RAND: new report on CA prisoner re-entry

When prisoners are released and return to communities, an often overlooked concern is the health care needs that former prisoners have and the role that health care plays in how successfully they reintegrate. To a large extent, the reentry population will eventually become part of the uninsured and medically indigent populations in communities.

This volume examines the health care needs of newly released prisoners in California, including the need for mental health and substance abuse treatment; which communities are most affected by prisoner reentry; the health care system capacity of those communities; and the experiences of released prisoners, service providers, and families of incarcerated individuals. The authors conducted a geographic analysis to identify where parolees are concentrated in California and the capacity of the safety net in four of these communities — Alameda, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Kern counties — to meet the health care needs of the reentry population. They then conducted focus groups in Alameda, Los Angeles, and San Diego counties with former prisoners and their family members and interviews with relevant service providers and community groups to better understand how health affects reentry; the critical roles that health care providers, other social services, and family members play in successful reentry; and how the children and families of ex-prisoners are affected by reentry. The authors discuss all this in the context of budget cuts that have substantially shrunk California's safety net and the May 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering California to reduce its prison population by 33,000. The volume concludes with recommendations for improving access to care for this population in the current fiscal environment.

View an overview of the report here: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1165.html

View the full 252 page report here: RAND_MG1165.pdf

Read a shorter 23-page summary of the report here: RAND_MG1165.sum.pdf

* Note: All links open in a new window via www.rand.org.

California Rehabilitation Oversight Board 2010 Biannual Report

Pursuant to Penal Code section 6141, the California Rehabilitation Oversight Board (C-ROB or the board) is mandated to regularly examine and report biannually to the Governor and the Legislature regarding rehabilitative programming provided to inmates and parolees by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (the department).

C-ROB held its first meeting on June 19, 2007.

According to statute, C-ROB must submit reports on March 15 and September 15 to the Governor and the Legislature. These biannual reports must minimally include findings on...

Bureau of Independent Review: Semi-Annual Report January-June 2006

The Bureau of Independent Review was established inside the Office of the Inspector General in 2004 as a linchpin in the reforms set out by the federal court to address the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's internal affairs and employee disciplinary processes. Created to closely oversee internal affairs investigations within state correctional entities, the bureau underwent rapid development in its first six months, setting up offices, hiring and training an expert staff of attorneys and investigators, and participating in the development of key policies and procedures affecting the department's internal affairs and employee disciplinary systems. By the end of the current semi-annual reporting period-after its first full year of operations - the bureau has not only proven its value as an able independent monitor of those processes, but through its work has also amply demonstrated the need for continued vigilance to ensure that internal affairs investigations are carried out with a high degree of integrity and that the discipline meted out is sound, consistent, and just.