NYT on Compassionate Relief puts CA in perspective

The New York Times has a story today on compassionate release for inmates who are physically or cognitively unable to present a threat to society. This paragraph stands out:

“In California, where federal judges ordered the state to cut the prison population by 40,000, three people were granted compassionate release last year. In Alabama, where prisons are at double their capacity, four sick inmates were let out on compassionate release in the 2009 fiscal year; 35 other prisoners in Alabama died while their applications were being reviewed. Since New York adopted medical parole in 1992, at the height of the AIDS crisis, 364 people have been released.”

The situation may be egregious in New York, and proportionately worst in Alabama, but by sheer quantity California’s prison crisis is most dire. What values are we pursuing, what metrics are we optimizing, by paying for incapacitated inmates to die in prison rather than at home?

Kristof on Humanity

In case you missed Nicholas Kristof’s column in the 1/27/10 New York Times, it’s right here. Kristof relates statistics and instances of violence in prisons, especially sexual violence, especially in juvenile prisons, especially by prison guards. “I’ve never written about the horrors that unfold in American prisons — especially juvenile correctional facilities — on a far larger scale than at Guantánamo.”

Of course, it is a premise of this blog that our prisons are in a financial crisis. But as Kristof indirectly recognizes, sometimes the economic angle lets me temporarily forget the human angle. Rights that we can often take for granted in this country, including physical safety, are daily struggles frequently lost in our prisons. The real human costs of our failing correctional institutions are sickeningly deplorable, and prison reform will always be about more than money.

LAO: Prisons v. Universities Expenditure Measure Unwise, Unflexible

(graph courtesy http://www.lao.ca.gov)

More interesting items today on the Legislative Analyst’s office website: This time, LAO examines the Governor’s proposed constitutional amendment to limit correctional expenditure to 7 percent of General Fund support and to set a minimum of 10 percent for California public universities.
The report is far from enthusiastic about the proposal. While LAO supports efficiency and savings (see yesterday’s post on their recommendation to add GPS monitoring as a prison alternative), the report recommends against adopting the Governor’s proposal. As specified in the report, the measure ignores the impact of student fees on university revenue, highlights two budget items rather than examining the whole picture (thus constraining General Fund usage for a large percentage of the budget), and leaves open the question of using the increased university funding for public benefit. As to corrections, the LAO report reminds us of the principle that Frank Zimring refers to as the “correctional free lunch”: correctional expenditures are not managed solely on the state level, but actually dictated on the county level, where sentencing takes place. Moreover, as LAO points out, a constitutional amendment is unnecessary: a simple budgetary decision would suffice.
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props to Eric Chase for sending this my way.

LAO assesses Governor’s Population Reduction Plan


The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has just released its report assessing the Governor’s population reduction plan. The full text of the report can be found here. Here’s the gist of the report.

As a reminder, this refers to the Governor’s initiative, which later became SBX3 18, under which the CA inmate population would be reduced by approximately 18,500 inmates in 2009-2010, and an additional 25,000 in 2010-2011. The legislative analyst reminds us, however, that “the actual reduction in the inmate population from the above policy changes is now estimated to be significantly less than initially planned—about 1,600 inmates in 2009‐10 and 11,800 inmates in 2010‐11. This is primarily due to delays and changes in the implementation of the new policies.” The report also mentions that the state’s plan for the Plata/Coleman panel included two additional measures which were not included in the governor’s plan: adjusting the dollar threshold for grand theft and placing some elderly and infirm inmates under GPS monitoring as an incarceration alternative.

The report recommends that the legislature consider four issues when assessing proposals: budget savings, actual reduction in population, public safety, and imposition on local jails and counties. Based on these criteria, LAO finds that the governor’s plan achieves some savings, but is overstated, partly because of the delays in state employee layoffs.

As to the population reduction, LAO estimates it at 24,000, which is considerably less than the Plata/Coleman requirements, but which “would put the state closer to meeting that poten‐ tial target. Moreover, it could reduce the need for the prison construction projects authorized in Chapter 7, Statutes of 2007 (AB 900, Solorio) to help alleviate the state’s prison overcrowding problem.”

LAO sees no compromise in public safety stemming from the proposals; short-term offenders would still be incarcerated, albeit in cheaper facilities, and prisons can accommodate the more dangerous offenders. It expresses, however, concern about depleting local resources by overcrowding jails. Also, in points out some possible unintended consequences: the proposal could be misconstrued to suggest that offenders with prior records must be convicted for a felony if committing one of the offenses in the proposal.

LAO recommends adopting the proposal, albeit with several modifications: Allowing counties to rely on alternatives to incarceration; revise the language; and consider adding reliance on GPS for elderly and infirm prisoners.

2010-2011 Governor’s Budget Analysis: Corrections and Rehabilitation

The recent 2010-2011 budget proposal from the Governor’s office makes some meaningful changes to the correctional budget, which merit some discussion. The proposal aims at reducing the General Fund expenditures on corrections by $1.19 billion, or 12.7 percent.

The proposal identifies three main cost drivers. The first, which comes as no surprise to those following Gov. Schwarzenegger’s relationship with the CCPOA, is correctional officer salaries, which the proposal states to be “33 percent higher than the average salary for comparable positions in other jurisdictions”. This does not bode well for CCPOA, and their already shaky relationship with the Governor might become shakier.
The second source of costs is identified as “court-driven“: Court orders, primarily those associated with medical treatment for inmates, are said to have increased the expenditure per inmate. As an example, “California’s average annual medical inmate cost is approximately $11,000 per inmate, as compared to approximately $5,757 for New York, which has similar inmate demographics.”
The proposal points to parole-related costs as the third source. These are expenditures incurred by changes in parolee population, as well as “payments to local jurisdictions that temporarily house inmates on behalf of the state”; in other words, the collateral damage from solutions to overcrowding.
The proposal identifies several changes in the correctional budget:
  • A rather small decrease in inmate and parolee population;
  • A decrease in expenditures on juvenile programs, stemming from the closure of several institutions, accompanied by a very small decrease in population;
  • An increase to the Receiver’s budget, devoted to hiring nursing personnel and establishing a proper system of medical records;
  • Parole reform.
The proposal repeats some of the previous measures recommended by the governor for reducing the prison population, such as using GPS monitoring as an alternative to incarceration, enhancing the usage of good time credits, shifting some inmates to serve sentences in local facilities, more intermediate sanctions for parole violators, and less expenditures by the Receivership on medical care. The proposal also calls for reimbursement from the feds for housing undocumented immigrants in state prisons.
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The full proposal can be accessed here.

State of (the) Prisons: Thoughts on State of the State Speech

Here are some initial thoughts about the Governor’s speech, in no particular order:

It seems that, in general the Governor’s heart is in the right place. It is, indeed, disturbing that our budget allocates more money to education than to corrections. However, the solution he advocates–contracting with private companies for out-of-state housing rather than releasing prisoners–is disappointing and may backfire in the budgetary sense.
It is telling that the press release emphasizes, in bold letters, that the new measure prohibits releasing prisoners as a way of cutting costs. The rhetoric is, of course, familiar. The press release plays on public concerns by invoking the image of prison doors opening and tens of thousands of dangerous criminals walking out. However, as we recall from the original Governor’s proposal back in May, Schwarzenegger himself proposed several important measures, such as good work credits, alternatives to parole violation measures, and some legislative changes to allow prosecuting some current felonies as misdemeanors. Do these measures count as “inmate release”? No proposal ever intended to do what the Governor’s rhetoric suggests – opening the doors and letting massive amounts of inmates walk out – but all proposals, from the Plata/Coleman panel order to the CDCR plan to the plan advocated by the Governor himself, adopted such measures to reduce prison population. Does this new measure preclude only mindless mass releases, or also sensible reform? Will we still see these healthy steps occurring, in addition to privatization and prisoner export?
The other important question is whether exporting our inmates to other states, and paying for their incarceration there, is really cost-effective. In a blog post yesterday, Jonathan Simon characterizes this fiscal measure as “reducing spending on prisoners, not . . . reducing prisoners.” But does out-of-state incarceration really reduce expenditure per inmate in the long run? I have tried to find studies that compare recidivism rates between in-state and out-of-state inmates, and have not found anything. Perhaps this dearth of research stems from some methodological issues; as this study demonstrates, it is very difficult to measure the link between mode of incarceration and recidivism, because recidivism might be linked to factors that also led to differential incarceration modes. The out-of-state issue presents additional complications, as demonstrated by this Ohio study; it is difficult to measure recidivism across states, given the differences between different state criminal codes. Nevertheless, these methodological issues do not present insurmountable hurdles, and it would be an interesting exercise to conduct a study that examines whether out-of-state incarceration increases recidivism. In formulating an (empirically untested as of yet) hypothesis about this, it would stand to reason that when someone is incarcerated far away from family and friends, and has no support system, one stands on a less solid ground upon release and is therefore more likely to reoffend. If our readers have other opinions on the subject, we look forward to reading them in the comment section.
We know more, however, about recidivism rate comparisons between private- and public-prison-housed inmates. This Florida study, for example, found no significant differences between inmates housed in private and public facilities. As the authors say, any argument on behalf of privatization should be based solely on costs, not on rehabilitative potential. I would add that, given our concerns about sustainability in the long run, opting for a privatized system should also examine whether the volume of prisoners is likely to remain the same, which will necessitate continued reliance on out-of-state private institutions for our inmates for many years to come.
Another aspect of this issue is the broader national disparity between states who house their prisoners out-of-state and states who farm out their prisons and make business off of other states. In a previous post by Jesse, we briefly discussed this ACLU report, which praises Michigan for achieving a 8% prison population reduction by closing down eight prisons and relying heavily on reentry mechanisms. The irony is, of course, that while these commendable policies are helping Michigan get out of the political logjam and solve its own correctional crisis, Michigan is exploiting our inability to do the same by trying to rent out its prisons to us. I find this rather grim and thought provoking.
Finally, in reading the Governor’s proposal, I want to suggest that while the new measure might prohibit releasing prisons to release cost, it certainly does not prohibit doing so in order to comply with court orders. Assuming that the Supreme Court will not overturn the Plata/Coleman decision, there is still hope that at least some of the population reduction will be achieved by strategies that tackle not only population rates, but recidivism rates.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the Governor’s plan.

Schwarzenegger Confronts Prisons in Speech

By now some of you may have caught Governor Schwarzenegger’s State of the State speech today. The full speech can be accessed here. And, here is the Governor’s proposal, titled “Reshaping our Priorities to Shift Funding from Prisons to Universities”. Among other things, the proposal reads:

To realize cost savings in corrections, the amendment expands the authority of the California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation (CDCR) to lower costs by contracting with entities outside state government for prison operations and services. In line with the Governor’s commitment to public safety,the measure prohibits releasing prisoners early as a means of reducing costs.

Prisons and Budgets

Today’s NYTimes editorial “Prisons and Budgets” at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/opinion/04mon3.html?ref=opinion lauds state legislatures for corrections policy changes with positive fiscal impact. The piece calls 3-Strikes “overly harsh” and calls the Florida law mandating serving certain percentages of sentences “dubious corrections policy and terrible fiscal policy.”

My favorite citation is their use of the ACLU National Prison Project’s new report “Michigan Breaks the Logjam: A New Model for Reducing Prison Populations.” Michigan reduced its prison population by over 8% in about half a year, primarily through justice reinvestment. This leads me to think about how many more teachers, students, doctors, nurses, patients, etc. California could afford to subsidize, were we to reduce our state prison population by as much as 8%.

Resuscitating the Michigan Deal?

(image courtesy Michigan Radio)

Attentive followers of the overcrowding crisis may recall the failure of the deal to house California prisoners in Michigan institutions back in August. Since then, the correctional institutions in question – the maximum security Standish facility and the minimum security Hiwatha facility – have been standing empty, even after Michigan reached a deal to house Pennsylvania prisoners.

The Chron reported yesterday that Michigan is looking at several possibilities, among them a new proposal for CA. Another possibility is housing Guantanamo prisoners, and as Michigan Public Radio reports, Obama administration officials have toured the facility in order to determine whether it would be suitable for the job.

Death Row Expansion Halted!

California Treasurer Bill Lockyer is halting the issuance of bonds to pay for the Death Row expansion endorsed earlier this year by Governor Schwarzenegger. The delay is due to the efforts of Assemblyman Jared Huffman and Senator Mark Leno. The Marin Independent Journal reports:


Huffman and Leno. . . sent a letter to Lockyer on Wednesday asserting that sale of the bonds would be illegal until resolution of litigation challenging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s veto of budget language on conditions for financing of the project.

The language prohibited issuance of bonds until the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation determined that it could lawfully double-cell condemned inmates; federal court litigation on prison overcrowding currently before a three-judge panel was resolved; and the correction department completed California Environmental Quality Act analyses for any modifications to the project.

Huffman said the governor had no authority to use the line-item veto on policy language.

This delay may be good news for death penalty activists, but its long term impact on the death penalty will depend, to a large extent, on the next administration and on the 2010 elections.