Systematic Overcrowding
		If there is a middle ground it is being voiced by correctional professionals -- most of them from local governments -- who believe that the recent evolution of criminal justice policy has undermined the effectiveness of local programs.
		If there is a middle ground it is being voiced by correctional professionals -- most of them from local governments -- who believe that the recent evolution of criminal justice policy has undermined the effectiveness of local programs.
		In 1997, state prisons held more than 13,000 felons whose most serious crime was drug possession; more than 6,700 were in prison for petty theft with a prior.
		CDC's population projection for the next five years is premised on ever- increasing incarceration rates. The current correctional strategy assumes that a greater and greater percentage of the population will be imprisoned.

A Strategy

Finding 1: County jails and state prisons do not have adequate space to house inmates and adequate plans do not exist to deal with the crisis.

California has a bifurcated structure for administering criminal sanctions that does not allow the best combinations of punishments and other tools to be used to prevent the escalation of crime and the recycling of inmates.

Instead of an integrated strategy for effectively dealing with sentenced criminals, the State has a political patchwork quilt that too often results in nonviolent and non-serious criminals receiving by default the most expensive sanction -- prison.

Despite a dramatic drop in the crime rate, the State's prison officials anticipate a continuing rise in the inmate population. From 64,000 inmates a decade ago, to 154,000 inmates now, the California Department of Corrections anticipates 202,000 inmates by the year 2002.

The factors behind this steady rise in prisoners are complex and debated among the experts. But there is increasing evidence that the growing inmate population reflects a correctional system that is not using the most cost-effective strategies available. The consequences of this failure is a correctional system that demands an increasing share of public resources, forcing another generation of policy makers into the Hobson's Choice of building more prisons or more schools.

A Political Patchwork Quilt

Criminal justice has long involved all three branches of government. Lawmakers define crimes and sanctions, and allocate the resources to enforce laws and punish violators. The executive branch polices the streets and administers the sanctions. And the courts declare guilt and sentence the convicted.

The criminal justice system also extends through all three levels of government. Historically, ensuring public safety has been the primary responsibility of local governments. Increasingly in this century, however, the federal and state governments have taken on larger roles in funding and administering law enforcement and correctional programs.

This vertical expansion of criminal justice responsibilities has altered how policies are set, how programs are implemented and ultimately the successes and failures of individual policies and programs.

In one regard, the federal government is a system unto it own. Federal agencies enforce the law, adjudicate suspects and incarcerate those convicted of violating federal laws. Like the state systems the federal prisons have expanded dramatically during the last generation, filled largely with drug-related criminals. In 1971, 17 percent of federal inmates were drug offenders who served an average of 23 months. In 1995, 60 percent of all federal inmates were drug offenders serving an average of 69 months.⁽³⁰⁾

But the federal government also is a conduit for resources and expertise -- a clearinghouse for research, technical assistance and grants. Those functions are intended to encourage local and state agencies to implement the best available crime controlling strategies.

The responsibility for enforcing, adjudicating and sanctioning those who violate state laws is shared between county and state agencies. Historically corrections was based on a principle of graduated sanctions administered primarily by the counties -- with low-level and first-time criminals receiving the incentive, the assistance and the opportunities to develop a crime-free life. The State's role focused on operating prisons for the most serious offenders -- often those who failed local programs and committed more serious crimes.

As described in the Background, the State of California in recent years has taken on a larger role in criminal justice. Some of this shift represents a deliberate emphasis on incarceration as the most expedient way to improve public safety. The shift represents frustration on the part of the public and policy makers with the prevalence of crime, and in particular, more violent crime. A steady stream of legislation -- 400 new laws, by one count -- have increased criminal punishments in recent years, and in particular expanded the types of crimes that resulted in state prison sentences, increased prison sentences and restricted the ability of correctional agencies to reduce the actual time served by granting good conduct or work credits.

The president of the California Probation, Parole and Correctional Association characterized this policy shift as a "get tough" attitude on the part of legislators, judges, and law enforcement:

This attitude and the actions resulting from it have contributed to, among other things: tougher laws; more probation and parole violators going to prison; mandatory jail and prison sentences for offences formerly under the judiciary's discretion; increased remanding of youthful offenders to adult courts; and the approval of funds for the construction and operation of prisons, jails and juvenile facilities.⁽³¹⁾

But the shift also is the unintended result of significant changes made in California's taxation structure -- most notably Proposition 13 of 1978 and its fiscal aftershocks -- that made counties more reliant on the State for revenue. Compared to 20 years ago, counties have fewer options for financing programs and less discretion in how to spend revenues.

In more recent years, counties have been forced to make disproportionate budget cuts as revenue was diverted from local governments to meet other State obligations. County jails and probation departments are just two of the programs that counties must fund from budgets that have not grown as fast as inflation or their population.

So as counties receive fewer resources for sustaining and expanding local correctional programs to serve growing communities, state laws are dictating that more of those criminals be sent to state prisons.

The State's correctional program is based in the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, which is headed by a cabinet-level secretary. The California Department of Corrections operates the prison and parole program. The California Youth Authority operates similar programs for juvenile offenders. The Board of Prison Terms determines the release of the small percentage of adult inmates given indeterminate sentences and administers the parole revocation process. The Youthful Offender Parole Board determines the release of juvenile offenders.

The Youth and Adult Correctional Agency also houses the Board of Corrections. The 11-member panel of state and local correctional experts is appointed by the governor and is charged with a variety of responsibilities. Principally, it sets standards for construction and operation of county jails. But as the only correctional entity with a representative governing body, the board also has responsibility for reviewing competitive grant proposals, for allocating state funding for jail construction and for assessing the impacts of tougher sentencing laws on local jails. The following table summarizes the entities.

California's Correctional Bureaucracy
Agency	Composition	Mission
Office of Criminal Justice Planning	The director reports directly to the Governor. Office has a staff of 123 and an annual budget, including grants, of $158 million.	Provides technical and financial help to state and local agencies. Develops and distributes the latest crime-fighting strategies.
Secretary of Youth and Adult Correctional Agency	Secretary appointed by the Governor and a staff of 11. The office has a budget of $1 million.	Governor's key advisor on public safety issues and oversees youth and adult detention departments.
Department of Corrections	The department has 42,400 employees and an annual operating budget of $3.8 billion.	Houses convicted felons at 33 prisons and 52 community correctional centers. Also supervises parolees.
Board of Corrections	The 11-person board includes state and local officials. The board has a staff of 52 employees and an annual budget, including grants, of $57 million.	Works with local officials to develop standards for building and operating jails, training and managing staff. Distributes training and crime fighting grants.
Board of Prison Terms	The Board is composed of nine gubernatorial appointees, has a staff of 120 and an annual budget of $13 million. The staff has grown by 30 percent in the last three years because of an increasing workload.	Considers parole releases for prisoners sentenced under indeterminate sentencing and for those serving life terms with a possibility of parole. Also revokes parole for convicts who violate their parole.
Youthful Offender Parole Board	Seven gubernatorial appointees with 30 staff and a $3.4-million budget.	Reviews cases of convicted youths and grants parole.
Department of Youth Authority	The department has 5,400 employees and an annual budget of $432 million.	Houses 9,425 youths at 11 institutions. The inmate population is growing slowly as more youths are sentenced to adult prisons.
California Council on Criminal Justice	The panel has 37 members appointed by the Governor, Legislature, Attorney General and the courts. It has no staff or budget.	Advises the Governor and the Legislature on criminal justice issues and policies, and oversees the allocation of some federal grants.

Independent of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, the State Office of Criminal Justice Planning, acts as a clearing house for grants targeted at state and local governments. And the California Highway Patrol and the Attorney General are the state's law enforcement entities.

As a result of the State's growing role in corrections, the responsibilities of the counties have changed. With more criminal suspects facing longer prison terms, more cases are being tried -- and more defendants housed for longer periods in county jails. County jail facilities have not grown as fast as state prisons, and as a result many offenders who previously were held in county jails are no longer incarcerated or are released early.

Indicators of Dysfunction

Many correctional officials assert that they are implementing a incarceration-based policy that is widely supported by the public and purposefully dictated in the statutes. The major limitation on its effectiveness, they believe, is the financial resources needed to build all of the needed prisons.

Academic criminologists on the other hand, overwhelmingly argue that the resources, responsibilities and strategies for punishing and converting criminals into law-abiding citizens are too focused on incarceration.

If there is a middle ground it is being voiced by an increasing number of correctional professionals -- most of them from local governments -- who believe that the recent evolution of criminal justice policy has undermined the effectiveness of local programs. A more systematic approach, they argue, could be expected to decrease the need for additional prisons while ensuring there are enough prison beds to house those criminals who continue to be a threat to society.

The most notable of these assessments was made by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Inmate Population Management. The Commission was dominated by law enforcement and correctional agencies. Its review was thorough and its conclusions were blunt:

The criminal justice system in California is out of balance and will remain so unless the entire state and local criminal justice system is addressed from prevention through discharge of jurisdiction." ⁽³²⁾

That was in 1990. The chairman of Blue Ribbon Commission, the District Attorney for Riverside County, testified that while some marginal progress has been made, California seven years later is still not coordinating its efforts and doing all it can at the local level to reduce prison and jail overcrowding: "The original predominant conclusion by the commission has not changed."⁽³³⁾

More specifically, the Blue Ribbon Commission said the state strategy was too focused on prisons, where not enough is done with inmates to prevent them from committing new crimes once released. Drug addicts are not treated; parolees do not receive assistance. County programs, meanwhile, where there is the opportunity to help low-level criminals straighten out and avoid future crimes and convictions that will lead to state prison, had been starved for resources. The Commission asserted:

State and local corrections must be viewed as a system in developing corrections policy. Prison overcrowding is contributed to by probation under-funding and jail overcrowding and under- funding. The corrections system is presently lacking sufficient integrated strategies to manage probation, jail and prison populations.⁽³⁴⁾

The chairman of the Blue Ribbon Commission said the same malady continues to plague corrections. The proliferation of legislated sentence enhancements has resulted in a "piecemeal" sentencing structure. Judges lack options, counties lack resources, and as a result more criminals end up on the road to overcrowded prisons. The system is so skewed, the chairman said, a fundamental examination and rethinking of the system must proceed before any effort can be successfully made to re-establish the local role in corrections.

California's 58 local and independent jail 'systems' are an integral part of any state strategic plan. Before any restructuring or 'realignment' of state-bound inmates into the local systems to solve the state's 'overcrowding' correction's crisis, there must be joint analysis of both our state and local correctional systems.⁽³⁵⁾

Frustrated by the lack of reforms resulting from the Blue Ribbon Commission report, the California Corrections Policy Development Project, comprised of correctional experts and professionals, issued a report in 1992 restating the need to take a systematic approach to corrections. The group's report, Corrections 2000: Policies for the Future, advocated a greater use of intermediate sanctions that are more intensive than probation and less costly than prison, and in particular more drug treatment. The group advocated for balanced funding between state and local agencies and a review of the sentencing structure. The group's primary policy statement urged an alignment of disparate correctional efforts:

The effective provision of correctional services requires an integrated, balanced system of adult and juvenile, state and local activities and programs with a common mission, shared vision and values, and mutually understood roles and responsibilities.⁽³⁶⁾

In addition to the judgment of corrections professionals, there are indicators the system is out of balance, fiscally unsustainable and over the long term will not provide the desired public safety benefits. Among them:

• High recidivism. California has one of the highest recidivism rates in the nation despite spending an increasing percentage of resources on corrections. While more detailed information is needed to craft precise programs, officials know that nearly all felons in state prisons have convicted of prior crimes, and most inmates have been in prison before. The Blue Ribbon Commission concluded:




The relationship between public safety, recidivism, and drug abuse is undeniable and significant. An important indicator of the system's ability to correct individuals is the parolee failure rate, which also is among the highest in the nation.



Corrections 2000 also cited recidivism as evidence that the system is ineffective over the long term:

Corrections' inability to consistently hold offenders accountable for their behavior contributes to the revolving door of crime. Arrest, incarceration, release and subsequent return to criminal activity.⁽³⁷⁾

• Growing incarceration of nonviolent offenders. While the number of inmates convicted of violent crimes has increased, the number of inmates incarcerated for nonviolent crimes has increased much faster. Between 1980 and 1990 the inmate population increased by 350 percent. Felons convicted for property crimes, and theft in particular, grew by more than 600 percent. By comparison, felons serving time for murder grew by 200 percent.⁽³⁸⁾ In 1997, state prisons held more than 13,000 felons whose most serious crime was drug possession; more than 6,700 were in prison for petty theft with a prior.

Among those who believe that valuable prison space needs to be reserved for serious and violent felons is the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which advocates the use of day reporting centers for some inmates now sent to prison:



Day reporting is one-tenth the cost of incarceration and would improve public safety by saving prison space for serious and dangerous offenders. Such a program for nonviolent, non-serious offenders with no prior prison records would eliminate the need for at least one new prison."⁽³⁹⁾

• Ever-growing incarceration rates. Crime rates are going down and most professionals believe some of the credit goes to the incapacitation of more habitual criminals. Some professionals also assert that tough sentencing laws are proving to be a deterrent to criminals.




But CDC officials maintain prison population is not correlated with crime rates. That is, that even as crime decreases, arrests and convictions can be expected to remain high, because arrests and convictions are the product of resources spent on police officers and prosecutors.



Importantly, CDC's population projection for the next five years is premised on ever- increasing incarceration rates. The current correctional strategy assumes that a greater and greater percentage of the population will be imprisoned.⁽⁴⁰⁾

Obstacles to Integration

Policy analysts from a variety of perspectives acknowledge that one of the challenges that correctional agencies face is that criminal justice policy consumes even more of the public agenda than it does public budgets, and as a result policy often is driven by opinion polls and distilled into sound bites. It is academician's lament:

There are few areas where the conflict between rational policy analysis and political reality has been more intense than in crime policy. The public has translated it concern about crime into a demand for increased criminalization, longer sentences and harsher prison conditions. Policy analysts are virtually unanimous in their belief that these are often ineffective and excessively expensive measures, and that other strategies would achieve the agreed upon goal in a more effective manner.⁽⁴¹⁾

As long as public safety is a high priority among citizens, debating and shaping criminal justice policy will be high on the agenda of elected leaders. The attention of elected leaders, however, is something that many public managers and reform advocates struggle to generate. The challenge is using that political muscle to craft a cost-effective strategy. Policy analysts and program managers have identified a number of short-comings that must be corrected for this to happen:

• Sentencing policy is detached from funding. While lawmakers seldom turn down the opportunity to increase prison terms, each individual bill contributes to higher demand for prison space. Not only are sentencing bills not tied to appropriations for more prisons, but there is no direct or automatic mechanism for reconciling the tougher sanctions and the inadequate infrastructure. As one expert pointed out, this process never requires policy makers to set priorities on how to best use available prison space.⁽⁴²⁾



• Ad-hoc decisions can undermine sentencing structure. Individual sentencing bills make administering correctional policies complex. They also can undermine fundamental correctional principles -- such as for graduated sanctions based on the seriousness of the crime. One criminologist points out that the punishment for burglary has nearly become the same for robbery -- even though robbery is a violent and more serious crime.⁽⁴³⁾



• Resources are not allocated strategically. Funding for state-operated criminal justice programs is derived during the larger budget process, which provides for correctional spending to be weighed against other public programs. Funding for local criminal justice programs also are part of the state budget process -- but are often buried, unidentified in the allocation to local governments. As a result, there is no rational allocation of correctional resources between state and local programs. And local programs, in particular, are vulnerable to last-minute budget cutting.⁽⁴⁴⁾



• The prison preference limits long-term options. It is understandable that the public had lost confidence in probation because huge caseloads had created unreal expectations that those under supervised release are actually supervised. But starving probation does nothing to increase its effectiveness and allows criminal patterns to perpetuate -- ultimately increasing incarceration costs.



• In some cases, prison is the default sentence. If the Legislature funds more prisons than jails, more people will end up on prison than jail -- because judges, even if they have discretion under the law, may not have practical or effective options. One criminologist asserts that county court judges have a fiscal incentive to send felons to prison:

To the counties it is a free lunch ... this is an unintended problem of having one level of government sentence people to prison and another level of government be responsible for providing the prisons.⁽⁴⁵⁾

But some judges said they do not consider who will pay for the marginal cost of another felon. If county probation is overloaded and the county jail is under a court-ordered population cap, some judges feel their only real option is state prison.

• No room for research. With most of the large policy decisions established through sentencing bills and closed-door budget deals, there is little opportunity for academic research and deliberation of professionals to shape policy. One of the nation's premiere criminal justice researchers, a Californian, writes:

Researchers have a responsibility to provide policy relevant information, but correctional leaders have the responsibility to derive policy prescriptions, based on research and other considerations. If each takes those responsibilities seriously, we will establish a cumulative body of information about what works. With such data we should again be able to inspire the confidence of policy makers and the public and ultimately return the development of policy back into the hands of correctional professionals -- where it clearly belongs.⁽⁴⁶⁾

Creating an Integrated System

Existing state law recognizes the need for comprehensive planning. State law directs the Office of Criminal Justice Planning, in coordination with the Criminal Justice Council, to annually develop a comprehensive statewide plan for the improvement of criminal justice and delinquency prevention activity throughout the state. But the office has not prepared a statewide plan.⁽⁴⁷⁾

Both the Blue Ribbon Commission and Corrections 2000 reports asserted that such a plan is essential to setting deliberate policy goals, aligning correctional programs to those goals, and ensuring that local and state agencies are working toward the same end.

Corrections 2000 said the agencies needed a common mission, a shared vision and values, and mutually understood roles and responsibilities:

The guiding premise of the California Corrections Policy Development Project is that corrections can function more effectively than it does now. What has emerged as the common thread is that if corrections is to be more effective it must become a more integrated system. Especially given the limited resources but seemingly limitless demands facing corrections entities, corrections must become more balanced, more cooperative and more collaborative than it is today.

The chairman of the Blue Ribbon Commission said only small steps had been made toward the kind of systematic assessment recommended by the panel. Specifically, the Commission had recommended the establishment of a corrections coordinating council. The California Corrections Executive Council has been formed, but it does not have a staff to develop a plan. The Board of Corrections, he noted, has started an annual jail survey to provide data on local correctional populations and trends.

The Little Hoover Commission was advised that whichever venue were to be selected for the creation of a state corrections strategy, its goals should be multi-fold.

• Clarify agency roles. One of the consequences of the evolution of criminal justice policy toward incarceration has been to muddle the role of the counties and the role of the State. Corrections 2000 said California should fundamentally rethink the alignment of responsibilities. Among the options: consolidate correctional responsibility at the local level or the State, or make the State responsible for jails and prisons, and make the counties responsible for parole and probation services.



• Identify those criminals who respond to intervention. The policy making process needs to be informed continuously by criminal justice research and program evaluations, so new strategies can be implemented, failures can be modified and successes can be replicated. Research, for instance, makes it clear that not all criminals are the same threat to public safety and private property, yet the State increasingly treats all inmates the same. Research shows that with some criminals early intervention works, but the State is not doing the assessments needed to identify those people.



• Establish priorities. Assuming that resources will always be limited the State's correctional policy making process should include the opportunity to simultaneously consider all of the needs and establish priorities among them. One criminologist said: "The problem is that the system does not treat prison as a scarce resource."⁽⁴⁸⁾ The solution is a strategy that makes the best use of prisons, and as a result could result in broader political agreement over when additional prisons are needed.



• Local input in corrections strategy. One consequence of the budget problems faced by county supervisors has been a growing distrust of the State. The chairman of the Blue Ribbon Commission testified that recent plans to increase the role of counties in corrections has been greeted with skepticism by local officials because of the "credibility gap" between state and local government resulting from the inequality of resources.⁽⁴⁹⁾

While adequate funding of state programs is essential to restoring this trust, the Commission also was told that local participation in the policy development process is essential. The California State Association of Counties (CSAC) said the diversity of local officials is often not represented in the corrections debate:

CSAC strongly supports the formation of a panel of local government officials to help oversee statewide corrections policies. In addition, CSAC suggest that the formation of a panel of local government officials would ... help build broad political support for plans that may be developed.⁽⁵⁰⁾

In developing a more integrated correctional policy, State and local leaders can look among themselves for procedures that have shown promise. CDC's planning and design process has been lauded for its ability to constantly reassess its designs, review and test new technologies, and measure progress against verifiable benchmarks -- such as lifecycle costs per cell. The State needs the same capability for continuous improvement in crafting and implementing overall correctional policy. Similarly, some of the plans developed by counties under the Community-Punishment Act of 1994 were developed in collaborative procedures that brought together law enforcement, business leaders, judges, educators and counselors. In some cases, the product was a plan to assume a larger role in corrections that had broad community support and a commitment to make the plan successful.

The State, however, needs more than just a plan. The State needs a process and a venue for developing and continuously refining a balanced and collaborative correctional strategy. The development of a coordinated approach was advocated by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Inmate Population Management in 1990. The need remains unmet.

Summary

These systematic problems with California's correctional programs are the product of an ad hoc correctional policy that has evolved over time -- influenced more by high-profile and isolated crimes than by reason and analysis. Compromises are forced by crises and forged during budget negotiations, when several unrelated policy issues are on the table simultaneously. Holistic reforms -- such as the expansion of community corrections and intermediate sanctions -- have languished in the absence of a coordinated and comprehensive approach. Without a mechanism for coordinating the efforts of local and state authorities and strategically implementing the most cost-effective correctional tools available, the State can expect to spend a larger share of public resources to incarcerate a larger percentage of the population.

Recommendation 1: The Governor and the Legislature should enact legislation creating a venue and a process for developing, evaluating, refining and funding a statewide corrections strategy that protects the public in the most cost-effective way possible.

• The strategy should be based on a master plan. The plan should be developed by a permanent panel representing the array of societal interests. The panel's responsibilities would begin with the development of a master plan and continue with ongoing assessments and refinements. The plan should be developed by the Board of Corrections, provided the board's composition is modified to include appointments by the legislative leadership and representation from the judiciary, and from rural and urban counties.

• The master plan should specify the roles of various agencies, identify desired outcomes and recommend funding priorities. The master plan should serve as a guide to the Legislature and the Governor to the most cost-effective approaches to protecting public safety. It should review the entire correctional spectrum, beginning with the backlog of 2.6 million unserved warrants. In particular, the master plan should define the role and goals for community corrections, supervised releases and state prisons. The master plan should be presented to the Governor and the Legislature for enactment in statute and implementation through annual budget development.

• The master planning agency should review existing sentencing strategies. In order to implement the most cost-effective public safety solutions contained in the master plan it may be necessary to change individual sentencing statutes. The master planning agency should recommend those potential statutory changes to the Legislature.