As the State Assembly debates how to make $1.2 billion in cuts to the Department of Corrections, California stands at a crossroads.
All parties agree that one of government’s core functions is public safety. There is also no doubt that our corrections system needs to be reformed. Where we differ is on the question of whether or not California’s budget problems are reason enough to abdicate our responsibility to keep California communities safe.
We believe you can reform the corrections system, making it more efficient and more accountable without releasing violent criminals or changing important public safety features like the three strikes sentencing guide. Others suggest a different approach. Their proposal for savings includes an unaccountable sentencing commission that could gut the mandatory sentencing laws that keep Californians safe, and the early release of up to 27,000 dangerous criminals into communities across California.
What would this mean for California? It means that the safety of families and communities would be compromised while convicted felons are freed before they’ve been property rehabilitated or paid their full debts to society.
An analysis by the Los Angeles Police Protective League estimates that early release could lead to 245,000 new crimes and crime victims in the next 3 years. California law enforcement officials cite a January 2009 RAND Corporation study to conclude that the average prisoner on early release will likely commit 13 new crimes before being rearrested. Is $1.2 billion in savings worth the cost that Californians will pay from this proposal?
We are not arguing that corrections should not be reformed or that cost savings and efficiencies cannot be found. But reform has to be accomplished in ways that don’t put California families at risk.
We believe the Legislature should start by cutting rapidly growing prison administration costs. When all those costs are added up, we spend roughly $46,000 on each prisoner every year. Between 2005 and 2008 alone, prison administration costs in California grew by a whopping 105 percent.
This happened while our prison population was declining and while California’s incarceration rate was below comparable states. Just to make things really clear, between 1999 and 2009, the CA prison population declined by 8,229 inmates, but 18,416 corrections employees were added—a 37 percent increase. Within the Division of Juvenile Justice alone, in the last four years, the number of administrative positions increased by 50 percent while the number of youth in the system fell by 41%. There is no excuse for this type of inflated bureaucracy.
Other states incarcerate their inmates for half the cost Californians pay. Our top priority must be examining prison administration from top to bottom to eliminate waste and inefficiency—there’s plenty there to be found.
At the same time, we must get a handle on skyrocketing prison health care costs. Between 1997 and 2008-09, inmate health care costs rose 325 percent. Costs for dental care rose 322 percent, and costs for psychiatric care rose 690 percent. Over the past decade, yearly pharmacy costs have doubled from $565 per inmate to $1078.
It’s time to find lower cost alternatives that actually get the job done and bring inmate medical care in line with other medical plans. This ineffective spending cannot continue while so many hard-working Californians have no health care at all.
There are opportunities for savings and reforms throughout the Department of Corrections bureaucracy, and we are ready to work with our colleagues and make these changes. But we will not jeopardize public safety in an attempt to balance the budget—that would be failing in our first responsibility to California.