By nearly every measure, the California prison system is the most troubled in the nation. Overcrowding, inmate violence, recidivism, parole absconders and the prison medical system are among its many festering problems.
State lawmakers seem poised to finally tackle the problem for the first time since the 1970s. Governor Schwarzenegger has even declared a state of emergency in the ailing system. And the system has been described as a "powder keg" by James E. Tilton, secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Overcrowding is so severe that 16,000 inmates are assigned cots in hallways and gyms; last month, the state began asking for volunteers to be moved to prisons out of state.
The system’s medical program is in federal receivership and much of the rest of the system is under court monitoring. Cellblocks are teeming with violence. Seven of 10 inmates released from prison return, one of the highest rates in the country.
As I've indicated in a recent prior post, one of the causes of excessive incarceration rates is for relatively petty crimes and drugs, and particularly in the case of California, a system so rigid there is too little wiggle room when it comes to sentencing.
Like so many things in California, the scope of the prison problem stems largely from its size. The system houses 173,000 inmates — second-place Texas has 152,500 — and has an $8 billion budget.
Its population explosion is in large part an outgrowth of a general increase in the state’s population, its unusual sentencing structure and parole system, a legislature historically enamored with increasing penalties, and ballot measures like the three-strikes initiative.
And here's a clincher:
Further, most rehabilitation programs have been eliminated from the system in recent years, which some criminal justice experts believe has increased the rate of recidivism.
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Under laws passed in the 1970s, ironclad sentences for crimes are set by the legislature, with little discretion left to judges. Looked at simply, people sentenced to prison for three years get out in three years, whether they have behaved, gone to school or stared at the wall.
Once out, prisoners are assigned to parole and can be sent back to prison for automatic sentences for technical or criminal violations.
States must not eschew their responsibility for rehabilitation efforts, nor should they rely on the one-size-fits-all metality of three-strikes-you're-out. These neglects, coupled with corruption and violence within the prison systems is a recipe for disaster resulting in outrageously overcrowded prisons with a war-zone atmosphere.
Let's hope California sets the standard for prison reform, starting with the concept of a sentencing commission.
...a consensus has been building over the last six months, with union officials, the governor, public policy experts and many members of the legislature agreeing that a sentencing commission is in order.
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Used in many states, the commissions, armed with empirical data, establish sentencing grids, with the offense on one axis and the offender’s history on another, forming a narrow range of possible sentences.
These grids are presented to judges, who have discretion to go outside the range in light of extenuating circumstances. One of the system’s greatest advantages, its proponents suggest, is that it depoliticizes sentencing by taking it out of the hands of elected officials.
[...]
The best commissions, criminal justice experts agree, are those in which violent criminals spend more time behind bars than they did before the commission’s creation, and nonviolent offenders are placed in treatment programs, county jails or other alternatives.
Joan Petersilia, director of the new Center for Evidence-Based Corrections at the University of California, Irvine, and one of the state’s leading experts on prisons, summed up the situation succinctly:
“The way our current system works, all you have is sticks. But we want to give carrots, too. If in fact you can show us stable housing and drug treatment program for six months, you are off parole. The benefit of that is self-selection. Inmates who are low risk and who are motivated will do it, and then we reduce caseload size and let officers target very violent offenders.”
Correcting the problems in California, as in the rest of the nation, will be a huge challenge requiring some detailed self-examination, but it must be done. Too many lives have been destroyed already which could have been salvaged with the application of simple logic and compassion rather than all-too-common knee-jerk politically-inspired reactions.
Prior posts in the series:
Bribing Prisoners for Jesus
US: A Nation of Prisoners
Mama’s New House
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