"Spotlight on California's Criminal Justice System
The ACLU chapter at GGU hopes to raise awareness of the state of California’ criminal justice system by hosting a series of four panels titled “A Critical Eye on Criminal Justice." The third panel, "Life in a California Prison" will be held Tuesday, February 1, 5:00 – 6:30 PM in room 2203.
For many students, this will be the first glance at living conditions of prisons. There will be a discussion on prison reform litigation and the quality of life in prison in light of the Coleman/Plata case. We will be joined by lead council in Schwarzenegger v. Plata - regarding violations of prisoners’ Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and the state of California prisons which has lead to many unnecessary deaths.
The panelists are Donald Specter, Director of the Prison Law Office, Jeanne Woodford, former warden at San Quentin State Prison, and Paul Wright, editor and co-founder of Prison Legal News. The discussion will be moderated by Professor Mort Cohen. Food and wine will be provided, all are welcome! For more information please contact: Orien Nelson at orien.nelson@gmail.com."
Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
WSJ: DoJ ends safe surrender program +more
Great Wall Street Journal article this week about the economic crisis and fiscal austerity coming home to roost in federal law enforcement and sentencing/corrections policy. Full article here. My favorite part is the bullet points:
"—Increasing the amount of time deducted from prison terms for good behavior, which would immediately qualify some 4,000 federal convicts for release, and another 4,000 over the next 10 years.
"—Increasing the amount of time deducted from prison terms for good behavior, which would immediately qualify some 4,000 federal convicts for release, and another 4,000 over the next 10 years.
—Eliminating the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Gang Intelligence Center, for a savings of $8 million in the next budget year.
—Sharing less of the proceeds from property confiscated from criminals with state and local authorities, and eliminating other funding to local police departments for some operations. The change would reduce spending by $120 million, according to the White House."
And I found this paragraph the most intriguing: "The U.S. Marshals Service has quietly shelved the Fugitive Safe Surrender Program, which has cleared the books on thousands of low-level criminal cases in the past six years. Under the program, law enforcement officials set up temporary shop in a church or a public setting, urging fugitives to turn themselves in to resolve old warrants and often drawing hundreds in a single day."
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Now on KQED: Discussion of Impending DJJ Closure
In a few minutes, KQED's Michael Krasny will host a discussion about the impending closure of the Division of Juvenile Justice, featuring UC Berkeley's Barry Krisberg, Dan Macallair from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, and KQED reporter Michael Montgomery. Tune in and listen now!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Legislative Analyst's Office Unhappy with Brown's CDCR Budget
The Legislative Analyst's Office has just issued a report critiquing Jerry Brown's plan for the CDCR budget (which we briefly discussed just a few days ago), and it does not paint a pretty picture. LAO finds serious overbudgeting in some areas, and is deeply concerned with CDCR exceeding its budget in several areas.
General Fund support for CDCR, particularly with regard to CCPOA salaries and overtime (already on the top steps of the salary scale), appears to be excessive, and CDCR has already exceeded its authority in these matters. Among the other surprising expenditures are $55.2 million in medical transportation costs, $20.5 million in legal costs (wouldn't it be cheaper to decrease population, which would also mean that the population decrease order would not have to be fought in court?), and $17.3 million in "empty beds" in case incarceration needs change.
The LAO report critiques the CDCR practice of notifying the legislature of budget shortfalls after the fact, thus coercing legislators to increase the budget in restrospect. Also, the budget does not take into account savings in adult parole and administration, which might mean the money could go elsewhere, where it is needed.
A particularly thorny issue is the fact that the budget assumes that CDCR will be making personnel cuts it has no intention of making absent a reduction in inmate population.
The budget, says the report, does not hold CDCR accountable regarding its expenditures, and there is no guarantee against CDCR pulling its retrospective budgeting trick again on the legislature. LAO therefore recommends that the legislature demand accountability and accuracy in the correctional budget.
General Fund support for CDCR, particularly with regard to CCPOA salaries and overtime (already on the top steps of the salary scale), appears to be excessive, and CDCR has already exceeded its authority in these matters. Among the other surprising expenditures are $55.2 million in medical transportation costs, $20.5 million in legal costs (wouldn't it be cheaper to decrease population, which would also mean that the population decrease order would not have to be fought in court?), and $17.3 million in "empty beds" in case incarceration needs change.
The LAO report critiques the CDCR practice of notifying the legislature of budget shortfalls after the fact, thus coercing legislators to increase the budget in restrospect. Also, the budget does not take into account savings in adult parole and administration, which might mean the money could go elsewhere, where it is needed.
A particularly thorny issue is the fact that the budget assumes that CDCR will be making personnel cuts it has no intention of making absent a reduction in inmate population.
The budget, says the report, does not hold CDCR accountable regarding its expenditures, and there is no guarantee against CDCR pulling its retrospective budgeting trick again on the legislature. LAO therefore recommends that the legislature demand accountability and accuracy in the correctional budget.
Assembly Committee Critiques Receivership Spending
On today's Chron, Marisa Lagos reports some disturbing findings from the Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review. Examining expenditures made by the federal receiver appointed by the court to oversee prison health care, the committee found extravagant spending with little or no effect on quality health care.
The findings, which are expected to be announced during a hearing today, show large salaries being paid to construction consultants on an abandoned project, who then turned around and charged taxpayers for housing, meals and dry cleaning. Prison health care spending has also grown by more than 65 percent since 2006, when a three-judge panel appointed the receiver after concluding that substandard medical treatment and neglect were killing one inmate per week.
Today's public hearing will feature responses from the receivership, whose speaker explained to the Chron that --
all of the expenses paid out by the previous receiver were within federal reimbursement guidelines.
"Those contracts no longer exist, and after Clark arrived he cut back and eventually eliminated all of them," she said.
Kincaid also noted that Kelso has made great strides toward reining in expenses. The overall death rate at prison health care centers has dropped by at least 10 percent since 2006, according to a presentation Kelso is scheduled to make to the committee today.
(Kelso recently reported continued improvements in inmate health care. Others found mixed results.)
Whether the expenses are attributable to the current or the former receivership should be an easy matter to check. What is less easy is to examine the complex connection between these developments and the overcrowding problem. It seems that both sides to the debate can use this report as ammunition for their position. As some readers may recall, one of the points made by the state in the Plata/Coleman litigation was that appointing the receiver should have been enough. Those concerned about early releases might argue that, had the receivership been more prudent in setting its priorities and spending its budget, there would be no need for the Plata/Coleman panel to order the population reduction. The counterargument, made by Don Specter in the newspaper article, is that regardless of how the receivership spends its money, as long as prisons are overcrowded no construction projects or expensive consultants will be able to improve the quality of health care behind bars.
The findings, which are expected to be announced during a hearing today, show large salaries being paid to construction consultants on an abandoned project, who then turned around and charged taxpayers for housing, meals and dry cleaning. Prison health care spending has also grown by more than 65 percent since 2006, when a three-judge panel appointed the receiver after concluding that substandard medical treatment and neglect were killing one inmate per week.
Today's public hearing will feature responses from the receivership, whose speaker explained to the Chron that --
all of the expenses paid out by the previous receiver were within federal reimbursement guidelines.
"Those contracts no longer exist, and after Clark arrived he cut back and eventually eliminated all of them," she said.
Kincaid also noted that Kelso has made great strides toward reining in expenses. The overall death rate at prison health care centers has dropped by at least 10 percent since 2006, according to a presentation Kelso is scheduled to make to the committee today.
(Kelso recently reported continued improvements in inmate health care. Others found mixed results.)
Whether the expenses are attributable to the current or the former receivership should be an easy matter to check. What is less easy is to examine the complex connection between these developments and the overcrowding problem. It seems that both sides to the debate can use this report as ammunition for their position. As some readers may recall, one of the points made by the state in the Plata/Coleman litigation was that appointing the receiver should have been enough. Those concerned about early releases might argue that, had the receivership been more prudent in setting its priorities and spending its budget, there would be no need for the Plata/Coleman panel to order the population reduction. The counterargument, made by Don Specter in the newspaper article, is that regardless of how the receivership spends its money, as long as prisons are overcrowded no construction projects or expensive consultants will be able to improve the quality of health care behind bars.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
More on Youth Correctional Facilities
The New York Times provides a well-written story from the Bay Citizen on the sides to the debate over Brown's initiative to close all CA youth correctional facilities. The initiative's roots are traced to an informal policy that
has been centered in the Bay Area after accusations of abuse and neglect at the institutions surfaced in a 2003 Alameda County lawsuit. In recent years, some local judges often refused to send young offenders to state institutions, preferring to confine them in county facilities regarded as safer and more effective.
Mr. Brown’s initiative would take that unofficial policy further. It would scrap the state juvenile justice system and shift responsibility for confining the most violent young offenders to the local level, where they are nearer to family and have more community treatment options. The move would affect the 1,300 youths in state care, down from 10,000 in 1996.
The main concerns offered by the experts featured in the story concern the lack of funding for improving local facilities and equipping them to handle severely troubled young people, as well as the concern that the intentions behind the initiative will be circumvented by opting to try more juveniles as adults. There is an additional concern over the new responsibilities shouldered by local probation officers.
has been centered in the Bay Area after accusations of abuse and neglect at the institutions surfaced in a 2003 Alameda County lawsuit. In recent years, some local judges often refused to send young offenders to state institutions, preferring to confine them in county facilities regarded as safer and more effective.
Mr. Brown’s initiative would take that unofficial policy further. It would scrap the state juvenile justice system and shift responsibility for confining the most violent young offenders to the local level, where they are nearer to family and have more community treatment options. The move would affect the 1,300 youths in state care, down from 10,000 in 1996.
The main concerns offered by the experts featured in the story concern the lack of funding for improving local facilities and equipping them to handle severely troubled young people, as well as the concern that the intentions behind the initiative will be circumvented by opting to try more juveniles as adults. There is an additional concern over the new responsibilities shouldered by local probation officers.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Jerry Corrections Watch: Abolishing State Juvenile Facilities?
Today we begin a new CCC enterprise: Over the coming weeks and months, we'll be closely monitoring Governor Jerry Brown's correctional policies. During the gubernatorial race, we posted on Brown's history with corrections, and with CCPOA, as former governor and as attorney general. It will be interesting to see whether Brown follows in Schwarzenegger's footsteps in terms of thinking outside the box (perhaps sometimes too far out) about our correctional crisis.
Brown's new budget deviates from Schwarzenegger's pattern of budgetary cuts in the correctional apparatus, especially compared with painful cuts to other aspects of government. In fact, the Brown administration plans --
an ongoing augmentation of $395.2 million within the CDCR’s budget to correct previous budget shortfalls and more accurately reflect the operational costs within the adult institutions’ budgets. This augmentation will allow the Department to fully fund the salary and wages of authorized Correctional Officers, Sergeants, and Lieutenants, which is critical to ensuring that the adult institutions have the resources to pay security staff. The augmentation also provides funding to correct for a decline in the number of overtime hours available to CDCR to use within its adult institutions. Due to salary and wage increases for correctional officers over the last eight years, and no increase in departmental overtime funding, the overtime base does not go as far as it originally did. The use of overtime is critical to ensuring that all necessary staffing levels are maintained at CDCR’s institutions, and the decline in funded overtime hours has been a primary cause for redirections of funding from other activities.
In other respects, however, the Brown administration continues a trend from the Schwarzenegger administration: Diverting inmates from the states system to county-level jails. This move continues to draw ire from county officials, given the overcrowding in jails. The latest incarnation of these efforts is Brown's plan to abolish the state youth correctional system and incarcerate juveniles exclusively at county-level facilities. Given the distressing facts we know about state juvenile facilities, and the decline in juvenile crime, this is not necessarily a bad idea. Barry Krisberg, however, voices a serious concern that counties will prosecute more juveniles as adults, to circumvent Brown's policies.
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