(Go to Action Alerts)( Go to Bill Status)( Go to Prior Newsletters)( Go to FCL Homepage)
Transforming Our Prison Bureaucracy
Calif. Interfaith Coalition Lobby Day
During the inaugural festivities Gray Davis chose to ignore a two-pronged dilemma facing his new administration: What to do about a burgeoning and cruelly costly prison population and how to deal with a public whose misplaced faith in incarceration has it thinking of jail as a solution rather than as a wellspring of crime and violence. Every year the state prison system threatens to gobble up a larger slice of the state budget while returning over 100,000 unready parolees to the streets. And the system, locked into a failed vision of corrections, goes right on planning the construction of more and bigger prisons. [Graphic: Increase in Prison Population]
The prisons already employ over 40,000 guards and support staff; planners for the Department of Corrections foresee continued steady growth in both inmates and staff well into the 21st century. In the last quarter of this century, California's prison population mushroomed from 25,000 prisoners in 1975 to 150,000 today. During that period the state built 18 new prisons; by way of comparison, only one new state university was established in that period.
The new governor appointed Robert Presley to his cabinet as Secretary of the Youth and Adult Corrections Agency. Presley, before his 20 years of service in the Senate, was undersheriff in Riverside County. As Chairman of the important Joint Prison Construction Committee he oversaw much of the expansion of the Department of Corrections during the 1980's. He went on to chair a blue ribbon commission that examined the future of incarceration in California. This panel concluded that many more effective alternatives to incarceration were needed, and that imprisonment alone could never be a solution to the problem of crime in society.
Here are some steps Secretary Presley, as overseer of the state's prison system, can invoke to help tame the corrections monster:
1) See to it that released inmates have acquired the coping skills and will use employment, drug treatment, and character development programs to succeed on parole instead of being returned to already overcrowded prisons. This will require scrupulous follow-up of the outcomes of pre-release and post- release programs and assessment of their quality, based on the success of parolees who have completed various programs.
2) Establish Board of Prison Terms policies for intermediate sanctions -- penalties less severe than the standard incarceration for violation of parole --that would obviate the need to return to custody parolees who commit minor violations of their conditions of parole.
3) Develop statewide programs and policies through the Board of Corrections that encourage development of alternatives to incarceration, particularly ones that include community corrections such as drug courts, intensive supervision, house arrest, and work furlough with restitution.
4) Carefully revise the fiscal incentives that encourage local jurisdictions to send people to state prison. When they do this they not only send the offender away; they also get rid of the costs of custodianship at the same time. We do not mean to suggest that decisions about individuals caught in the system are predicated on available dollars, but it is clear that failure to fund early intervention alternatives -- especially ones located in poor neighborhoods -- limits the options available to those who work with offenders at every level of the system.
We will soon begin to see how the new leadership in Youth and Adult Corrections responds to both the enormous fiscal and custodial problems in the prisons, and the expected rash of prison-related legislation. With regard to the latter point, the following measures have already been introduced:
SB 12 (Richard Rainey, R., Walnut Creek) increases required training for new correctional officers. While it is good to have better-trained staff entering the prisons, it is even more important to re-train the existing staff. This bill would be improved by providing for more in-service training.
SB 13 (Richard Rainey, R., Walnut Creek) permits the Board of Prison Terms to revoke a parole prior to the release of an individual who has a mental disorder. Inmates who have exhibited behavior in the 90 days prior to release that indicates they are likely to commit a crime would be subject to revocation. This measure seems gravely flawed. It applies to people whose sentences may have been imposed years or even decades ago while having the Board make forecasts about the likelihood of future human behavior. Treatment for the mentally ill in prison is notoriously inadequate. The bill should be amended to apply only to cases occuring after enactment of the bill, and then only when the mentally disordered prisoner has been afforded competent treatment.
SB 126 (Richard Polanco, D., Los Angeles) revises the statutory declaration on the purpose of imprisonment to include the reduction of recidivism by first-time non-violent offenders. The measure needs to be extended to clarify that recidivism by all offenders must be reduced, and that the over-arching purpose of imprisonment is to promote public safety.
SB 127 (Richard Polanco, D., Los Angeles) denies good behavior credits to prisoners who have no high school diploma or GED equivalent, unless they are working to the best of their ability to obtain it. Education of prisoners is the best crime-reduction measure around. We believe this bill is subject to and could also become a vehicle for abuse of inmates. It is better to improve the quality and availability of instruction and to offer continuous and relevant educational opportunities for CDC prisoners.
SB 128 (Richard Polanco, D., Los Angeles) requires the Board of Prison Terms to give parole dates to qualified first time offenders. This measure needs refining and clarifying so that parole dates are also to be given to other offenders who have served an adequate sentence as defined by law.
We encourage readers to write to the authors and to Senator John Vasconcellos, Chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, urging that the changes or modifications suggested above be incorporated in these measures. The way the Davis administration responds to bills of this kind will have much to do with public safety and the future costs of prisons. We will soon see whether we are to build colleges or prisons in the next decade.
-Steve Birdlebough
The California Department of Corrections (CDC) has met with substantial criticism recently. Those of us who argue for a constructive, restorative approach to incarceration, and who may be over-quick to criticize, need to keep in mind that there are a number of well-conceived programs and policies now in place and working. Were these programs to be expanded and made more widespread, substantial benefits would accrue to inmates, taxpayers, CDC staff, and the general public. And they could be institutionalized in this way at nominal cost. Here are some examples:
Force and deadly force. Responding to incidents in which guards injured and killed prisoners, the warden at Pelican Bay Prison developed a comprehensive policy to govern the use of force by guards when dealing with difficult situations. The policy brought about an immediate cessation of shootings, and reduced violent incidents materially. Unhappily, the policy has yet to be made part of the basic training for new guards, and it remains to be adopted at most other prisons.
Basic education. Programs that offer prisoners the opportunity to earn GED diplomas are in place in all state prisons. Many prisoners are school dropouts who do not read well and have limited math skills. Good GED programs can address these lacks. The approach taken in offering GED programs needs to shift however. There is a tendency for some instructors to turn this learning experience into an exercise in discipline, building hurdles instead of turning learning into the door-opening experience it needs to be for the inmate-students.
Thinking skills for offense prevention. Prison-based cognitive development programs are gaining acceptance and have great potential to alter the anti-social mentality that many inmates bring to prison -- the mentality that may even have brought them to prison. A cognitive development curriculum first developed at the Corcoran and North Kern prisons can be offered by inmates to other inmates at little cost. Currently, however the use of cognitive training tends to be confined to a few inmates. This training should be offered to all from the time an inmate enters the system.
Art programs. For many years art programs have been very strong. Experience with Pell grants has demonstrated the great potential of extended learning experiences in rehabilitation of offenders. These creative activities have been important outlets for the energy and imagination of many prisoners. Unhappily, one by-product of these activities has been the imposition of numerous restrictions, ranging from limits on the kinds of materials that can be kept, to the books a prisoner can posses, to preventing prisoners from entering their work in contests or shows.
Work experience. Many prisoners come into the system with very little experience in the traditions and politics of the workplace. To the extent they can be given meaningful and responsible jobs while in prison, prisoners can develop a useful resumé that would help them become productive and self-reliant citizens after release. However, with too few jobs to go around and a glut of workers, inmate labor is not used effectively. Prison security requirements limit the length of the work day and downplay the efficiency standards found in small enterprises. Prison work, to be an effective bridge to employment outside the walls, needs to live up to the standard of work in the private sector.
Alternatives to Violence Programs. Begun by East Coast Quakers over 20 years ago, alternatives to violence workshops have led many prisoners to find that they do have the power to transform their dangerous environments. The need to rely on volunteers for leadership of these programs has kept them from growing and proliferating. However, methods may exist to enable some qualified contractors to develop expanded programs could largely depend on inmate leadership. Friends Outside has been working on developing programs that could get along largely on inmate leadership.
Alcohol and drug programs. Nearly 80% of all inmates have drug or alcohol dependencies or addictions that have contributed to their imprisonment. Overcoming these problems is one key -- perhaps the main key --to success for the majority of the prison population. The corrections bureaucracy has been timid about going after money to fund the few special programs that now reach only a handful of inmates. Good as these programs may be, 12-Step and other self-help measures are likely to continue to be the dominant alternative for the majority of addicted or substance- abusing inmates. And even access to such self-help bootstrap programs is limited, sometimes because staff are unenthusiastic, sometimes because inertia and isolation limit contact with available community resources.
Spiritual growth. Meditation, Tai Chi, sweat-lodge, and traditional chaplaincy programs succeed in turning some lives around. They also seem to succeed in arousing the ingrained tendency among corrections personnel to marginalize such programs -- and to oppose them. Official recognition of the value of these programs and forthright resolution of any separation of church and state issues could bring about major improvements in the morale and performance of prisoners opting to enrol in them.
Care-giving. In response to the AIDS crisis, volunteer prisoners were brought into service as hospice staff at Vacaville prison. It was soon evident that the experience brought about striking improvements in the demeanor and character of the volunteers. Later, many of them succeeded beyond expectations when released on parole. Yet routine medical care is almost unavailable to most prisoners. Wider use of inmate volunteers as medical care-givers could benefit both the ailing and the hale.
Women with children programs. Most women inmates are mothers. Having regular contact with their children has proved to be a positive motivating factor and a benefit to these women and their offspring. Several programs have been developed to take advantage of this finding. Three special institutions are slated to open in the next 18 months and they will offer special programs that will allow about 100 women to benefit from daily contact with their pre-school children. Nevertheless, there is opposition to making similar programs available to most incarcerated mothers, even though the programs are productive and cost-effective.
The best way to transform a bureaucracy is to make each of its units responsible for a desired outcome, and to give that unit the freedom to select the best methods for reaching the goal. One of the problems at the Department of Corrections has been that the goal has been too narrowly defined. Rather than promoting public safety over the long haul, managers have focused on preventing escapes. It is only of public good to prevent escapes if the prisoner later emerges from custody fit for society.
With a more realistic goal, and some flexibility, we might see a whole new CDC.
-Steve Birdlebough
A compendium of 100 exemplary correctional programs, including juvenile offender work programs, police-probation partnerships, peer tutoring, literacy, transition from prison to community, and corrections staff training has been prepared by the American Correctional Association. The result, Best Practices: Excellence in Corrections (589 pp.) Is available for $30 from the ACA at 4380 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, MD 20706-4322 (800)222-5646.
A wide-ranging appraisal of how the major alternatives to imprisonment including drug rehabilitation, intensive supervision, and the concept of a "ladder of sanctions" work out has been prepared by David C. Anderson (1998) Sensible Justice: Alternatives to Prison (182 pp.) $25 from the New Press, NY, Norton &Co.
Comprehensive descriptions of technical assistance and seminars available to state prisons and local corrections agencies including probation offices and courts are contained in National Institute of Corrections (1998) NIC Service Plan for 1999 (55 pp.); available from NIC at 1960 Industrial Circle, Ste. A, Longmont, CO 80501 (800)995-6429. Free.
Our new intern, Laurie Hultquist, joins FCL from California State University, Sacramento. A sociology major, Laurie has ambitious and wide-ranging plans for her future. After she earns her degree in the year 2000, she intends to join the Peace Corps and after that experience to seek a law degree. Eventually she hopes to enter into public life and seek a political future. Through June she will be assisting Steve, Ken, and Vickie with various projects as well as updating FCL's homepage on the world wide web.
"if any person in towns in the land which the Lord your God is giving you is in need, then do not be selfish and refuse to help. Instead, open your hands and lend that person as much as is needed...give freely and unselfishly, and the Lord will bless you in everything you do..." Deuteronomy 15:1-12
Featured Speakers:
Sharon Daly
Vice President for Social Policy
Catholic Charities, USA
The Honorable Patrick Johnston
Chair, State Senate Approriations Committee
Rabbi Mona Alfi
Chaplain, State Senate
FCL Early Bird Briefing 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
926 J Street in the Second Floor Conference Rm. - Sacramento, CA
join FCL's lobbyists Steve Birdlebough and Ken Larsen for
an informal gathering with
other FCL supporters. A light continental breakfast will be provided.
RSVP with the FCL Office by calling (916) 443-3734 by March 12
*CIC Members: Friends Committee on Legislation, California Council of Churches, California Catholic Conference, JERICHO, Jewish
Public Affairs Committee, Lutheran Office of Public Policy,
and the National Council of Jewish Women
(Go to Action Alerts)( Go to Bill Status)( Go to Prior Newsletters)( Go to FCL Homepage)
Friends Committee on Legislation
926 J Street #707
Sacramento, CA 95814-2707
(916) 443-3734
This page is supported by Peacetree.