Jail Break: How smarter parole and probation can cut the nation’s incarceration rate

article from 2009 -very relevant even now.

By Mark A. R. Kleiman

n 2004, Judge Steven Alm was assigned to the felony trial court for the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Alm quickly realized that he had a problem. Probation officers for his court were overwhelmed with clients who kept using methamphetamine, Hawaii’s number-one problem drug. It wasn’t exactly difficult to pass the drug tests, which were scheduled weeks in advance. But on any given day 10 percent of the probationers scheduled to come in didn’t arrive for testing, and 20 percent of those who did show up tested “dirty.” By the time probationers were sent to Alm’s court for a revocation hearing, they had already racked up multiple breaches of the rules. Hawaii’s felony probationers have lengthy sentences hanging over their heads. An offender whose probation is revoked can be sent to prison for the rest of his term—anywhere from five to twenty years. To Alm and his fellow judges, this seemed an unnecessarily draconian response to a missed or “dirty” drug test. It was also impractical in light of Hawaii’s prison-overcrowding problem. (Not only are Hawaii’s own prisons full; the state also pays heavily to send thousands of its prisoners to for-profit prisons on the mainland.) As a former career prosecutor and U.S. attorney, Alm had more than a little political clout and was accustomed to getting results. Why, he asked the probation officers, was he only hearing about drug problems when they spiraled out of control? If this was the tenth violation, what happened the first nine times? The probation officers explained that each one of them had responsibility for at least eighty-five felons. (That was for those with “high-risk” caseloads; the other probation officers had caseloads twice that size.) Most of those offenders sporadically fell afoul of the rules. The officers couldn’t possibly spend two hours writing a report every time a probationer failed a test or skipped drug treatment or anger-management class—there would be no time for anything else. As the officers saw it, their job was to harangue those clients who would listen to get back into line, and refer those who wouldn’t listen back to court after they had accumulated enough offenses to justify sending them away. Alm could see the logic of the system, but he didn’t think it was the right kind of logic. “You wouldn’t raise a child that way,” he told the officers. “You wouldn’t train a puppy that way. You’d establish clear rules and have immediate consequences for breaking them.” So Alm devised a new plan. He asked the probation officers to select a group of seemingly incorrigible scofflaws, probationers just one slipup shy of a revocation hearing. Every time one of them missed or flunked a drug test (or broke any other probation rule) he would land in court—and in jail—right away. Alm enlisted the help of prosecutors and public defenders to ensure that a hearing could be held within forty-eight hours of a violation. He corralled the federal fugitive task force to chase down anyone who refused to come into court. To cut down on paperwork, he eliminated the long report, documenting a long history of misconduct, that had previously been required from a probation officer before a revocation hearing. In its place, he substituted a two-page fill-in-the-blanks form, which dealt with only a single missed or dirty test or other violation. Then, instead of “revoking” probation and condemning the offender to years in prison, Alm would “modify” probation, sending the offender to jail for a few days and then releasing him back to probation supervision. Alm reasoned that a brief stint behind bars would make the probationer more cooperative when he returned to his officer’s caseload. The probation officers feared that Alm’s proposal would be impossibly burdensome, but they agreed to give it a try. Alm held a contest among the officers to name the program, and the winning entry was “Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement,” or HOPE. HOPE started with thirty-four chronic violators. On the advice of the public defender, Alm brought them into court for what he called a “warning hearing,” with the defense counsel and the prosecutor present. He explained that, for them, the era of warnings was over. “If you fail a drug test, if you fail to meet with your probation officer when you are supposed to, or you fail with other terms of your probation … you will go to jail,” runs Alm’s script for such proceedings. “All of your actions in life have consequences, good or bad.” Later, Alm added a new twist to the program: random drug testing, with each probationer required to call in to a hotline every weekday morning to learn whether that was his day to be tested. Everyone braced for a flood of missed and failed tests and the consequent sanctions hearings. But then something strange happened: in the first two weeks, only five of the thirty-four broke the rules. The overall rate of missed and failed drug tests dropped by more than 80 percent. Before the program started, the HOPE group had more than twice the noncompliance rate of the comparison group; that’s how they were chosen. HOPE reversed that picture, with program participants testing positive at less than one-quarter the rate of the comparison group. The high level of compliance made the workload perfectly manageable for everyone involved, and Alm was able to expand HOPE to 135 probationers without hiring more people. Continue Reading @ Washington Monthly

California plans to drop warrants for some parole violators

Officials will begin reviewing more than 9,200 warrants in an effort to ease the burden being passed on to counties in July.

Crowded conditions can be seen at Mule Creek State Prison. The warrant review aims to help keep crowding from worsening. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images / August 29, 2007)

 

 

By Paige St. John, Los Angeles Times

State corrections officials are poised to drop the arrest warrants of thousands of parole violators, releasing them from state supervision at a time when their detention would complicate efforts to ease crowding in state and county lockups.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation intends to begin a massive review next week of more than 9,200 outstanding warrants, starting with individuals who were convicted of nonviolent crimes and absconded from supervision. Over the next eight months, parole field offices across the state will be given lists of missing felons, 200 at a time, to review and determine if retaining them on parole “would not be in the interest of justice.”

The mass purge is an attempt to ease the burden on counties in July, when the state hands off responsibility for parole revocations to local courts, said agency spokesman Jeffrey Callison. Weeding out cases that are years old, or of parolees nobody is looking for, will make it easier to focus on those who pose a threat, he said.

It will not, Callison said, “allow some paroles to ‘get off the hook.’ “

“I have been told that discharging people is not the point of the exercise,” he said Friday.

Which is exactly the claim of some victims’ advocates who are infuriated by the state’s so-called warrant review project.

“It’s mass amnesty for felons,” said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber), a vocal opponent of Gov. Jerry Brown‘s plans to ease state prison crowding by shifting responsibility for low-level offenders to counties.

When inmates are released from state prison, they are required to report to a parole officer. When a felon does not appear, or disappears later, an arrest warrant is issued. With low-level offenders now serving time in county jails, the state’s parole population is shrinking dramatically because those released from jail go to county probation, not state parole.

Continue Reading @ LA Times

 

Related articles

• Controversy lands at feet of new corrections chief (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• More paroled felons stay clean, but revolving door continues (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• California Prisons Are Still Overcrowded (eastbayexpress.com)

California Prison Cellphones: Illegal Devices Will Be Disabled And Inmates Will Be Forced To Use Payphones

By GILLIAN FLACCUS 04/17/12

LOS ANGELES — A private company that owns the pay phones in California’s prisons will pay millions of dollars to install technology that prevents inmates from using smuggled cell phones to make their calls instead.

The deal with Global Tel Link addresses the growing problem of cell phones within the nation’s largest prison system, where the technology has been used by inmates to run criminal enterprises, intimidate witnesses and organize attacks on guards.

The move also comes at no cost to taxpayers because the private firm expects to see demand for its pay phones soar, Dana Simas, a spokeswoman from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said Tuesday.

“There are pay phones available on the yards, but if you were to go to them now, there’s no one using them,” she said. “They’re empty and a couple of years ago there were lines hours long.”

Beverly Schumock, an administration manager at Global Tel Link, referred questions to a company e-mail address for media inquiries. No one replied to an e-mail sent Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Global Tel expects to have the blocking technology running at the California State Prison in Solano by the end of the year and at all prisons within three years.

Continue Reading @ Huffington Post

California eyes changes to prison policies

By DON THOMPSON

Associated Press

California prison officials want to change policies for dealing with prison gangs, including rules that kept some gang members locked in isolation for years and led to widespread inmate hunger strikes last year, officials said Friday.

The proposed regulations would make it easier and quicker for gang members to get out of the notorious security housing units that hold nearly 4,200 inmates in the nation’s largest state prison system.

Gang members would no longer have to renounce their gang membership. Instead, they could earn more privileges and get out of the isolation units in four years instead of six if they stop engaging in gang activities and participate in anger management and drug rehabilitation programs.

The old restrictions prompted more than 6,000 inmates at prisons statewide to refuse state-issued meals at 13 prisons in July. They staged another hunger strike in September and smaller strikes intermittently since then.

Officials said their review started in May, before the hunger strikes. However, the proposed policy addresses some of the inmates’ demands, said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Inmates wanted a way to earn their way out of isolation, and the proposed policy gives them even more incentives than they asked for, she said.

The department examined practices in other states including Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, New Mexico, New York and Texas as it updated gang policies that date back two decades, said Terri McDonald, the department’s undersecretary for operations.

The old system focused on separating and suppressing gangs. The new system would try to change gang members’ behavior through rewards and punishment, she said.

Under the old policy, gang associates are automatically sent to the security housing units to live alongside gang leaders. Under the proposed policy, many could continue living in the general prison population. The shift alone could significantly reduce the security housing unit population, McDonald said in an interview.

Continue Reading @ Mercury News

Related articles

• How the Hunger Strike Started for Me (prisonmovement.wordpress.com)

AB 117- delays AB 109?

 AB117 which delays the implementation of AB109 and gives 
state
parole control over parolees until 2013, 
but that's not all it does.....
this post is very long and 
I dont pretend to comprehend all of it
....looking for feedback and opinions, please..... 

PASSED THE SENATE  JUNE 28, 2011
	PASSED THE ASSEMBLY  JUNE 28, 2011
	AMENDED IN SENATE  JUNE 28, 2011
	AMENDED IN SENATE  APRIL 11, 2011
INTRODUCED BY   Committee on Budget (Blumenfield (Chair), 
Alejo,
Allen, Brownley, Buchanan, Butler, Cedillo, 
Chesbro, Dickinson,
Feuer, Gordon, Huffman, Mitchell, 
Monning, and Swanson)

AB 117 (Committee on Budget)
Criminal justice realignment.

Existing law provides that certain specified felonies are punishable by incarceration in state prison. If Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 becomes operative, certain of those felonies shall instead be punishable by incarceration in a county jail.

This bill would provide that, if Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 becomes operative, certain specified felonies would continue to be punishable by incarceration in state prison. The bill would make other technical changes.

Existing law provides that petty theft is a misdemeanor, except that every person who, having been convicted 3 or more times of petty theft, grand theft, auto theft, burglary, carjacking, robbery, or receiving stolen property and having served time in a penal institution therefor, is subsequently convicted of petty theft, is punishable by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison. Existing law also provides that persons required to register as sex offenders, or with a prior serious or violent felony conviction who have been convicted and imprisoned for the commission of specified crimes, including, among others, petty theft, auto theft, burglary, carjacking, or robbery, are subject to imprisonment in the state prison with one prior qualifying offense, rather than 3. If Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 becomes operative, those provisions subjecting persons to imprisonment in the state prison with one prior qualifying offense would be deleted.

This bill would, if Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 becomes operative, restore those provisions subjecting persons to imprisonment in the state prison with one prior qualifying offense and thereby maintain existing law.

Existing law provides that, except as specified, when any person is convicted of 2 or more felonies, whether in the same proceeding or court or in different proceedings or courts, and whether by judgment rendered by the same or by a different court, and a consecutive term of imprisonment is imposed under specified provisions, the aggregate term of imprisonment for all these convictions shall be the sum of the principal term, the subordinate term, and any additional term imposed for applicable enhancements, as specified.

This bill would require that whenever a court imposes a term of imprisonment in the state prison, whether the term is a principal or subordinate term, the aggregate term shall be served in the state prison regardless as to whether or not one of the terms requires imprisonment in a county jail pursuant to specified provisions.

Existing law provides for the dismissal of criminal actions by the judge or magistrate on his or her own motion or upon the application of the prosecuting attorney, as specified. Existing law, if Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 becomes operative, provides that certain felonies shall be punishable by incarceration in a county jail.

This bill would provide that any allegation that a defendant is eligible for state prison due to a prior or current conviction, sentence enhancement, or is required to register as a sex offender shall not be subject to dismissal pursuant to the above-referenced provision.

Existing law, amended by Proposition 83, as approval by the voters at the November 7, 2006, statewide general election, provides for the enhancement of prison terms for new offenses because of prior prison terms. Existing law provides that, except as specified, where the new offense is any felony for which a prison sentence or a sentence of imprisonment in a county jail for more than one year is imposed, in addition and consecutive to any other prison terms therefor, the court shall impose a one-year term for each prior separate prison term or county jail term of more than one year served for any felony. The Legislature may amend the provisions of Proposition 83 by majority vote if the amendments expand the scope of the proposition’s application.

This bill would expand the scope of the application of Proposition 83 and provide that where the new offense is any felony for which a prison sentence or a sentence of imprisonment in a county jail for more than one year is imposed or is not suspended, in addition and consecutive to any other prison terms therefor, the court shall impose a one-year term for each prior separate prison term or county jail term of more than one year imposed or when sentence is not suspended for any felony.

Existing law, if Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 becomes operative, provides that prisoners on parole shall remain under the legal custody of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation but shall not be returned to prison, except as specified.

This bill would instead provide that prisoners on parole shall remain under the supervision of the department. The bill would provide that, except as specified, upon revocation of parole, a parolee may be housed in a county jail for a maximum of 180 days. The bill would provide that when housed in county facilities, parolees shall be under the legal custody and jurisdiction of local county facilities and when released from custody, parolees will be returned to the parole supervision of the department for the duration of parole. By imposing additional duties on local agencies, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. Additionally, the bill would authorize the superior court of any county to appoint as many hearing officers as deemed necessary to conduct parole revocation hearings and to determine violations of conditions of postrelease supervision, as specified.

Existing law, if Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 becomes operative, provides that persons released from state prison on or after July 1, 2011, after serving a prison term for a serious or violent felony or specified sex crimes shall be subject to parole supervision by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the jurisdiction of the court in the county into which the parolee is released. Existing law, if Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 becomes operative, provides specified parole procedures for parolees who are paroled from state prison prior to July 1, 2011.

This bill would provide, until July 1, 2013, that those persons who serve a prison term or whose sentence has been deemed served, as specified, for any of the above-referenced crimes, as well as any crime for which the person is required as a condition of parole to undergo treatment by the State Department of Mental Health, shall be subject to parole supervision and jurisdiction of the department. The bill would provide, as of July 1, 2013, the court in the county in which the parolee resides or commits a violation of the terms and conditions of parole shall have the limited jurisdiction to hear petitions to revoke parole and impose a term of custody. The bill would provide that parolees subject to these provisions who are being held for a parole violation in a county jail on October 1, 2011, may, upon revocation, be remanded to the state prison. The bill would make other related changes.

Existing law establishes the Parole Reentry Accountability Program for the purpose of promoting public safety, holding parolees accountable, and reducing recidivism. Existing law, pursuant to this program and subject to funding being made available, requires the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the Administrative Office of the Courts for the establishment and operation of parolee reentry programs. Existing law provides that parolees subject to this program with a history of substance abuse or mental illness who violate their conditions of parole may be referred by the department to a parolee reentry program.

This bill would make offenders subject to postrelease supervision as established by the Postrelease Community Supervision Act of 2011 eligible to participate in reentry court programs, as specified. The bill would authorize counties to contract with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in order to obtain day treatment and crisis care services for inmates with mental health problems who are released on postrelease community supervision.

Existing law, if Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 becomes operative, creates the Postrelease Community Supervision Act of 2011 to provide that any person released from prison, after serving a term in prison for certain felonies, shall be subject to community supervision provided by a county agency. The act requires the court to establish a process to determine violations of conditions of postrelease supervision.

This bill would instead provide that if the supervising county agency has determined that intermediate sanctions are not appropriate, the supervising county agency shall petition the revocation hearing officer to revoke and terminate postrelease supervision. Because the bill would impose additional duties on local agencies, it would create a state-mandated local program. The bill would make other related changes.

Existing law, if Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 becomes operative, requires that for prisoners whose crimes are committed on or after July 1, 2011, except those who are limited to 15% credit against sentenced time, and who are confined to a county jail, city jail, industrial farm, or road camp, a term of 4 days be deemed to have been served for every 2 days spent in actual custody, as specified.

This bill would make these provisions applicable to prisoners whose crimes are committed on or after October 1, 2011, and would additionally make these provisions applicable to prisoners confined in a county jail, industrial farm, or road camp, or a city jail, industrial farm, or road camp as part of custodial sanction imposed following a violation of postrelease community supervision or parole.

Existing law provides that Chapter 15 of the Statutes of 2011 is to become operative no later than July 1, 2011, and only upon the creation of a community corrections grant program.

This bill would make that act operative no later than October 1, 2011, and only upon the creation of that grant program.

Existing law, notwithstanding any other provision of law, authorizes a county sheriff, police chief, or other public agency that contracts for emergency health services to contract with providers of emergency health care services for care to local law enforcement patients. Existing law provides that hospitals that do not contract with these entities shall provide emergency health care services to local law enforcement patients at a rate equal to 110% of the hospital’s actual costs, as provided. Existing law repeals these provisions as of January 1, 2014.

This bill would recast these provisions to apply to health care services generally, instead of emergency health care services. The bill would delete the provision making the bill inoperative as of January 1, 2014.

Existing law authorizes counties to contract with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for the commitment to the department of persons who have suffered a felony conviction.

This bill would provide that offenders sentenced to a county jail that serve their sentence in state prison pursuant to these provisions are required to comply with the rules and regulations of the department, as provided.

The bill would, until January 1, 2015, permit a county board of supervisors to enter into a contract with other public agencies to provide housing for inmates, as specified.

The bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 830.5 of the Penal Code, proposed by AB 116, to be operative as specified.

The bill would appropriate $27,000,000 from the General Fund to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for the purpose of state operations.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.

The bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as a bill providing appropriations related to the budget bill.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0101-0150/ab_117_bill_20110628_enrolled.html

Complaint says California prisons resort to excessive, race-based lockdowns

Julie Small | KPCC

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

A California Department of Corrections officer at Chino State Prison waits for a prison door to be opened on December 10, 2010 in Chino, California.

• Read the complaint
• Prison Lockdowns: How are you affected? Tell us.

Attorneys for prison inmates sued California Wednesday in federal court to end race-based lockdowns in state penitentiaries. Prisons lock down inmates after riots to quell the violence, investigate the cause – and isolate the inmates involved. The law gives prison officials a lot of discretion to use lockdowns – but there are limits. KPCC’s Julie Small reports the class action lawsuit alleges that race-based lockdowns violate inmate rights.

California’s High Desert State Prison in north eastern Lassen County, is a maximum security facility. Following a violent incident there in the warden locked down a group of African-American inmates for 18 months. One of them, Robert Mitchell, stayed in the double-bunked cell he shared with another inmate–24 hours a day – seven days a week. Prison Law Office attorney Rebekah Evenson who is representing Mitchell says the type of discriminatory deprivation the inmate suffered is common in California prisons—and illegal.

Read More @ KPCC/SCPR.org

A short stint in prison

Marty: A short stint in prison

Apr 20, 2011
By Marty Richman

I went to prison last week, but it was only for three and a half hours. And that was enough for me.

There is only one word for prison – depressing. When you take a short tour, it’s very easy to be distracted by the well-kept grass, ball fields, the chapel, the dispensary, the high degree of organization or the promise of education and substance abuse programs, along with other accouterments. But the underlying fact is prisons are primarily warehouses for human beings. Inmate movement is tightly controlled. There are the razor, wire-topped, chain-link fences and the active gun towers leave no doubt about where you are.

Steven Smith, experienced in law enforcement and a faculty member at Gavilan College where he teaches Administration of Justice, invited me to join him and 11 of his students on a tour of the state’s Correctional Training Facility at Soledad. The CTF provides housing, programs and services for medium-custody inmates. CTF is almost adjacent to, and often confused with, Salinas Valley State Prison (SVSP), which primarily provides long-term housing and services for maximum-custody male inmates.

Both facilities are part of California’s largest general fund agency, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation with 66,000 employees and a $9.5 billion budget. The department is responsible for 33 adult institutions, six juvenile institutions, 46 adult firefighting conservation camps, and two juvenile camps with an in-state institutional population of 151,635 and more than 100,000 parole cases. Correction and rehabilitation is an expensive proposition – $38,000 a year per inmate-parolee.

The CTF is celebrating its 65th birthday, and there are places in the buildings where its age shows. However, it’s generally well maintained. It’s a strange combination of old structure and modern technology. They have energy-conserving lights but only a minimum of surveillance cameras, and all the cell locks and most of the internal control locks are manually operated with big keys – that’s very labor intensive. I was keenly aware of the constant clunk-clunk of locks, but I wonder if the inmates and staff ever get used to the sound.

It was designed to house 3,312 inmates, one per cell, but last week it had 6,562 on hand, about 200 percent of designed capacity. This is actually a court-ordered reduction from a time when there were more than 7,000 inmates, some occupying so-called “dirty beds” set up in any available space, such as the gym. California has sent 10,358 inmates out of state to Arizona, Mississippi, and Oklahoma to reduce overcrowding, but the average adult male institution remains at 175 percent of designed capacity. The female facilities are not much better at 168 percent.

The staff is comprised of 1,119 custody and 524 support personnel. Custody personnel control and monitor the population until something out of the ordinary happens. Then they respond with calculated levels of intervention and force if necessary to restore order. Everyone understands that the inmates, who sometimes outnumber the unarmed officers hundreds-to-one in a small area, could take over those spaces whenever they want. But then what? The department’s “no hostage policy” means that they are not going anywhere.

Most inmates are housed in cells, and it’s only when you look into a standard cell that the crowded conditions really hit you. It’s tiny with two inmates, two bunks, a sink, a toilet and some personal gear all squeezed into a space of a medium-sized closet. The doors are solid, each with a reinforced glass panel. We visited one large communal housing area in a low-risk unit, and it was bursting at the seams with stacked bunks and inmates – all under the control of only two custodial personnel.

I never studied criminal justice or law but common sense tells me the official purpose of the system is to reduce harm from repeat offenders, bolster the citizens’ confidence in the ability of the government to keep them safe and deter potential criminals. Human psychology tells me that the public sees incarceration as some level of revenge – not an eye for an eye except for the death penalty – but certainly a kick in the butt.

Continue Reading @ The Pinnacle News

Marty Richman wrote this for Friday’s Pinnacle. He writes a column Tuesdays in the Free Lance.

Prison lockdowns: How are you affected?

Wednesday April 20th | Home » Insight Network » Prison lockdowns: How are you affected?

If you live, work or have loved ones in a California state prison, please help our reporters understand the impact of inmate lockdowns from your perspective.

What do you know about the causes and fallout of prison lockdowns? Who is helped or harmed when the movement, phone access, visitation and other activities of thousands of inmates are restricted for weeks, sometimes months at a time?

Your responses are confidential, nothing you share here is aired or published without your permission. A reporter or producer may call or write for more information.

Please use this form to describe just one California state prison. If you’d like to describe additional prisons, come back to this form and submit a new copy for each additional prison.

We want to hear from as many people as possible who are familiar with prison lockdowns

http://www.scpr.org/network/questions/PrisonLockdowns/

California’s Attempt at Prison Reform Looking Like an Attempt to Pass the Buck

All California has done is shift the burden of the state’s corrections overcrowding to the counties, fails to fund crime prevention services like drug treatment, and more.

By Phillip S. Smith, Drug War Chronicle

Faced with a staggering budget deficit and a prison overcrowding crisis, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and the state legislature have approved legislation that would shift responsibility for low-level, nonviolent offenders and parole violators from the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to the state’s counties. But sentencing and drug reform advocates say the measure merely shifts the burden of the state’s corrections overcrowding from the state to the counties, fails to fund crime prevention services like drug treatment, and fails to include real sentencing reforms.

On Monday, Gov. Brown signed  Assembly Bill 109, the law shifting responsibility for many low-level offenders to the counties.  The law is designed to stop the “revolving door” of low-level offenders cycling and recycling through the prison system, Brown said in a signing statement.

“For too long, the state’s prison system has been a revolving door for lower-level offenders and parole violators who are released within months — often before they are even transferred out of a reception center,” Brown said. “Cycling these offenders through state prisons wastes money, aggravates crowded conditions, thwarts rehabilitation, and impedes local law enforcement supervision.”

But the law will not go into effect unless and until the legislature approves and funds a community corrections grant program, something Republicans in the legislature have opposed.

“I will not sign any legislation that would seek to implement this legislation without the necessary funding,” Brown said. “In the coming weeks, and for as long as it takes, I will vigorously pursue my plan to balance the state’s budget and prevent reductions to public safety through a constitutional guarantee.”

The cost of corrections in California is staggering. Gov. Brown’s proposed Fiscal Year 2011-2012 budget funds the prison system to the tune of $9.19 billion, nearly 7.2% of the entire state budget. And the war on drugs is responsible for a hefty portion of it.

The state prison system holds a whopping 144,000 inmates, including more than 28,000 drug offenders and more than 1,500 marijuana offenders. Of those 28,000 drug offenders, 9,000 are there for simple drug possession at a cost of $450 million a year, or about $4.5 billion over the past decade. That figure doesn’t include the cost of re-incarcerating parole violators who have been returned to prison for administrative violations, such as failing drug tests, so the actual cost of drug law enforcement to the prison system is even higher.

Not only does the prison system face a budgetary crisis, it also faces a looming US Supreme Court decision that, by most predictions, will result in the state being ordered to reduce the prison population to 110,000, which is still about 30,000 over official capacity. The lawsuit before the Supreme Court alleges that California does not provide adequate medical and mental health services to its prisoners.

Gov. Brown’s and the legislature’s plan to shift low-level offenders out of CDCR and into county facilities does not address the core of the problem, advocates said.

“This plan is a shell game that would simply shift corrections costs from the state to the counties without addressing the real problem: California is locking up too many people for low-level offenses for too long,” said Allen Hopper, police practices director with the ACLU of Northern California. “The cost of mass incarceration is robbing the people of California of vitally needed services, including education and healthcare. What we need is real sentencing reform, such as shortening the sentences for simple possession drug crimes. It’s time for California to stop wasting hundreds of millions of dollars incarcerating people who pose no threat to public safety.”

“This plan would allow people to be locked up in local jails for up to three years, triple the current limit. Research consistently shows that longer sentences do not produce better outcomes. In fact, shorter sentences coupled with re-entry and prevention tactics are both more effective and more cost-effective,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy state director in Southern California for the Drug Policy Alliance. “We’re talking about people convicted of low-level offenses, like drug possession, prostitution and petty theft, often related to a drug problem. But the plan doesn’t include a dime for drug treatment or mental health care. In fact, the governor has proposed reducing funds for those services.”

“Any California corrections reform must include sentencing reform,” said Kris Lev-Twombly, director of programs at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. “A felony conviction is a life-long sentence that should not be applied to low-level offenses. No matter how old the conviction, people with a felony on their record will face significantly diminished employment opportunities and much lower lifetime earnings. They may also be prohibited from accessing student loans, food stamps and other public assistance. This works against individual, family and community well-being and public safety.”

Continue Reading…..

Result of furloughs – $1 billion liability Prison guards, supervisors rack up millions of hours in paid time off

Corrections Officer Mark Green shackles a San Quentin inmate at the holding cell for the prison’s clinic. Guarding the state’s 33 prisons is a 24/7 job, making it unsafe for prison staff to take the mandatory furloughs, a corrections spokesman says

Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle

 

 

 

California prison guards and their supervisors have racked up 33.2 million hours of vacation, sick and other paid time off – an astounding accumulation that amounts to nearly half a year per worker.

It also adds up to a $1 billion liability for taxpayers of the deficit-plagued state.

Poor management at California’s prisons has for years allowed workers to stock up on generous amounts of paid time off – a benefit that employees must either use or cash out when they retire. But the numbers swelled when former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger imposed furloughs in 2009, forcing prison guards and their supervisors to take unpaid days off each month to help save state cash.

Furloughs are problematic at California’s 33 state prisons, all of which operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and have thousands of unfilled prison guard positions. Workers have been coming in on their furlough days and banking paid time off.

“You can’t shut prisons down,” Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said. “You have to keep them operational. You have to cover every post. You don’t want to endanger staff by not doing that.”

Overtime a given

For prison guards, overtime is practically a given. According to JeVaughn Baker, a spokesman for the prison guard union, there are about 3,000 vacancies for corrections guards alone; Hidalgo said the number is around 2,000. Prison guards, like most public safety employees, do not work a normal 40-hour week; instead, they work 164 hours in a 28-day cycle. Any time over that amount is overtime.

Although Schwarzenegger’s three-day-a-month furlough policy ended last year for most state employees, it is still in place for prison guards as they continue to negotiate a contract with Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration.

“This was a unilateral action by the (former) governor, and it turned out to be a very misguided policy,” said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. “It was done across the board, without distinguishing or differentiating between workplaces.”

Brown’s office referred questions about the issue to Hidalgo, who acknowledged that furloughs have increased the amount of time on the books.

“The reality is, it became a very difficult policy to implement and manage over a long period of time,” he said. “It’s been a challenge since day one.”

Schwarzenegger ordered most state workers onto two-day-a-month furloughs in February 2009, as the state faced a $42 billion deficit. The order, which impacted about 200,000 employees, was later extended to three days a month. Schwarzenegger exempted some 24/7 workers, including California Highway Patrol officers and firefighters, but not prison workers.

Despite the furloughs and other cost-cutting measures, California now faces a $26.6 billion budget deficit in its general fund.

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