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/ 

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

Court Rules that Denial of Sentencing Relief to Juveniles is Unlawful

The 4th District Court of Appeal, in a stunning rebuke to San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, today ruled that Proposition 47’s sentencing reclassification provisions apply equally to children and adults.

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis had sought to deprive juvenile offenders of the retroactive relief the initiative provides. Her office argued that juveniles are not eligible to have their past offenses reduced to misdemeanors, even though adults convicted of the same felonies may petition for such relief.

“Bonnie Dumanis, in her ongoing quest to mete out the harshest punishments to the most vulnerable San Diegans rather than pursue smart justice, disregarded the will of California voters and asked the Court to treat juveniles with misdemeanors as if they were felons,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, director of the ACLU of California’s Criminal Justice and Drug Policy Project. “Had her unsupported reading of the law been upheld, it would have given prosecutors across the state the authority to do what many would consider unthinkable – criminalize children more harshly than adults.”

Proposition 47, a measure which passed with nearly 60% of the vote in November 2014, ended felony sentencing for six petty crimes, including simple drug possession and petty theft, and created a resentencing process for those certain felonies to be retroactively reclassified as misdemeanors.

The ACLU argued that denying juveniles the resentencing relief provided to adults with identical offenses, and denying these juveniles similar relief to that provided to juveniles charged after the initiative went into effect, violates juveniles’ equal protection rights under the California and U.S. Constitution.

“Today’s ruling makes the future a little brighter for many young people in San Diego. The Court recognized that juveniles have the same rights as adults under Proposition 47 and may petition to have eligible felony adjudications reclassified as misdemeanors. Such relief opens up doors in education, employment, and the military, and will assist those facing any future criminal or immigration proceedings,” said Chessie Thacher, an attorney at Keker & Van Nest. “Keker & Van Nest is very pleased to have been involved in this outcome and hopes the Court’s well-reasoned decision sets the stage for consideration of this issue across the state.”

It would be absurd for adults to enjoy rehabilitation as misdemeanants while children are punished with felony records and all the collateral consequences. “Doing so would not only run contrary to the rehabilitative purpose of the juvenile justice system, but would be an abdication of a district attorney’s responsibility to seek justice,” said Dooley-Sammuli. “And the Court has now confirmed it is unlawful, something that our district attorney should have known.”

After Proposition 47 passed and went into effect, a juvenile, Alejandro N., and 75 other children petitioned the court to ask that their offenses be reclassified as misdemeanors, thus minimizing the myriad negative consequences of a having a felony on their records. California and San Diego voters overwhelmingly approved the initiative that included the expressly retroactive resentencing and reclassification provisions in order to achieve the broadest relief possible for nonviolent, non-serious offenders.

The children’s cases were joined by the superior court after District Attorney Dumanis opposed them, arguing that Prop 47 should be read to treat child offenders more harshly than adults.

This is now the law of the state of California.

Via: https://www.aclunc.org/news/court-rules-denial-sentencing-relief-juveniles-unlawful

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

Steinberg proposes $50 million for treating mentally ill criminals

Democratic state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg wants California to spend $50 million on programs that try to keep mentally ill criminals from re-offending.

The proposed legislation calls for bringing back a program that existed for about 10 years in California. The "Mentally Ill Offender Crime Reduction Grant" program allows counties to apply for funding to support mental health courts, substance abuse treatment, and employment training programs. Those efforts would reduce recidivism and crowding in California jails, Steinberg said, and help mentally ill people become more stable.

"We are trying to bring back something that was a great success in the late 90s early 2000s that went away as a result of the budget cuts," Steinberg said during a press conference this morning, where he was backed by law enforcement and mental health care leaders.

"We do not have a specific funding stream dedicated to providing mental health services to people in jail that continue once they leave jail and get into the community... We had that before, prior to 2008. We want to reinstate that and make it part of our overall approach."

Steinberg said lawmakers should treat California's projected budget surplus with an approach that dedicates one-third to paying down debt, one-third to reserves and one-third to spending.

"We shouldn't be shy about saying that there are areas of public investment that we must make, that are important," he said.

Speaking in support of Steinberg's proposal today were Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson; Sacramento County's Chief Probation Officer Lee Seale; Sacramento County's mental health director Dorian Kittrel and Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna.

PHOTO: Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, in March 2013. The Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/12/steinberg-proposes-50-million-for-treating-mentally-ill-criminals.html#storylink=cpy

via: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/12/steinberg-proposes-50-million-for-treating-mentally-ill-criminals.html

In California, Taxpayers “Pay More But Get Less”

By Carl DeMaio

Former San Diego City Councilman

Monday, July 15th, 2013

The never-ending debate in California politics for the last 30 years has been pretty much gone something like this: Californians need to give government more money or drastic cuts in services will have to be made.

Leading voices in the two political parties have lined up on the extremes of that debate and proceed to tug back and forth. So after 30 years, where are we? An analysis of government spending compared to service levels provided shows both sides won – if you can call it that.

California citizens are paying more for state government than ever before, but still receiving less in services. In many key service areas, Californians are receiving less for their tax dollars than residents in other states and less than previous generations of Californians received for their tax dollars.

What’s worse, that trend is not likely to change, unless we convince Californians that simply throwing more money into broken system will somehow produce better results. If we want better performance, we must fix the broken system first – whether that’s in education, health care, criminal justice or something as simple as filling potholes.

A close analysis of government expenditures and service levels in top the top program areas of state government illustrates what I’m dubbing the “pay more, get less” phenomenon in California.

Take education, for example, which is the highest priority for Californians according to state polls. Between 2000 and 2010, Californians have given an inflation-adjusted 27.4% increase to total education funding and between 2000 and 2012 have given an inflation-adjusted 45.8% average pay increase to our teachers.

Unfortunately, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, during the same period of time, student achievement fell when compared to other states. In 2000, California ranked 36th in math, but in 2011 ranked 49th. In 2002, California ranked 42nd in reading, but in 2011 ranked 49th. This past year California placed 49th in science.

Despite spending more even after adjusting for inflation, California is also left with the highest pupil-teacher ratio in the country, at 24.12 vs. the national average of 15.97. In fact, California’s ratio has actually increased in the past 10 years up from 20.50 in 2002.

One of the biggest complaints I receive from San Diegans relates to the poor condition of our roads. Are we getting our bang-for-the-buck in state highway maintenance? Sadly, no.

Between 1998 and 2011, Californians have given an inflation-adjusted 66.23% increase in funding for state highway infrastructure, yet the condition of every category of our highways has worsened and traffic congestion has also gotten worse.

According to a 2013 Reason Foundation report, between 1989 and 2008, California spent double per mile what other states spent per mile on highway infrastructure — $5.84 million in California vs. $2.85 million nation-wide. Despite spending nearly double, California had the lowest improvements in highway infrastructure of all the states!

The “pay more, get less” theme is also playing out in the correctional system. Between 2000 and 2010, Californians have given an inflation-adjusted 42.3% increase for prisons. In 2011, California paid the second-highest average salary in the country for correctional officers – but still boasted the highest paid individual employee with a whopping $822,302 paid to a staff psychologist that year.

Despite the massive increase in overall funding going to the correctional system, Governor Brown in 2011 argued for and implemented “realignment” or early release for nearly 100,000 state prisoners. The result? In the first six months of the early release program, the number of paroled sex offenders who were fugitives rose 15 percent and property and violent crimes increased in 40 of 69 of California’s largest cities – the largest increase in 20 years.

There are a few areas where Californians are paying more and getting more – but not in the way some might want.

California boasts over 500 separate state agencies as of 2013 – and maintains programs for a variety of special areas. Take for example the California Horse Racing Board, which regulates horse racing and betting to the tune of $11.7 million a year with its government budget.

Some government services get multiple departments assigned to them. California is the only state with two separate agencies that collect sales and income taxes–the State Board of Equalization and the Franchise Tax Board. And both are bigger than the departments of revenue in any other state. A third agency – the Employment Development Department – also collects employment taxes.

Some of the biggest costs to Californians are hidden “off-budget.” Whenever a new regulation is imposed, it costs working families and small businesses to comply, monies that come out of our pockets for some assumed result.

Unfortunately, California state government does not maintain a “regulatory” budget to tally up the costs of government mandates and regulations. However, we do know California has the most regulated licensing system in the country – requiring licenses for 177 occupations versus the national average of 92 occupations.

Big government defenders argue that costs naturally increase, and so will government spending.   However, when adjusted for inflation, state government still has been given more money in each major program area.

Moreover, the notion that the cost of government services will always increase each year fails to account for the multitude of private sector service areas where costs have remained the same or even gone down in the past five, ten or even twenty years.

If Californians are to receive better government services at a more affordable price, we must demand several changes in how state and local government operate.

First, we must demand true performance-based budgeting be used in every state and local government agency. This requires the use of clear performance measures to track service results for California taxpayers. For each program, full “cost accounting” should be used to measure and report the cost-per-unit of service. With full transparency, taxpayers can better understand what they are really getting for their money.

Second, we must recognize that regulations have a cost to Californians who must pay for the burden of compliance. Just as we should insist on results from our tax dollars, we must also demand an accounting of costs and benefits of these regulations.

Most Californians support the notion that money paid directly to government through taxation should be limited – which is why voters have reserved the right to vote on any tax increases. Perhaps it is time to establish an annual limitation on “regulatory burden” imposed on Californians by government subject only to increase by a vote of the people. If such a limit were added to the state Constitution, for every new regulation imposed by legislators or bureaucrats, an older regulation would have to be replaced or reformed to save an equal amount of money.

Third, we must challenge our elected leaders from both political parties to rethink how government agencies operate from the bottom up. In each major service area of government, the evidence is mounting that the problem is not a lack of money, the problem is broken government processes that cost too much and deliver too little.

In some cases state rules actually prohibit the use of cost saving reforms – such as the rules prohibiting school districts from using competitive bidding to contract support services.

The past twenty years have seen a sea-change in private sector productivity through the use of new technologies, process improvements like Lean Six-Sigma, and competitive sourcing. It’s time to demand government use these same best management practices.

Fourth, even the most efficiently-designed government agency will waste money if the current pay and benefit packages for government employees are maintained. That’s why we must dramatically overhaul compensation for state and local government employees – starting with the reform of unsustainable state and local pension payouts.

Instead of across-the-board salary hikes, compensation should be based on each individual employee’s performance achievements. To encourage state and local government employees to devise and implement cost-saving ideas, taxpayers should support performance-based bonus pays – but only where audited and verified savings are achieved.

To get true performance improvements in California government, we must shift the political debate past what money we spend on programs to the more pressing question of how to transform how government operates.

Can we realistically do this?

Time will tell — but the last twenty years have demonstrated that the old mentality of simply throwing more money into these government agencies simply will not produce better results for Californians.

At some point, Californians will simply get tired of paying more and getting less.

Via: http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2013/07/in-california-taxpayers-pay-more-but-get-less/#sthash.I62Ce1xg.dpuf

Why California won't build prisons to ease inmate overcrowding

View of North Kern County State prison, Delano, California.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/07/14/3386690/why-california-wont-build-prisons.html#storylink=cpy

By David Siders — dsiders@sacbee.com

In his final effort to forestall a federal court order requiring the state to reduce its prison population by nearly 10,000 inmates, Gov. Jerry Brown last week counted the ways prison conditions have improved since the court first winced at overcrowding years ago.

Since 2008, Brown's administration said in a U.S. Supreme Court filing, California has diverted thousands of offenders from the prison system to counties and has spent more than $1 billion on new employees and facilities to improve mental health and medical care for inmates.

Despite pressure to relieve overcrowding, however, there is one thing the state has not done: build more prisons.

Following a construction binge in which the state opened about 20 prisons in the 1980s and 1990s, California has built only one traditional prison since 1997, in Delano in 2005.

The lack of construction reflects a dearth of public support for prison spending, as well as recession-era budget constraints.

"Look, everybody wants to send people to prison. Nobody wants to pay for it," Brown said in January, when he declared at a news conference that California had solved its prison crowding problem.

The governor said limited resources are better spent on education and rehabilitation, and there is "enough money in the criminal justice system."

The state appeared poised to spend substantially more in 2007, when then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers negotiated passage of Assembly Bill 900, a $7.9 billion plan to add 53,000 beds to the state and local corrections system and expand rehabilitation programs.

The prison-expansion plan was delayed by the recession. Then, following enactment of California's historic prison realignment – in which the state shifted responsibility for thousands of low-level offenders to counties – Brown largely halted it in 2012, anticipating savings of about $4.1 billion in building costs.

What is left of the prison-funding plan includes more than $1 billion to expand county jails. The administration said it has finished dozens of projects to improve dental clinics, medical care and mental health care facilities at its institutions, and it plans to build housing for more inmates on existing prison grounds.

That effort will not add overall capacity but could compensate for beds lost when the state closes a prison, the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, likely by 2016.

"Listen, I argued when I was the chairman of the subcommittee that oversaw state prisons … we were long overdue on building new prisons," said former Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, a Republican from Orange who was among AB 900's staunchest supporters. "I think the state has seriously abdicated its responsibility."

Brown: Progress ignored

The issue of capacity has become increasingly significant since 2009, when a three-judge panel found health care in the prison system to be unconstitutionally inadequate, primarily because of overcrowding.

The panel ordered the state to reduce its prison population to 137.5 percent of capacity – an order the U.S. Supreme Court upheld – and in recent weeks demanded that California immediately comply. The order would force the state to reduce its inmate population by the end of the year to about 110,000 prisoners, down from about 119,000.

"The history of this litigation is of defendants' repeated failure to take the necessary steps to remedy the constitutional violations in its prison system," the panel wrote.

Brown last week asked the Supreme Court for a stay. Focusing on prison capacity, the administration argued, ignores steps the state has taken to resolve underlying conditions related to mental health and medical care.

Last month, for example, the state completed construction of an $839 million medical facility in Stockton to care for sick inmates.

"I ask you this: Does what you see behind me today, is that deliberate indifference?" Jeffrey Beard, secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said at a celebratory event.

"We believe that we are providing at least a constitutional level of care, and in some cases more than a constitutional level of care to the inmates, and this facility will help us to continue to exceed a constitutional standard."

If not the court, the public is likely sympathetic to Brown's position. Voters approved more than $2 billion in general-obligation prison bonds between 1981 and 1990, during the height of prison construction under Gov. George Deukmejian.

But support for prison construction has receded in the years since, as the nonpartisan Field Poll has routinely found spending on corrections operations to be among Californians' lowest priorities.

"Deukmejian, you know, ran for governor on being tough on crime and locking up prisoners," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll. "The question is, when did public support wane enough so that they wouldn't pass a prison bond, and it probably was in the 1990s."

Later decades have been marked by a historic decline in crime. The electorate is more concerned about education and the economy, and in this California is not unique.

"What we're seeing is not only a California trend that has been going on for about 20 years, but it's a national trend," said Barry Krisberg, former president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. "Every single public opinion poll that's been done over the past 20 years, nationally and in California and other states, shows the public is not interested in increasing the corrections budget."

Brown called 'a cheapskate'

Krisberg, who lectures at University of California, Berkeley, said one reason the public is disinterested in prison spending is its belief that prisons house a certain number of inmates who are not dangerous and could be put in alternative programs.

The impact of incarceration on recidivism and overall crime rates is debated, too.

"Beds don't reduce crime," said Donald Spector, director of the Prison Law Office, which represents inmates in the crowding case. "The more effective use of money is to try to punish prisoners in other ways while you're trying to correct their behavior so they don't do it again." He said, "I think Schwarzenegger was a little more moderate on this issue than (Pete) Wilson and Deukmejian, and Brown is more of a cheapskate than either of the two."

Among advocates of additional jail capacity has been the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the union representing prison guards. Chuck Alexander, the group's executive vice president, said California will be forced by simple population growth to consider building more prison or jail space now that the budget is beginning to stabilize.

"As long as California's population continues to rise," he said, "you're going to need more housing, more schooling, more hospitals, more roads, more prison beds."

The prospect for funding construction of new prisons in the current Legislature is dim. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said last week that it would be "a public policy mistake for us to spend more money on building more jail beds as opposed to more mental health services or mental health beds outside the prisons."

State Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, said a majority of lawmakers are "oblivious to the crime wave and the injustices being visited upon the citizens they represent today by ignoring this solution of more facilities for incarceration." He said he'd rather spend money on prisons than high-speed rail.

Nielsen, a former state Board of Prison Terms chairman, acknowledged those lawmakers' view is consistent with public opinion, however. "I think that right at the moment, sadly, the public are not enough aware of the risk that they have been subjected to. They will be, and I predict once that critical moment occurs … there will be a stampede of, 'What in the world did you do this to us for?' "

Call David Siders, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 321-1215. Follow him on Twitter @davidsiders. The Bee's Laurel Rosenhall contributed to this report.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/07/14/3386690/why-california-wont-build-prisons.html#storylink=cpy

Via FresnoBee

A Conservative Case for Prison Reform

By RICHARD A. VIGUERIE

MANASSAS, Va. — CONSERVATIVES should recognize that the entire criminal justice system is another government spending program fraught with the issues that plague all government programs. Criminal justice should be subject to the same level of skepticism and scrutiny that we apply to any other government program.

But it’s not just the excessive and unwise spending that offends conservative values. Prisons, for example, are harmful to prisoners and their families. Reform is therefore also an issue of compassion. The current system often turns out prisoners who are more harmful to society than when they went in, so prison and re-entry reform are issues of public safety as well.

These three principles — public safety, compassion and controlled government spending — lie at the core of conservative philosophy. Politically speaking, conservatives will have more credibility than liberals in addressing prison reform.

The United States now has 5 percent of the world’s population, yet 25 percent of its prisoners. Nearly one in every 33 American adults is in some form of correctional control. When Ronald Reagan was president, the total correctional control rate — everyone in prison or jail or on probation or parole — was less than half that: 1 in every 77 adults.

The prison system now costs states more than $50 billion a year, up from about $9 billion in 1985. It’s the second-fastest growing area of state budgets, trailing only Medicaid. Conservatives should be leading the way by asking tough questions about the expansion in prison spending over the past three decades.

Increased spending has not improved effectiveness. More than 40 percent of ex-convicts return to prison within three years of release; in some states, recidivism rates are closer to 60 percent.

Too many offenders leave prisons unprepared to re-enter society. They don’t get and keep jobs. The solution lies not only inside prisons but also with more effective community supervision systems using new technologies, drug tests and counseling programs. We should also require ex-convicts to either hold a job or perform community service. This approach works to turn offenders from tax burdens into taxpayers who can pay restitution to their victims and are capable of contributing child support.

The good news is that a national conservative movement to reform our criminal justice system, including volunteer pastoral counseling for prisoners and encouraging frequent contacts with family members, has been growing.

This Right on Crime campaign supports constitutionally limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility and free enterprise. Conservatives known for being tough on crime should now be equally tough on failed, too-expensive criminal programs. They should demand more cost-effective approaches that enhance public safety and the well-being of all Americans.

Some prominent national Republican leaders who have joined this effort include Jeb Bush, Newt Gingrich, the anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, the National Rifle Association leader David Keene and the former attorney general Edwin Meese III.

Right on Crime exemplifies the big-picture conservative approach to this issue. It focuses on community-based programs rather than excessive mandatory minimum sentencing policies and prison expansion. Using free-market and Christian principles, conservatives have an opportunity to put their beliefs into practice as an alternative to government-knows-best programs that are failing prisoners and the society into which they are released.

These principles work. In the past several years, there has been a dramatic shift on crime and punishment policy across the country. It really started in Texas in 2007. The state said no to building eight more prisons and began to shift nonviolent offenders from state prison into alternatives, by strengthening probation and parole supervision and treatment. Texas was able to avert nearly $2 billion in projected corrections spending increases, and its crime rate is declining. At the same time, the state’s parole failures have dropped by 39 percent.

Since then more than a dozen states have made significant changes to their sentencing and corrections laws, including Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont, New Hampshire and Ohio. Much of the focus has been on shortening or even eliminating prison time for the lowest-risk, nonviolent offenders and reinvesting the savings in more effective options.

With strong leadership from conservatives, South Dakota lawmakers passed a reform package in January that is expected to reduce costs by holding nonviolent offenders accountable through parole, probation, drug courts and other cost-effective programs.

By confronting this issue head on, conservatives are showing that our principles lead to practical solutions that make government less costly and more effective. We need to do more of that. Conservatives can show the way by impressing on more of our allies and political leaders that criminal justice reform is part of a conservative agenda.

Richard A. Viguerie is the chairman of ConservativeHQ.com and the author of “Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause.”

3 strikes reform brings hope to some inmates

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The passage of Proposition 36 this week signals a new cost-conscious view of crime and punishment. Revising the state's three strikes law means thousands of prison inmates could soon be back on the streets.

With the help of California Watch, part of the Center for Investigative Reporting, we hear from three inmates awaiting their freedom.

Tuesday night was a chance to celebrate for supporters of Prop 36, the initiative to scale back California's three strikes law.

"Usually when people go to the polls, they are voting to increase penalties; this is one of the few times actually in U.S. history where they've said, 'No, it's too harsh,'" Prop 36 author Michael Romano said.

No one was paying more attention to the vote than one group of prisoners at San Quentin Prison. Called Hope for Strikers, the group has been meeting for many years to bring awareness to the three strikes law.

"My name is Eddie Griffin and I got 27 years to life for possession of cocaine," inmate Eddie Griffin said.

"My third strike is burglary of an unoccupied dwelling; it was my first relapse after being clean and sober for almost 10 years," inmate Joey Mason said.

"My third strike was instigating a fight; it was a non-violent, non-serious felony, and they gave me 25 to life," inmate Sajad Sakoor said.

Sakoor has already served 16 years behind bars. He is one of the 9,000 third strikers in California's prisons, and one of the 3,000 who will be eligible for a rehearing because of Prop 36.

"This is my second time in prison and my first two strikes came from one case when I was 18 years old, two burglaries," Sakoor said.

Now, a judge could decide to remove Sakoor's life sentence.

"If the life sentence gets taken off, then chances are that I may end up going home because I have so much time already in," Sakoor said.

Sutter County District Attorney Carl Adams opposed Prop 36.

"California voted for three strikes because they were tired of this idea of people going to prison, getting out, committing another felony, victimizing somebody else, going back, getting out, creating another victim, and so on and so on," he said.

Romano says California's three strikes law will still remain the toughest in the country.
"It is really trying to address what we think are the most excessive sentences in the country, close to in the country's history," he said.

California is one of 27 states with a three strikes law. Before Prop 36, it was the only state to impose life sentences for non-violent third strikes.

Romano says this week's vote will help reduce some of the strain in California's penal system.

"It makes sure that our prisons are not overcrowded with people who don't deserve to be there and also helps people who have been sentenced to life for very minor, nonviolent conduct," he said.

Since the three strikes law passed in 1994, crime has dropped in California, but it has also dropped in states without three strikes. As state spending on prisons has skyrocketed, politicians across the country are questioning whether the benefits of laws like three strikes outweigh the costs.

"We need a safe country, I want to live in a safe neighborhood, everybody does, but we ought to take a look at this corrections system and say is this really the way to do it," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said. "Is there another way to do it, which could save us money and still keep us safe? I think there might be."

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Durbin is leading a broad review of us prison policies.

"I believe that voters want to make sure that those in government are spending their money well and not wasting it," he said. "I also think that they don't want America to be known as a country that does inhumane things to its prisoners and, and incarcerates them unfairly, for any lengthy period of time that can't be justified."

This week's vote signals a new direction for California, which was at the forefront of introducing laws like three strikes.

"All eyes are on California here; California started this trend, as it starts so many trends, and people are really looking to see what people in the state are going to do with the three strikes law," Adam Gelb, Director of Public Policy Safety Research at the Pew Center on the States, said.

Gelb says other states have also started to temper sentencing laws.

"Those states may be willing to revisit what they've done and maybe go a little further and the other half of the states that haven't approached this issue in a serious way yet probably are going to say, 'Maybe now it's time,'" he said.

Meanwhile, for thousands of California inmates like Sakoor, Prop 36 may now offer a chance at a fresh start.

"I'm glad that the people of California are having a second chance to take a second look at this; I'm hopeful, I'm very hopeful," Sakoor said.

via ABCNEWS

Gov. Jerry Brown Has a Chance to Usher in Major Prison Reforms in California

With a couple strokes of his pen, Gov. Jerry Brown can significantly alter the way California's prison system works.

Yesterday, the state Senate passed a bill that would give parole opportunities to juvenile offenders sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

This week, that body will likely also vote on a bill that would allow journalists to set up interviews with inmates in state prisons. The prison media access bill has passed through the state legislature eight times over the past couple of decades, and has been vetoed at the governor's desk each time.

Brown, who has paroled inmates at a much higher rate than his two predecessors, has yet to take a public stance on either of these bills.

The juvenile parole bill, proposed by Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat, would allow juvenile offenders to appeal a life sentence after serving 15 years. If the inmate shows remorse and pursues rehabilitation, a court can grant him a parole hearing after his 25th year. Juveniles convicted of torture or killing a cop would not be eligible. There are currently around 300 lifers who could request a parole opportunity if the bill passes.
Yee, who has worked as a child psychologist, argues that because young people's brains are not yet fully developed, they should have the opportunity to prove they are fit for release.
Sen. Joel Anderson, a Republican from San Diego, disagreed that juvenile murderers have the potential to rehabilitate:
"This is absolutely outrageous that we are going to release these little psychopaths back onto the street to murder again," he said, according to the L.A. Times. "We're talking about serious crimes where we have young people who are flat-out evil."
The bill passed 21-16 -- the dissent coming from all 14 Republicans as well as two Democrats.
The prison media access legislation might be just as close. California's Department of Corrections opposes the bill, claiming that inmate interviews can "glamorize" criminals and bring back past trauma to victims. Reporters have been barred from scheduling in-person interviews with inmates since 1996. Instead, prison officials allow 15-minute telephone interviews with inmates who have phone access. Even when reporters gain access inside prisons, they can only speak to the inmates they randomly encounter on guided tours. To the Corrections Department, though, "the media already enjoys a wide range of access to prisons and inmates."
Which is just ridiculous.
As This American Life correspondent Nancy Mullane explained in a Sac Bee op-ed last week:

Let's say an inmate has filed a lawsuit against the state, been injured in a riot, has direct knowledge about criminal conduct or has been involved in a high-profile court case. Reporters can only hope that while they are being escorted by a prison public information officer, they will randomly run into the specific inmate they need for a story.

The bill, pushed by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), would require that prisons, given advanced notice, allow reporters to interview specific inmates as long as it doesn't "pose an immediate and direct threat to the security of the institution or the physical safety of a member of the public." Journalists would be allowed to bring in cameras, notebooks, and recording equipment.
The prison guards union -- the California Correctional Peace Officers Association -- supports the bill. As do media organizations and civil rights groups. Opposition from the Corrections Department and victims-rights groups has kept previous governors from signing off on the legislation.
Follow us on Twitter at @SFWeekly and @TheSnitchSF

California prisons object to expanding media access to inmates

California prison officials are opposing legislation that would increase media access to inmates, saying it would cost too much money to facilitate interviews.

In a letter dated Thursday, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the bill would "create significant new costs and increase workload."

Emily Harris of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, which opposes heavy prison spending, said officials are overstating the costs in hopes of persuading budget-cutting lawmakers to scuttle the legislation.

"This is a last-minute effort to quash the bill," she said.

The bill has already passed the Assembly 47 to 22, and it was approved by a Senate committee last month.

Reporters are able to tour prisons and interview inmates during their visits, but they are not allowed to request interviews with specific inmates unless they arrange to meet them during visiting hours. That means high-profile criminals like Charles Manson and newsmakers like the inmates who organized a hunger strike to protest prison conditions are often beyond the reach of the media.

The legislation, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), would change that, requiring officials to process interview requests within 48 hours. Officials would also need to notify the inmates' victims that an interview was taking place.

Similar legislation has circulated in the Capitol before. It was vetoed in 2006 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said policies in place already allowed the "free flow of information from the prison environment into the outside world." He also said "it is important to avoid treating inmates as celebrities."

Ammiano said the prison system's opposition was disappointing.

“It comes down to transparency," he said. "We have a right to know how prisons are operating on the inside.”

Terry Thornton, a prison spokeswoman, said reporters have enough opportunities to see prisons from the inside. Most of the interview requests the department receives involve celebrity inmates or sensational crimes, not prison conditions, she said.

Officials allowed one interview request this year when it involved a federal inmate in state prison, costing $437, Thornton said. The department receives a couple of hundred interview requests each year, she said, and officials expect that number to increase if the legislation passes.

At that rate, 500 interviews would cost $218,500, about 0.002% of the department's $8.86-billion budget.

 -- Chris Megerian in Sacramento

twitter.com/chrismegerian

Photo: Pelican Bay State Prison, California's highest-security prison. Credit: John Burgess / Associated Press

Via LATimes

New Pew Study Finds 36 Percent Increase in Prison Time Served

Prisoners released in 2009 served an average of nine additional months in custody, or 36 percent longer, than offenders released in 1990, according to a report released today by the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project. The study found that for offenders released from their original sentence in 2009 alone, the additional time behind bars cost states $23,300 per offender, or a total of over $10 billion, more than half of which was for nonviolent offenders.

The report, Time Served: The High Cost, Low Return of Longer Prison Terms, also found that time served for drug offenses and violent offenses grew at nearly the same pace from 1990 to 2009. Drug offenders served 36 percent longer in 2009 than those released in 1990, while violent offenders served 37 percent longer. Time served for inmates convicted of property crimes increased by 24 percent.

"Violent and career criminals belong behind bars, and for a long time," said Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project. "But building more prisons to house lower-risk nonviolent inmates for longer sentences simply is not the best way to reduce crime."

Though almost all states increased length of stay over the last two decades, the overall change varied widely between states. Among 35 reporting states representing nearly 90 percent of 2009 prison releases, time served rose most rapidly in Florida, where terms grew by 166 percent and cost an extra $1.4 billion in 2009. Prison terms increased in Virginia by 91 percent, North Carolina (86 percent), Oklahoma (83 percent), Michigan (79 percent), and Georgia (75 percent). Eight states reduced their overall time served, including Illinois (25 percent) and South Dakota (24 percent).

Among prisoners released in 2009 from the reporting states, Michigan had the longest overall average time served, at 4.3 years, followed by Pennsylvania (3.8 years). South Dakota had the shortest average time served at 1.3 years, followed by Tennessee (1.9 years). The national average time served was 2.9 years. Download the report and state fact sheets.

A companion analysis Pew conducted in partnership with external researchers identified the public safety impact of longer prison terms, using data about nonviolent offenders released in 2004 from Florida, Maryland, and Michigan. The study revealed that many of those nonviolent offenders in each state could have served prison terms between three months and two years shorter with little or no public safety consequences: 14 percent of all offenders released in Florida, 18 percent in Maryland, and 24 percent in Michigan.

"Taxpayers, today more than ever, want their dollars to produce the best possible public safety results," said Gelb. "The idea behind longer prison terms is that they will cut crime and recidivism. But for a large number of lower-risk offenders, that just isn't the case. There's a high cost and little to no crime control benefit."

The study outlines a variety of steps that leaders in each of the three branches of state government have taken in the last few years to reverse growth trends in overall time served, including:

Reclassifying offenses or raising dollar thresholds and drug quantities required to trigger stiffer penalties. (Alabama, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Montana, South Carolina, Washington)

Expanding opportunities for inmates to earn time off of their sentences by completing programs. (Colorado, Kansas, South Carolina, Pennsylvania)

Reducing the percentage of sentences that must be served before inmates are eligible for parole. (Georgia, Mississippi)

The report also summarizes recent public opinion polling that shows strong support nationwide for reducing time served for nonviolent offenders. The January 2012 national poll of 1,200 likely voters, along with similar surveys in Georgia, Missouri and Oregon, revealed that the public is broadly supportive of a wide range of policy changes that would shorten time served and reinvest prison savings in stronger probation and parole supervision programs.

The report is based on National Corrections Reporting Program data from 35 states that was collected and verified by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The reporting states covered 89 percent of the inmates released in 2009, the most recent year for which figures are available. States not included in the study had not reported sufficient data over the 1990-2009 study period.



Via: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/05/4541301/new-pew-study-finds-36-percent.html