Analysts have looked at the State's prison system before -- The Blue Ribbon Commission on Inmate Population Management in 1990 and the Little Hoover Commission in 1994. The Legislative Analyst's Office routinely suggests potential improvements. But indecision has created an overcrowding crisis that demands action and recent developments provide the opportunities for creative compromise. Among those developments:

• In the last five years the Three Strikes Law and other sentence enhancements have been put on the books -- sending more felons to prison and keeping them there longer.



• In the last decade a private correctional industry has emerged, providing the State with more options for housing and treating felons.



• In the past five years assessment and treatment techniques have been refined and documented to significantly reduce criminal behavior.



• Research and renewed interest in community-based corrections has laid the groundwork for expanding and refining intermediate sanctions, some involving local or part-time incarceration, as an alternative to state prison.

Today, the benchmark for all of the State's correctional efforts should be recidivism. And the goal should be to reduce recidivism in order to reduce prison costs and crime in the streets.

After extensive review, the Commission believes that California's correctional policy should be reformed in three fundamental ways: First, an integrated system involving both local and state correctional agencies needs to be forged. Second, the use of the existing prison infrastructure needs to be maximized by aggressively implementing programs proven to reduce recidivism. And third, the additional prisons should be added through a competitive process that compensate providers based on the most important outcomes -- safe operation and reduced crime among released felons.

These reforms would collectively realign the State's correctional system -- ensuring that there was always room in prison for the worst of the worst, while using every correctional tool available to make sure that the vast majority of inmates who are released back to the community will not commit new crimes and end up back in prison.