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.

Senate Dems push for spending on mentally ill criminals

As budget negotiations reach their final weeks in the state Capitol, state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg is pressing for more spending to treat mental illness among inmates and people being released from prison, arguing that the proposals will reduce prison crowding and promote public safety.

The proposals by Senate Democrats to spend $132 million on reducing recidivism among mentally ill offenders are based on suggestions by professors at Stanford Law School, who studied the proliferation of mental illness within California’s prison population. Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed $91 million in spending.

The Senate Democrats’ package comes as lawmakers respond to Friday’s rampage near UC Santa Barbara in which a disturbed student killed six people and injured 13 in a spree of stabbing and shooting.

“These proposals finalized earlier this month are now cast under a different light than any of us had originally planned,” Steinberg said during a news conference Wednesday. “It’s a cruel and of course sad coincidence that the significance of one proposal – to improve training among front line law enforcement to recognize the warning signs of mental illness – was illustrated by a gun rampage in Santa Barbara County.”

The proposals from Senate Democrats include:

• $12 million to train law enforcement officers and $24 million to train prison employees in dealing with people who are mentally ill

• $25 million to expand re-entry programs for mentally ill offenders

• $20 million to help parolees by providing case managers to make sure they get treatment for mental health issues and substance abuse

• $20 million to expand so-called mental health courts that manage offenders who are mentally ill or addicted to drugs

• $50 million to re-establish a grant program for counties offering substance abuse treatment, job training or other programs to help mentally ill offenders after they’re released from prison.

via: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/05/28/6440139/senate-dems-push-for-spending.html#mi_rss=State%20Politics

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/05/28/6440139/senate-dems-push-for-spending.html#mi_rss=State%20Politics#storylink=cpy

Document: More San Bernardino County jail deputies under investigation for alleged inmate abuse

SAN BERNARDINO >> In addition to four sheriff’s deputies who already have lost their jobs at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, the FBI and sheriff officials are investigating several other deputies in the San Bernardino County jail system for alleged inmate abuse, according to a document obtained Saturday by this newspaper.

The document, consisting of minutes from an internal Sheriff’s Department staff meeting distributed Wednesday, revealed that one employee had resigned, two or three were going to be terminated as a result of an FBI investigation, and several other deputies were still under investigation.

The FBI is investigating possible civil-rights violations of inmates at the center in March, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said Friday.

She said the case will ultimately be submitted to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles for consideration of criminal charges.

As of Thursday, four deputies assigned to West Valley Detention Center were no longer employed by the department, but according to the document, several more employees also may be terminated, pending the outcome of the investigation by the FBI and Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff’s spokesman Randy Naquin said Saturday he couldn’t comment due to the nature of the investigation.

“The Sheriff commended the fine work 99 percent of our employees are doing,” according to the document.

On Saturday, sheriff’s officials declined to comment on allegations of misconduct at the other county jails.

“What was indicated in the press release is all the information we have,” Naquin said. “We currently have no information about incidents occurring at any other facility.”

Sheriff John McMahon ordered an administrative investigation after allegations surfaced March 5 about the possible abuse of inmates at the Rancho Cucamonga jail, according to a sheriff’s news release on Friday.

“I will not tolerate any misconduct by department personnel,” McMahon said in a statement. “These allegations are being taken very seriously and this department is determined to get answers.”

The news comes in the wake of a jail abuse scandal in Los Angeles County in which 18 current or former sheriff’s deputies have been accused of abusing inmates at the Men’s Central Jail.

U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said the alleged incidents did “not occur in a vacuum” and that the pattern of behavior of which the defendants are accused had become “institutionalized.”

via: http://www.sbsun.com/general-news/20140412/document-more-san-bernardino-county-jail-deputies-under-investigation-for-alleged-inmate-abuse

Judges appoint prison population oversight chief

A panel of three federal judges on Wednesday appointed Elwood Lui, a former associate justice of the California Court of Appeal, as the “compliance officer” empowered to begin releasing state prison inmates if California fails to meet court ordered deadlines to reduce its prisoner population.

Lui was one of two candidates for the position suggested by lawyers representing the state. He has agreed to serve without compensation but to have reasonable expenses reimbursed, according to the order from the panel issued Wednesday afternoon.

The compliance officer position was created through a Feb. 10 order by the court, which comprises 9th U.S. Circuit Court Judge Stephen Reinhardt, Judge Thelton E. Henderson of the San Francisco-based Northern District of California and Judge Lawrence K. Karlton of the Sacramento-based Eastern District of California.

The judges originally ordered California in 2009 to cut its inmate population to 137.5 percent of capacity, but appeals delayed that and resulted in the Feb. 10 order giving the state two more years to comply.

The February order also gave the compliance officer authority to release the necessary number of inmates to ensure that California meets the court-ordered deadlines.

The compliance officer now has the authority to release inmates if the prison population is not cut to 143 percent of capacity by June 30 (or 116,651 inmates); to 141.5 percent by Feb. 28, 2015 (115,427 inmates); and to 137.5 percent a year after that (112,164 inmates).

Last month, the state told the court that its prison population is about 502 inmates above the June 30 benchmark. The state indicated that it expected to get below the 143 percent mark before the deadline by using some contract prison cells.

Attorneys for the state and the inmates met and tried to agree on who should be appointed to the position, but their talks failed and both sides filed documents with the three-judge court on March 12 suggesting candidates for the position.

The state recommended two candidates: Lui and Curtis J. Hill, a former San Benito County sheriff.

Attorneys for the inmates recommended the appointment of Wendy Still, a Roseville resident who is the chief adult probation officer for the city and county of San Francisco, or Starr Babcock, the former general counsel for the State Bar of California.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/09/6311041/judges-appoint-prison-population.html#storylink=cpy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

cj

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

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

Prison secretary seeks delay in inmate court order

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—California will have no choice but to move 4,000 more inmates to private prisons in other states if federal judges refuse to postpone a court-ordered population cap, state Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard said Wednesday.

The state faces an April 18 deadline to reduce overcrowding in its 33 adult prisons. The judges have found reducing overcrowding to be the key step in improving inmate medical and mental health care, but Gov. Jerry Brown is seeking a three-year delay.

Brown's budget proposal, prematurely leaked Wednesday, assumes that the court grants a two-year extension to meet the cap. Like Beard, the budget says that if the extension is not granted the state will have to spend more money on short-term capacity increases while likely cutting spending on rehabilitation programs in order to avoid releasing inmates early.

Beard said such a delay would give the state time to build cells for nearly 3,500 additional inmates. That would bring the state close to meeting the federal population cap while avoiding the need to send more inmates elsewhere.

It also would give time for rehabilitation programs to work, he said. Those programs are designed to reduce the number of convicts who commit new crimes after their release and then get sent back to prison. Brown's budget projects $81 million would be available for rehabilitation programs in the fiscal year that begins July 1 if the two-year extension is granted, but the money will be eaten up by incarceration costs if it is denied, according to a copy of the budget posted online by The Sacramento Bee.

"We really don't want to do more out-of-state either, so we're hopeful we get our extension," Beard said in an interview. "But if we don't get that, then our only alternative will be to increase the out-of-state (transfers)."

A panel of three federal judges has set a Friday deadline for an end to negotiations between Brown's administration and attorneys representing inmates.

The judges already postponed by nearly 10 months their original June 30, 2013, deadline for the state to reduce its inmate population to about 110,000 inmates. Beard said that gave the state crucial time to begin operating what used to be a private prison in the Mojave Desert, open a medical hospital in Stockton and send additional inmates to five community correctional facilities within California.

Without those moves, the state would be looking at sending up to 7,000 inmates out of state instead of 4,000, he said.

California already houses roughly 8,900 inmates in Corrections Corporation of America prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma. The Department of Finance estimates it costs the state $29,500 a year for each inmate housed out of state, although that amount is less than the average per-inmate cost within California because mostly younger and healthier prisoners are selected for the transfers.

The judges last year ordered the state not to move more inmates out of state, but Beard said he expects the judges would lift that ban when negotiations end this week.

An additional delay would give the state time to open an expansion of the Stockton medical facility this spring to house about 1,100 mentally ill inmates. The state last week also detailed plans to build three medium-security housing units over the next 2 1/2 years at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego and Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, 40 miles southeast of Sacramento, to hold a combined 2,376 inmates. The combined cost of all the new housing is $700 million.

Beard would not say if the budget Brown will propose Friday calls for building additional prison cells.

California already has reduced its prison population by about 25,000 inmates during the last two years, mainly through the governor's criminal justice realignment plan that is sending lower-level offenders to county jails instead of state prisons. 

Yet the inmate population keeps climbing, said Don Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office and one of the attorneys representing inmates in the long-running federal case.
"It's continuing to increase, so any building would be spending billions of dollars for only a temporary fix," he said. "It also shows that realignment was only a temporary fix, as well."

Brown and lawmakers of both political parties have been fighting previous court rulings that say the state can safely release more than 4,000 inmates by increasing good-behavior credits. The judges have previously said the state also could release elderly and medically incapacitated inmates without endangering the public.

"Other states and jurisdictions use lots of other methods other than increasing capacity, and there's no reason California can't do the same thing," Specter said.

The budget also includes nearly $65 million for the Department of State Hospitals to help the agency deal with a more violent mentally ill population that increasingly comes from the criminal justice system. A federal judge last year blamed the department for part of the problems in treating mentally ill prison inmates.



via: http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_24871805/prison-secretary-seeks-delay-inmate-court-order

PUBLIC SAFETY: Inland counties denied millions for jail construction

Riverside and San Bernardino counties each were denied requests this month for $80 million in state grants for jail construction, even though their applications ranked among the highest-scoring based on criteria used to evaluate grant proposals.

The denial hampers efforts to add and improve jail space in this region. In order to comply with federal court orders, each county has released thousands of inmates early since 2011 because there’s no room for them.

Riverside’s 3,906 jail beds in five jails are all filled. And the chronic lack of beds was exacerbated in 2011 with the enactment of public safety realignment. Under realignment, offenders convicted of low-level offenses serve their time in county jails instead of state prisons, a move made to satisfy a court mandate to reduce California’s prison population.

Almost 7,000 Riverside inmates were turned loose early in 2012 to relieve crowding. More than 9,000 have been let go so far this year.

Early release could cause a rise in low-level crimes, such as petty theft and drug possession, said Riverside County Assistant Sheriff Steve Thetford.

“There’s no deterrent effect when you can’t keep people in custody,” he said. “It’s not healthy for public safety.”

San Bernardino’s four jails hold about 6,000 inmates. Since January 2012, more than 6,900 inmates have been released early. An expansion of the Adelanto jail will add another 1,392 beds.

Both counties competed for a slice of $500 million set aside by the state Legislature for jail construction with an emphasis on programs intended to stop inmates from re-offending. In all, Sacramento received $1.3 billion in requests from 36 counties.

Riverside wanted the money to add 582 beds to the 1,520-bed Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning. Grant dollars also would have paid for more space for vocational, substance abuse and education programs already taking place at Larry Smith.

San Bernardino wanted $80 million to reconfigure and add buildings to the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center, said Cindy Bachman, a sheriff’s spokeswoman. Money also would have gone to improving a road to the jail that is subject to flooding, she said.

A state steering committee graded each request. Among large counties, San Bernardino scored the highest and Riverside ranked third. However, the recommended grant awards went to Orange, San Mateo, Fresno and Sacramento counties.

Robert Oates, a project manager with the state corrections board, said Riverside and San Bernardino did not do enough to show that their respective county supervisors were committed to funding the jail projects that were the focus of their grant requests. Preference goes to shovel-ready projects, he said.

Riverside County officials disagree. In an email, spokesman Ray Smith said the county plans to appeal the grant decision. He contends that the county demonstrated its commitment by expanding the Indio jail and building a new secure youth treatment facility.

A $100 million state grant is paying for the estimated $267 million cost of adding more than 1,200 beds to the 353-bed Indio jail, which will be known as the East County Detention Center. The expansion is supposed to be ready by 2017, but Riverside officials earlier this year were worried that delays in getting state approvals might push back the timeline.

Smith and Thetford said the county will try to find other funding to expand the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility.

Besides seeking funds elsewhere, Riverside also is considering non-jail alternatives for offenders. These include sending more inmates to state-run fire camps and increased use of electronic monitoring.

Adding onto Smith remains a priority, Thetford said.

“It’s a competitive process. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t,” he said. “We’re just going to keep plugging away at it.”

Staff Writer Brian Rokos contributed to this story.

Follow Jeff Horseman on Twitter: @JeffHorseman

Grants rejected

Riverside and San Bernardino counties each were turned down for $80 million in state grants for jail construction.

What’s at stake? The denial hampers efforts to add and improve jail space in this region.

What it means: Lower-level criminals will continue to be released early.

Why does that matter? Early release could cause a rise in low-level crimes, such as petty theft and drug possession.

What’s next? Officials from both counties say they’ll seek funding elsewhere.

via: http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/politics-headlines-index/20131224-public-safety-inland-counties-denied-millions-for-jail-construction.ece

California gets extra time to reduce prison crowding: another month

SACRAMENTO — Federal judges on Monday gave Gov.Jerry Brown an additional 28 days to meet their order to reduce prison crowding.

Brown, whose administration has been in court-ordered talks with inmates' lawyers in search of a long-term solution to overcrowding, now has until Feb. 24 to remove about 9,600 prisoners from state lockups.

The three-judge panel also said Monday that the negotiations must continue. State appellate judge Peter J. Siggins has been mediating those confidential talks, and on Monday he was told to provide another update in mid-November.

The judicial trio did not describe the state of the discussions in their order, and Siggins' report was confidential.

Last month, Brown filed a plan to expand rehabilitation services in hopes of eventually reducing new offenses by inmates who return to society, and he asked for three years to lower prisoner numbers that way. The judges gave him an extra month instead, moving their deadline to Jan. 27 from Dec. 31 and ordering the talks.

Corrections spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman said Monday the agency was pleased by the judges' extension of their deadline and would work with local government and law enforcement groups to "build upon California's landmark reforms to our criminal justice system."

Inmate advocates and civil rights groups want the state to take a different path from the one Brown has outlined in court filings. The groups want reductions in criminal penalties, expanded parole programs for the sick and old, and a backlog cleared for thousands of prisoners eligible to have their cases reheard.

California is halfway toward meeting the judges' inmate population cap through contracts for 3,180 beds in privately owned facilities and an increase in the number of prisoners sent to firefighting camps around the state.

The latest contract, announced Monday, is an $11-million, five-year deal with the private prison company Geo Group. California already has 8,300 prisoners in private prisons in other states, but the federal judges have temporarily blocked further such transfers.

In 2009, federal judges ordered California's prison population reduced, declaring that overcrowding was the root of unconstitutionally poor inmate care. Despite construction of a new medical prison and a court-run healthcare system, lawyers for prisoners say that care remains substandard and that mentally ill prisoners are mistreated.

California's corrections department "has never taken its obligation to provide basic healthcare seriously," said Don Specter, lead attorney for the Prison Law Office, testifying Monday at a legislative hearing on the state's prison problems.

The hearing was mostly a basic briefing, and no corrections officials testified. Assembly Public Safety Committee Chairman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) said the next hearing, Nov. 13, will focus on alternative programs and sentencing.

Brown has taken the position since January that California's prison conditions are vastly improved. But court experts have continued to report poor medical services at some prison hospitals. A federal court has refused to relinquish control over mental health services, and the U.S. Supreme Court has rebuffed Brown's attempts to appeal capacity limits that he argues are arbitrary.

A report last week from the corrections department shows California's prison population up by more than 500 from a year ago, to more than 133,860 inmates.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

chris.megerian@latimes.com

via http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ff-prisons-20131022,0,1115000.story#axzz2j3QS5Rql

Geo Community Reentry Services to Operate California Day Reporting Centers

BOULDER, Colo. — The California Department of Corrections and the Division of Adult Parole Operations has hired Geo Community Reentry Services, a division of Boca Raton, Fla.-based The Geo Group, to operate four intensive parolee reentry centers.

The centers, located in San Diego, Santa Ana, Pomona and French Camp, will serve more than 1,000 inmates annually.

“California corrections has undergone major changes in recent years, and we are ready to support the expansion of community-based services to reduce recidivism with these evidence-based programs,” said Loren Grayer, divisional vice president of Geo Reentry Services.

While the parole reentry centers in San Diego and French Camp will continue operation without disruption as operational authority transitions, the centers in Santa Ana and Pomona are scheduled to open in September.

The Day Reporting Centers (DRC) will aim to reduce recidivism by offering a wide range of programming for high risk inmates who have failed to successfully reenter into the general population. Staffed with licensed therapists, counselors, behavior change managers, vocational/educational managers and administrative staff, parolees at the DRCs will also be connected to local community resources for further support.

Inmates report to the center, which is open seven days a week, for up to six months. Daily check-ins, drug testing and intensive care management help to monitor an inmate’s progress. According to a press release issued by the company, parole agents are better able to manage their caseloads when high-risk parolees are able to attend Geo Reentry’s DRCs.

Along with reducing recidivism, the company hopes to also target employment or school enrollment, generate significant savings for taxpayers and alter parolee attitudes and behavior through classes available at the center.

Classes available at the DRC include substance abuse education and treatment; adult basic education; life skills development; cognitive restructuring therapy; parenting; domestic violence prevention; anger management; employment skills building and career development counseling; and relapse prevention aftercare. Inmates are also required to attend Community Connections, a program that provides parolees with local resources to housing, health services and additional counseling.

Inmate Housing Facilities Planned for California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) received authorization from 2012 Senate Bill 1022 to begin the process of designing and constructing three new dorm buildings at any of four existing correctional center locations, including California Institute for Men in Chino, California State Prison and Sacramento/Folsom State Prison in Represa, California State Prison and Solano/California Medical Facility in Vacaville, Mule Creek State Prison (MCSP) in Ione or Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. Although planning has started, construction isn’t scheduled to begin until early 2014.

This project is a result of the 2011 state law requiring inmates who are non-violent and who have committed less serious offenses to be housed in local facilities. A restructuring of the classification system for inmates is resulting in a shift in the number of Level II and III inmates as well. “We’re expecting to have 7,000 inmates move from Level III to Level II. We need more beds,” said Dana Simas, information officer at CDCR.

The pending closure of the dilapidated California Rehabilitation Center (CRC) is another factor contributing to the growing need for more Level II inmate beds as those prisoners are transferred to other facilities.

The project is still in the early stages of development, and has several more rounds of planning to go through before any final decisions are made about the location of the new beds, according to Simas. Officials are considering several options for the placement of the facilities, including spreading the three dorm buildings across only two prisons.

Although discussions are still in progress about location and who the general contractor and architect will be, some things are certain. This project will increase the total number of Level II inmate beds in California by 2,376. The cost of building a double housing facility will be $533,792, while a single facility will cost $276,208.

Another perk to the project will be the addition of hundreds of new jobs. A double facility is expected to add 375 additional staff members, and a single facility will add 190. Simas said that the CDCR doesn’t anticipate facing any challenges with the future construction work yet, but did cite factors such as traffic, sewage and environmental elements as potential conflicts in the construction process.

via http://www.correctionalnews.com/articles/2013/07/17/inmate-housing-facilities-planned-california

Inmate lawsuits cost California $200 million

Gov. Jerry Brown has begun aggressively challenging federal court oversight of California's prison system by highlighting what he says is a costly conflict of interest: The private law firms representing inmates and the judges' own hand-picked authorities benefit financially by keeping the cases alive.

How much are they making?

A tally by The Associated Press, compiled from three state agencies, shows California taxpayers have spent $182 million for inmates' attorneys and court-appointed authorities over the past 15 years. The payments cover a dozen lawsuits filed over the treatment of state prisoners, parolees and incarcerated juveniles, some of which have been settled.

The total exceeds $200 million when the state's own legal costs are added.

While the amounts are a blip on California's budget, they provide a continuous income stream for the private attorneys and experts involved in the ongoing litigation. And that is the point Brown is trying to make.

The AP sought the tally after the Democratic governor began using court filings and public appearances to call for an end to two major lawsuits that have forced the state to spend billions of dollars improving its medical and mental health care for prison inmates. Brown says the complaints are expensive, frivolous and motivated by attorneys' own financial interest.

"They don't want to go away," he said last month, standing behind a stack of court documents. "I mean, the name of the game here is, 'Come to Sacramento and get your little piece of the pie.'"

Brown says that, thanks to recent overhauls, California now offers inmates the best medical and mental health care of any prison system in the nation.

Inmates' lawyers and the court-appointed authorities overseeing inmate medical and mental health say the system, with more than 132,000 inmates, remains crowded and still has problems with suicides and mentally ill prisoners who deserve better care. They say they are not motivated by profit, but by a desire to protect prisoners' constitutional right to be free from cruel treatment.

"It's ridiculous for the governor to merely characterize these cases as being about money, when in fact these cases have been the only impetus in the last 20 years for reducing the prison population and improving conditions," said Donald Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office in Berkeley, which has won several major cases against the state.

The nonprofit, which has taken the lead in suing the state over inmate health care, and other legal firms have been paid $8.3 million in that case.

Many of the lawsuits are continuing despite the billions of dollars spent to improve treatment for the state's felons and a massive realignment of the state's penal system. The realignment has transferred responsibility for incarcerating tens of thousands of convicts from the state to the counties to reduce prison crowding.

Brown says inmate care now exceeds constitutional standards. He argues that what he called "the prison lobby" - lawyers and the court-appointed special master overseeing penitentiary improvements - is perpetuating the legal action to make money.

"We've got hundreds of lawyers wandering around the prisons looking for problems," he said.

The state has paid nearly $83 million to private law firms and the court-appointed authorities involved in the two major lawsuits that have forced the state to reduce its prison population and improve inmate medical and mental health treatment, according to the figures provided at the AP's request. The costs were provided by the corrections department, the state Department of Justice and the prison medical receiver's office and compiled by the AP.

In his budget address last month, Brown said the money that would be saved by ending court oversight in the mental health and health care cases could be spent instead on inmate education, substance abuse treatment and other rehabilitation programs, as well as to supervise convicts once they leave prison.

J. Clark Kelso, the court-appointed receiver who controls California's prison health care system, is paid $224,000 annually, and his administration costs taxpayers about $2 million a year. The receivership has spent $2.4 million for lawyers.

Receiver spokeswoman Joyce Hayhoe said Kelso expects to return control to the state as soon as it proves it can properly care for inmates.

"There is no effort on our part to delay any part of this case," she said.

The governor has taken particular aim at the court-appointed monitor overseeing inmate mental health care, Matthew Lopes.

The state has paid the special masters in that case and the prison experts they have hired more than $48 million since 1997, the earliest year for which reliable records can be found, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The beneficiaries of those payments include Lopes, who has been the special master for more than five years, and his Rhode Island law firm, Pannone Lopes and Devereaux LLC. The previous special master left in 2007.

In a court filing last month, the governor's administration said Lopes' ever-expanding standards for care have no relation to the real world and do not acknowledge the steps the state has taken to improve treatment.

"Perhaps the reason is because there is no incentive for the special master to be objective in this case," the administration said in disputing Lopes' conclusion that the state still provides substandard mental health care. "Further monitoring ensures that this revenue stream will continue."

Lopes said he could not comment because the matter is part of the ongoing legal dispute.

"There's no evidence that backs that up, other than saying, 'Oh, he got all that money' and they don't like his reports," said Michael Bien, the lead attorney representing the welfare of mentally ill inmates.

Bien's San Francisco law firm, Rosen Bien Galvan and Grunfeld, is among the firms that have been paid $19 million by the state in the inmate mental health lawsuit.

He said Brown and the state would be better off working with Lopes to reduce inmate suicides and improve mental health treatment.

Later Monday, the inmates' attorneys planned to file their formal response to Brown's criticism of Lopes' recent report.

Bien and other inmates' attorneys are paid by taxpayers only if they can prove a federal or constitutional violation, and by law are then paid at a rate hundreds of dollars below what they would usually charge. They also have to pay out of pocket for expert witnesses.

"This is really offensive to say that I'm doing this for the money," Bien said. "I didn't do it to get rich."

via ABC news