California to expand its packed prisons

California's solution to desperately overcrowded prisons seems simple enough: Expand the prisons.

from the April 30, 2007 edition

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Such sentencing guidelines, most often set by commissions, are the only policy tool consistently found to reduce incarceration rates, according to research by the Vera Institute for Justice in New York. California has the 16th highest incarceration rate among US states.

When state lawmakers vote in new laws that stiffen sentences, they at times overlook the long-term consequences of having more inmates serving longer prison terms, says Barbara Tombs, director of the Vera Institute. For instance, if a statute doubles the sentence for burglary from five years to 10 years, a rise in prison population won't be felt until year six.

"It may be years before you start paying for the sins of your fathers," says Ms. Tombs. "A good commission – where they are looking at data, and they understand the data, and they are reviewing the data – can counteract some of these things."

Recognizing this problem, Senate majority leader Gloria Romero (D) had placed a hold on any bill that would name new crimes or lengthen sentences, until a prison deal was struck. When the deal was finally announced last week, she came out against it, calling it a "fig leaf" for the governor to stave off a federal takeover.

Other Democratic leaders supported the bill, including Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez. "There are two pillars here that we are addressing," he said at a press conference Thursday, referring to the expansion in beds and the rehabilitation efforts. He described the latter as "very serious reforms" that should reduce California's recidivism rate, an unusually high 70 percent.

Some of the new beds will be placed in new "reentry" centers, which are smaller facilities within the local communities where inmates eventually will be paroled. Inmates nearing release will be shifted there to focus more on rehabilitation and transitioning back into society.

The plan also allows Schwarzenegger to continue the practice of transferring some convicts to prisons in other states.

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