Overcrowding
February 2, 2012
Refusal to fund California prison construction could delay end of federal oversight
For six years, a federal receiver has been in charge of fixing California’s broken-down prison medical system.
The receiver says he can finish the job soon, but he needs state lawmakers to pay the full $2 billion they promised for medical facilities. The state has already spent a billion dollars on improvements. Lawmakers now say they don’t need to spend any more. The receiver worries that the improvements in prison medical care could slip away...
LINK - SCPR.org
January 26, 2012
Sheriff releases inmates to avoid overcrowding
A recent surge in the population at county jails has prompted Sheriff Bill Gore to start shaving up to 10 percent off jail terms for some inmates to avoid overcrowding.
The number of men held in custody this month in San Diego County swelled to 96 percent of capacity. Most of the increase can be traced to a law Gov. Jerry Brown sought and the Legislature approved last year that allows some lower-level criminals to be sentenced to local jail instead of state prison.
Around Jan. 19, Gore authorized the release of about 260 inmates, most of whom were serving misdemeanor sentences or were nonviolent felons ordered to serve jail time as a condition of probation. The average number being released now is about 35 to 40 a day, he said...
LINK - UTSanDiego.com
January 25, 2012
CDCR’s Matt Cate talks to Sacramento Press Club
California's enormous budget problem is making it difficult for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to comply with the court-ordered reduction in its prison population, Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate told 80 Sacramento Press Club luncheon guests Tuesday.
But, said Cate, "It's getting done."
Cate said the inmate population is 200 percent over capacity, and the goal is to reduce that to 137.5 percent. The major effort now --called Realignment-- is aimed at moving less violent inmates into county facilities. But the state budget problem is getting in the way. Cate said some counties want remuneration from the state for their added costs, and the state doesn't have the money...
LINK - CapitolMR.com (Subscription Only)
January 9, 2012
Report: Jail expansion needed in Santa Clara County despite 1,000 empty beds
Even though more than 1,000 jail beds sit empty in Santa Clara County, a new report is calling for a $104 million jail expansion and overhaul that would require millions of dollars more each year to staff.
While any expansion defies logic at first glance, counties across California are lining up to revamp their jails as thousands of nonviolent inmates who would have been sent to state prison are locked up in jails under the state's massive new realignment plan to relieve prison overcrowding. And the competition for limited state funds is fierce, leading Santa Clara County to worry it might lose out to others whose lockups are jam-packed...
LINK - MercuryNews.com
January 5, 2012
Editorial: Prison progress, at last
A decade after the state of California agreed to improve inmate health care in the state prison system, it is finally on track to fulfill that agreement.
This week, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced that it has met the first target set by federal courts to reduce the overall number of inmates.
At the end of 2011, the number of inmates in the state's 33 prisons -- including the two in Vacaville, the California Medical Facility and California State Prison, Solano -- was slightly under the 133,000 goal set by the court...
LINK - TheReporter.com
January 3, 2012
California Meets First Inmate Reduction Target
California has met the first target set by federal courts to reduce its inmate population as a way to improve health care in the nation's largest state prison system, prison officials said Tuesday.
Federal judges ordered the state to reduce the population by about 10,000 inmates by the end of 2011, to about 133,000 inmates, as a means to improve the care of mentally and physically ill inmates. The population in the 33 prisons for adults fell to 132,887 as of last week's court-imposed deadline.
"Based on that number, we have met the benchmark," said Jeffrey Callison, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. "It's gratifying to see that we have in fact made it..."
LINK - FoxNews.com
December 29, 2011
Op-Ed: Four ways to relieve overcrowded prisons
Necessity can spur novelty. Even political novelty. As the need for fiscal austerity grows, an unlikely alliance has emerged between policymakers and public advocates who have long sought criminal justice reform. These policymakers are realizing what advocates have reiterated for years: The nation’s addiction to incarceration as a curb on crime must end. The evidence is staggering.
In California, 54 prisoners may share a single toilet and 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium supervised by two or three officers. Suicidal inmates may be held for protracted periods in cages without toilets and the wait times for mental health care sometimes reach 12 months...
LINK - CSMonitor.com
December 21, 2011
Prison Realignment Sparks Lively Debate
It’s no surprise that AB109, California’s new inmate transfer bill — or “realignment” — is a contentious issue. Therefore, it was a pleasant surprise when tempers remained relatively calm at a recent conference in Sacramento on this very topic, allowing for a constructive debate to take place between invited panelists and those in attendance.
Sponsored by Capitol Weekly, a California newspaper that focuses exclusively on state government and politics, the all-day event, dubbed “California Prisons: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” was all that and more. Held at Sacramento’s famed Crest Theater, the well-known challenges of California’s penal system was the topic du jour. Discussions circulated around realignment and its impact on overcrowding, services, prison reform, parole deficiencies and recidivism in four panels comprised of individuals with differing views. The well-attended conference also featured Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, Senator Loni Hancock, and Matt Cate, secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, as guest speakers....
LINK - CorrectionalNews.com
December 19, 2011
California prison population drops by 8,000 since realignment
The number of inmates in California prisons has dropped by 8,000 since “realignment” took effect Oct. 1. Court papers state officials filed Thursday indicate the change. Officials reported the new numbers Thursday under a federal court order to reduce crowding in the prisons.
In its monthly status report to the court, officials said the state prison population dropped by 8,218 between Oct. 5 and Dec. 7.
California prison officials say the transfer of low-level felons to county officials that began in October will allow the state to meet a court-ordered reduction a month after a Dec. 27 deadline...
LINK - SCPR.org
December 16, 2011
Inmate numbers up slightly in SLO, SB counties
Two months into a “realignment” program that diverts some state prisoners to local custody, San Luis Obispo County is seeing slightly more than the expected number of inmates.
Many prisoners convicted of nonviolent crimes began serving their sentences in county jails Oct. 1 as a result of the state’s ongoing multibillion dollar deficits and a U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring the state to lower its prison population by 30,000...
LINK - TimesPressRecorder.com
December 14, 2011
Inmates file class-action suit against Fresno due to jail overcrowding
Four Fresno County Jail inmates filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday, claiming Sheriff Margaret Mims maintains an unsafe jail and fails to provide basic health care.
According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fresno, inmates are regularly denied treatment for life-threatening illnesses, severe mental health symptoms and serious dental conditions.
There are not enough medical personnel -- doctors, nurses, therapists and social workers -- to provide adequate care for more than 2,300 inmates, the lawsuit says. As a result of the understaffing, inmates can wait weeks to months before being examined by clinicians...
LINK - FresnoBee.com
December 10, 2011
Butte County Jail crowded; prisoner realignment shifts 110 to county lockup
Staff has to determine who needs to be in custody and who can reasonably be put into alternative custody programs to prevent the jail from overcrowding, Undersheriff Kory Honea said.
"The primary concern for us is public safety," Honea said.
A law that took effect Oct. 1 shifts responsibility for thousands of lower-level criminals from the state to local jurisdictions. Judges no longer can send offenders to state prison for crimes such as auto theft, burglary, grand theft and drug possession for sale. Non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual felons, called "the nons," are instead sentenced to the county lockup. Parole violators who previously would have been returned to state prison now can only be incarcerated in county jails...
LINK - ChicoER.com
December 10, 2011
California’s county jails struggle to house influx of state prisoners
The early release of inmates in some parts of California is accelerating as officials at county jails struggle to accommodate state prisoners flowing into their facilities.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department planned to begin releasing about 150 inmates Friday because of overcrowding in county jails.
Sheriff Rod Hoops has decided to release the inmates, mostly parole violators or those convicted of nonviolent crimes, over the next five days. The inmates must have served at least half of their sentence, and have less than 30 days remaining on their sentence...
LINK - LATimes.com
December 4, 2011
‘Depopulation’ Prison realignment bringing welcome changes to S.J.‘s DVI
Not long ago, Dorm X buzzed with the chatter of dozens of state prisoners who were in protective custody.
The large hall at Deuel Vocational Institution is now dotted with empty beds and rolled up mattresses.
The warehouse-like room - used for years to ease overcrowding - is no longer needed. It has become a quiet place, and its transformation marks the beginning of more changes to come...
LINK - Recordnet.com
November 30, 2011
Inmate shift quickly filling some California jails
Two months into California's most far-reaching public safety realignment in decades, some counties are seeing a higher-than-expected influx of inmates who could crowd jails to the breaking point much earlier than expected.
State corrections officials say it is too soon to panic and expect the numbers to even out after an initial surge.
But reality is settling in as local law enforcement agencies struggle to contain criminals with a history of violence, substance abuse and mental illness who previously would have been tucked away in state prisons...
LINK - SFGate.com
November 15, 2011
State plan to revamp correctional system nets more inmates at local facilities than orig thought
Twice as many inmates as projected arrived at Orange County jails during the first month of an ambitious overhaul of the state's correctional system that has county governments taking on new responsibilities for confining and monitoring convicts.
The boost raises concerns that empty bed space could be quickly filled and valuable contracts with federal officials placed in jeopardy.
Faced with a court mandate to ease crowding in the California prison system, state officials instituted a plan — "inmate realignment" — calling for county law-enforcement agencies to house more nonviolent, non-sex-offender inmates in local jails...
LINK - CorrectionsOne.com
November 15, 2011
L.A. County jails may be out of room next month
Los Angeles County's jails could run out of space as early as next month because of an influx of state prisoners, prompting officials to consider releasing potentially thousands of inmates awaiting trial.
The state's new prison law, which establishes a practice known as realignment, is expected to send as many as 8,000 offenders who would normally go to state prisons into the L.A. County Jail system in the next year.
Currently, defendants awaiting trial account for 70% of the jail population, but Sheriff Lee Baca said that might need to drop to 50%. The department is studying a major expansion of its electronic monitoring and home detention programs to keep track of inmates who are released...
LINK - LATimes.com
August 29, 2011
Some parolees to do only 1/2 of parole term?
New rules emerging as part of the state's need to reduce its prison population will cut in half the period that some non-violent former inmates will be kept on parole, The Californian has learned.
Parolees who meet certain criteria will be eligible starting Oct. 1 to be discharged from parole six months after their release from prison, cutting in half the time they were previously required to stay under parole supervision, officials confirmed.
Those eligible are parolees under supervision for non-serious, non-violent offenses and who aren't required to register as sex offenders, Robert Ambroselli, director of California's Division of Adult Parole operations, said Monday...
LINK - Bakersfield.com
August 20, 2011
Prison re-alignment, paroles in the news
How will Tehama County deal with the influx of prisoners that will now fall under the responsibility of local authorities?
Law enforcement, county officials and representatives from the legal system met Thursday during the first meeting of the Community Corrections Partnership to develop a plan.
The goal of the partnership is to come up with a plan on how the county will implement the public safety realignment bill, AB 109...
LINK - RedBluffDailyNews.com
August 8, 2011
Uninformed television VP/general manager advocates for private prisons?
When it comes to our prison system, California is one big spender.
We pay about 50-thousand per prisoner annually, ranking us near the top of all fifty states. In contrast, we spend only eight thousand per student, putting us squarely near the bottom at number forty-three. And a new legal ruling is forcing the state to deal with overcrowded prisons, but little’s being done about our overcrowded schools.
So just how did our priorities get so out of whack?...
LINK - MyFoxLA.com
August 5, 2011
Reductions in California prison population not enough, report says
Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to keep tens of thousands of low-level offenders in county jails instead of state prisons will help the state reduce the prison population, but it won't be enough on its own to meet a court mandate, according to a report released Friday by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.
The report said the state will likely fall several thousand inmates short of the 34,000-man reduction ordered by the court. It urges officials to ask a judge for more time, look at other ways to reduce crowding and consider sending more prisoners to private prisons in other states...
LINK - SFGate.com
August 5, 2011
LAO report on prison overcrowding in the news
Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment plan to shift thousands of inmates from state prisons to county jails will have a significant impact on prison overcrowding, a new report finds, but will still fall short of the court-imposed deadline requiring the state to reduce its inmate population by 34,000 over the next two years.
As a result, the state should heed the U.S. Supreme Court's suggestion that it ask for an extension of the deadlines to reduce prison populations, a report from the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office concludes.
The report comes as the state is working to begin the realignment plan on Oct. 1, with corrections officials still working to figure out how many inmates will be shifted from prisons to individual counties, and local authorities still in the dark over exactly how the plan will be implemented...
LINK - SacBee.com
August 5, 2011
LAO: Reducing Prison Overcrowding in California
July 31, 2011
“Two-Strikers” filling up prisons?
California's "three strikes" law is best known for locking up career criminals for life, but the vast majority of offenders serving prison time under the sentencing mandate were actually charged under the less-noticed second-strike provision.
These 32,390 inmates are serving sentences that were doubled as a strike-two penalty, and they account for nearly 20 percent of the state's prison population. Yet most efforts to reform the law have focused exclusively on the third-strike provision, which carries with it a mandatory 25 years-to-life sentence...
LINK - SFGate.com
July 30, 2011
What the state is doing to reduce number of inmates
Five years ago, a federal judge decided that substandard health care in California prisons was leading to the deaths of about 50 inmates a year. Two years ago, a federal court panel ordered the state to reduce its prison population to deal with the problem. And in May, the U.S. Supreme Court told the state that, yes, it has to comply with that order.
But California's prisons remain overcrowded.
The state recently filed a preliminary report with the courts spelling out how it intends to meet deadlines to reduce the number of prisoners from the current 143,500 to 110,000 by 2013...
LINK - SFGate.com
July 25, 2011
Prisoner reduction expected slightly behind court schedule
The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a court filing last week that it has the funding to reduce its prison population in compliance with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling [PDF], but it anticipates it will meet the court’s first prisoner reduction benchmark a month behind schedule.
Under AB 109 [PDF], the state law to reduce overcrowding, the corrections department will be able to reduce its prisoner population by...
LINK - CaliforniaWatch.org
July 20, 2011
Meth Addict with Flame Thrower to Be Spared Prison as States Cut Spending
Zackariah Lehnen, a 30-year-old transient, was paroled from a California prison in November after serving five months of a 16-month sentence for drug possession. He left under a program intended to reduce state costs by freeing nonviolent prisoners without supervision.
Six months later he was arrested and charged with murder in the torture and stabbing deaths of an 89-year-old man and a 27- year-old woman in a Los Angeles suburb, according to court documents. He’s in jail, with a plea hearing set for July 28...
LINK - Bloomberg.com
July 18, 2011
18 Counties take outsized share of prison spending
California has too many inmates, the U.S. Supreme Court and nearly everyone else agrees.
Orange-jumpsuited felons pack cell blocks, and row after row of bunk beds claim countless square feet in gymnasiums and other correctional buildings in the state’s 33 prisons.
The burden of paying for this system falls on all Californians.
But a third of the state bears greater responsibility for our overcrowded prisons than their fellow residents, according to a recently released study from Santa Clara University’s law school. W. David Ball, a criminal law professor and the study’s author, devised a new statistical measure to determine how many new felons a California county can justify sending to prison each year...
LINK - CaliforniaWatch.org
July 13, 2011
CDCR to ask Court for more time next week?
Next week, California is expected to ask a federal court for more time to comply with its order to reduce the number of inmates in the overcrowded prison system.
It's not the first time the state has asked for a delay, but it may be the first time the request actually includes a plan to fix the problem.
This spring, the Legislature and the governor agreed to divert new inmates to county jails, rather than sending them to state prisons. Last month, Democratic lawmakers came through with the missing piece of the plan: Money to pay for it...
LINK - TheReporter.com
July 4, 2011
Three Strikes changes possible
The luckiest woman in California may not be the Alameda secretary who recently won $93 million in the lottery, or the Marin woman who survived a Maui shark attack.
By some accounts, she's Kelly Turner, a 42-year-old former thief once doomed by the state's tough Three Strikes Law to spend 25 years to life in state prison for writing a bad check for $146.16. Retired Santa Clara County Judge LaDoris Cordell, now San Jose's independent police auditor, got the courts to release her after Turner spent 13 years locked up. She's believed to be the only female "third-striker" ever to get out early.
"She's turned her life around," Cordell said...
LINK - ContraCostaTimes.com
July 1, 2011
Court gives CA strict deadline to reduce prison population
A three-judge court that has ordered California to reduce its prison population issued strict deadlines Thursday for what will amount to a reduction of 37,000 inmates in two years.
The special panel of federal judges set June 27, 2013, as the deadline for compliance, paying little heed to the U.S. Supreme Court's call for flexibility. In May, the high court cited California's cash crisis in suggesting that officials might need more time to resolve the overcrowding problem...
LINK - LATimes.com
June 28, 2011
How the new budget deals with prison overcrowding
A rainy day in California brings solemn news from Governor Jerry Brown’s office: budget compromise. Brown is walking away from his stalled plan to put tax extensions to the voters in a special election this fall. Instead, Brown will, with the legislature’s Democrats, put forth a budget that assumes the state will take in $4 billion more than it did last year (which is possible). If the state doesn’t take in enough revenue, massive cuts would go into effect, including a possible $20 million cut to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
As for the Governor’s plan to “realign” the prison system to reduce overcrowding and save the state money? KQED’s John Meyers explains the new plan well...
LINK - KALWNews.org
June 23, 2011
CA state Senator Doug LaMalfa on early prisoner release
The formula for releasing prisoners and cutting cops is not a smart one.” Attorney General Jerry Brown, Los Angeles Times, August 9, 2009.
I agree, and I trust that now-Governor Brown will stand behind those words. For without a doubt, the principle responsibility of government is to protect its citizens from those who would do us harm.
Yet, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that California must somehow reduce its prison population by approximately 33,000 inmates, and the first question becomes: Which ones?...
LINK - SiskiyouDaily.com
June 17, 2011
CMC, County Grand Jury report in the news
Overcrowding at the San Luis Obispo County women’s jail and an antiquated health facility at the California Men’s Colony were two concerns raised in a report released Wednesday by the county’s civil grand jury.
Fortunately, as grand jurors put it, both agencies are working on projects to upgrade and improve their facilities over the next three years.
The report was the culmination of visits by the grand jury to all seven of the police departments in the county, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department, CMC and county Juvenile Services Center...
LINK - SanLuisObispo.com
June 16, 2011
Poll: Voters support re-vamp of “Three Strikes” law
Most California voters see a court order to reduce the state's prison population by 30,000 inmates as a serious problem, and nearly three out of four say it is time to revamp the state's "three-strikes" law, a Field Poll out today finds.
The poll comes on the heels of last month's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court ordering California to address its prison overcrowding problem, and 79 percent of those surveyed said the matter is serious.
But there were not similar margins of support for Gov. Jerry Brown's plans to transfer lower-risk inmates from prisons to county jails...
LINK - SacBee.com
June 15, 2011
First California inmate cleared for medical parole
The first California inmate to get out of prison under a controversial new "medical parole" law will most likely be Craig Lemke, 48, who is serving 68 years for home invasion. The Board of Parole Hearings granted Lemke's request Wednesday morning, but still has 120 days to further review the decision.
Lemke is the second inmate to have a medical parole hearing under the law signed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year. The board denied the first, a convicted rapist who was paralyzed during an assault by other inmates, saying he remained a threat to public safety.
Officials would not provide details of Lemke's medical condition, citing health privacy laws. But a spokeswoman for the receiver put in charge of inmate healthcare by a panel of federal judges said the state will save $750,000 per year in security costs alone if Lemke is paroled...
LINK - LATimes.com
June 15, 2011
Moving more inmates out of state raises new questions
California’s latest plan to alleviate prison overcrowding and meet a federal court order – announced last week – relies heavily on the transfer of thousands of inmates to county facilities, as long as the state can come up with the funding.
But unless prison officials exceed that already-ambitious transfer target, California might need to keep thousands of inmates locked up in facilities outside the state for many years, according to state analysts. The question facing prison officials is how long the state will have the legal authority to hold inmates in those prisons.
The Supreme Court last month upheld a lower court ruling requiring California to cut its prison population by about 32,000 inmates within two years...
LINK - CaliforniaWatch.org
June 14, 2011
‘Political paralysis’ in Calif. over prison reform
As California deeply cut spending for public schools, social services and health programs in recent years, state leaders also found themselves grappling with a court order to reduce the prison population by tens of thousands of inmates.
Some civil rights groups and criminal justice experts are now seizing on this perfect storm of chronic deficits and crowded prisons to push for wide-ranging changes to the state's sentencing laws that would transform California's handling of crime and punishment. The California chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups want the state to reduce drug possession and low-level, nonviolent property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, and they want more community-based alternatives to incarceration.
Yet even modest changes have trouble getting legislative support from Republicans and Democrats alike in California - even as bipartisan groups of policymakers in conservative states such as Texas, Mississippi and Kentucky embrace sentencing reform and alternatives to incarceration...
LINK - SFGate.com
June 8, 2011
Monterey County can’t handle state inmates under realignment plan
Monterey County officials said that barring a miracle, they cannot quickly implement Gov. Jerry Brown's prison population reduction plans.
But state officials say they will have to.
Despite having no secure funding source to cover local costs, corrections Secretary Matthew Cate announced Tuesday that counties will have to begin absorbing more inmates almost immediately. Meanwhile, the dollar amounts Brown has proposed in negotiations with county sheriffs fall far short of costs for many counties, including Monterey...
LINK - MontereyHerald.com
June 7, 2011
Assembly Republicans respond to CDCR population reduction plan
Worst Features of the Public Safety Realignment Bill SB 85 (Senate Budget) and AB 109 (Assembly Budget)
Will transfer jurisdiction of many serious felony offenders from prison to jail. The proposal will prevent thousands of convicted felons, including those with very long sentences (e.g., major drug sellers, child abusers under Penal Code § 273d), from being incarcerated in prison.
Will lead to early release of felons. This proposal will have the effect of converting hundreds of felony offenses into de facto misdemeanors, because the bill gives sheriffs broader discretion than exists under current law to release them early, and over 2/3 of the state's jails are under federal or other court-imposed or self-imposed population caps...
LINK - CA.gov
June 7, 2011
CCPOA Member Alert - June 7, 2011
As a result of the May 23, 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Plata, concerning the constitutionality of the medical and mental health care services in California prisons, CDCR has issued its plan to reduce California’s inmate population. The state has been ordered to reduce the number of inmates to 137.5% of design capacity, or approximately 33,500 inmates within two years...
June 7, 2011
CDCR: 3-Judge Court Order Requiring Reduction in Prison Crowding
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) today submitted a report to the federal Three-Judge Court updating it on prison crowding reduction measures that the state has taken, or plans to take, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on May 23, 2011. This decision requires California to reduce inmate crowding within its 33 adult institutions to 137.5 percent of design capacity within two years, or by May 24, 2013.
“California has already reduced its prison population significantly over the past several years. Today, we have the lowest crowding levels in California’s prisons since 1995,” said CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate. “Our goal is to meet the Court’s order by continuing to reduce prison crowding while still holding offenders accountable...
LINK - CDCRToday.BlogSpot.com
June 6, 2011
Alameda County Prepares for Influx of Inmates as State Reduces Population
Alameda County’s incarceration system may struggle to support the coming influx of inmates this July as California shifts the supervision of its prisoners from state to local facilities in order to meet a court-ordered prison population reduction strategy.
In May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that overcrowding in California’s 33 prisons has caused conditions that amount to “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling ordered California to reduce its prison population by 32,000 over the next two years.
A process called “realignment” could satisfy this mandate by keeping future inmates convicted of nonviolent, nonsexual, non-serious crimes in county jails instead of sending them to state prison. In the meantime, some current inmates will be permanently shifted from federal prisons to local jails. These inmates will serve out their entire sentence in local jails, while other inmates with low-offence violations will be released early to ease the burden on the penal system...
LINK - BayCitizen.org
June 6, 2011
CDCR policy - release criminal aliens without parole hold?
Criminals find their way to Colorado prisons from Mongolia, Iraq, the Czech Republic, the Fiji Islands and 75 other nations.
Those foreign inmates will likely be eligible for deportation as soon as their sentences are complete. In the meantime, they are among the fastest-growing segments of the state's prison population and a growing drain on already-scarce resources at the Department of Corrections.
Since 2005, the number of Colorado's foreign-born inmates has increased 51 percent to 1,953...
LINK - DenverPost.com
May 31, 2011
Woodford, Krisberg: “Don’t fear the prison (release) decision”
In his dissent from the majority in the recent Supreme Court decision requiring California to reduce its prison population by 33,000 inmates, Justice Antonin Scalia warned that "terrible things are sure to happen as a consequence of this outrageous order."
But Californians shouldn't panic. The state won't have to throw open the prison doors to meet the court's order if it embraces very modest sentencing reforms.
Prudent ideas for reducing the prison population have been advocated by various task forces, including ones led by former Gov. George Deukmejian, by former Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and by a national panel of corrections experts convened by the Legislature. The California Department of Corrections has already submitted a plan to the federal courts detailing how it expects to make the necessary prison population reductions...
LINK - LATimes.com
May 23, 2011
US Supreme Court rules CA must reduce prison population by 37,000 - 46,000 inmates
A sharply divided Supreme Court Monday affirmed a controversial prisoner reduction plan forced on California prison administrators that requires the state to reduce its inmate population by tens-of-thousands to ease overcrowding.
The 5-4 decision authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, a California native, is a wholesale acceptance of a ruling by a special three-judge panel tasked with resolving chronic overcrowding in the state's penal system. The February 2009 decision orders California to reduce its prison population that has at times run nearly double its capacity. Approximately 37,000 to 46,000 inmates will have to be released in order for the state to comply with the ruling.
"After years of litigation, it became apparent that a remedy for the constitutional violations would not be effect give absent a reduction in the prison system population," Kennedy wrote in an opinion joined by the court's more liberal members. In an unusual occurrence, the opinion included an appendix showing three pictures of the overcrowded facilities...
LINK - FoxNews.com
May 23, 2011
LA Times - US Supreme Court rules CDCR must reduce prison population
The Supreme Court ordered California on Monday to release tens of thousands of its prisoners to relieve overcrowding, saying that "needless suffering and death" had resulted from putting too many inmates into facilities that cannot hold them in decent conditions.
It is one of the largest prison release orders in the nation's history, and it sharply split the high court.
Justices upheld an order from a three-judge panel in California that called for releasing 38,000 to 46,000 prisoners. Since then, the state has transferred about 9,000 state inmates to county jails. As a result, the total prison population is now about 32,000 more than the capacity limit set by the panel...
LINK - LATimes.com
May 20, 2011
States seek to escape rising prison costs
States have been shackled for years by the rising cost of keeping inmates in prison. Now they are planning a getaway.
In the final stretch of approving budgets for the next fiscal year, many statehouses want to save money by changing incarceration policies and closing prisons. Florida is set to bring in more private contractors to run its prisons while Ohio and Louisiana consider selling theirs.
More than 2 million people are in state and federal prisons and local jails, many in facilities funded by states. For almost all states, corrections is a rapidly growing expense...
LINK - Reuters.com
May 12, 2011
US Supreme Court to decide CA prison overcrowding next month
It’s the “Sword of Damocles” hanging over California’s head, according to Gov. Jerry Brown. He should know.
As attorney general, Brown filed the U.S. Supreme Court appeal that – so far – has prevented the sword from falling. But the day of reckoning could be at hand.
The Democratic governor used the phrase to describe the possible release of more than 35,000 state inmates – the equivalent of at least six prisons - if the Supreme Court upholds an order by a special three-judge panel demanding overcrowding be reduced to improve the health care received by inmates...
LINK - CapitolWeekly.net
April 27, 2011
Petersilia advocates sending state inmates to county jails
Gov. Jerry Brown this month signed Assembly Bill 109, historic legislation that will enable California to close the revolving door of low-level inmates cycling in and out of our expensive state-prison system. The bill shifts key responsibilities and funding to counties, which can more effectively sanction - and rehabilitate - offenders.
For too long, California's prison system has outpaced the nation in spending, recidivism and overcrowding - and has had an antiquated parole system. We have paid an unsustainable premium for returning low-level parolees to prison and for doing much at the state level that should be done locally.
California spends nearly $9 billion on corrections annually, or about $50,000 per prisoner (the national average is $23,000)...
LINK - SFGate.com
April 18, 2011
Calif. cuts inmate numbers as it awaits high court
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide within weeks whether federal judges can order California to reduce the inmate population in its overstuffed prisons, but the state already has taken steps that will limit the consequences if the court rules against it.
Moreover, a new state law would remove even more inmates than the federal courts contemplated. However it rules, the high court still will set a nationwide precedent as it determines the authority of federal judges to intervene in states' operations of their prison systems.
California operates the nation's largest state prison system and currently houses 142,600 inmates in its 33 adult prisons. That's down from a high of 162,268 in 2006, or a decline of 12.1 percent over five years. The state has another 20,000 inmates housed in private prisons in other states, and in firefighting camps and community correctional facilities within California...
LINK - MercuryNews.com
April 7, 2011
CDCR, Overcrowding, CCPOA and the US Supreme Court
Eighteen months ago, the gymnasium at the state prison here was not a gymnasium at all. It was a makeshift dormitory, housing 250 felons in triple bunk beds stretching from one end of the concrete floor to the other. Correctional officers recall a tense, dangerous environment. Violent offenders, many of them sentenced to decades behind bars for assault, murder and other serious crimes, slept within inches of one another. Tempers rose often, especially during the sweltering summertime months. Fights were common.
Today, the gymnasium at the California State Prison at Solano houses no one. Triple-bunking has ended. Instead, this medium-security prison is shedding inmates, with a decline of more than 1,000 offenders over the last year and a half...
LINK - BellinghamHerald.com
April 5, 2011
CDCR still planning to send 2,000 inmates to Michigan private prison?
Employees set to go to work at a former state prison in Baldwin being converted for use by inmates from California have been told to stay home while California state government sorts through its budget problems.
The former Michigan Youth Correctional Facility, which closed in 2005, was preparing for the arrival of the first wave of California prisoners May 1. But workers slated for training this week were told not to report, and a spokeswoman with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said today training was postponed because of California’s budget crisis.
Cassandra Hockenson said the department still intends to send more than 2,000 prisoners to Michigan. “But everything is on hold,” she said...
LINK - FreeP.com
March 28, 2011
San Francisco, Peninsula jails brace for extra inmates
Jails and probation departments in San Francisco and San Mateo counties could be responsible for hundreds of new low-level offenders — and potentially significant new costs — under a state plan to shift some convicts to local governments, officials said.
While the state would still incarcerate violent and high-risk offenders, Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing to send most criminals who are not sex offenders and who committed nonviolent or nonserious crimes, such as drug and property crimes, to county jails and probation departments instead of state prison and parole.
The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office estimates it would obtain an extra 400 inmates per year, or about 33 per month, with few places to put them. The county’s jails are rated for 843 beds but currently house about 1,000 inmates, and a new 748-bed facility to relieve overcrowding is still in the planning stages...
LINK - SFExaminer.com
March 28, 2011
Deaths cited in criticisms of double-cell prison policy (DVI-focused)
Richard Henry Kase murdered his cellmate at Deuel Vocational Institution by punching him in the Adam's apple. He shoved a towel down the man's throat and pinched his nose as the life drained out.
Michael James Steele said he warned prison staffers that it wasn't a good time for him to have a cellmate. Despite announcing homicidal feelings, he said they put him in with another man. Now, he's charged with attempted murder.
John Joseph Lydon already murdered one cellmate before being sent to Deuel. He told prison staffers that he couldn't tolerate being in a cell with a child molester. Lydon now faces a potential death sentence after being charged with murdering a second cellmate...
LINK - RecordNet.com
March 23, 2011
CDCR says shifting inmates to counties is “a reallly good idea,” and “the right thing to do.”
The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials said Wednesday they support a state budget proposal to transfer short-term, lower-level offenders from state prisons to county jails.
The proposal, dubbed "realignment" by state officials, could save the state $450 million this year, with potential annual savings of $2 billion in 2014 as the daily prison population would decline by 30,000.
"Realignment's about taking away from the state and having the counties do more," Oscar Hidalgo, corrections spokesman, said during a news conference Wednesday. "Realignment is going to be complicated and take some time. With all that to say, it's a really good idea. I think it's the right thing to do. In some ways, it illustrates the fact the prison population needs to get smaller..."
LINK - Redding.com
March 4, 2011
CDCR drags feet, reverses after legislative, media embarassment: Parole for debilitated inmates?
Ten of California's sickest and most costly inmates — some are in comas, some are paralyzed — will be promptly scheduled for parole hearings, corrections authorities announced Wednesday.
An article in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times detailed how, despite being chained to bed frames, such inmates are guarded around the clock by multiple corrections officers at an annual cost to taxpayers of roughly $800,000 per inmate.
"You look at these inmates and say, 'This person is not going anywhere,'" said J. Clark Kelso, the receiver appointed by a federal court to oversee California's troubled prison health services...
LINK - LATimes.com
March 3, 2011
Three Strikes, CCPOA, Prison Overcrowding and Early Release
Roney Nunez positioned and repositioned his wheelchair just so, reached down with his right hand and began scratching at the linoleum floor, focusing intensely on the task.
Why was not apparent.
Oblivious to the world outside, Nunez didn't gaze up at the half-dozen people gathered on the other side of the steel and hardened glass door to his cell, 4½ feet by 11 feet.
"He doesn't know who he is, or where he is," Dr. Joseph Bick told me as he offered a glimpse into the complexities of the Vacaville state prison, the California Medical Facility, where he is chief of medicine...
LINK - SacBee.com
February 21, 2011
Republicans push for prison privatization
Conservatives pride themselves on relentlessly questioning government agencies: Is this program producing results? Do the results justify the cost? Can the project be done less expensively? These are typical conservative questions about education, pensions, health care and dozens of other government functions – except one: criminal justice.
The size and cost of America's prisons has quadrupled in the past three decades. In states like California, the annual cost of incarceration is around $50,000 per inmate. When looking for reasons why California is going bankrupt, just multiply that figure by the 170,000 inmates that live in the state. Moreover, 34,000 California prisoners are serving life sentences as a result of the "three strikes" law, for which the state prison guards' union lobbied intensely. Certainly, some violent criminals should be out after the first strike, but the law applies to many low-level, nonviolent offenders, too...
LINK - OCRegister.com
February 7, 2011
Local Assemblyman Asking for Plan to Reduce Prison Population
Anthony Portantino's legislation would require the state department of corrections to figure out how to reduce prisoner recidivism rates by 20 percent within the next four years.
Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) wants the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to establish goals that will halt the revolving door of inmates heading back to prison.
Portantino introduced AB 219 because he wants to shift the prison debate from a one-dimensional early release and sentencing reform to holding the state accountable for a lower recidivism rate...
LINK - Altadena.Patch.com
January 31, 2011
Legal Challenges to Drive Calif. Prison Construction
There is no end in sight to California’s prison woes.
Last month the state’s newly elected Gov. Jerry Brown proposed moving low-level offenders from state prisons to county jails to ease prison overcrowding and reduce the state’s $28 billion deficit.
A federal court ruled in 2009 that California must reduce its state prison population by 30,000. The U.S. Supreme Court will rule in early 2011 on whether to uphold the lower federal court’s ruling and force the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to decrease its inmate population. The overcrowded conditions were called “cruel and unusual” and cited as a driver behind prison riots, inadequate delivery of healthcare to inmates and inmate suicide...
LINK - CorrectionalNews.com
January 31, 2011
Brown looks to turn over juvenile offenders to Calif. counties
Government reformers and youth advocates have long called for California to get out of the business of juvenile corrections.
Now they're backing Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to eliminate the state Division of Juvenile Justice and give counties responsibility for the state's worst young offenders.
Brown wants to eliminate the division in three years. High costs, poor treatment and other shortcomings have made the agency a target of critics...
LINK - SacBee.com
January 30, 2011
CIW sends female inmates to CA private prisons
With a fresh coat of white paint and "The Good Morning America" show blasting from a TV mounted on the wall, local prison's day rooms hardly resembles a dormitory it used to be.
"It was very dark and very depressing," said Gina Trevino, an inmate at California Institution for Women, who spent her last birthday there, bunked with 40 other inmates. "Now it's really nice to come out, sit and talk, share a cup of coffee, watch a show. It relieves a lot of tension."
After seeing its population drop by almost 400 inmates in just one year, California Institution for Women got rid of the bunk beds and converted its day rooms back to their original purpose...
LINK - ContraCostaTimes.com
January 29, 2011
Local govt officials oppose shifting paroles, inmates to counties
Local officials are railing against Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to cut the state's budget by having counties keep tabs on local parolees and start imprisoning nonviolent inmates like burglars and drug users.
"That is a formula for chaos and victimization," said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber.
This month, Brown released a budget plan that includes $12.5 billion of spending cuts. The proposal shifts funds and divvies up state responsibilities among local governments. As part of the cost-saving plan, California's 58 counties would begin incarcerating nonviolent inmates who are sentenced to prison for fewer than three years...
LINK - Redding.com
January 5, 2011
CDCR to convert NCWF, El Paso and Dewitt to adult facilities by 2013 or 2014
Officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and California Prison Health Care Services signed documents on December 29 that will speed the conversion of shuttered correctional facilities in San Joaquin and San Luis Obispo counties to reduce prison overcrowding and improve medical and mental health services.
“California is taking another step toward offering community-based reentry services while reusing existing facilities to offer mental health treatment services needed right now,” said CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate...
LINK - CDCRToday.blogspot.com
January 5, 2011
CA Gov. Proposes Moving State Inmates to Local Jails
California’s new Governor Jerry Brown will propose moving low-level offenders from state prisons to county jails as part of his plan to reduce the state’s $28 billion deficit.
Brown has not yet announced the specifics behind his county jail proposal.
In order to reduce overcrowding and improve medical services in the state prison system, a federal court ruled that California must reduce its state prison population by 30,000. The U.S. Supreme Court will rule in early 2011 on whether to upheld the lower federal court’s ruling and force the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to decrease its inmate population...
LINK - CorrectionalNews.com
December 3, 2010
Dan Walters: California’s perpetual prison mess
There's a surrealistic, Alice-in-Wonderland quality to California's perpetual political and legal wrangle over its huge prison system.
The U.S. Supreme Court may be on the verge of ordering the state to reduce its inmate population, now nearly 150,000, by perhaps 40,000 on the grounds that overcrowding is causing unconstitutional health problems.
The state appealed an order of a three-judge panel to that effect. This week, the case was argued before the Supreme Court. It was evident from the justices' questions that the court's four liberal members were inclined to uphold the order while its four conservatives were disinclined, leaving – as often occurs – Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote...
LINK - SacBee.com
December 3, 2010
Supreme Court hears Calif. inmate health care case
A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court seemed willing Tuesday to uphold a federal court panel's authority to order California to reduce the population of its crowded prisons as a step toward improving its woeful health care system for inmates.
In more than an hour of arguments, some justices suggested they would narrow the San Francisco-based panel's August 2009 order that required the state to transfer or release 40,000 prisoners in two years.
But the state's arguments - that the release order exceeded judicial authority, was unnecessary to improve prison health care and could endanger Californians - drew skeptical responses from at least five of the nine justices...
LINK - SFGate.com
December 1, 2010
Is California’s prison system cruel and unusual punishment?
In a major test case, lawyers for California prisoners allege their clients are kept in such overcrowded conditions that they should be released, rather than continue serving sentences that fall under the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court began hearing the case today, in a proceeding likely to shine a spotlight on the nation's controversial incarceration system.
A panel of federal judges ruled last year that the overcrowding in California prisons constituted a violation of the Eighth Amendment's protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The judges ordered California to release 40,00 inmates over two years. But lawyers for the state appealed, leading to the Supreme Court's hearing.
Lawyers for the prisoners argue in court papers that California's prisons are housing twice as many prisoners as they were built to contain, and as a result, the safety of prisoners, guards, and prison personnel is in jeopardy...
LINK - News.Yahoo.com
November 30, 2010
California to ship more prisoners out of state
California, under pressure to reduce the number of inmates in its crowded prisons, has steadily increased the number of convicts it sends to private institutions outside the state since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger began the program in 2006.
The latest deal will ship another 5,800 inmates to private prisons across state lines, bringing the total to more than 15,000. The transfers will begin in May under a contract that runs through June 2013 - nearly halfway through the term of Gov.-elect Jerry Brown.
California has a prison population of about 164,000 people, but its corrections facilities are only equipped to house around 100,000. The state is under court order to reduce the inmate population by 40,000 though state officials are challenging the order, and the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case today...
LINK - SFGate.com
November 29, 2010
California prison overcrowding case heads to Supreme Court
The suicide rate in California's overcrowded prisons is nearly twice the national average, and one inmate dies every eight days from inadequate medical care.
These are just two indicators cited in the 15-year legal battle over whether the state's prisons are failing to provide humane medical care for the 165,000 inmates.
On Tuesday, the problems of California's prisons will move to a national stage when the Supreme Court hears the state's challenge to an extraordinary court order that would require the prison population to be reduced by about 25% in two years. That could mean releasing or transferring more than 40,000 inmates, state lawyers say...
LINK - LATimes.com
November 29, 2010
CA Prison Overcrowding case goes to the U.S. Supreme Court this week
Here's something even prison guards and inmates agree on: a court order cutting California's inmate population by about 40,000.
A three-judge panel in a California federal district court ruled in January that overcrowding in the state's prison system, the nation's largest, is the main cause of substandard medical and mental health care that violates prisoners' Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
Overcrowding at a state prison in San Diego last year led authorities to house inmates in the gymnasium.
That ruling is set to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, with arguments scheduled for Tuesday...
LINK - Online.WSJ.com
November 4, 2010
Schwarzenegger’s “Prison Reform” results in higher inmate recidivism
CDCR now measures recidivism by arrests, convictions and returns to prison. CDCR uses the latter measure, returns to prison, as its primary measure of recidivism. Throughout this document, unless otherwise stated, the terms recidivate and recidivism refer to this primary measure...
October 15, 2010
Crime Victims United of CA sues Gov to block early inmate releases
Representatives from a crime victims advocacy group argued in court Friday that a new law allowing the release of some prison inmates before they complete their original sentences violates victims’ constitutional rights.
Lawyers for Crime Victims United of California asked a judge to impose a preliminary injunction barring the state from continuing an “early release program,” which the group claims puts dangerous criminals back on the streets.
But state officials maintain that the law, which went into effect Jan. 25, targets only those inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses who complete specific programs. Criminals such as sex offenders and gang members would not be eligible...
LINK - SignonSanDiego.com (San Diego Union-Tribune)
August 25, 2010
State’s plans to send prisoners to county jails worry officials
The state’s plans to ship low-risk prisoners to local jails could cost counties revenue and are raising fears that inmates may be released early.
Transferring non-sex offender prisoners to county jails are centerpieces of dueling plans put forward by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Senate Democrats as they scramble to close a $19 billion budget gap.
The foundation of both proposals is to save the state money by offering counties incentives — including cash and greater alternative sentencing authority — to accept more prisoners....
LINK - SignonSanDiego.com (San Diego Union-Tribune)
June 15, 2010
U.S. Supreme Court to take up California prison overcrowding case
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether federal judges had the authority to order California to lower its prison population by 40,000 to ease overcrowding and improve health care, putting any reduction on hold for another year...
LINK - SFGate.com
The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will take up the issue of whether the federal judiciary can force a reduction of California's prison population in order to improve inmate health care.
Briefing and oral argument will be in the court's 2010-11 term that begins Oct. 4...
LINK - SacBee.com
April 13, 2010
AB 900 Jail Beds to Move Forward in Calaveras County?
San Andreas, CA - The jail project will top the Calaveras County supervisorial meeting Tuesday at the Government Center.
It was back in February that three of the five Calaveras County supervisors voted to halt the Jail Project planning phase due to too many uncertainties. Tomorrow they may change their votes now that the state has somewhat cleared the muddied waters.
From CAO Jeanne Boyce, "The state has really engaged in helping us look at the lease revenue bond financing and the contractual agreement and they really want to work with the County to make those financial arrangements work for the County...
LINK - MyMotherLode.com
April 5, 2010
East Bay braces for influx of released prisoners
Bracing for an influx of newly released prisoners, East Bay leaders are working with social services groups to prevent the former inmates from returning to lives of crime.
The concern has reached a critical point because state legislation has relaxed restrictions on parolees and led to the early release of prisoners considered low risk. The state sought the changes to save money and to ease prison overcrowding and health care problems.
The state aims to decrease the prison population by tens of thousands over the next two to three years...
LINK - InsideBayArea.com
March 25, 2010
Whitman supports private prisons, Poizner, Brown oppose
Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman called Wednesday for building new prisons to house some of the state's 150,000 inmates as she sparred with her rivals over the best way to fix the state's costly and overcrowded corrections system.
"(Overcrowding) is a sign that we have not invested in the infrastructure in California," Whitman said in remarks to a gathering of public safety officials in Sacramento. "We are going to have to create some capacity to invest to make sure that we have the infrastructure that we need in the next 50 years."
Whitman, who opposes raising taxes and wants to reduce the state work force, declined to identify a specific funding source for the costly new facilities, saying instead that cash could be freed up by cutting other areas of government...
LINK - SacBee.com
March 24, 2010
California, in Financial Crisis, Opens Prison Doors
The California budget crisis has forced the state to address a problem that expert panels and judges have wrangled over for decades: how to reduce prison overcrowding.
The state has begun in recent weeks the most significant changes since the 1970s to reduce overcrowding — and chip away at an astonishing 70 percent recidivism rate, the highest in the country — as the prison population becomes a major drag on the state’s crippled finances.
Many in the state still advocate a tough approach, with long sentences served in full, and some early problems with released inmates have given critics reason to complain. But fiscal reality, coupled with a court-ordered reduction in the prison population, is pouring cold water on old solutions like building more prisons...
LINK - NYTimes.com
March 4, 2010
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...
March 4, 2010
State prison cuts could backfire, report says
Recent cuts to California prison programs could result in more former inmates returning to prison and an increase in prison crowding, according to a draft state report.
The report from the California Rehabilitation Oversight Board, charged with overseeing rehabilitation programs, appears to contradict contentions by state prison officials who have said the budget cuts would not affect recidivism rates and will make prison programs more effective.
The report warns that the $250 million cut from inmate programs this year "may well mean that the hoped for reduction in recidivism will not be achieved any time soon," and that without those reductions "it seems likely that California will be unable to get control of the inmate population crisis..."
LINK - SFGate.com
March 2, 2010
Sheriff Baca proposes Castaic jail shutdown in budget move
Asked to slash his department budget by $128 million, Sheriff Lee Baca has proposed a near shutdown of the 1,900-bed Castaic jail and ordering his command staff, including himself, to go back out on patrol, officials said Tuesday.
Baca said he would move nearly all the inmates and staff out of the North Facility at the Pitchess Detention Center, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said. The proposal would save the department $26 million.
And in an effort to reduce overtime, Baca is ordering his sergeants, lieutenants, captains, commanders, chiefs and assistant sheriffs to go back out on patrol that would otherwise be done by deputies forced to work overtime...
LINK - ContraCostaTimes.com
February 1, 2010
Editorial: Gov’s Mexican prison idea a joke?
Governor, tell us you're joking about building state prisons in Mexico.
More absurd ideas may have arisen out of the Capitol in recent history, but none quite so impossibly impractical has made it out the mouth of a governor not nicknamed Moonbeam.
First, the context. This wasn't something Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger muttered in the gym locker room, though for all we know that's where the idea originated. (The governor's office remains coy about exactly who came up with this notion of sending thousands of undocumented inmates to specially built prisons south of the border.)
This was a straight-faced statement at the Sacramento Press Club, where the governor knew he was on the record…
LINK - FresnoBee.com
January 30, 2010
Redlands police chief expects crime increase with Gov’s early inmate release plan
Law enforcement officials throughout the region and across the state are bracing for a possible spike in crime as thousands of state and county prisoners are returned to the streets under a new law aimed at cutting government expenses.
More than 130 non-violent San Bernardino County jail inmates have been turned loose early since Monday and more than 1,000 others could soon join them on the outside.
That's in addition to 6,500 non-violent state prison inmates who are slated for early release in the next 12 months.
"Even though the prisoners that will be released may not be violent offenders, they're still offenders and I don't think we should be surprised to see our property crimes increase," Redlands Police Chief Jim Bueermann said…
LINK - SBSun.com (The San Bernadino Sun)
January 27, 2010
Sen. Tom Harman, Atty Gen candidate on Gov’s early release plan
In his recent State of the State address, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger addressed our fiscal deficits. He lamented that the budget for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has doubled on his watch.
Moreover, the governor is tired of California being a donor state. Recent estimates suggest that California gets back 78 cents for every tax dollar sent to Washington. His answer?: "We need to work with the federal government to build a more fair and equitable financial relationship."
I couldn't agree more. One obvious place to start has been staring California in the face for years — illegal immigrants in our prisons. While in Washington D.C. this week, Schwarzenegger should be sure to include this important issue in his discussions with federal leaders…
LINK - DailyPilot.com
January 26, 2010
Schwarzenegger, Mexico and private prisons?
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday that the state could save $1 billion by building and operating prisons in Mexico to house undocumented felons who are currently imprisoned in California.
The governor floated the idea during an appearance at the Sacramento Press Club in response to a question about controlling state spending. His speech came on the same day that changes in prisoner parole and credits for time served took effect.
"We pay them to build the prisons down in Mexico and then we have those undocumented immigrants be down there in a prison. … And all this, it would be half the cost to build the prisons and half the cost to run the prisons," Schwarzenegger said, predicting it would save the state $1 billion that could be spent on higher education…
LINK - SFGate.com
January 26, 2010
REGION: Hundreds of jail inmates freed
A few hundred convicted criminals walked out of county jails Monday, their time behind bars cut short as part of a new law that aims to save money and thin California prisons.
In San Diego County, about 260 inmates left jail with their sentences shaved by as much as two months under the new law, which went into effect across the state on Monday. About 30 had been held at the Vista jail.
In Riverside County, about 127 jail inmates were released, officials said…
LINK - NCTimes.com
January 26, 2010
Governor looks south of the border for prisons
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday that the state could save $1 billion by building and operating prisons in Mexico to house undocumented felons who are currently imprisoned in California.
The governor floated the idea during an appearance at the Sacramento Press Club in response to a question about controlling state spending. His speech came on the same day that changes in prisoner parole and credits for time served took effect.
"We pay them to build the prisons down in Mexico and then we have those undocumented immigrants be down there in a prison. … And all this, it would be half the cost to build the prisons and half the cost to run the prisons," Schwarzenegger said, predicting it would save the state $1 billion that could be spent on higher education…
LINK - SFGate.com (The San Francisco Gate)
January 25, 2010
Prison Plan Reduces 30,000 Less Inmates Than Estimated
Instead of reducing prison overcrowding by 43,500 inmates, Schwarzenegger administration policy changes and legislation signed in October to thin the state's inmate population will only result in a 13,400 decrease in inmates over two years, the Legislative Analyst said in a report issued January 25.
That total is well short of the maximum number of inmates set two weeks ago by a federal three-judge panel which ordered the state to lower its prison population from roughly 168,000 to 128,000. California is appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the budget plan he presented January 8, the GOP governor proposes sending persons with no prior violent offenses who are convicted of various property and drug felonies to county jails for up to 366 days. Schwarzenegger says that would reduce the number of state prison inmates by 15,100 – when fully implemented…
LINK - CaliforniasCapitol.com
January 25, 2010
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...
January 25, 2010
California inmate release plan begins
The state's controversial plan to reduce its prison population by 6,500 inmates over the next year begins today, with victims and law enforcement groups once again warning it will increase crime.
"We are concerned for the public's safety," said Christine Ward, director of the Crime Victims Action Alliance in Sacramento.
"We understand that this is a move by the Legislature to help relieve prison overcrowding and save money in the budget. But we're very disappointed that public safety seems to have taken a back seat to other issues."
The idea, which opponents label an "early-release" plan, was hammered out last year during contentious budget talks…
LINK - SacBee.com
January 20, 2010
California Out-of-State Correctional Facility Program
Overview of Out-of-State Bed Program
Mission. The California Out-of-State Correctional Facility (COCF) program is administered by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Its mission is to transfer inmates out of state for the purpose of temporarily alleviating overcrowding within existing state prisons.
Number of Inmates. The department currently has 8,021 male inmates housed in fi ve out-of-state facilities. Inmates housed in these facilities are generally highersecurity level inmates. Most inmates have been transferred involuntarily. Inmates with serious medical and mental health issues are generally excluded from the program...
January 20, 2010
High Court rejects state’s prisons edict appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Schwarzenegger administration's attempt Tuesday to dismantle a judicial panel that wants California to improve inmate health care by making its prisons less crowded, but set the stage for a possible ruling on the panel's authority to lower the prison population.
The high court's brief order agreed with inmates' lawyers that the state had acted prematurely in appealing an August 2008 ruling by a three-judge panel. That ruling found that overcrowding in the state's 33 prisons, which hold nearly twice their designed capacity of 80,000, was the chief cause of a medical care system that violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The panel ordered the administration to submit a plan that would reduce the inmate population by 40,000 in two years. State lawyers appealed, arguing that the panel was illegally established, had exaggerated the health care problems and misidentified their cause, and lacked authority to order prisoner releases…
LINK - SFGate.com (San Francisco Gate)
January 20, 2010
Gov to release 6,000 inmates starting next week!
Despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Tuesday that postponed the early release of 40,000 California prisoners, another 6,000 convicts are expected to be set free early from state prisons starting next week, alarming public safety officials and local leaders.
The 6,000 are to be released under separate legislation that is not affected by the Supreme Court's decision Tuesday.
The court rejected the state of California's challenge of a special judicial panel's order to release the prisoners early under an overcrowding lawsuit filed by the Berkeley-based nonprofit Prison Law Office…
LINK - DailyNews.com
January 17, 2010
LA Times, SF Chron blast Gov’s private prison plans
ON PRISON SPENDING: State must address causes of overcrowding
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made at least two radical proposals in his State of the State address earlier this month. Both of them concern the state's budget-busting incarceration system. Neither of them is the most direct way to tackle it.The state is going to have to address the prison system this year, if for no other reason than the courts are forcing it to do so. Last August, a panel of three federal judges ruled that, thanks to overcrowding, mental and medical health programs in California's prisons were so inadequate as to be unconstitutional. The panel has given the state two years to reduce the number of inmates by 40,000…
LINK - SFGate.com (San Francisco Gate)
Editorial: A poor prison plan for California
Gov. Schwarzenegger's latest proposal combines a destructive budgeting formula with an untested theory about privatization.When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed shifting female inmates out of prisons to community detention centers in 2006, the Legislature said no. When he asked lawmakers the following year to approve $10.9 billion in bonds to build new prisons while also reforming sentencing laws and parole rules, they reduced the bond package and jettisoned the reforms. Last year, when he asked them to cut the prison budget by $1.2 billion, they fell about $200 million short. We don't blame the governor for being frustrated, but we do fault him for apparently giving up.
Schwarzenegger's latest prison plan, unveiled in his State of the State address earlier this month, is less a serious policy proposal than a hunk of red meat tossed out at voters who are understandably furious about cuts in education spending. It combines a deeply destructive budgeting formula with an untested theory about prison privatization…
LINK - LATimes.com
January 17, 2010
ACLU blasts Gov’s private prison plan too!
In a move nearly as audacious as his fleet of Hummers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger elated many public educators and criminal justice reformers in his State of the State speech by publicly embracing the "books not bars" motto that had been a rallying cry of grass-roots organizations for a decade.
Schwarzenegger declared that California should no longer spend more money on prisons than education and proposed a state constitutional amendment that would reverse the current spending ratio. "The priorities have become out of whack over the years," he said. "What does it say about any state that focuses more on prison uniforms than on caps and gowns?"
Good question, Governor…
LINK - SacBee.com
January 16, 2010
Schwarzenegger’s deficient thinking
A couple of months ago I interviewed an economist in Sacramento who has long studied California state finances. I asked him what the lowest general fund budget was that he could envision in California as state revenues shrivelled. He answered: $85bn a year. The state simply couldn't function with a smaller budget than that.
Last week, Governor Schwarzenegger declared another fiscal emergency, and proposed an $82 billion budget – three billion dollars below the barebones survival estimate of my economist friend.
Amidst all of the doom-and-gloom cuts, and the accompanying rage as the state that until recently epitomised possibility in America continues to implode, one policy change stood out, offering a glimmer of better priorities in the years ahead. Schwarzenegger called for a state constitutional amendment to ensure that the state never spent less than 10% of its general fund on higher education and never spent more than seven percent on prisons…
LINK - Guardian.co.uk
January 13, 2010
CCA confirms plans to house CA state inmates at California City private prison
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has not renewed its contract with Corrections Corp. of America to manage more than 2,000 inmates now housed in California under the Criminal Alien Requirement program.
The contract, which has been awarded to Cornell Cos., will take about $22 million annually – about 12 cents per diluted share – off CCA's bottom line, estimated Avondale Partners analyst Kevin Campbell. Nashville-based CCA – which did get a renewed BOP deal to manage 1,200 inmates in New Mexico – had been expected to earn $1.40 per share in 2010.
In a statement, CCA President and CEO Damon Hininger said the company believes the BOP's move is based primarily on "escalating federal wage determination costs in California, and does not reflect the quality of operations our company and staff have provided to the BOP…"
LINK - NashvillePost.com
January 13, 2010
Tuolumne County Sheriff calls Gov’s prison plan a “lose-lose”
Tuolumne County Sheriff Jim Mele expressed an outspoken reaction to several entities regarding two California prisoner release proposals.
Tuesday that three judge panel selected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco handed down a ruling calling for the release of 40,000 prisoners within a two year period. At the same time the judges did postpone the effective date of that order pending U.S. Supreme Court consideration and another order scheduled for August on how to implement a release plan.
Meanwhile Governor Schwarzenegger has called for the transfer of state prisoners to serve out their time in county jails to easy the state budget crisis. The Governor is hopeful of reducing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget by $1.2 billion…
LINK - MyMotherLode.com
