The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation acting Secretary James Tilton, laying out the cost of the administration's prison plan for the first time in a Tuesday press conference, characterized the expense as a necessary "investment" needed to solve the intractable overcrowding and recidivism problems.

"The Department of Corrections owns the responsibility to assist inmates who are willing to change their ways with basic tools, of education, life skills, drug treatment and mental health, so they can be better when they leave Corrections, not worse," he said.

"But until I get overcrowding reduced ... then I don't have the opportunity to provide the program that I believe is my charge," Tilton added.

The state's 33 prisons currently house more than 172,000 inmates in space designed for barely half that population. More than 16,000 prisoners sleep in dayrooms, classrooms, gyms and other spaces that Tilton wants returned to inmate rehabilitation activities.

Meanwhile, California parolees return to prison at a rate of about 70 percent within three years of their release -- the highest in the country.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in June called for next week's special legislative session on prison overcrowding. The details fleshed out Tuesday call for $2 billion in bond funds for 10, 500-bed "re-entry facilities" for short-term parole violators and inmates nearing the end of their terms. Tilton did not say where the mini-prisons would be located.

Schwarzenegger also is asking for nearly $2 billion in bond money to pay for expanding existing prison facilities, $1.2 billion for two new prisons, $500 million for medical care space and $55 million for a correctional officer training academy in Southern California to complement the one in Galt.

Repaying the bonds eventually will cost the state $500 million a year. New operational costs related to the capital outlay program will bring on another $463 million a year in spending, adding nearly $1 billion to the state's projected $11.6 billion prison budget in fiscal year 2015-16.

The prison plan will require two-thirds approval from the Legislature.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, would not predict the fate of the proposal. The governor's plan, Núñez said, "needs a lot of work."

"I know the administration is concerned about prison capacity, and we're concerned about prison capacity as well," Núñez said. "But we can't just build new beds. This special session will give us an opportunity to take a different approach."

Republican Assemblyman Todd Spitzer of Orange described the proposal as "a very good starting place."

"Unless the governor is serious about the transition, re-entry beds, he'll never get the hard cell beds," Spitzer said. "But it sounds like they're serious about both and have a blueprint for both."

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Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, who is carrying legislation that could lead to new prison construction, was more blunt in assessing why both his proposal and the governor's rely on lease-revenue bonds.

"If you put it before voters, it will go down,'' Nuñez said.

SACRAMENTO
Governor seeks $6 billion for prison projects
- Mark Martin, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

(08-02) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will ask lawmakers this month to spend nearly $6 billion on new prison construction projects that, unlike his proposals to build new roads, levees and schools, would not go to voters for final approval.

Administration officials on Tuesday released a final price tag for a major expansion of the prison system that could add more than 40,000 beds during the next decade. The proposal is in response to what corrections officials have conceded is dangerous overcrowding in the state's 33 prisons.

There are now more than 172,000 inmates in a system designed to hold about 100,000, and the governor wants to build two new prisons, expand current prisons and build new, smaller facilities in urban areas, among other things.

But the governor's proposal, which lawmakers will begin discussing next week in a special legislative session, is already meeting with skepticism.

Some lawmakers said Tuesday that the governor should be focusing more on rehabilitative programs to lower the vast number of ex-cons who return to prison and that the governor and Legislature needed to rethink aspects of the criminal justice system to lower the inmate population. Others criticized the governor's proposal to build prisons without voters' OK.

In May, Schwarzenegger and lawmakers cut a deal to spend more than $37 billion on roads, schools, levees and housing. The four bond issues will be on the November ballot.

But the governor's prison proposal would avoid voters by using a different kind of bond, typically referred to as a lease-revenue bond, that only requires legislative approval. The bonds have a slightly higher interest rate, and one frequent Schwarzenegger ally said voters should have a voice
for such a large expenditure.

"Taxpayers are on the hook for every nickel, and that being the case, they have the constitutional right to vote on it," said state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks.

McClintock said he favors prison construction but would not support the type of bond Schwarzenegger is suggesting, although the state has
previously used lease-revenue bonds to build prisons.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, who is carrying legislation that could lead to new prison construction, was more blunt in assessing why both his proposal and the governor's rely on lease-revenue bonds.

"If you put it before voters, it will go down,'' Nuñez said. Statewide polls have consistently shown voters do not favor spending money on new prisons.

Schwarzenegger is proposing two new prisons, which he estimates will cost $1.2 billion, expanding space at current prisons, which will cost nearly $2 billion, and building smaller, community-based facilities called re-entry facilities, which will cost another $2 billion. Other building proposals include a new site to train prison guards, and the governor's plan calls for $500 million that could be spent on new prison medical facilities.

The governor is also proposing to contract with other states to house as many as 5,000 illegal immigrants who are doing time in state prisons for crimes committed in California, and moving about half of the system's female inmate population into smaller, urban-based settings.

The plan would add more than $900 million a year to prison costs when compared to doing nothing, according to Jim Tilton, acting secretary of corrections. Administration officials said the nearly $6 billion in bonds to build new facilities would eventually cost taxpayers nearly $12 billion with the added interest costs.

Total cost of corrections spending would grow from $8.2 billion this year to $12.6 billion in 2015 if every part of the proposal is adopted, although corrections costs will likely grow more than that due to new spending that is being ordered by federal judges overseeing parts of the prison system, such as mental health care.

Tilton said the system will completely run out of space by next summer if no new room is created. But he also said the plan does address the fact that 70 percent of California inmates return to prison. Tilton said the re-entry facilities the governor is proposing would work with inmates about to be released from prison by providing programs such as mental health care or job counseling as they leave the system and while they are on parole and would be aimed at helping inmates avoid future returns to incarceration.

Some Democrats said Schwarzenegger needs to provide a much more detailed plan before they would OK the spending.

"I want to know, if we go along with this, will we still have a recidivism rate twice as high as the rest of the nation?'' said Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. "Will we still have half of the state's inmates leaving prison as functional illiterates? Will 80 percent of them still have drug
and alcohol problems? There needs to be much more to this than just
build, build, build.''

While Nu“ɪz said he does support building new prisons, he also said he hopes lawmakers and the governor can talk about other issues that have led to prison overcrowding, such as lengthy sentences for nonviolent crimes.
Currently about half of the state's prison population is incarcerated on
drug offenses or property crimes.

The proposal

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will ask lawmakers to OK a plan to spend nearly $6 billion on bonds to build new prison facilities. The proposal includes:

-- $1.2 billion to build two new prisons.

-- $2 billion to build community-based re-entry facilities for prisoners about to be released.

-- Nearly $2 billion to expand capacity at existing prisons.

-- More than $55 million to open a new training academy for prison guards in Southern California.

Source: Governor's office

Staff writer Tom Chorneau contributed to this report. E-mail Mark Martin at markmartin@sfchronicle.com.

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/02/BAGG1K9JLQ1.DTL

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