Prison Reform

California's prisons have mushroomed in the last quarter century, far outpacing population growth. Now they threaten to continue a bureaucracy-driven expansion even as crime rates fall. FCL is working for strong bi-partisan efforts to shrink the prison population back to more reasonable levels.

It is also becoming clear that many California prisons have been terribly mis-managed for years:

• Millions of dollars have been paid to settle the claims of abused prisoners and prison employees
• hundreds of thousands of unprepared parolees have been recycled back to their communities, many of them to fail and be returned to custody
• thousands of prisoners are spending their time in idleness.

It remains to be seen whether the powerful guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, can bring itself to participate in any real transformation of prisons, or whether budget constraints well be used to justify a do-little stance.

For links to criminal justice reform research, see

• Center on Crime Communities and Culture
• Correctional Education Connections
• Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice
• Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
• Drug policy and imprisonment.
• For information about Prison Administration, see:
• National Institute of Corrections
• CA Youth and Adult Correctional Agency
• CA Department of Corrections
• For current legislation affecting prisons, see FCL bill summaries.