More Savings Measures: Prison Visitation Canceled, June 26-27

CDCR canceled visitations last weekend, in an effort to save money, as reported on the CDCR website:

Cancellation of visiting at each of California’s 33 adult prisons for a single weekend – June 26 and 27 – will save $400,000 in overtime to help resolve budget concerns as the fiscal year comes to an end. Legally mandated visiting, such as attorney visits, will continue uninterrupted.

CDCR also is implementing other cost saving measures to address the state’s fiscal crisis including: redirecting custody posts to essential positions when employees call in sick or there are other vacancies; a departmental hiring freeze; reducing costs and staffing at headquarters; delaying or cancelling purchases and contracts unless to do so would create a health or security risk; and cancelling all non-critical travel and training.

The department plans to return to a full visiting program beginning July 1, which is the beginning of the new fiscal year.

“Due to the state’s fiscal crisis, we have to make difficult choices to reduce operational costs this fiscal year in a number of areas, including the last weekend of visitation statewide,” said Terri McDonald, CDCR Chief Deputy Secretary of Adult Operations. “Because visitation impacts families directly, I have directed CDCR staff at the institutional level to ensure that inmate families and staff are notified of this decision.”

Sit/Lie Ordinance Will Be on Ballot

My moral standing is lying down.
—Nine Inch Nails, “The Only Time”

Today’s Chron reports Mayor Newsom’s intention to bypass the Board of Supervisors and take the Sit/Lie Ordinance to the voters on the 2010 ballot. We have discussed this ordinance here and there, but now that the decisionmaking has been shifted unto the voters, it is time to talk a little bit about the details.

If San Francisco voters are presented with a sit/lie ordinance in 2010, there are a few parameters that are worth considering:

Are there alternatives? If the San Francisco police can arrest or cite offenders for loitering, aggressive panhandling, assault, and drug offenses, what is the marginal benefit of this ordinance?

Time/space limitations? An ordinance of this sort is more likely to conform to constitutional standards if it doesn’t pursue and persecute people whenever and wherever they are. Similar pieces of legislation elsewhere have limited the criminal prohibition to certain hours in the day and certain areas of the city.

Warning? The law is significantly less draconian if it gives people the opportunity to move away. In some municipalities, a warning needs to be given in writing; in others, an oral warning will suffice.

Authorization to arrest? Does violating the law trigger the risk of arrest? If so, voters might be interested in weighing the interest of proportonality.

Sentencing? This goes to the question how comfortable we are with people doing time in jail–overcrowded as it is–for a municipal petty offense. It is rather likely that, in light of jail overcrowding, most of these cases will be dismissed anyway or dealt with through a fine system, in which case the efficacy and deterrence of the new law should be assessed. And if there is a fine, how much should it be, and how will its amount be tailored to the likely offenders?

Alternative shelter and related expenses? Sit/Lie Ordinances in other municipalities have been found unconstitutional by the 9th Circuit when the court found that the folks lying in the street had nowhere else to go. Providing enough shelter, so as to assure the new law’s constitutionality, may cause the city to incur additional preparation and expense.

And, finally–impact on budget? Beyond the issue of shelter, voters need to take into account the impact that citations, arrests, and sentencing will have on the city budget. The more severe the implications of ordinance violation are, the more expensive this measure will be. Even if massive case dismissals will thwart the effort (which may very well be the case), it will still eat up valuable prosecutorial time and money.

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Props to KCBS, with whom I talked about this topic this afternoon, for prompting the discussion, and to Adam Maldonado for some very useful information.

Impact of Strikers’ Health Care on Prison Budget

Marisa Lagos’s story this morning on the Chron discusses the impact of old and infirm inmates on prison budget. The piece references a report by State Auditor Elaine Howle (which you can access here in full). Her key findings are as follows:

43,500 inmates currently sentenced under the three strikes law (striker inmates) make up 25 percent of the total inmate population. Further, with regards to striker inmates:

  • On average, they receive sentences that are nine years longer—resulting in approximately $19.2 billion in additional costs.
  • More than half are currently imprisoned for convictions that are not classified as strikes.
  • Many were convicted of committing multiple serious or violent offenses on the same day, while some committed one or more of these offenses as a juvenile.
Health Care Services has not fully estimated potential savings from its proposed cost containment strategies. Further, a significant portion of the cost of housing inmates is for providing health care, which includes contracted specialty health care.
  • Roughly 41,000 of the 58,700 inmates that incurred specialty health care costs averaged just more than $1,000 per inmate and cost $42 million in total. The remaining 17,700 inmates incurred costs of more than $427 million in the same year.
  • Specialty health care costs averaged $42,000 per inmate for those inmates that incurred more than $5,000 for such costs and were age 60 and older.
  • The specialty health care costs associated with inmates that died during the last quarter of the fiscal year were significantly greater than any specific age group—ranging from $150 for one inmate to more than $1 million for another.
Nearly 32 percent of overtime costs in fiscal year 2007–08, or $136 million, were related to medical guarding and transportation for health care.

Custody staff’s growing leave balances—due in part to vacancies, errors in Corrections’ staffing formula, and exacerbated by the State’s furlough program—represent a future liability to the State of at least $546 million and could be more than $1 billion.
We discussed this issue before. While Strikers and infirm prisoners are not the majority of prison population, their impact on the budget is enormous.

Students v. Inmates: Financing Higher Education in Prisons

This interesting New York Times piece recounts a recent debate between teams of inmates and students on the question whether the government should finance higher education in prison.

In his dark green uniform and wire-rimmed glasses, Mr. Cooper had the look of a graduate student working some night shift to play the bills. He said that he had done some teaching while in prison, and that he occasionally spoke to at-risk youth about the consequences of “bad choices.” Fifteen years ago, while a student at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, he made a bad choice and joined a robbery on Long Island. “I was a fair student,” Mr. Cooper said. “But I went for the quick fix.”

He and his teammates displayed a consistently confident, Obama-inspired style: some measured, almost soothing oratory; some strategic finger-pointing; some appeals to reason. Statistics poured out at a steady rate, about the country’s high recidivism problem and the links between higher education in prisons and lower recidivism rates. Higher education, Mr. Cooper argued, represents “the last bastion of civility and the last hope for inmates to slip the bonds of incarceration and become tax-paying, productive, caring members of society.”

The New Schoolers could not quite bring themselves, as one of them, Santiago Posas, put it, to make some “Republican we-can’t-coddle-criminals argument.” Instead, they went nuclear, debate-style, rejecting the education system altogether: Even if higher education in prisons is ethical, Mr. Posas argued, that premise “does not address the basis for true equality within our society that is structured by complex and hierarchal racist, classist and gendered norms that produce the prison-industrial complex.”

The inmates won.

It appears that the New School Team didn’t go for cost-saving arguments, but rather to post-structuralist rhetoric; they were also given an almost unsustainable position to argue. If I may suggest a more timely topic for a students v. inmates debate, with much more meaty policy-related arguments to make, it might be the question whether states should spend more money on correctional institutions than on higher education. Then again, I’m not sure the inmate team would disagree on the need to change the balance; the question is not whether our correctional expenditure should diminish (it should) but how to achieve the decrease.

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Props to Colin Wood for the link.

Close the CA Division of Juvenile Justice

Daniel Macallair has made an outstanding argument in the LA Times for closing the Division of Juvenile Justice and its five state-run youth correctional facilities. “The system is broken everywhere you look.” Allowing counties, instead of the state, to house juvenile offenders (currently about 1,400 of them) would save the state government $322.7 million (yes, a third of a billion dollars). County probation systems already handle 99% of juvenile cases.

Prison Spending and the CA Budget Crisis: Panel at the Goldman School of Public Policy

I’ve just heard of a fascinating event. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it, but I hope many of you will:

WHAT CAN YOU GET FOR $10 BILLION?

Prison Spending and the CA Budget Crisis

An expert panel discussion on what prison spending and criminal justice policy mean for CA’s budget crisis and other spending priorities.

April 15, 2010
5:30-7:30pm
Goldman School of Public Policy
2607 Hearst Ave (Room 250)
Berkeley, CA

Moderated by Henry E. Brady, Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy.

CONFIRMED PANELISTS:
Jeanne Woodford, Retired Chief of Adult Probation, City and County of San Francisco, Former Undersecretary and Director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Former Warden of San Quentin State Prison
Dave Lewis, Deputy Director Fiscal Services, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Lance Corcoran, Chief Spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association
John Dannenberg, Former CA Prisoner and Contributing Writer, Prison Legal News
Paul Golaszewski Lead Analyst on Adult Corrections, Legislative Analyst’s Office
Aaron Edwards Lead Analyst on Correctional Health Care and Inmate Rehabilitation Programs, Legislative Analyst’s Office

Light refreshments will be served.

Portugal Decriminalized All Drugs; Drug Use Dropped


As of this week, it’s been one year since the Cato Institute published its land report “Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies,” authored by Glenn Greenwald. The report examines eight years of Portugal’s drug policy: decriminalization of possession of all substances.

Here in America, last week the Providence Journal (the news source of record for the state of Rhode Island) took a related stance. The editorial board called for, not decriminalization, but taxation and regulation of all substances. The editorial argues, “Even if legalization were to increase drug use, that risk is overshadowed by the benefits. Crime would drop in our streets as dealers lose their livelihood, and users don’t have to rob others to support their habit. Governments can regulate the drugs for purity and collect taxes on their sale.”

However, the Cato report found that Portugal’s total decriminalization actually led to declines both in drug usage rates and in HIV infection rates. People found in possession of drugs are sent to a panel of a psychologist, a social worker, and a legal adviser to consider treatment and rehabilitation options. For the short version, read the TIME Magazine summary. This usage decline suggests that the public safety and economic benefits of drug policy reform would not merely offset harms of any increase in drug use, but rather, represent independent public policy gains.

Humonetarianism in Cuts: Voters Concede to Prison and Park Cuts


Today’s Chron reported about a field poll conducted in CA in early March. Respondents were required to suggest areas suitable for spending cuts. Almost no public service was mentioned, which is not surprising (and is the reason why policymakers are better than the public in thinking budget issues through!), the public did mention only two areas in which the state should cut spending:

The survey found 56 percent of voters polled support cuts to state prisons and correctional facilities, and 52 percent support cuts to state parks and recreational facilities. Also, 48 percent support cuts to environmental regulations, and 48 percent would cut public transit.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal for next year actually satisfies the top preferences of those surveyed. He has proposed an $811 million cut in prison health care spending and the elimination of spending on parks. He suggests replacing the $140 million to parks with money generated by a lease for oil drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara.

Still, if those two cuts are enacted, they would amount to less than 5 percent of the overall budget shortfall.

The question is, of course, what aspect of prison spending the public would be comfortable with. Would it include rehabilitation and reentry programs? Would the public approve of the suggested health care cuts? How would the public feel if no new prisons were built? Or, does this support extend to decriminalization, early releases, and parole reform, for saving purposes? Some research we discussed elsewhere suggests that budgetary concerns would lead the public to support such reform, but this poll, apparently, was concerned with the entire budget and therefore did not go into detail.

California Humonetarianism Hits the NYT

The developments and reforms in California corrections have drawn attention nationwide. Yesterday’s New York Times included this story, which summarizes the recent developments in terms of prison releases and parole reform. The piece includes some data on the new releases, as well as reports of the backlash which we covered here several weeks ago, and some interviews with Mark Leno, Joan Petersilia, and others. The whole thing is an interesting read, but here’s what grabbed me in particular:

Eric Susie, 24, recently had his parole terms readjusted under the new law. Mr. Susie had served 13 months in prison for possessing an M-80 firecracker wrapped with razors near a school (he argued, unsuccessfully, that it belonged to a friend).

Now, more than a year out of prison, he no longer reports to a parole officer or submits to monthly drug tests and can travel more freely, including out of state to visit family in Las Vegas.

“I feel like I am finally free,” Mr. Susie said. “I feel like I don’t have that monkey on my back, like being a prisoner. I feel like I am a human being and can get my life together.”

Even the guards’ union, which so heavily promoted and supported the tough sentencing of the past that fueled the prison building and expansion boom, now says it supports the idea of alternatives to prison and did not publicly object to the new law.

The overcrowding, union officials now say, poses a physical threat to its members, and the union has sided with plaintiffs battling in federal court to force even greater reductions of 40,000 inmates over the next two years.

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Merci a mon ami en Maisons-Alfort, Simon Grivet, pour le liaison.

On Conspiracy Theories and the Prison Industrial Complex

Business Insider is not one of the usual places where I go for news, but I got there this morning via the Prison Law Blog. The newssite suggests that hedge funders like Bill Ackman might be displeased with the recently dropping prison rates. The reason? Counting on growing imprisonment rates, Ackman has invested heavily in Corrections Corporations of America. Here is his presentation on the company. One of the slides bears the title, “Tenants Unlikely to Default”.

Bill Ackman’s Presentation on Corrections Corp of America (CXW) @ the Value Investing Congress

Much has been written about the business aspect of prisons, and especially on privatization. The broader context is discussed in Nils Christie’s Crime Control as Industry, which defines the prison system as a mechanism of “depersonalized pain delivery”. A more personal-political statement, highlighting racial differences as well as the economic angle, can be found in Angela Davis’ The Prison Industrial Complex. For our purposes, this is an important discussion to have when policymakers are contemplating contracts with CCA for out-of-state institutions as overcrowding relief. The question is whether it is accurate to see Bill Ackman’s cost-benefit calculation as proof of an intentional conspiracy to keep the prison industry alive and well. And if so, who’s in on the conspiracy?

My sense is that a more subtle and nuanced description will do better. While CDCR employment depends on prisons, not all CDCR employees cynically hope for overcrowded prisons. If anything, CCPOA decry prison overcrowding, if only because it makes the correctional staff’s job more difficult. Yes, there are those who make profit off the size of our correctional apparatus. But it’s important to distinguish actors with financial interests from actors within large bureaucracies who operate out of inertia, and some of whom probably rejoice in the news of population decline.

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cross-posted on PrawfsBlawg.