served half their sentence.

Brown's administration also agreed to open programs at 13 prisons to help prepare inmates for release and to pursue discussions on opening similar facilities in some counties.

The two-year grace period from U.S. District Judges Lawrence Karlton and Thelton Henderson and 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt frees up money Brown said he would have otherwise used to lease more custody beds. In his budget proposal last month, the governor earmarked $40 million for the reentry programs now required by the court.

The judges' order also comes with a continued freeze on the number of beds California can rent in other states.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

via: http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ff-brown-prisons-20140211,0,607017.story#ixzz2t2NwoStC

No Link Between California’s Prison Realignment and Increased Crime?

Despite being blamed by some members of law enforcement for a recent uptick in crime in some counties, there is no connection between California’s Prison Realignment and increased criminal activity, according to a report released Wednesday.

The Center of Juvenile and Criminal Justice report found little evidence of there being more crime due to realignment based on random crime trends in counties since the implementation of the law.

For example, Los Angeles County, which has one of the highest percentage of realigned offenders, has continued to see a steady drop in total crime, including an 11 percent decrease in violent crime.

This lack of a clear pattern of crime shows it’s still too soon to draw any conclusion when it comes to the relationship between realignment and crime, according to a Center of Juvenile and Criminal Justice news release.

“We are pleased that CJCJ took an impartial look at the data and found no causal relationship between crime and realignment…,” said Jeffrey Callison, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Callison said crime rates are continually rising and falling, and they vary from one community to the next, and from one crime category to the next.

California was ordered to reduce the state prison population to about 110,000, or 137.5 percent of prison capacity, as a way to improve the quality of inmates’ health. To accomplish that, Assembly Bill 109, the state’s prison realignment law, shifted the responsibility of monitoring lower-level inmates from the state to the counties.

Under AB 109, those convicted of a triple-non offense — nonviolent, nonserious, nonsexual — would be eligible to be supervised by county probation departments or serve their sentences in county jail. AB 109 was implemented Oct. 1, 2011, as a way for the state to comply with a federal three-judge panel’s order to decrease the population of California’s prisons. The panel found the overcrowded conditions in state prisons led to inadequate medical attention for inmates.

However, high-ranking law enforcement officials from across the state have talked about the dangers of prison realignment.

Glendale Police Chief Ronald De Pompa has called the legislation “dangerous public policy,” and Fontana Police Chief Rod Jones has labeled the law a failure after an AB 109 probationer, David Mulder, allegedly fatally stabbed a woman in 2013 at a Fontana Park and Ride.

At this week’s Lakewood State of the City address, sheriff’s Capt. Merrill Ladenheim referenced a report from the Public Policy Institute of California that found a connection between AB 109 and property crimes. During his presentation at the meeting, Ladenheim called realignment, as well as the issue of county jail capacity, a challenge to public safety.

Along with finding no real connection between realignment and an increase in crimes, the Center of Juvenile and Criminal Justice report, which used data from 2010 to 2012, found that California’s 58 counties have seen varying crime rates since the implementation of AB 109.

Kings County had a 46 percent increase in violent crime trends, according to the data used for the report, while Humboldt and Napa counties saw a 26 percent drop.

Los Angeles County, which received a higher-than-average proportion of realigned offenders, has experienced a drop in violent as well as property crimes.

Only Placer, Sacramento, San Mateo and Tulare counties experienced similar, across-the-board crime reductions, however, they have relatively smaller populations compared to Los Angeles County.

San Bernardino County saw an increase in overall crime by about 10 percent from 2010 to 2012 but a slight decrease in violent crime.

Some experts said they feel it’s not necessarily those who are under county supervision who may be driving up some crime rates but those who are no longer under the watch of any agency.

“Realignment now permits offenders who are sentenced under AB 109 guidelines to be given straight or split sentencing, thus allowing them to avoid any supervision after serving a jail sentence instead of a prison commitment,” said Chris Condon, spokesman for the San Bernardino County Probation Department.

Under sentencing code 1170, a person convicted of a triple-non can opt to serve a portion of their time in county jail and then spend the remainder of their time being supervised by county probation. They can also serve their entire time in county jail and not require any supervision once their terms have been completed.

“These offenders do not fall under our jurisdiction, and recidivism rates cannot be determined,” Condon said. “We know that there has been a 40 percent reduction in recidivism for the AB 109 offenders we do supervise.”

via: http://justicenotjails.org/no-link-between-californias-prison-realignment-and-increased-crime/

Sentencing commission, suggested in Sacramento, faces long odds

Key California lawmakers this summer suggested that a commission to review and overhaul criminal sentences not only could bring coherence to a disjointed system but also perhaps ease chronic prison overcrowding in the long term.

But the idea now appears stalled, despite the incentive of federal litigation that could force Gov. Jerry Brown to release as many as 10,000 inmates next spring. Lawmakers chastened by a history of unsuccessful sentencing commission bills hold out little hope that this time could be different.

“These issues are hard,” Sen. President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said in an interview last week. “They’re hard to bite off politically.”

The notion of a panel to overhaul California’s penal code has percolated for decades but eluded proponents time and again. Supporters argue that a steady accumulation of different regulations, layered on top of one another over time, has led to a labyrinth of sentencing guidelines.

“There is a lot of disproportionate punishment in our penal code, and that’s because not uncommonly a horrible crime may be committed in someone’s district and so the response is legislatively to get tougher,” said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. “These are emotional issues,” he added, “and to have politics infused in all of our decision-making does not create the most sound public policy.”

State sentencing commissions are typically independent bodies, appointed by officials, that study a state’s galaxy of sentencing laws and condense them into a comprehensive framework. They issue guidelines that would increase or decrease sentences for various categories of crimes.

That troubles some law enforcement leaders who see the potential for weakened sentences. And it rattles lawmakers wary about constituents – or future electoral opponents – who could hold them responsible for changes that emanated from an unelected body.

“No legislative body wants to give up power,” said Rep. Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, a former Assembly speaker who pursued a sentencing commission during her time in the Legislature.

Historically, the state’s law enforcement community has been hostile to allowing appointed entities to dictate consequences for crimes. District attorneys, sheriffs and police chiefs have opposed past efforts, raising concerns about who would sit on panels with expansive authority to reshape criminal justice.

“In California, the only times sentencing commissions come up, it has been code for sentence reductions,” said Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully.

But the idea resurfaced this summer when Gov. Jerry Brown, seeking to satisfy a federal order to reduce California’s prison population without resorting to more early releases, proposed spending an additional $315 million to provide more cells. Steinberg broke with the governor, rallying Senate Democrats behind an alternate plan that questioned expanded capacity.

Among other provisions, Steinberg’s blueprint included a detailed plan for immediately creating an 18-member sentencing commission that could provide recommendations by the end of 2014. A letter to Brown argued that “short-term fixes provide no sustainable remedy.”

Steinberg’s letter said the panel would make recommendations aimed at “long-term prison capacity, staying within the (prison capacity) cap, including changes in criminal sentencing and evidence-based programming for criminal offenders.”

He included private poll results that showed nearly three-fourths of Californians supported a panel “to streamline California’s criminal statutes with the goal of safely reducing prison costs and maximizing public safety.”

But by summer’s end, the governor got his cash infusion. The final bill also created a special corrections policy committee tasked with broadly examining criminal justice in California.

Last week, Steinberg called sentencing reform “a key piece” of rethinking the state’s criminal justice system. But he expressed doubt that substantial changes would materialize in the coming legislative session.

While Brown is considered an overwhelming favorite to win a second term (he has yet to formally declare a campaign), potential Republican challengers perceive the governor as vulnerable on public safety. They have hammered his plan, known as prison realignment, to shuffle low-level offenders to county jails.

“I hope there’s a lot of discussion on it this year,” Steinberg said of a sentencing overhaul, “but my expectation is it is what will largely be a second-term issue for Gov. Brown.”

This session, Leno carried his second consecutive bill easing penalties for simple drug possession.Brown vetoed it.

Part of Leno’s argument emphasized the state’s uneven sentencing statutes, which make possession of cocaine a felony but allow possession of Ecstasy or methamphetamine to be charged as misdemeanors. Leno cited such inconsistencies in arguing that the sentencing commission is “an idea whose time has come,” adding that the state’s struggles to reduce its prison population“only underscores the need for it.”

“This is not a radical notion or a novel idea,” Leno said, pointing to more than 20 other states that have established similar commissions.

Bass described a similar scenario when, as Assembly speaker, she pushed a sentencing commission bill in 2009. Then, as now, California was grappling with a federal court order to trim its prison population, and some saw a durable solution in an overhaul of sentencing laws. But the bill collapsed, marking at least the 12th time in the last 25 years lawmakers have pressed the concept and failed.

“I viewed it as an opportunity to put something in place that would prevent us from being in the same situation again,” Bass said. She attributed the measure’s failure in part to lawmakers fearing they would be “barraged” with electoral challenges.

Past sentencing commission efforts have self-destructed because the panel’s recommendations, though subject to legislative approval, would have carried the force of law, argued Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley.

By contrast, Steinberg proposed a purely advisory body.

After seeing previous resentencing campaigns stymied, Hancock said an advisory commission may be the only tenable approach. Even if a commission’s recommendations remain just that, Hancock said she would push to see them implemented.

“It’s just so important to cast some rational light on what goes on with our sentencing that I would be happy to see one that makes discretionary recommendations,” Hancock said.

“As long as I chair the Public Safety Committee in the Senate,” Hancock added, “those recommendations would not sit on the shelf.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/23/6021724/sentencing-commission-suggested.html#storylink=cpy