By Don Thompson, The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Spurred by budget pressures, the California Department of Corrections plans to overhaul the state’s parole system in a way that could help produce 15,000 fewer inmates and as many as five fewer prisons by mid-2005.
More parole violators will be assigned to house arrest or sent to drug programs instead of back to prison as part of the changes officials disclosed in advance of a state commission report on parole reform scheduled for release Thursday. Community prerelease programs will be expanded, as will community monitoring of parolees.
“Parole as of January 1 is not going to be the parole that we have now,” department spokesman Russ Heimerich said. “We are going to revamp the way we do things.”
Critics were skeptical of changes they said are aimed more at saving money than at inmates’ welfare. But the measures are in line with some of the recommendations by the Little Hoover Commission, formally called the Commission on California State Government Organization and Economy.
“These are the kind of efforts that other states are using successfully,” said commission Deputy Executive Director Nancy Lyons. “This is maybe the silver lining in the budget crisis ... it sometimes pushes us to do things we otherwise wouldn’t do.”
Currently, ex-cons who violate parole must either be sent back to prison or allowed to continue their previous release conditions. The new policies provide more options, including electronic monitoring, home detention, work release, or in- and outpatient drug programs.
A parole program begun in Oakland in 1999 also will be expanded statewide for communities that want to participate. It includes prerelease meetings for inmates’ families and mandatory post-release meetings for inmates to receive information about services, programs and counseling that is available to help them get established.
An accompanying program called PACT -- Police And Corrections Together -- teams local police and state parole officers to track ex-cons and push them toward rehabilitation programs.
“We focus on every aspect of their lives,” said Shirley Poe, parole administrator for the department’s East Bay District. “We want parolees to know, this is how you make it on the streets.
Similar programs already are in Sacramento, San Bernardino, Redlands, Vallejo, Stockton, Woodland, Richmond, San Francisco, San Fernando Valley, Moreno Valley, Fontana-Rialto and Riverside.
In addition to the parole changes, inmates beginning their sentences at prison intake centers and unassigned inmates will be eligible for early release if they participate in or sign up for education or prison jobs, even if no openings are immediately available.
Combined, the various changes mean a projected 6,000 fewer inmates this year, 9,000 fewer next year and 15,000 fewer by mid-2005, Heimerich said, the equivalent of three to five prisons that could be shuttered.
Because there will be fewer inmates, the department plans to save $734 million by cutting employees and more by trimming overtime. Diverting parolees into drug programs instead of back to prison will save a projected $50.4 million this year, nearly $101 million by 2005.
Even serious and violent inmates within 120 days of release may be sent to drug treatment programs to complete their sentences, a projected savings of $20 million this fiscal year and $61 million by 2005.
Some of the changes are self-defeating, said Judy Greenspan, a board member and spokeswoman for California Prison Focus, a San Francisco-based nonprofit prisoners’ rights group.
For instance, the department is considering eliminating community resource managers who work at each prison, doing away with some inmate self-help programs to reduce staff costs, and cutting inmate visit days from four days a week to two.
“I believe this program is just a Band-Aid approach to the real problems of over-incarceration,” Greenspan said.
Lyons, of the Little Hoover Commission, called the changes “a good first step.”