In between budget posts, I’ve lately been in a bit of a tiff with Chris Kelly, an Attorney General candidate and former Chief Privacy Officer at Facebook, over his stale, predictable fearmongering about potential early prison releases. There are a bunch of other estimable candidates in the Attorney General’s race, one who did himself a ton of good yesterday by leading the fight against the offshore drilling proposal. So maybe I shouldn’t take too much time on Kelly. But there’s a short-term policy fight coming up next month to determine how to implement $1.2 billion in cuts to the corrections budget, and with some good activism and common sense we can stare down the Tough on Crime crowd and post a needed victory for sensible criminal justice policies. Therefore it’s worth looking at Kelly’s latest post:
The prison release plan is supposed to save $1.2 billion, but that’s just accounting trickery. In fact, a Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics study finds that nearly 70% of early-released inmates are rearrested within three years, 20% of them for violent crime. That will mean more than $3 billion in increased costs from crime while causing serious harm to hundreds of thousands of innocent victims.
I’ve spoken to police chiefs, law enforcement groups and civic associations throughout California about the issue, and they’re deeply worried about the crime wave this scheme will unleash. It will be hard enough to make San Jose a safer community in tough economic times without the problems caused by early release.
Obviously, Kelly hasn’t talked to the California Police Chiefs Association, which endorsed the plan as a smart step to begin to move away from the failed prison policies of the last thirty years. Foremost among these new ideas is the concept of targeting resources – instead of warehousing the terminally ill or blanket strict supervision on everyone released regardless of determining possibility of recidivism, we can put resources into programs that provide opportunity for prisoners to pay their debt to society and move on. This deal doesn’t do all of that, but it does, for example, put ill and infirm prisoners under home detention or in a care facility, which doesn’t impact public safety and saves money. It offers incentives for prisoners to complete rehabilitation plans. It reviews the cases of illegal immigrants in jails instead of just tossing them in the lap of the ICE to deal with, which would actually be the kind of misguided policy Kelly warns against. And most important, it includes an independent sentencing commission, outside of politics, which can look at our sentencing laws and make recommendations for the legislature to adopt on an up-or-down vote.
Using the buzzword of “early release” of “dangerous prisoners” is an old Tough on Crime ploy from way back, evoking memories of the Willie Horton ad in the 1988 Presidential race. It’s irresponsible and not relevant to what is being discussed. We have the perfect Tough on Crime prison policy right now – and it’s not working in every respect, to the extent that federal courts have stepped in to take control of it. Overcrowded prisons cannot fulfill their core mission of rehabilitating those jailed, and that’s especially true where nonviolent offenders who need medical treatment for addiction and not incarceration are concerned. Brute force has not worked in making the state safer and has certainly caused our budget to skyrocket. And the truth is that more sensible policies can save money and create better prisons at the same time.
We need real reform in prison and parole policy, through concentrated resources, community corrections, and maintaining manageable prison capacity for those who really need to be there, and what will get decided in the legislature next month represents an important step. It can be easily derailed by fearmongering from the likes of Chris Kelly, trying to win an election on the backs of the poor and disenfranchised, on whom such brute-force policies typically rain down.
Over the next month I’ll be looking far more closely at this issue, as it’s the first big battle in regaining control of our state. And it’s a winnable fight.
“hundreds of thousands of victims?” Assuming, arguendo, that we believe his statistic that 20% of them will commit violent crimes, that implies that California will be releasing over 500,000 people, about 3 times as many people who are actually in prison in California.
Where are we going to find all these people to release?
i agree with what you’re saying here. that such a huge share of the people in prison now are there for parole violations ought to be a clear enough sign to anyone that something is wrong.
i think, though, that one of the problems is in what people who don’t normally have any actual contact with the system think prisons are for. when you say, Overcrowded prisons cannot fulfill their core mission of rehabilitating those jailed, i doubt that people like my family (my usual touchstone for this sort of thing, not crazy wingers but very much white suburban/rural folks) would agree about that core mission. they think prisons are where you stuff dangerous people to keep them away from normal people. they don’t really care what happens to those dangerous people while they’re in prison. they’d just as soon keep them all there forever (or kill them and be done with it). if we can’t afford to keep so many people in prison for so long, well, that’s just a sign of how wicked the world is these days.
i don’t know how you make an argument that reaches through those kind of TV-based illusions. maybe with specific examples of crazy sentencing and awful consequences. but it’ll be hard to get to a more sensible system until someone figures that out. maybe a matter of demographics – when the people inside the cocoon are finally outnumbered by the people outside.
We’ve been implementing all sorts of tough “sounding” policies that make for excellent campaign mailers and tv ads. I have seen no major decrease in crime, and in some cases it is a lot worse now.
It is so rare to hear something intelligent relating to crime. Republicans just sing hymns of praise to CCPOA for tips and Democrats cower in fear of the dreaded “soft on crime” label.
We incarerate WAY too many people and a release of 27,000 is really a minor blip on the screen. Mostly, these are people who have committed parole violations and would be out pretty soon anyway.
I would favor an approach to reduce every single sentence by 2 weeks (or some amount of time). That way the systems that take on released inmates are not overwhelmed. And if someone has committed a serious crime and is incarcerated for 50 years, two weeks won’t make very much difference.
Regarding rehabilitation, I just don’t think we can do it. If someone has a disposition toward crime, there is not too much we can do to change them. We can and should keep them in prison to protect public safety.
However, if someone genuinely wants to change and wants to live a life free of crime, there should be programs (particularly education) available to anyone who wants it.
Job training should be available throughout prisons, as well as art and music. The purpose of prisons should be to protect the public, but education should be made available to all comers.
Right now, prison policy is being made by and for CCPOA. There is no rational public policy component to our prison discussion right now. It is all about growing and protecting the prison union.
We’re right, but how do Democrats avoid being painted as soft on crime? How do we avoid a Willie Horton/Pete Wilson moment?
a long time ago, and it hasn’t really been restored, nor will it be as long as prisons serve as job security for growing numbers of corrections officers or profit centers for private industry.
Prisons that operate in the manner they do in California must have more prisoners — even if the system has to generate them itself (by, for example, ensuring parolees will violate the terms of their parole and be returned to prison.) Other ways the system generates prisoners, in California and nationwide, is by criminalizing so many activities that most civilized countries long ago ceased to criminalize or never did criminalize at all. And then apply those laws disproportionately to minority communities to “keep them in line.”
Works like a charm and it keeps the prisons bulging. Which they have to be in order to serve their core function: job security and profit centers.
Really restore rehabilitation to prisons’ core mission as a matter of public interest and policy, stop criminalizing so many activities, release the sick and infirm, and revise parole policies so that it’s actually possible for those on parole to function in society without running afoul of restrictions that will put them back in prison immediately, and California’s prison population will drop dramatically. And along with a drop in prison population, the costs of incarceration will come down, at first slowly due to inertia and other issues, but then very quickly.
Crime has dropped significantly over the decades of the current “lock em all up and let em rot” prison philosophy, and it is partly due to the draconian punishments instituted during that period for any kind of crime. On the other hand, for some time the level of violent crime has remained fairly constant, suggesting that draconian punishment has reached the limit of its utility as a crime stopper.
The insane costs of our prison policy together with its limited utility and its wide spread failures should of course been taken as signs that the whole justice system needs top to bottom revision, but every time that idea dawns — as it has repeatedly — “stakeholders” dig in their heels and prevent any real reform, blackmailing the public with the greatest level of mayhem imaginable if anything is changed that doesn’t increase job security and private profit.
We seem to be stuck on a Mobius Strip when it comes to prison reform and so many issues because of the power of “stakeholders” to cause mayhem if they don’t get their way.
Maybe it’s time to call their bluff, eh?
straightforward bloggers I’ve seen on the Web- consistently writing the truth about prison reform here. The prisons in CA are worse than many other states, and folks here probably don’t know. They’re told that prison policy is necessary to stop violent crime and gangs, and dont know/don’t care that the CCPOA is just as happy to lockup nonviolent drug offenders as violent ones.
As one commenter noted: the parole violators will be the ones getting the early release anyway, as most prison terms are over a year. And even Darrel Steinberg has noted the high number of violators in the system…it’s around 50%. Prison is a revolving door for the majority of parolees. The shortest prison term in CA is 8.5 months, and only non violent offenders are eligible for that. [disclosure: I’ve been locked up for one term, for a cannabis charge. So don’t uprate my comments, frontpagers! You’ll be accused of agreeing with a felon!]
If we don’t eliminate non violent parole supervision for thousands of parolees, then we’re going to be sending drug users to prison for 6-12months on violations for possession, public intoxication, driving on a suspended license, jaywalking, spitting on sidewalks, whatever a parole officer wants to do. And yes, parole officers are part of the CCPOA .
and other non violent offenders that were sent back to the slammer for slight problems with their parole rules.
but mocking and denigrating being “tough on crime” is a one way ticket to electoral irrelevance in this state, outside of a few local jurisdictions. A core mission for any public entity is public safety. Being tough on crime is something the vast majority of people want. And they see Democrats usally at the front of the line arguing for abolition of the death penalty, lighter sentences for criminals, and blame the cop, not the criminal.
A better way to approach this issue is to make the argument that the present criminal justice system is NOT being tough on crime because is it poorly designed, has misplaced priorities and thus, fails in its mission of protecting people and their property. There are some really positive steps in the plan that David mentions in his post but Democrats need to quit thinking of “prison reform” as a way to save money, at least in the short term, and portray this as a method to better protect people and their property. Many of the people scheduled for the alternative or early releases will commit other crimes. As one poster noted, the prisons have failed in their rehabilitation mission. But the lesson should not be Kelly’s Throw Away the Key, but a smart and tough policy to weed out those who could benefit by another form of punishment. So Democrats need to make sure that there are sufficient resources for parole officers, probation departments around the state and alternative facilities to stay on top of these folks. It only takes a few bad apples to convince the public that the “throw away the key” philosophy works best, damm the costs. Any responsible plan will ensure there is adequate supervision over individuals released from prisons. In the long run, DAvid is correct; more sensible policies CAN lead to lower costs and better prisons, but I submit that the monetary savings may not be realized for some time if this is done right.
The Prison Industry of Human Warehousing is one of biggest money makers and political baseball bats used by politicians to scare the public into believing they can keep us safe by giving longer sentences indiscriminately. Tough on crime has only made longer terms for those who got caught and has done nothing to catch anymore or reduce the tremendous cost that was placed on the tax payers backs. What it did accomplish was to open the wallets of tax payers with the fear tactic of tough on crime and keep our streets safe. We are no safer and our law enforcement agencies are struggling.
We need to put our money ito the community, NOT into the the P&P (Politicians & Prisons) coffers. Instead of improving our community they always seem to sweep problems into a prison in hopes no one will know. Meantime it festers into a huge financial mess.
We need community jobs and programs to help one another with rehabiltation and family support services and children services and senior services. Otherwise we are just a dog eat dog society. Like a bad Conan movie!
July 27, 2009 9:08 AM
am SICK of hearing about politicians being “tough on crime” – they are STUPID on crime.
For seemingly intelligent people, it amazes me that they refuse to get “SMART ON CRIME”.
California added an “r” to the California Department of Corrections – but they forgot to add the “R”ehabilitation.
Right now, a violent/sex offender is sentenced to a number of years at 85% automatically. Why? Why not give them time off for good behavior or completing REAL rehabilative programs while incarcerated? Why not give them an INCENTIVE to change their ways and the tools to do so?
Until the prison industry in California is audited and reformed, the 70% recidivism will remain and California will continue to lock up more and more of its citizens until there are not enough that are not in prison to support those who are.
California is not only almost bankrupt fiscally, they are worse – they are bankrupt morally in allowing prisons to flourish while condemning the youth and the elderly.
Brutally killed by a 50 year old who was originally sent to prison for a robbery and then repeatedly violated his parole. He was released from prison last month and entered into a court-ordered drug treatment program a mile and a half from where she was abducted. Read the story in today’s LA Times.
David’s post was well thought out and I understand what you’re saying too Dante, but when you start from the premise that you say no to being tough on crime, you lose me and most of the state. Tough means being smart, which we have not been. But many of these “non-violent” prisoners aren’t so non-violent when things go south. Just ask the parents of Lily Burk. Letting these people out without ensuring adequate supervision just means more Lily Burks. I suspect a majority of the state wants a balanced approach and is open to alternative sentencing mechanisms as long as it means less crime at less cost. But if we just transfer the failure from the prison to the streets we’ve saved some dollars that would have gone to COPA but traded them for a more dangerous community and an enraged public that will move crime up the electoral pecking ladder in their selection process. Be smart and tough, not soft and stupid.