California Voters May Get to Choose Between Two Different Death Penalty Related Ballot Propositions

Faster Executions or None at All? Californians May Get to Choose

If there’s one thing supporters and opponents of the death penalty can agree on, it’s this: The system is broken. Since California reinstated capital punishment in 1977, 117 death row inmates have died. But only 15 of them have been executed. The vast majority have died of natural causes or suicide.

When he was chief justice of the California Supreme Court, Ronald George caused a stir when he said “the leading cause of death on death row in California is old age.” The system, he said, is dysfunctional  — and few would disagree.

Even before a federal judge blocked executions in 2006, the pace of implemented death sentences was slow. It wasn’t unusual for condemned inmates to spend two decades on death row, as their legal appeals slowly wound through the courts. But to death penalty opponents, the seemingly endless delays prove that capital punishment is unworkable and should be scrapped altogether.To death penalty supporters, that delay is a travesty of justice and disrespectful to crime victims and their families who, they say, deserve to see the ultimate sentence implemented.

Come November, California voters could have two completely different options for fixing the system. Two groups are preparing to collect signatures for ballot measures that would present stark choices.

One, the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016, would limit inmate appeals, which can drag on for decades, and expedite executions. It would also give the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation more latitude in housing condemned inmates and require them to work, with 70 percent of their wages going to crime victims.

The other proposal, which ballot measure proponent Mike Farrell calls “The Justice That Works Act of 2016,” would ban executions altogether and convert all existing death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016 is current being reviewed by the Attorney General’s Office. A similar measure was proposed last year and endorsed by three former California governors. It never made it to the ballot.

An attorney advising proponents of the current death penalty reform measure told me that first effort was “controlled by crime victim families,” suggesting it didn’t have the kind of professional political consultants needed to make it to the ballot.

This time around, he said, Sacramento-based strategist Aaron McLear and his firm, Redwood Pacific, will guide the effort.

This week the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office released its fiscal review of that measure. While acknowledging the measure would affect various costs, “the magnitude of these effects would depend on how certain provisions in the measure are interpreted and implemented,” the LAO wrote.

In conclusion, it wrote:

• Increased state costs that could be in the tens of millions of dollars annually for several years related to direct appeals and habeas corpus proceedings, with the fiscal impact on such costs being unknown in the longer run.
• Potential state correctional savings that could be in the tens of millions of dollars annually.
• Proponents of the measure to ban capital punishment must be more pleased with the LAO analysis of their measure. The LAO estimates a “net reduction in state and local government costs of potentially around $150 million annually within a few years due to the elimination of the death penalty.” You can be sure that will end up in a TV commercial for the measure.
• 
  
• Proponents of both measures have yet to collect a single signature. Assuming they get a green light from the attorney general and the secretary of state, they’ll have 180 days to collect the necessary signatures to put it before voters.
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• If both succeed, they’ll likely join a November 2016  ballot with measures related to legalizing pot, raising the minimum wage and strengthening gun control. All that, plus a presidential election and the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.
• In other words, a political junkie’s dream come true.

By Scott Shafer

Via http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/14/faster-executions-or-none-at-all-california-voters-may-choose

Governor Signs New Law Ending Fee for Sealing Juvenile Records

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

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

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

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

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

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



Via: Legal Services for Prisoners with Children

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

Immigration Detention Center Expands in Southern California

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - Immigration authorities will expand a Southern California detention facility to get more bed space for women with criminal records, immigrants with medical needs, recently arrived asylum seekers and other detainees.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is getting an additional 640 beds at a privately contracted detention facility some 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles starting in July, raising the total number of beds to 1,940.

The move helps consolidate detention space because beds are expensive and hard to find in cities such as San Francisco, said David Marin, ICE’s deputy field office director for enforcement and removal in Los Angeles. Most detainees at the center have criminal records, officials said.

The expansion of the facility in Adelanto run by GEO Group comes as the number of detained immigrants has dropped nationwide. From October 2014 to March 2015, the average number of immigrants in detention each day totaled 26,734, down 21 percent from the previous fiscal year’s daily average.

Immigrant advocates said the expansion clashes with Obama administration policies aimed at detaining fewer immigrants. They also questioned the quality of medical care at the center, which opened in 2011.

GEO Group officials declined to comment.

ICE, which announced a proposal earlier this week to consider housing transgender immigration detainees by the gender they identify with, plans to move about two dozen transgender detainees from a city-owned facility in Santa Ana to the new women’s section in Adelanto, said Virginia Kice, an agency spokeswoman.

Immigration officials also contract for space at several other area facilities that are run by law enforcement agencies. In Orange County, two jails used for immigration detainees have seen their numbers decline, said Lt. Jeff Hallock, a sheriff’s department spokesman. Those beds were about 70 percent occupied as of last week, he said.

The average daily rate that ICE must pay to house a detainee in Adelanto is $111, compared with $118 at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department facilities and $142 at centers in the San Diego area, according to ICE. The national average is $122 a day.

By: Amy Taxin
Via: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/2/immigration-detention-center-expands-in-southern-c/

Please Endorse One of Our Own!

The Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) plays a monumental role in all aspects of the criminal justice system. It works in partnership with local corrections systems and assists efforts to achieve continued improvement in reducing recidivism through evidence- based decision making in the State of California. 

This July 1st, committee positions will be up for appointment and we're asking for you to endorse Kim Carter's appointment to the BSCC!

Please sign and send the attached sample letter on your organization's letterhead ASAP to each of the following representatives:

Honorable Toni Atkins

Speaker of the Assembly 

State Capitol 

P.O. Box 942849 

Sacramento, CA 94249-0078 

Via Fax: (916) 319-2178

Honorable Chris Holden

Majority Floor Leader of the Assembly 

State Capitol 

P.O. Box 942849 

Sacramento, CA 94249-0041 

Via Fax: (916) 319-2141

Honorable Reggie Jones-Sawyer

Legislative Black Caucus Chair of the Assembly

State Capitol 

P.O. Box 942849 

Sacramento, CA 94249-0059 

Via Fax: (916) 319-2159

For more information about Kim Carter and Time for Change Foundation please visit 

www.timeforchangefoundation.org.

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

Come out to the Justice Reinvestment Committee Hearing Tomorrow!

Join Take Action California Members Time for Change Foundation, CURB and California Partnership at the Select Committee on Justice Reinvestment's Hearing tomorrow at the California Science Center in Los Angeles!

Committee Co-Chair Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr. is convening a hearing in Los Angeles. Come discuss local programming practices in Southern California which have promise toward reducing recidivism. The Select Committee will hear from law enforcement, courts and community service providers from a number of Southern California counties, including Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange.

Friday, February 28, 2014
10 am - 12 pm

California Science Center 

Loker Conference Room
700 Exposition Park Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90037

The Select Committee's goal is to develop real data-based, long-term solutions that preserve public safety without spending excessive money on prisons. We can focus more on investments that grow our economy and provide opportunity. 

Take Action California's Partners Accepted as Women’s Policy Institute Fellows

We want to congratulate three of Take Action California’s coalition partners; Vanessa Perez, Civic Engagement Specialist at Time for Change Foundation, Ana Muniz, Research Director for Youth Justice Coalition, and Diana Zuniga, Statewide Organizer for Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) on their acceptance in the Women’s Policy Institute! 

From left: Diana Zuniga, Vanessa Perez, Deborah Peterson Small, Ana Muniz
and Tanya Koshy

Each year the Women’s Foundation of California chooses 25 women throughout the state of California to participate in their , year-long policy training program and this year's Criminal Justice team includes our very own members.

As fellows of the Criminal Justice Team, Vanessa, Ana, and Diana are excited to learn the dynamics of state policy; including, meeting with legislative staffers, writing bill language, testifying at hearings, and conducting campaigns that will influence change in our systems and promote the economic stability for women and families of color.

Our ladies recently returned home from their second retreat at the capitol where they had a tour of the Building and met with legislative staffers to discuss their bill proposals. They had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the place that they will be spending much of their time in the upcoming year.

We also want to congratulate Deborah Peterson Small with Break the Chains and Tanya Koshy with the East Bay Law Center as members of this year’s Criminal Justice Team.

We are so excited for these ladies and the change that they will help bring to the criminal justice system and embark on this year-long journey!

Stanford University studies look at how California's prison realignment is playing out

The state's prison realignment program shifted thousands of would-be state prisoners to local control. But it didn't set up a mechanism for tracking what happened to the population or the impact on the counties where they ended up.

Now, two papers out of Stanford Law School's Criminal Justice Center look at how realignment is playing out in California counties. 

How realignment is perceived

In the first study, Stanford Law Professor Joan Petersilia spoke with 125 local stakeholders: police chiefs, district attorneys, public defenders, probation officers, judges, and sheriffs. The idea was to get a sense of how realignment is going. It resulted in "a portrait of counties struggling, often heroically, to carry out an initiative that was poorly planned and imposed upon them almost overnight."

Nonetheless, Petersilia found most law enforcement accepted that realignment is "here to stay," and that "the old system was yielding disappointing results." 

Perhaps the most optimistic and supportive group, probation officers, felt realignment: "gave them an opportunity to fully test whether well-tailored rehabilitation services can keep lower-level felony offenders from committing new crimes and returning to prison."

Petersilia also offers a number of recommendations based on the conversations:

• Create a database of state prisoners released to county probation supervision.
• Consider an offender's past crimes when determining his or her level of post-prison supervision (parole or probation).
• Cap county jail sentences at three years, and consider prison time for repeat probation violators (like sex offenders who cut off their GPS monitors). 

Such changes, Petersilia suggests, could help law enforcement deal with the challenges realignment has brought. 

Where the money is going

The second study examines how California counties are spending billions of dollars they've been allocated by the state to implement realignment.

Looking at the county's plans for the first year of realignment, University of Denver Sociology Professor Jeffrey Lin found that counties varied in whether they allocated more of their realignment dollars to law enforcement or treatment and rehabilitation.

Lin found counties that had relatively fewer per capita law enforcement personnel (like Riverside and Kings counties) used realignment dollars to beef up their law enforcement ranks.

Other counties that invested more heavily in law enforcement (like Los Angeles and Kern counties) may have felt compelled to invest in law enforcement because of higher crime rates and politically, their "relatively high preference for prison for drug crimes."

Those investing more in treatment and rehabilitation also shared some characteristics.

A category of counties that included Alameda and Sonoma tended to have high Black unemployment rates and popular county sheriff's. In these counties, Lin hypothesizes: "high confidence in the sheriff’s office may allow key leaders to address those needs in less politically popular ways—i.e., pursuing treatment as a solution to crime problems."

Overall, "Sheriff and Law Enforcement spending is generally a product of local needs (crime conditions and dedication to law enforcement) and preference for punishment."

Whereas, "Programs and Services spending fundamentally revolves around electoral
confidence in the Sheriff."

Lin adds the caveat that only the first year of planned realignment spending was included in the study. He plans to follow up to see how the trends hold up over time. 

California's Recidivism Problem

Two years after the United States Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its severely overcrowded prisons by more than 30,000 inmates, the state is still trying to figure out how to comply. Governor Jerry Brown released a new plan in early May that called for the early release of elderly inmates and the relocation of thousands of others to private lockups and state fire camps.

These are undoubtedly fine ideas, but they will never solve the fundamental problem of California's prisons. To do that, Governor Brown and his administration will have to confront the state's recidivism problem: too many people are released from California's prisons, return home and then proceed to commit new crimes or violate parole rules. Before long, they are back in prison.

California has the second highest rate of recidivism in the country, according to the Pew Center on the States. Nearly 58 percent of the state's offenders are sent back to prison within three years of their release, according to the Pew Center.

Unless this cycle is broken with bold actions -- unless people can be diverted from a lifetime of crime, repeatedly shuttling into and out of prison -- California will remain stuck trying to jam too many inmates into too few prison cells. This pattern carries enormous costs, both human and financial.

Under pressure from the courts, the state has a unique opportunity. It can confront its correctional problems head-on by shifting its priorities from incarceration to rehabilitation.

That would involve moving many more nonviolent offenders from prisons into alternative community programs for drug treatment and job training. The best cure for recidivism is for ex-offenders to learn how to stay drug-free and to develop skills for real, full-time jobs. There is nothing like a job to keep someone from reverting to a life of crime.

To do this, California would find itself relying as never before on nonprofit and perhaps even for-profit social service providers. These have traditionally been the organizations that work with inmates and parolees to help them re-enter society successfully. People who have spent time in prison need help, often a lot of help, to develop the necessary skills that lead to a job, independence and a responsible life.

It can be done. In fact, it is done on a small scale every day in places around the country. But it is also costly. Over the long run that initial expenditure can produce extraordinary savings for taxpayers. Right now, California pays an enormous sum, about $9 billion a year, to fill its prisons to overflowing. Since 1980, the state's spending on higher education has declined by 13 percent, adjusted for inflation, while its spending for corrections has increased by more than 400 percent.

Given the enormity of the task, California and other state governments burdened with huge corrections costs, are going to have to learn how to distinguish social service providers that produce positive outcomes from those that do not. It makes no sense to commit to serious reform, investing in drug treatment and job training, if you select social service agencies that are unable to help former offenders stay out of prison.

For rehabilitation to succeed, California will have to select organizations that can produce verifiable results. Social service agencies will have to use transparent, performance-based data to track their work, and they will have to be held much more accountable for what they do than they are now.

Some nonprofit and for-profit groups will no doubt be put off by such rigorous demands, but others, including mine, The Doe Fund, will welcome them.

For more than 20 years, our Ready, Willing & Able program has been helping former offenders in New York City and Philadelphia to develop skills, find work and become productive citizens. Along with like-minded groups, we are not afraid of having our work measured and judged. We want to know if we are really improving our clients' lives.

With support and guidance, people can lift themselves from unemployment, crime, drug addiction and homelessness. Over the last two decades, thousands of formerly homeless men -- 70 percent of whom are former offenders -- have completed our program; they have found private sector jobs, lived independently and remained sober and drug free.

Reconfiguring California's criminal justice system will require commitment and ambition, and it will be expensive, at least at the outset. But it could produce extraordinary changes and would surely save the state vast amounts in the future. Lowering the recidivism rate would significantly reduce the size of the state prison population, saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It would also cut the crime rate.

California will have to apply new rigor in contracting out social services and be willing to experiment with innovative strategies to meet the burden of the Supreme Court's order. But unless it makes a concerted new effort to prepare inmates and parolees for life after prison, the cycle of arrest and re-arrest will surely continue. And California's prisons will continue to overflow.

via The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harriet-mcdonald/californias-recidivism-pr_b_3267575.html