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).
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.
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.
The new California budget deal has been struck yesterday, and among other policies, it includes $1.2 billion in unallocated cuts to CDCR. While the San Jose Mercury reports that inmate release is not explicitly mentioned as one of the cuts, the broad issue is still on the table. As expected, some are not thrilled with this humonetarian move. The Sac Bee reports:
The campaign, expected to consist of thousands of phone calls, targets Democrats who plan to run for higher office next year, represent hotly contested districts, or who have been sympathetic or outspoken about law enforcement issues in years past. “Frankly, it will not be possible for anyone who votes for the early release of felons to ever be taken seriously on public safety issues again,” the campaign said in a memo to participants. As part of a much larger plan to bridge the budget gap, the prison agreement would cut $1.2 billion from the prison system, which Melekian and other opponents fear could release more than 19,000 prisoners before their sentences expire. “The concern is that the only way that you get to that amount of money is to release people from prison,” Melekian said. He said police chiefs are also concerned that there is no money available to help with prisoners’ return to society. “There’s no money for job training – there’s no money to do anything to transition these folks from institutional life to life back in the community,” he said. “It’s more than just releasing them. It’s releasing them with no real plan for dealing with them.” Also see the report from UPI.
While releases of non-violent offenders would do good to a system that had no business locking up so many people in the first place, the concerns regarding reentry are certainly warranted. The time to think about reentry options for these released inmates is now.
Although closing to visitors was considered necessary to minimize the possibility of an influenza pandemic, it came at an unfortunate time for many- the prisons were closed on the weekend of Mother’s Day… [f]ortunately for all involved, only a very small percentage of CDCR’s pending probable cases of the H1N1 “Swine Flu” virus were confirmed by the State Testing Lab and the virus was contained. Dr. Winslow attributes this success to “fast and effective action by our medical and custody staff throughout the State.” He goes on to note that the steps taken by CDCR and CPHCS during the flu outbreak “appear to have helped avoid a potentially dangerous situation.” Visitation has since resumed and the previously cancelled Mother’s Day visitation trip has been rescheduled for June 26th, but precautionary health measures have been implemented to ensure the continued containment of the H1N1 “Swine Flu” virus.
There are also interesting features on telemedicine and on the pharmacy improvements. True to the spirit of humonetarianism, telemedicine is advocated as a cost-saving measure.
According to the Shasta County Sheriff’s website, the Shasta County Jail is a high security facility, with a capacity of 381 inmates, 317 males and 64 females. It seems that this capacity has been reached through aggressive parole revocation operations, and the plan now is to scale back on jail time and on parole operations to relieve the budgetary distress.
Here is what seems to be going on:
Shasta County’s drunken drivers, petty thieves and drug users are less likely to serve jail time. Parolees will be given a bit more leeway on violations that can send them back to prison. And even fewer prisoners police bring to the Shasta County jail will spend a night in a cell.
Local officials say that’s the reality now that Shasta County’s 381-bed jail is 150 inmates smaller.
As jailers have been quickly and quietly working to release a third of the inmates from the jail because of budget cuts, local law enforcement officials have been meeting to plan how they’re going to deal with the sudden loss of space at the already chronically full jail.
…
The decision to clear out a floor of the jail came earlier this month after the Shasta County Board of Supervisors refused Sheriff Tom Bosenko’s pleas to find other ways to trim from the county’s general fund budget rather than make him cut more than $2 million cut from his budget.
Bosenko has since ordered the floor closed and the layoffs of six jail employees.
Jailers began freeing up jail space almost immediately after the decision, mainly by stepping up their “capacity-release” program that lets newly admitted prisoners go free, often before they’d even had time to post bail.
“We’re trying not to do a mass release,” said Lt. Sheila Ashmun, the jail’s second-in-command.
The intent to fire thousands of prison guards is very bad news for CCPOA, and the organization is fighting back. However, it seems that the fight, while enthusiastic, is a bit premature.
The judge’s response (attached verbatim in Chuck Alexander’s memo on the CCPOA website) is that “. . . your layoff notification must provide a specific date of layoff to be effective and confer the appropriate appeal rights”.
It seems that many of the proposed measures for cuts in CDCR budget have not yet come to fruition, and we are all collectively waiting for the other shoe to drop.
State Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth said today that most of his GOP colleagues oppose early release for illegal immigrant inmates or other state prisoners to help reduce the state’s $24.3 billion deficit.
“We don’t want to see early release. We don’t want to see criminal aliens being released to the federal government and then deported and returning back to the streets and communities ofCalifornia – for a very small amount of savings, by the way,” Hollingsworth, the SenateRepublican leader, told The Bee’s Capitol Bureau in an interview. The GOP holds 15 out of 40 seats in the state Senate.
Our recent posts and discussion of the budget cuts made me think more generally about how the financial crisis can be an opportunity to reverse the punitive pendulum. My op-ed in the San Francisco Bay Guardian offers some ideas in that direction, which may not be new to readers of this blog. I hope we’ll be able to rise to the occasion and make the most of what is a very dire situation.
(image courtesy the Sacramento Bee)
