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California Prisons Face Massive Overcrowding
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(November 27, 2005) - The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced that as of November 16th its population had risen to an all-time high of 167,233 - 195% of its designed capacity. Every week the inmate population grows and breaks never before seen records within the state and at the same time the prison system is seeing an all-time low in vacancies in officer ranks - they are currently understaffed by more than 2,000 officers.
Such an increase within the inmate population alone is dangerous business. Not only for the officers and the staff, but for the inmates as well. Programs are being limited, reduced and/or shut down in an effort to maintain control. The department acknowledged the growing problem in an October 25th memo, which stated, "we believe that an imminent and substantial threat to the public safety exists requiring immediate action."
More signs of the growing problems to come are county jails such as Riverside, San Diego and Alameda County, which have at times been forced to stop accepting parole violators due to their own limitations. The state has exceeded its contract with local county jails due in part to problems with excessive parole violators as well as its own backlog of processing at reception centers due to the department's continued failure to automate inmate records.
Public safety is threatened due to overcrowding because when space is at a premium, some offenders end up only serving 10% of their terms. Parole officers may soon find their hands tied with parole violators if there is no place to put them within the county or state institutions, keeping dangerous criminals out on the streets.
As populations within the state grow, other facilities and public programs grow with them. New schools, parks, government offices, utilities and other services expand in response to the experienced growth. However, within the state of California, the correctional department is expected to just "deal with" their own growth in inmate populations. New institutions, additional officers and staff - all are desperately needed in order to retain public safety levels.
New ideas to overcome the lack of staff problems have been initiated, including building a new training academy in Stockton to increase the number of officers trained each year at the Galt facility. Currently 205 officers are being trained at the Stockton facility, and another 805 are being trained in Galt according to a prison spokesperson. Other plans are being orchestrated to alleviate population pressures and increase safety - including adding new reception facilities at California State Prison to handle incoming convicts, and renewed efforts to put more inmates in private prisons.
Experts say, however, that private prisons are not the answer. Officers at state institutions have been called upon many times to "bail out" privatized institutions during riot or other control-issue situations. Many experienced officers feel that private institutions cannot provide the level of security necessary to house California's inmate populations, even the lower level low-risk offenders.
A new overall plan to repair the system as a whole is expected to be released in January 2006, titled "Right Prison, Right Mission," which includes specific plans for each of the state's 33 institutions. Those who are supporting the new ideals are hoping that the plans will help to improve efficiency and maximize occupancy space by changing operations within each institution to correspond with the needs of inmates who will be transferred and housed accordingly.
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) strongly supports this new initiative, with Lance Corcoran saying that this concept is "something officers have been calling for, for years." He also stated that the union is supportive of the opening of a reception center at Lancaster, but will not support the use of private prisons.
A letter from corrections department labor relations manager Brigid Hanson to the CCPOA on November 10th stated that "it may be necessary to implement changes" before reaching an agreement with the union, despite the inclusion of "meet and confer" provisions in their labor contract.
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