California prison population drops under Proposition 47, but public safety impact still unclear

Citrus Heights police Officer Wesley Herman recently arrested a parolee carrying stolen jewelry and a deceased man’s identification card.

If the property was valued at more than $950, the case was a felony that would let him take the man into custody. If not, it was a misdemeanor and he’d get a citation.

The first words out of his mouth, Herman said, were, “Am I going to jail?”

It’s been nine months since California voters approved a ballot measure reducing charges for some nonviolent drug and property crimes, and Herman says repeat offenders are getting savvy about the new limits of the law.

“These guys know that if they are running around with less than $950 of stolen property on them, they’re not going to jail,” he said. “They’re always trying to stay a step ahead of us.”

Continuing the recent trend away from decades of tough-on-crime policy, nearly 60 percent of voters last November supported Proposition 47, which reduced from felonies to misdemeanors offenses including drug possession for personal use. Savings on correctional spending, estimated to be hundreds of millions of dollars annually, is intended to go to mental health and drug treatment, anti-truancy efforts and victim services.

Only a spotty picture has emerged of the law’s early effects: Supporters celebrate that tens of thousands of current and former convicts have already had the felonies on their records changed to misdemeanors, opening up new opportunities for jobs, housing and public benefits. Police and prosecutors argue that it has made their jobs more difficult.

Communities across the state fret about the connection to spikes in crime, but those familiar with public safety statistics say it’s too soon to know whether anecdotes from the street are evidence that Proposition 47 is responsible.

“Law enforcement isn’t a place where change is readily embraced,” said Tom Hoffman, a longtime police officer and former director of California’s parole operations, who advised the Proposition 47 campaign. For this sentencing overhaul to succeed, it will take “a lot of time and a lot of patience and, quite candidly, a lot of courage.”

Proposition 47 has accomplished at least one of its objectives already.

As of this week, 4,347 inmates have been released from state prisons due to resentencing, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The releases helped push the overcrowded prison system below court-mandated capacity levels by February, a full year ahead of its deadline.

Many more individuals have successfully petitioned at the county level to have their records changed, including approximately 1,400 so far in Sacramento County. As some inmates are released from jail and cramped facilities clear out, more serious offenders are serving longer portions of their sentences.

“We want to be very careful about who we’re putting in a cage,” said Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, because incarceration can sometimes “work at cross-purposes” with those people turning their lives around.

Nearly 3,600 defendants in Santa Clara County have had their felonies reduced to misdemeanors since November. Rosen, one of only three district attorneys in California to endorse Proposition 47, said they are sending fewer people to prison for these crimes than before.

“The benefits to our society from locking up fewer nonviolent offenders will in the long run translate into safer communities, a better economy, and stronger services,” he said.

Increases in crime during the first half of the year, however, have raised early doubts in many communities.

Preliminary statistics for the city of Sacramento show a 25 percent rise in violent crime, including homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, through June, compared with the same period in 2014. Property crimes, such as burglary and motor vehicle theft, are up about 5 percent, though larcenies have dropped slightly.

The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office has seen a 9 percent increase in filings so far this year for cases it is pursuing – an 11 percent drop in felonies offset by a 27 percent jump in misdemeanors.

Magnus Lofstrom, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California who has studied the impacts of realignment, cautioned against drawing conclusions from the data.

Upticks in violent and property crime rates during the first year of realignment caused similar concerns, Lofstrom said. With the exception of a boost in auto thefts, however, the spike was in line with increases in states that did not undergo realignment, and crime rates have since dropped again.

With a surge of releases under Proposition 47, “it’s fair to say it puts an upward pressure on crime rates” for the types of low-level offenses those inmates committed, he added. But he said it’s very difficult to attribute a particular change in law to a change in crime rates. Cities and counties vary in their staffing levels, law enforcement priorities and reentry services for released offenders.

Law enforcement officials feel more certain of the connection, pointing to “unintended consequences” of the law.

Herman of the Citrus Heights Police Department said Proposition 47 has limited the ability of police to respond to drug-related crimes.

Previously, he said, he was able to take someone to jail for simple possession, where at least “he’s going to be clean a few days.”

“Now you have to show that this is a crime heinous enough to take them out of the community,” he said.

Instead of being arrested, the suspect might instead receive a citation to appear in court in 30 days. Herman said that allows addicts to keep using – and potentially commit thefts to support their habit.

“It’s been difficult for us to prevent as many crimes as we could have before,” he said. “Our hands do sometimes get tied.”

The changes have also had a detrimental effect on California drug courts, according to prosecutors.

Those programs provide offenders with the option of seeking treatment for substance abuse rather than facing prison time. But without the “hammer” of a felony now hanging over them, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said, those arrested for drug-related crimes have little incentive to choose rehabilitation over the lesser charges.

“Logically, many of those people who have the addiction problems that we want to address are not going to avail themselves of that because it’s too much work,” she said, adding that it creates a “revolving door” for petty criminals to return to the streets and reoffend. “If you don’t have accountability for criminal behavior, there’s no reason not to commit that criminal behavior.”

The number of cases in Sacramento County’s two drug courts has fallen to 587 from 970 since the passage of Proposition 47. In Fresno County, one drug court has halved to 280 cases, while another lost all 80 of its participants.

San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos said proponents of the measure went about their aims in the wrong way. Established diversion programs in his county are collapsing – drug court participation is down 60 percent – and there are not yet resources to create new ones.

While 65 percent of any savings on correctional spending from Proposition 47 is earmarked for mental health and drug treatment programs to keep at-risk individuals out of custody, counties won’t see any of that money until August 2016, after the next budget cycle.

“What are they going to do in the meantime?” Ramos said. “They should have had a plan in place.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article30455739.html#storylink=cpy

Law Enforcement, Health Advocates, and Members of Congress Push to Reduce the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jails

WASHINGTON, DC—Not long ago, Paton Blough stood before a class of law enforcement officers to teach them effective ways to intervene with people with mental health needs. It’s a topic Blough knows all too well: He’s been arrested six times, in each instance while experiencing a mental health crisis. He remembers one arresting officer who wanted to help him.

“If there would have been an opportunity to take me some place besides an ER or a jail, he would’ve loved to have taken it,” Paton told a crowded room during a Capitol Hill briefing last week. “We’ve got to get behind these programs that prevent problems, improve lives and save us money while making the communities safer.”

Programs that can help reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in jails, ranging from police training to certified peer support, are the basis for a new wave of national efforts highlighted Tuesday as Congressional leaders joined the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and the National Association of Counties (NACo) to discuss potential federal reforms and a new national initiative driven by the two organizations.

The briefing, which featured remarks from U.S. Sen. Al Franken (MN-D) and U.S. Rep. Rich Nugent (R-FL), underscored bipartisan commitment to prioritize this issue for the 114th Congress, highlighted successful local efforts, and introduced a new national initiative emphasizing state-local collaboration and targeted action on the ground level.

“This is a moral issue and an economics issue,” said Sen. Franken. “When we use our jails to warehouse people with mental illnesses, we burden the judicial system, the public health system, our law enforcement offices, and the taxpayers. In confronting this problem, we know that some of the most innovative solutions come from our local communities. It’s our job to make sure they’re properly supported.”

Rep. Nugent added: “Senator Franken and I are probably a couple of odd fellows because on most of instances we won’t agree. But on this one we do agree, and this is where bipartisanship really has to come together. We have the ability to change where we go forward … This is one area that the federal government can actually make an impact on the people we represent, a typically unrepresented population.”

NACo and the CSG Justice Center, together with other leaders in behavioral health and criminal justice, also discussed plans for an unprecedented effort to lower the number of people with mental illnesses in jails by improving access to effective mental health and co-occurring substance use treatment, strengthening criminal justice collaborations with behavioral health stakeholders, and advancing public safety goals.

“Counties are working to reduce the number of people with behavioral health and substance abuse needs in jails across the country,” said NACo Executive Director Matthew Chase. “This cutting-edge initiative will help counties focus on results and take their efforts to the next level. It will support action-oriented, comprehensive strategies to provide needed services in appropriate settings.”

The problem is clear: Jails in this country have replaced in-patient mental health facilities as the largest institutional treatment provider for adults with mental illnesses. Each year, more than 2 million people with serious mental illnesses are booked into jails, as well as millions more coping with less serious mental illnesses that jails are required to address. The majority of these individuals also have co-occurring substance use disorders, increasing their chances of staying longer in jail and being reincarcerated following their release.

The centerpiece of the initiative is a “Call to Action,” in which county leaders commit to a concrete, multi-step planning and implementation process that is supported by state policymakers, behavioral health and criminal justice practitioners, and other stakeholders to help achieve measurable results. The Call to Action will be launched in spring 2015.

John Wetzel, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and a member of the CSG Justice Center’s Board of Directors, provided closing remarks at the event, where he urged public officials and other stakeholders to “step up and do the right thing” regarding individuals and offenders with mental illnesses.

“Prisons were not designed to treat individuals with mental disorders, but the courts send these offenders to us and we must do everything possible to provide them with appropriate mental health services,” Wetzel said. “But in addition to these efforts, society in general needs to address this issue and seriously consider mental health courts and diversionary programs to ensure treatment for this segment of our population that does not include sending them to prison.”




via: http://csgjusticecenter.org/mental-health/posts/law-enforcement-health-advocates-and-members-of-congress-push-to-reduce-the-number-of-people-with-mental-illness-in-jails/

Proposition 47 Passes!

Proposition 47 lowers penalties for some nonviolent, low-level offenses and in doing so gives women and men a fair chance to rebuild their lives. Penalties for six low-level offenses will be reduced from potential felonies to misdemeanors, shortening the time people spend behind bars.

At the same time Proposition 47 saves the state money, as high as $1.25 billion in the first five years. Those savings will be allocated to K-12 after school programs, mental health and substance abuse treatment programs and victim services programs.

Read our October 3, 2014, Huffington Post article in support of Prop 47.

Why did we support this proposition? Because Proposition 47 supports women. Women are more likely to have been convicted of a crime involving drugs or property, just the offenses covered by this initiative. In California, women are three times more likely to be in prison for forgery or fraud and twice as likely for petty theft.

Our research also shows that women suffer disproportionately upon release from prison. Our recent report Bias Behind Bars revealed that, compared to men, women incarcerated for felonies are less likely to obtain public benefits and find stable housing. Despite the low risk women with criminal records for nonviolent crimes pose to public safety, women also have more difficulty finding employment upon release. This is due to the over representation of women in the fields of retail, childcare and home health care—all fields where criminal records are of great concern. Some states legally bar those with criminal records from working with children and seniors. Fields that tend to be male-dominated, such as construction and manufacturing, generally are focused less on employees’ backgrounds.

The harmful effects of a felony charge extend beyond women’s lives to those of their families. Today, six out of 10 women behind bars are mothers of minors. Thousands of children are growing up without a mother at home to fix their meals, get them ready for school or contribute to the family income. While mothers are languishing in prison, children are languishing at home.

So how does Proposition 47 work? It changes six non-violent, low-level offenses (such as simple drug possession, petty theft and writing a bad check) from felonies to misdemeanors. Of course, women and men who commit these offenses would be held accountable for their actions… but they would not be considered felons, would avoid the stigma that comes with that charge, would serve in county jails closer to home and closer to their children and, because their sentences would be shorter, they would be reunited with their families sooner.

We wanted to acknowledge our Race, Gender and Human Rights (RGHR) giving circle for supporting Proposition 47 from the get-go by funding the organizing and outreach efforts by the Californians for Safe Neighborhoods and Schools.

The mission of RGHR is to promote human rights and racial and gender justice by challenging the criminal justice system and its use of mass incarceration in California.

via: http://womensfoundationofcalifornia.org/proposition-47-passes/

San Quentin plans psychiatric hospital for death row inmates

Under court pressure to improve psychiatric care for deeply disturbed death row inmates, state officials are moving quickly to open a 40-bed hospital at San Quentin prison to house them.

The court-appointed monitor of mental health care in California's prison system reported to judges Tuesday that about three dozen men on death row are so mentally ill that they require inpatient care, with 24-hour nursing.

For now, they are being treated in their cells, but the state plans to have a hospital setting ready for them by November, according to documents filed Tuesday in federal court.

The plan calls for taking over and retrofitting most of a new medical unit recently built at the prison. A spokeswoman for the court's prison medical office said San Quentin officials plan to use medical facilities at other prisons if a shortage of beds arises as a result.

The urgency of psychiatric treatment for the mentally ill prisoners demands swift action, the court's monitor, Matthew Lopes, said in court papers. He said an agreement to provide the psychiatric wing at San Quentin was made possible by collaborative effort among the state, courts and prisoners' lawyers.

In December, after weeks of courtroom testimony on the treatment of about 10 unidentified death row prisoners, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ordered the state to provide condemned inmates access to inpatient psychiatric care. The court files show negotiations and planning began almost immediately.

Karlton also ordered mental health screenings of all 720 condemned men at San Quentin. Those evaluations concluded in late May with the identification of 37 condemned men for admission to the psychiatric unit. Lopes' report notes that San Quentin is bound to need room for additional patients.

Twenty female prisoners who are sentenced to die and housed elsewhere are not covered by Karlton's order.

Some analysts see irony in providing for the long-term mental health of those sentenced to die.

"This is the only place on Earth where you'd be talking about building a psychiatric hospital for condemned prisoners," said Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring, who has written about the U.S. capital punishment system. "It is a measure of American greatness and American silliness at the same time."

Federal courts have ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute people who are not aware of what is happening to them. "We are curing them to make them executable," Zimring said.

But San Francisco prisoners' rights lawyer Michael Bien, who argued the San Quentin case in court last fall, regards adequate psychiatric care as a fundamental right.

"The reality is these guys are going to live in this place for a long time, and you need to see they get the care they need," Bien said.

California, with the nation's largest death row, has not killed a prisoner since 2006. Later that year, state executions were stayed when condemned inmate Michael Morales challenged the lethal injection procedures.

The state attempted to adopt new protocols involving different drugs in 2010, but they remain under legal challenge.




In the interim, 44 inmates have died of age, disease, drug overdose or suicide, with the latter raising concerns about psychiatric care on death row. One of those who committed suicide was Justin Helzer, who helped his brother kill five people and dump their dismembered bodies into a Sacramento river in 2000.

According to last year's testimony, Helzer was found by San Quentin doctors to be delusional and schizophrenic and often refused medication. In 2010, he blinded himself by jabbing pens through the sockets of his eyes. In 2013, he made a noose out of his bed sheet and hanged himself in his cell.

Corrections officials had testified that psychiatric care for death row inmates was limited. Those sent to a psychiatric hospital within another state prison were quarantined from the rest of the population, limiting therapy.

San Quentin had set up unlicensed beds, providing the equivalent of outpatient treatment within a corner of its medical building. Karlton found both provisions inadequate.

Unlike other psychiatric hospitals within men's prisons, the one at San Quentin will be run by the corrections department and not the Department of State Hospitals.

Gov. Jerry Brown's administration has not sought legislative approval for the San Quentin project. Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer said the state plans to use savings in prison mental health services elsewhere in the state to run the unit.

Jail is No Place to Treat Women’s Mental Health Issues

by Karen Shain, Criminal Justice Policy Officer

The first thing I noticed when we walked into the cell block was a woman sitting on top of a metal table. She saw us and slowly crawled off the table to sit on a metal stool. That’s as far as she could go, because she was tethered to the table by a chain.

A guard told us it’s a violation to sit on the table, but they don’t sweat the small stuff in the mental health wing. We weren’t in a mental health facility; this was the Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF), L.A. County’s main women’s jail.

This is where CRDF holds seriously mentally ill women who don’t have the resources to be admitted into private mental health hospitals. The guards explained that the women were always under physical control. They could stay in their single cells (which contained a metal bed and a toilet), be locked into a shower by themselves, could go “outside” (though a roof prevents them from seeing the sky or the sun), or they could sit chained to a table in the “day room.”

As long as a County mental health professional deems them a danger to themselves or others, these women will be held indefinitely.  The only way out is for them to get better, but how can they get better under these circumstances?

Mental illness is not a crime; it is a disease. CRDF does not treat women with this disease. It only pushes them further inward, back into their demons. What I witnessed was torture. Is that the best we can do?

I left the mental health wing of CRDF with an extremely heavy heart. But I also realized that if the Sheriff’s Department showed us this mental health wing – something they can’t be proud of – they must be looking for advocates to help them fund a new jail with improved conditions for women.

But even the goal of “improved” conditions misses the point.  Treatment, not incarceration, is the solution for most women, and effective treatment cannot happen under duress.
Nearly one out of every three women (31 percent) in county jails is there because of mental illness, which is double the percentage for men. As the nation and California dismantled mental health facilities and funding over the decades, our jails and prisons have become the largest mental institutions in the country. Believe it or not, they are also the largest geriatric facilities and homeless shelters.

Building more jails will not help these women or men, nor will it stop cycles of crime that jeopardize our neighborhoods and our personal safety because it is well-known that persons with mental illness who are put in jail have much higher rates of recidivism than those who receive mental health treatment in the community. Managing mentally ill people in our prisons and jails is also far more expensive than providing treatment in the community – treatment which is also much better than what is provided in jail.

This is not only about Los Angeles; it’s a national problem. But Los Angeles has the opportunity to do something better.

The LA Board of Supervisors is at a crossroads. They have several proposals before them to construct both a new women’s and mental health jail. The construction cost? Between $1.4-$1.6 billion, which does notinclude operating expenses, such as the almost $250 per day it costs to house and treat a woman with mental illness in jail. What if we tried something different—and better? Let’s redirect these billion plus dollars and invest instead in comprehensive and humane mental health and substance abuse treatment. As the Affordable Care Act (ACA), our national health reform law, is implemented in coming months, we have an opportunity to expand mental health and substance abuse access and treatment. Under ACA people who are financially eligible will be able to get mental health and substance abuse treatment at very little cost to California, but ONLY if they are not in jail.

California’s residents who bear the double burden of being impoverished and mentally ill should not find that their only option for mental health treatment is available if they fall into the criminal justice system. Treating them in the community would be the real way to improve their lives and those of their families and community, not putting them in a new and costly jail.

via http://womensfoundationofcalifornia.org/2013/10/18/jail-is-no-place-to-treat-womens-mental-health-issues/

A Psychologist’s Deceptions about Prison Abuse in California

“Brutal killers should not be glorified. This hunger strike is dangerous, disruptive and needs to end.”

That’s how Jeffrey Beard, head of California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), concluded his disturbingly deceptive August 6th op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. He was condemning a hunger strike that had begun a month earlier, when 30,000 inmates refused meals in solidarity with striking prisoners subjected to long-term and indefinite solitary confinement at Pelican Bay and the state’s three other “supermax” prisons. Now nearly two months in, over 100 inmates reportedly still remain on strike. But rather than negotiating with these prisoners, Secretary Beard’s office has instead sought and obtained a court order authorizing medically unethical force-feeding.

What is it that the striking prisoners want? They have five core demands: (1) compliance with recommendations from the 2006 report of the U.S. Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, including an end to long-term solitary confinement; (2) modification of the criteria used to determine gang status (which include tattoos and certain artwork or literature) and abolishment of the “debriefing” policy whereby release from isolation often requires informing on other prisoners; (3) an end to group punishment and administrative abuse; (4) the provision of adequate and nutritious food; and (5) the expansion of constructive programming and privileges (such as a weekly phone call and a yearly photo) for inmates held indefinitely in “Security Housing Units” (SHUs). Currently over 10,000 prisoners are held in isolation in California SHUs, with more than 500 of them having been in solitary confinement for over a decade.

When Secretary Beard was appointed to lead the CDCR last December, this could have been viewed as an encouraging sign. As Gov. Jerry Brown said then, “Jeff Beard has arrived at the right time to take the next steps in returning California’s parole and correctional institutions to their former luster.” Previously, he had also received high praise from the governor of Pennsylvania when he held a similar position in that state: “Jeffrey Beard is setting a positive example not just in Pennsylvania, but nationally. …His exemplary leadership has ensured the improved management of Pennsylvania's state prison system, and a safe place for inmates to rehabilitate.”

Even more, there was seemingly reason for optimism in the fact that Secretary Beard is a psychologist, having received his doctoral degree in counseling psychology over thirty years ago. That training should matter because among the core principles of psychologists’ professional code of ethics are all of the following: “respect the dignity and worth of all people,” “strive to benefit those with whom they work,” “take care to do no harm,” “safeguard the welfare and rights of those with whom they interact professionally and other affected persons,” and “guard against personal, financial, social, organizational or political factors that might lead to misuse of their influence.”

But eight months later, Dr. Beard’s background as a psychologist only adds to the outrageousness of his recent op-ed in which he repeatedly misrepresented the seriousness and legitimacy of the striking prisoners’ concerns, including here: 

Some prisoners claim this strike is about living conditions in the Security Housing Units, commonly called SHUs, which house some of the most dangerous inmates in California. Don't be fooled. Many of those participating in the hunger strike are under extreme pressure to do so from violent prison gangs, which called the strike in an attempt to restore their ability to terrorize fellow prisoners, prison staff and communities throughout California.

Dr. Beard’s office has offered neither evidence nor access for independent verification of these claims, and its misguided public relations campaign runs counter to compelling evidence of widespread abuse in the prison system. Last year Amnesty International issued a scathing report – titled “USA: The Edge of Endurance” – about California’s SHUs, based on a visit to Pelican Bay and other prisons in the state. The report concluded that conditions there “breach international standards on humane treatment” and amount to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” In describing prisoners who are confined to their cells for at least 22 and a half hours a day and have no access to work, group activities, or programs focused on rehabilitation, the report stated: 

Most prisoners are confined alone in cells which have no windows to the outside or direct access to natural light. SHU prisoners are isolated both within prison and from meaningful contact with the outside world: contact with correctional staff is kept to a minimum, and consultations with medical, mental health and other staff routinely take place behind barriers; all visits, including family and legal visits, are also non-contact, with prisoners separated from their visitors behind a glass screen.

In addition to the critical assessments from human rights organizations and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, Dr. Beard is certainly familiar with the research of fellow psychologists and psychiatrists documenting the extreme adverse effects of extended involuntary solitary confinement (sometimes referred to as the “SHU syndrome”), which can persist long after isolation has ended. Among the negative psychological effects identified by California psychologist Craig Haney, psychiatrist Terry Kupers, and other scholars in comprehensive reviews are lethargy, depression, hopelessness, and suicidal thoughts and behavior; anxiety, panic, and insomnia; irritability, hypersensitivity, aggression, and rage; and cognitive dysfunction,paranoia, and hallucinations. Haney has also noted that ten days in solitary confinement is enough to produce harmful health outcomes. Many of the prisoners at Pelican Bay have been held in isolation for years.

Exactly why Dr. Beard has decided to ignore, discount, or distort these unconscionable realities is ultimately beside the point. But the public should not be confused by his misleading rhetoric. The key demands of the hunger strikers are little different from prison reforms that have been strongly recommended by mental health experts and human rights advocates alike. 

In an essay published shortly after the CDCR Secretary’s op-ed appeared, Berkeley law professor Jonathan Simon argued that Dr. Beard’s public dishonesty and demonization of the hunger strikers demonstrate that he is the wrong leader to bring urgent reform to the “grotesque structure of inhumanity” that defines California’s prison system today. Simon called for “a protest movement and direct action campaign to force real change starting with Secretary Beard’s resignation.” Given their ethical commitment to the promotion of human welfare, psychologists should be among those at the forefront of these efforts.

Note: This essay first appeared on Counterpunch. The "Solitary Confinement" drawing is by Stan Moody.

State Senate Democrats propose alternative to Brown's prison plan

SACRAMENTO - Democratic leaders of the State Senate on Wednesday proposed an extran $200 million annually for rehabilitation, drug and mental health treatment as an alternative to Gov. Jerry Brown's plan for reducing prison overcrowding.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said Wednesday that his Senate Democratic Caucus wants the spending in exchange for a three-year extension of federal judges' Dec. 31 deadline for removing more than 9,600 inmates from state prisons.

Steinberg said the Senate proposal was preferable to Brown's plan to spend $315 million this year and $415 million in each of the following two years on alternate housing for inmates.

"Temporarily expanding California's prison capacity is neither sustainable nor fiscally responsible," Steinberg wrote to Brown and inmates' attorneys Wednesday. Inmate lawsuits led to the judges' ruling that state prisons are unconstitutionally crowded.

Any extension would have to be approved by the judges, who have castigated Brown for stalling on obeying their order to shed more prisoners.

Steinberg, flanked by 16 Democratic senators in a Capitol hallway, said the Senate plan is modeled on a 2009 state program that reduced new prison admissions by nearly 9,600.

The plan won a quick endorsement from the prisoners' attorneys.

"Sen. Steinberg's substantive proposals are acceptable to us and we are open to an extension" if all parties can agree on an approach "that will resolve the chronic overcrowding problem in the state's prisons," the attorneys said in a statement.

The lawyers said they were willing to meet with the governor and discuss ways to end federal court oversight of prison medical care, imposed because the judges said overcrowding led to inadequate healthcare and needless inmate deaths.

The judges are unlikely to extend their Dec. 31 deadline without evidence that the proposal would result in meaningful policy changes, said legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school atUC Irvine.

"I think the court wants to be sure this is not another delay," Chemerinsky said.

Steinberg's plan drew sharp criticism from Gov. Brown and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles).

"It would not be responsible to turn over California's criminal justice policy to inmate lawyers who are not accountable to the people," Brown said in a statement.

"My plan avoids early releases of thousands of prisoners and lays the foundation for longer-term changes, and that's why local officials and law enforcement support it," he said.

Pérez said in a separate statement that he was "deeply skeptical about Senator Steinberg's approach." It would give more power to "prisoner plaintiffs who favor mass release of prisoners," Pérez said.

Steinberg countered that his plan would also avoid early releases. But there may be no more money available for rehabilitation if the state spends more than $1 billion on incarceration over the next three years, the senator said.

Steinberg suggested that a middle ground might be found. "Does this lead to conversation that leads to a solution and compromise? I hope," Steinberg said. "You know me. It's not my way or the highway. We are putting down a settlement proposal here."

But time is short. Steinberg called for an agreement by Sept. 13, the Legislature's last meeting day this year. The settlement would provide for a panel of experts to set a new prison population cap.

In addition, an advisory panel would be formed to restructure sentencing laws so fewer offenders would be sent to prison in the long run.

The state "cannot assume that the plaintiffs and their lawyers, and the federal court, will agree to a three-year extension," said Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber).

On the other hand, nobody wants to be responsible for releasing thousands of inmates early because of a stalemate, said Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A.

"You'd have to think they are going to find some accommodation," Sonenshein said.

Meanwhile, Steinberg canceled a Senate confirmation hearing for two corrections department directors appointed by the governor.

"We have additional questions about the administration's ongoing corrections policy," said Steinberg spokesman Mark Hedlund. "It makes sense to wait before we consider those two appointments."


By Patrick McGreevy
patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Times staff writers Anthony York and Paige St. John contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times

AM Alert: California's mental health services examined

A topic close to the heart of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg- mental health - is the focus of a significant amount of public agency activity today.

The Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, created by voters in 2004 via Proposition 63, meets in San Francisco to discuss integrating mental health care -- in particular for substance abusers -- into a statewide health care regime. Experts expected to testify include Barbara Garcia, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health; Sandra Naylor Goodwin, president of the California Institute for Mental Health; and Deputy Chief Louise Rogers of the San Mateo County health system.

The California Health Facilities Financing Authority also meets to discuss how to disperse millions of dollars in grants to help counties bolster their mental health services. That comes courtesy of Steinberg-spearheaded budget legislation signed earlier this year that seeks to invest more money in community-based mental health services and crisis response teams.

VIDEO: Andy Vidak's victory in the 16th Senate district sets off some electoral dominoes, Dan Walters says.

FIELD POLL: The latest in a series of Field Polls is out, examining California's relationship with potential presidential contender Hillary Clinton. The analysis is up online, and you can take a look at the data here.

TALKING TAXES: Much of the discussion of California's taxes is framed in terms of the Golden State's tax rates relative to those of other states (we're looking at you, Rick Perry and Phil Mickelson). A talk today by Professor Darien Shanske of UC Davis will take a look at the fiscal issues particular to different states, including a deeper dive into local finances throughout California. From noon to 1:30 p.m. at 1130 K Street.

STEM-CELL SCIENCE: The Independent Citizens Oversight Committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which has faced scrutiny over the process by which it awards grants, meets in Burlingame from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today. Among other topics, they'll examine their policy around compensating stem cell donors.

PHOTO: The exterior of the Sacramento County Mental Health Treatment Center photographed Wednesday, September 30, 2009. The Sacramento Bee/Carl Costas.

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/07/am-alert-californias-mental-health-services-examined.html#storylink=cpy

via Sacramento Bee

Yoga Could Boost Prisoners' Mental Health

Yoga: the secret to less-stressed, better-behaved prisoners?

A new study by researchers from Oxford University, King's College London, the University of Surrey and Radboud University Nijmegen may suggest so.

The findings, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, show that prisoners who completed a 10-week course in yoga had less stress and better moods, and also performed better on a behavior-control task compared with their non-yoga-doing peers.

"We're not saying that organizing a weekly yoga session in a prison is going to suddenly turn prisons into calm and serene places, stop all aggression and reduce reoffending rates," study researcher Dr. Amy Bilderbeck, of Oxford University, said in a statement. "We're not saying that yoga will replace standard treatment of mental health conditions in prison. But what we do see are indications that this relatively cheap, simple option might have multiple benefits for prisoners' wellbeing and possibly aid in managing the burden of mental health problems in prisons."

For the study, researchers had prisoners from a range of institutions, including a women's prison, an institution for young offenders and five category B and C prisons (in the UK, these prisons are considered "closed" prisons, but the most serious criminals are not housed here). Researchers had some of the prisoners recruited for the study do 90-minute yoga sessions for 10 weeks, while the other prisoners constituted the control group and didn't do any yoga. Before and after the 10 weeks, all the prisoners completed questionnaires to analyze their well-being, mood and stress levels. They also did a computer test to measure their behavior control.

Researchers found that the prisoners who did yoga had improvements in their mental health measures as well as better scores on the behavior control test, though more research is needed to see if the results on the behavior control test translate to better behavior while in prison and beyond.

Of course, it's not entirely surprising that yoga can have these kinds of mental health benefits. A wealth of past research has looked at how exactly yoga seems to have these effects on the mind, with one recent review of 124 studies from Duke University researchers confirming that yoga benefits people with depression, sleep problems, ADHD and schizophrenia (alongside drug therapy).

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