After making several changes and vetoes to the legislative proposal, Governor Schwarzenegger signed the California budget today. The Chron details the gubernatorial changes to the budget (millions taken away from education and welfare). Pay attention to what is missing: no further changes to the $1.2 billion unallocated cuts to the CDCR budget.
Some coverage of the crisis – including an interview with yours truly – appears today on Esquire Magazine.
Taking a break for a moment from the budget woes, the San Francisco Community Justice Center reports on its first 100 days.
Prompted by our posts about the current dilemmas we face regarding the $1.2 billion cuts, and particularly Matthew Cate‘s recommendations, there’s a thoughtful and interesting post this morning from our pals at Grits for Breakfast. Here’s what Texas has tried to do to reduce its inmate population, and how well it has worked:
Adjusting the property crime thresholds is a strategy Texas has not yet pursued but which is probably justified here as much as in the Golden State. In Texas, theft
reaches felony thresholds when “the value of the property stolen is $1,500 or more but less than $20,000,” so the same tactic could be applied here and would also reduce the number of new prison entrants. The $1,500 level was set in 1993 when the “state jail felony” category was created (essentially a fourth degree felony), and it’s never been adjusted for inflation.
The California Budget Project provides a pretty helpful summary of the main cuts in the new budget, agreed upon after the marathon session in Sacramento.
With regard to corrections, their summary reads:
The budget agreement:
• Assumes $1.2 billion in unallocated savings from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
• Caps payments for contracted medical services for savings of $50 million.
The budget agreement has yet to be ratified by the Governor.
The next month promises to be extremely important, since discussions of the nature of the cuts are forthcoming. There is little disagreement about some potential measures, such as ratcheting up the requirements for several offenses, such as Grand Theft. There is also relatively little controversy about transferring old and infirm prisoners out of the prison system, or about handing undocumented immigrants to the Feds. Will there be actual inmate releases, beyond a mechanism of good credits? And to what extent will parole be diminished? Stay tuned.
(image courtesy the Sacramento Bee)
There has been some back-and-forth with police chiefs and GOP members over the last few days regarding their support of Governor Schwarzenegger’s plan for the correctional system. Trying to make some sense of it all, it appears that the idea is to vote on unallocated savings, then figure out the details. The Governor has been quoted as saying that the prison issue had caused “some misunderstandings, and we are ironing them out.” Basically, as the L.A. Times puts it, “[d]espite the delay, the budget deal will still include $1.2 billion in cuts to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, though it will not specify how they are to be made”.
The main point of contention, as we discussed here and here, is inmate release. The solution? Decide on the cuts, postpone discussion on what is to be cut. The inner dealings between Republicans and Democrats regarding this compromise, complete with political back-and-forth and emails titled “Budget Double Cross” (sic), are in the Sac Bee, for your reading pleasure (or agony).
(image courtesy CDCR)
Secretary Matthew Cate’s column on Flash Report makes a few suggestions for shrinking the correctional budget without releasing inmates.
While no one is happy to be in the position of discussing a $1.2 billion reduction in the corrections budget, the Administration has developed a proposal in coordination with local law enforcement that is smart on crime, cuts prison populations, and saves taxpayer dollars. It is our hope that this reasonable and measured package can allow us to achieve our budget cut targets, without the early release that the public has feared.
Cate’s proposal includes a reduction in the reincarceration of parole violations (a 5,300 reduction in prison population); using GPS monitoring as a prison alternative for low-risk offenders; adjusting property crime thresholds; moving undocumented immigrants to the hands of the Feds; providing good behavior credits for early release; and taking several administrative measures to save money. All in all, the proposal does not differ much from the Governor’s proposal; the magical words “inmate release” aren’t there, but there are a variety of release equivalents, packaged in a way that makes them easier to digest.
The Chron reports on the Governor’s plan for corrections cuts, which includes changing the definition of some offenses, charging wobblers as misdemeanors, moving undocumented immigrants to the hands of the Feds, and narrowing the scope of parole. This plan will reduce the CA prison population by 27,000 inmates, and is already generating much opposition from Republican politicians.
Stay tuned for more.
CA Assemblyman Paul Cook‘s legislative proposal – the newest version of sex offender legislation – died in committee. The novelty? Forbidding registered sex offenders whose offense included a child under 16 to sell ice cream. As is often the case with this sort of bill, it is presented as prompted by a particular incident, reported on Cook’s website, where “the Megan’s Law database revealed that a local ice cream truck driver was a registered sex offender”.
Senator Mark Leno‘s questioning at the Standing Committee on Public Safety addressed the necessity of this new venture.
Current law says a registered sex offender whose offense involved a child under 16 cannot work “directly and in an unaccompanied setting with minor children on more than an incidental and occasional basis.”
“Where is the weakness in that statute that … you believe we’re going to have registered sex offenders selling ice cream to our children?” Leno asked Cook Monday during a committee hearing. “I don’t think there’s any problem with the current statute.”
But Cook said that leaves some ambiguity because an ice cream vendor isn’t working with children in the same way as a day care worker.
“Are you working with kids, or are you selling ice cream?” he said. “If you’re working with kids, then prevailing law applies. But if you’re selling ice cream, you’re selling ice cream to everybody.”
Cook said the issue is particularly important because children are attracted to ice cream trucks and tend to trust those who operate them.
Sen. Roderick Wright, D-Inglewood, who voted for the bill, said an ice cream vendor can build a relationship with a child that can later lead to exploitation or an attack.
. . .
Leno called Cook’s bill “a solution in search of a problem.”
In response to Leno’s question whether there were actual examples of sex offenders operating the trucks, Cook mentioned the case that allegedly inspired the bill, but Riverside County Sheriff’s officials denied having heard of the situation. Read more at The Sun.
It should probably be mentioned that a similar law was being considered in Iowa last year. Follow this one up to its probable doom at the CA legislation website.
The negotiation regarding the transfer of CA prisoners to Michigan facilities seems to be well under way. Bay City News reports:
Representatives from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation made visits to the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility and the Muskegon Correctional Facility last week and negotiations between the two states are ongoing.
Seth Unger, spokesman for the California prison system, said the meetings were “very productive.”
He said Michigan needs to assure officials that their prisoners will be living under standards set by the state of California.
John Cordell, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections, said his agency is working on a formal proposal to put forth to California.
The proposal will include the cost of housing California prisoners in Michigan, among other things.
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Props to Jerry Jarvis for the update.