California pays rising price for prison growth

Amid a budget crisis, the state is under pressure to approve $7 billion more for prison healthcare.

By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the April 22, 2008 edition

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Los Angeles - California, home to 1 in 10 American state prison inmates, is getting a nudge from the federal government to move faster to revamp its overcrowded prison system.

Already engaged in an extensive $7.7 billion plan to dramatically expand prison capacity, the state now faces federal pressure to oversee another $7 billion in upgraded healthcare facilities for prison inmates. The legislature this week will examine a request to approve the new spending, which would require new borrowing.

The plan comes at a crucial time for California's prison system – and the state's finances. The combined tab of nearly $15 billion for prison reform has dismayed lawmakers already faced with a $16 billion budget deficit that has prompted huge proposed cuts in spending on education and health care.

"This couldn't have come at a worse time," said Steven Maviglio, spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. "It makes a disastrous budget scenario even worse."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also announced the prison system's fourth new head in five years – Matthew Cate, who has been inspector general of the corrections department since 2004.

A prison system in crisis

Operating at almost double capacity, with almost 172,000 inmates in 33 facilities, California's problems reflect a national pattern, say experts. Years of tough crime policies, including "three strikes you're out" laws and harsher parole rules, have resulted in overcrowded prisons and inadequate health services.

"California is a window into what many US states are facing with overcrowded prisons that are now more apparent to taxpayers during hard financial times," says Michael P. Jacobson, president of the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit research and policy organization based in New York.

Local and state lawsuits have forced prison reforms in states from Texas and Alabama to Connecticut and Kansas in recent years. But California's expensive new measures may have broader implications in igniting public pressure to scale back mandatory sentencing laws, remedy parole services, and find new ways to control prison costs.

"California's current predicament is a cautionary tale as to what can happen when states continually let their prison populations grow by passing all sorts of mandatory sentencing laws and parole policies that are tougher on returning prisoners to the system," says Mr. Jacobson.

Pressured by two class-action lawsuits to relieve its overcrowding, the state legislature and the governor last year approved a plan to build space for nearly 50,000 more beds – including $1.14 billion for beds in medical and mental health facilities.

Governor Schwarzenegger has also started sending inmates to other states, and late last year put forward the idea of releasing over 20,000 low-risk inmates early.

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