The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators are truly in a bind: Judges in three courts have given them a June deadline to reduce crowding. If they don't, the courts will take over the prisons and put a cap on the prison population.

The state's response is the largest prison expansion in state history: $7.4 billion in construction, not counting billions more in interest on the bonds, and 53,000 more beds.

This does nothing to end the policies of failure, and it may not mollify the courts. It will take years to add cells. The judges want immediate results. The state's answer - shipping 8,000 inmates out of state right away - will be challenged in court and may be unconstitutional.

The deal ignores the primary cause of prison crowding: California has the nation's highest recidivism rate. Nearly 70 percent of convicts return to prison within three years because of new crimes or parole violations, often minor.

The Little Hoover Commission and corrections experts for years have been calling for fundamental change, including a review of parole policies and community-based sentences for non-violent offenders. They suggest naming a commission to make sense of the morass of contradictory and counterproductive sentencing laws. Making sure prisons hold only people who belong there would alleviate crowding.

But Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass the deal, opposed a sentencing commission. They raised the specter that, failing a deal, a judge would set thousands of dangerous felons loose in the community. Democrats caved, although their leaders are promising to consider more reforms later.

There's no question that more prison beds are needed, starting with 8,000 for inmates needing medical and mental health care. And the approach to adding beds is more sensible than in the past. Rather than just expanding in existing prisons, more than half of the 53,000 new beds would be added to local jails or built as transitional units for inmates at the end of their sentences. This could mark an important shift toward treatment and rehabilitation - but the deal includes little money to set up what will be expensive programs, and no money to operate them.

In a sharply worded letter to Schwarzenegger, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez demanded assurances that staff could be hired and trained, programs could be delivered, and managers would stay long enough to oversee reforms.

"A quick fix without fundamental changes and effective reform is simply `running in place,'" they wrote. "Yet the Department (of Corrections and Rehabilitation) repeatedly demonstrates it is flatly unable to deliver on its promises. ... At this time, the department is not prepared to manage the proposals now before the Legislature."

Even as they were urging legislators to fork over $7.4 billion, top Democrats were wondering whether the money would be wasted.

That's hardly a vote of confidence.
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