The 2012–13 Budget: Refocusing CDCR After The 2011 Realignment

In 2011, the state enacted several bills to realign to county governments the responsibility for certain felon offenders who previously had been eligible for state prison and parole. These changes will significantly reduce the inmate and parole populations managed by CDCR. This report identifies the impacts of the realignment of adult offenders on CDCR's operations and facility needs, discusses whether realignment will enable the state to meet the prison population limit required by the federal court, as well as whether the change in the makeup of CDCR's inmate population following realignment will affect its housing, mental health, and medical facility needs. The report provides recommendations on how to better match CDCR facilities and programs with the remaining inmate population following the realignment...

Juvenile Justice Realignment in 2012

By Brian Heller de Leon

Policy and Government Outreach Coordinator, Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice

Selena Teji, J.D. Communications Specialist, Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice

“The purpose of this publication is to recommend a full juvenile justice realignment plan in the 2012-13 budget cycle. The Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF) budget triggers implemented on January 1, 2012, highlight the unsustainable costs of maintaining a dual juvenile justice system in California.

DJF’s current recidivism rate of 80% and continued scrutiny under the Farrell lawsuit both demonstrate the limited success the state has at rehabilitating youthful offenders (CDCR, 2010, p.10).”

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.

Audit: Effectiveness of COMPAS

As requested by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, the California State Auditor presents this audit report concerning the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations’ (Corrections) use of the Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS), which is a software tool that helps to identify the characteristics that cause offenders to commit crimes so they can participate in rehabilitative programs and thereby lessen their likelihood of reoffending. Our report concludes that the benefits from Corrections’ use of COMPAS are, at best, uncertain.

Specifically, Corrections’ use of COMPAS in its reception centers—facilities where inmates entering the correctional system are evaluated and assigned to a prison—does not meaningfully affect its decision‑making concerning prison assignments, and by extension, the rehabilitative programs inmates might access at those facilities. Our discussions with staff from eight of Corrections’ 12 reception centers revealed that other non-COMPAS factors, such as an inmate’s security level and limited bed space at receiving prisons, play more prominent roles in determining where inmates can be housed...

2011 Realignment Report (LAO)

As part of the 2011-12 budget plan, the Legislature enacted a major shift—or “realignment”—of state program responsibilities

and revenues to local governments. In total, the realignment plan provides $6.3 billion to local governments (primarily counties) to fund various criminal justice, mental health, and social services programs in 2011-12, and ongoing funds for these programs annually thereafter...

Accountability Audit Review of CDCR (2010-2011)

This comprehensive accountability audit presents the results of the Office of the Inspector General’s annual follow-up of previous audit and special review recommendations issued to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and the California Prison Health Care Services (CPHCS). In this accountability audit, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) assesses CDCR’s and CPHCS’ progress in implementing past recommendations from nine audits and special reviews affecting CDCR. We found that CDCR implemented 61 (or 82 percent) of the 74 recommendations we made that were still applicable and that were counted in our assessment. In addition, we separately made three recommendations to CPHCS in one of the nine reports and found that CPHCS implemented two (or 67 percent) of those recommendations...

Medical Inspection - CIW (March 2011)

Enclosed is the Office of the Inspector General's final report on its second inspection of medical care delivery at the California Institution for Women. The purpose of our inspection was to evaluate and monitor the progress of medical care delivery to inmates at the institution.

The report finds that based on our weighted scoring system encompassing 19 components, the California Institution for Women received 77.5 percent of the total weighted points possible.  This is a 7.9 percentage point improvement over the score of 69.6 percent from our first inspection of this prison issued in November 2009...

Medical Inspection - CSP-Sacramento (February 2011)

Enclosed is the Office of the Inspector General's final report on its second inspection of medical care delivery at the California State Prison, Sacramento. The purpose of our inspection was to evaluate and monitor the progress of medical care delivery to inmates at the institution.

The report finds that based on our weighted scoring system encompassing 19 components, the California State Prison, Sacramento received 76.3 percent of the total weighted points possible.  This is a 11.1 percentage point improvement over the score of 65.2 percent from our first inspection of this prison issued in November 2008...

Medical Inspection - Wasco (November 2010)

Enclosed is the Office of the Inspector General's final report on its second inspection of medical care delivery at the Wasco State Prison. The purpose of our inspection was to evaluate and monitor the progress of medical care delivery to inmates at the institution.

The report finds that based on our weighted scoring system encompassing 17 components, the California State Prison, Sacramento received 75.9 percent of the total weighted points possible...

Elderly Inmates in California Prisons

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the percentage of inmates over the age of 55 has more than doubled over the past decade, from 3 percent (or about 4,900 inmates) in 2000, to 8 percent (or about 13,600 inmates) in 2010.

The department projects that the percentage of inmates over the age of 55 will continue to increase over the next few years to about 12 percent of the prison population by 2015.

Reducing the Ward and Parolee Populations at the Division of Juvenile Facilities

Overview of Division of Juvenile Facilities

Background. The Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF), the statutory name for the agency often referred to as the Division of Juvenile Justice, is responsible for the housing, supervision, and rehabilitation of individuals that have been committed to their custody. As a result of Chapter 175, Statutes of 2007 (SB 81, Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review), only juveniles who are violent, serious, or sex offenders are committed to DJF.

Characteristics of Wards. As of December 31, 2009, about 1,600 wards (generally ages 13 to 25, average age of 19) reside in DJF institutions. Males comprise about 95 percent of the ward population. Latinos account for roughly 60 percent of the total population, while African-Americans make up about 30 percent of the population. Whites and other races make up the remaining 10 percent.

Juvenile Facilities. The DJF is comprised of fi ve youth correctional facilities and two camps. Recently, DJF closed the Herman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino...

Federal Corrections Reports

Find and read reports regarding Federal Corrections; ranging in subject from Capitol Punishment, to Family, Leadership, to Technology and much more...  

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The 2010-11 Budget: Assessing the Prison Population Reduction Proposal

As part of the January 2010 special session to begin bringing the 2009‑10 and 2010‑11 budgets into balance, the Governor proposes statutory changes to reduce the state’s inmate and parolee populations. Specifically, the Governor proposes to require that offenders who have no prior serious or violent offenses and are convicted of certain property and drug felony crimes serve a maximum sentence of one year and one day in county jail in lieu of a state prison sentence.

The administration estimates that, if approved by March 1, 2010, these changes would reduce state correctional costs by $25.2 million in 2009‑10 and $291.6 million in 2010‑11. In this brief, we (1) analyze the Governor’s proposal, particularly in the context of recent policy actions to reduce the inmate and parole populations, and (2) recommend modifying the Governor’s proposal to permit counties to place additional jail inmates on electronic home monitoring...