Editor’s note: This article is part of the 2010 Corrections1 End of the Year Report. Please visit the main page for the end of the year report here.
By Bob Walsh
I am reminded of an ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” The Corrections System of California, and that of most other jurisdictions in this country, has had an interesting, and difficult, year. Next year may not be much better.
Much of the problem is financial. Locking people up takes money, which is in short supply. Many other priorities, all of which have a much better warm-fuzzy quotient than prison operation, compete for available funding. Schools, health care, infrastructure—all are in legitimate need. Jails and prisons tend to be out of sight and out of mind for most of the electorate (except those directly touched by the system in one fashion or other).
California is still fighting a court order to reduce its current population of about 165,000 by 44,000 bodies. It currently has several thousand “inmate tourists” placed in private facilities out of state and another 5,000 are expected to leave early in the year for similar placement. The driving force is both bed space and cost. The private operators are able to house the inmates for slightly more than half of what it would cost to keep them in California, and the arrangement provides needed bed space.
California has just broken ground on a huge inmate medical center to be located just outside the city limits of Stockton. At 1,722 beds it will have more beds than every current hospital in the county combined.
Parole operations have been significantly altered, not without controversy. The cases of Phillip Garrido and John Albert Gardner have uncovered troubling issues. The state has paid out in excess of $20 million to Jaycee Dugard and her daughters. A similar lawsuit has been filed by the parents of Amber Dubois alleging that the Division of Adult Paroles (DAPO) botched the parole supervision of Gardner so much that it led directly to the girl’s murder. Other legal actions are pending.
The non-revocable parole program is up and running. The initial batch of parolees released under the plan had many in their number who manifestly did NOT meet the criteria for such release and the department had to go back, attempt to contact them, and place them back in a supervision program.
No one believes that CDCR will get any significant new non-medical bed space. In fact Marin County filed a lawsuit against CDCR the same week they announced that contracts were being let for the first phase of the building of the new Death Row and San Quentin. The lawsuit is attempting to stop the building of the new unit.
One of the things Governor Schwarzenegger did early on was to change the administrative structure of the corrections agency. Previously, each warden more-or-less ran his own prison with administrative support and guidance from headquarters and the Director. Now there is an Agency Secretary who has much more power, and the wardens much less.
So, what does next year hold for California corrections?
It seems almost certain that the budget next year in California will be worse than this year. The current budget is in the red by about $6 billion. It is estimated that, based on current thoughts, next year will be in the hole about $18 billion. This is very nearly 20% of the yearly state budget. Anything that costs money, which is virtually everything, will be watched closely, with the possible exception of inmate health care, which is still being run by the feds.
There are also reentry projects that have been funded, but only one of them is even in the same time zone as being close to reality, and that is a 500 bed reentry facility which will be located on the same property as the new prison hospital.
Virtually everything that CDCR does over the next 18 months will be directed and constricted by funding. There is already a general belief that major parole decisions are being made not in the interests of public safety but in the interest of the bottom line, and the bottom line will loom larger and larger as we proceed into next year.