I’ve found myself wistful over the demise of health care reform in California, if only because it was so painful to watch.  It was fairly glaring from the start that the resources and the budget structure weren’t there to manage such a big issue.  The lesson learned should be that a broader consensus has to be reached, but also that you have to work within the narrow structures forced by the state’s processes, or else work to change them.  Such is also the case with prison reform, which is actually a far less insurmountable a goal.

About a week ago we heard about a potential “deal” on solving the prison crisis, where the state would settle the lawsuits that are forcing the possibility of a dramatic release of prisoners.  But notice how this is being done.  It’s a “deal” without reform.

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SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration is exploring a settlement of two lawsuits that would require California to dramatically reduce the number of inmates in its overcrowded prisons — and limit the Legislature’s influence on the issue, according to participants in the discussions.

The settlement discussions in the federal court cases, which have been consolidated, are in an early stage, and the framework of a deal has not been ironed out.

The talks are not formally tied to Schwarzenegger’s proposal last week to release tens of thousands of low-risk prisoners to save the state money. That plan, which essentially reverses the court position he has taken opposing the early release of inmates, is expected to die in the Legislature, where it would need approval from Republicans who adamantly oppose it.

But it could become the basis for a negotiated settlement, prisoners’ lawyers said.

The proposal is “a step in the right direction,” said Donald Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office and one of the attorneys for inmates in the case. His group is asking a panel of three federal judges to cap the state’s prison population.

“We would rather settle this case and have the state do this than have the court do it,” Specter said.

Even if lawmakers reject his proposal, Schwarzenegger could implement the inmate releases he envisions as part of a settlement, known as a consent decree, that the judges would approve. That would put extreme pressure on legislators to make the appropriate changes to state law.

This has nothing to do with reforming a broken system, just as the absurd attempt to build our way out of the problem last year did nothing.  It’s the draconian sentencing and parole issues that are leading to overcrowding, a shortage of rehabilitation and treatment services, and the country’s largest recidivism rate.  This is completely obvious.  Here’s a quick statistic: California has 30 times as many children between the ages of 14 and 17 in prison for life without the possibility of parole than THE ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED.  There’s actually a bill, SB999 (Yee), that would end this horrific practice.  But it’s by no means the only outsized sentence that we have on the books.

You can go back and forth on who should get released and what crimes should be absolved, and politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, can demagogue the issue and scare the bejeebus out of their constituents with lurid tales of “criminals roaming our streets,” but what they won’t tell you is that this is a problem of their own doing.  By sentencing nonviolent offenders to overcrowded jails that become little more than schools on how to commit violent crimes, they are threatening public safety and risking a total collapse of the system.  Only by attacking this crisis at the root will anything be solved.  And in this way, it mirrors the health care debate.  The Governor is seeking a “deal” with a narrow group of interests without looking at the larger problems in the debate.  In health care it was costs; in prison reform it’s sentencing.

The 45 days allowed by Proposition 58 for the legislature to act in this special session and the urgency of the situation may bring about some thoughtful policy in this area or it may prove an impossibility and devolve into a new orgy of demagoguery and what our Governor calls “Kabuki theater”-a stylized and ritualized play on the stage of politics where our elected leaders try to prove they are tougher on crime. Given how we have gotten into this mess, with the constant one-upmanship of over 1000 laws passed ratcheting up sentences for all sorts of crimes since 1977 when California switched to a determinate sentencing law scheme (fixed terms rather than leaving some discretion in sentencing and releasing criminals with an eye towards rehabilitation), I am somewhat dubious. California is now responsible for 1 out of every 5 new inmates in the country in prison. Some Republicans in the legislature still don’t get it. Tomorrow, during the regular session, the Assembly Public Safety Committee will take up at least two proposals to increase sentences and add to that list of 1000.

The failure of leadership in this area is truly sad to see.  And until we actually address these sundry problems in a comprehensive way that looks at root causes instead of playing to what we think citizens want to hear, that leadership deficit will widen.

Today the Joint Economic Committee, composed of Senators Webb and Schumer along with New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, held a hearing on certainly the most underappreciated issue facing America – our prison crisis.  Here’s part of Rep. Maloney’s statement:

The United States has the highest incarceration rates in the world, with more than 2 million Americans currently in jails or prisons. Clearly, imprisonment benefits society and is an important public safety measure. But faced with an unprecedented increase in incarceration, we must ask ourselves whether we are striking the right balance between the costs and benefits of imprisonment. 

Putting more resources into creating economic opportunities that provide alternatives to crime would pay dividends in reducing crime and incarceration, while also strengthening families and communities.

We all know that in the long run crime doesn’t pay, but it sure is costly. The average annual cost of incarceration for one federal prisoner exceeds $20,000 – far more than the average annual cost of $3,700 for a youth program, $6,000 for a job training program or the $13,000 for tuition at public universities. 

There is no question that crime rates have dropped in the U.S. over the past decade. Researchers agree that the increase in incarceration rates have been driven by tougher sentences for repeat offenders and drug offenders, mandatory minimums, and a more punitive approach to post-release supervision, rather than an increase in crime.

These are precisely the problems that California faces, due to a complete failure of legislative leadership and a panoply of thousands of tougher sentencing laws.  Today Dan Weintraub reports on the stirrings of a long-overdue reform of the system, before it’s too late.

The Schwarzenegger administration, which has been cautious to a fault when it comes to prison reform, is tiptoeing back toward the idea of loosening restrictions on parolees who are good bets to stay out of trouble.

The program is starting with a trial run in Orange County, where ex-cons who are considered the lowest risks and then meet a series of benchmarks will be cut loose from state super- vision after six months instead of three years.

The idea is to give those parolees an incentive to get their lives back on stable ground shortly after they leave prison, which is when most felons return to a life of crime. Then, by letting them off parole early, the state figures it will be able to concentrate more resources on more-dangerous felons who need the most attention.

Parole reform is to prison reform as S-CHIP is to the broader health care issue.  It’s a baby step on the road to really making those tough decisions.  But it’s taken so long to get to this point, and change is being forced only through a crisis and a potential capping of the prison population, that I guess we have to be happy for what we get.  There’s going to be major pushback on this from the right (it’s already happening on the Flush Report) so it’s important that this under-the-radar issue gets attention and support.

It’s well-known that Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata wasn’t particularly happy with the sellout prison construction bill that the Governor signed last week.  It’s also well-known that none of the “reforms” in that prison bill will do anything to lower the prison overcrowding rate before the fast-approaching deadline for the state to appear before a judge and prove that the situation has changed.  So Perata is using some old-fashioned arm-twisting to get some real reforms in the corrections system.

The Senate Democratic leader is urging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to use his administrative power to change parole rules to ease severe prison crowding, possibly by as many as 8,100 inmates.

Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata, D-Oakland, said Republican opposition kept parole reform out of a $7.8 billion plan to ease overcrowding through a building program and transferring some prisoners to other states.

Perata said speculation at the Capitol that the bill signed by the Republican governor last week includes an unwritten “side deal” to have Schwarzenegger bypass the Legislature and administratively enact parole changes is inaccurate.

“I wouldn’t call it a deal,” Perata said of talks with the governor. “What we said is we couldn’t put it in the bill because the Republicans wouldn’t support it.

“We said further that if you don’t do something with parole, you can’t make any of this work,” said Perata. “So you’ve got the ability to do it. It’s up to you to do it.”

Of course, I’d rather they tried to put this in the bill, dared the Republicans to block it, and then run on the consequences.  But clearly, Perata is trying to leverage the judicial deadline (which is the only reason anything got done on a prison bill in the first place) to bring about a saner policy.  I don’t like that the Democratic leadership appeared to cave on this policy and gave the Governor most of what he wanted; I personally think that, without real reform, they’ll have to do the same damn thing five years from now.  But at least Perata is trying to use the deadline to his advantage, after it was used to his detriment previously. 

Perhaps Perata could get Mike Jimenez of the CCPOA, who’s disinclined to the Governor’s plan, to join him in calling for parole reform.  And he should go further and introduce Sen. Romero’s legislation for an independent sentencing commission.  But this is making the best of a bad situation.