BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                      



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          |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE            |                   SB 601|
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                                 THIRD READING


          Bill No:  SB 601
          Author:   Hancock (D)
          Amended:  5/31/11
          Vote:     21

           
           SENATE PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE  :  5-2, 4/12/11
          AYES:  Hancock, Calderon, Liu, Price, Steinberg
          NOES:  Anderson, Harman

           SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE  :  6-3, 5/26/11
          AYES:  Kehoe, Alquist, Lieu, Pavley, Price, Steinberg
          NOES:  Walters, Emmerson, Runner


           SUBJECT  :    Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation:  
          Corrections 
                      Accountability Report

           SOURCE  :     Author


           DIGEST  :    This bill requires the Secretary of the 
          Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to 
          develop and make public a monthly Corrections 
          Accountability Report, as specified.

           ANALYSIS  :    Current law creates in state government the 
          CDCR, headed by a secretary who is appointed by the 
          Governor, subject to Senate confirmation, and serves at the 
          pleasure of the Governor.  CDCR consists of Adult 
          Operations, Adult Programs, Juvenile Justice, the 
          Corrections Standards Authority, the Board of Parole 
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          Hearings, the State Commission on Juvenile Justice, the 
          Prison Industry Authority, and the Prison Industry Board.  
          (Government Code Section 12838 (a))   
           
           Current law provides that the "Governor, upon 
          recommendation of the secretary, shall appoint the wardens 
          of the various state prisons.  Each warden shall be subject 
          to removal by the secretary.  If the secretary removes him 
          or her, the secretary's action shall be final.  The wardens 
          shall be exempt from civil service."  (Penal Code Section 
          6050)

          Current law authorizes the Inspector General to "conduct a 
          management review audit of any warden in CDCR or 
          superintendent in the Division of Juvenile Justice.  The 
          management review audit shall include, but not be limited 
          to, issues relating to personnel, training, investigations, 
          and financial matters.  Each management review audit shall 
          include an assessment of the maintenance of the facility 
          managed by the warden or superintendent.  The audit report 
          shall be submitted to the secretary of the department for 
          evaluation and for any response deemed necessary.  Any 
          Member of the Legislature or the public may request and 
          shall be provided with a copy of any audit by the Inspector 
          General, including a management review audit or a special 
          audit or review.  A report that involves potential criminal 
          investigations or prosecution or security practices and 
          procedures shall be considered confidential, and its 
          disclosure shall not be required under this section."  
          (Penal Code Section 6051)
           
           Under current law, the Inspector General is required to 
          audit each warden of an institution one year after his or 
          her appointment, and audit each correctional institution at 
          least once every four years.  "Each audit of a warden shall 
          include, but not be limited to, issues relating to 
          personnel, training, investigations, and financial matters. 
           Each four-year audit shall include an assessment of the 
          maintenance of the facility managed by the warden.  The 
          audit report shall include all significant findings of the 
          Inspector General's assessment of facility maintenance.  
          These audit reports shall be provided to the Legislature 
          and shall be made public." (Penal Code Section 6126(a))     
           

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          This bill requires the Secretary of CDCR to develop a 
          Corrections Accountability Report, as specified below, "for 
          each institution on a monthly basis and post the department 
          reports once a month on the department's Internet Web 
          site." 

          This bill requires CDCR to "post both current and all 
          previous monthly reports for each warden on the Internet 
          Web site."

          This bill requires that each report shall be created using, 
          when possible, information collected using the Compstat 
          (computer assisted statistics) reports for each prison and 
          shall include, but not be limited to, all of the following 
          information:

          1. The number of prisoner incidents at the prison.

          2. The number of inmates disciplined.

          3. The number of inmate appeals of disciplinary actions.

          4. Academic programs, including capacity, enrollment, 
             attendance, waiting lists, if any, and number of 
             programs completed.

          5. Inmate reading levels.

          6. Vocational programs, including capacity, enrollment, 
             waiting lists, if any, and program outcomes.

          7. Substance abuse and treatment programs, including the 
             number of beds, the percentage of beds occupied, the 
             number of meetings held, and the attendance at those 
             meetings.

          8. The number of staff vacancies.

          9. Overtime and sick leave totals.

          10.The number of workers compensation claims, including the 
             number of staff persons on leave due to accepted or 
             pending claims.

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          11.Work orders for repairs.

          12.The adverse actions regarding staff.

          13.Contraband seized.

          14.The budget for the prison, including whether the 
             operations are under or over budget.

           Background  

          For the last several years, CDCR has been the subject of a 
          great deal of scrutiny and criticism.  In March 2004, 
          then-Governor Schwarzenegger announced the creation of an 
          "Independent Review Panel" (IRP) led by former Governor 
          George Deukmejian to examine ways to improve adult and 
          youth corrections in California.  In June 2004, the IRP 
          released its report, urging in part the establishment of "a 
          system of accountability that includes performance measures 
          by which to evaluate employees and monitor levels of 
          achievement."  The IRP, which assessed a state correctional 
          system prior to the reorganization approved in 2005, stated 
          in part:

            To a significant extent, the problems of California's 
            Correctional system grow out of its structure.  The 
            Secretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, for 
            example, has no control over line operations.  Instead, 
            the state's 32 prison wardens and eight juvenile 
            institution superintendents each operate independently, 
            with little consistency in procedures and minimal help 
            from headquarters.  Lines of responsibility are blurred 
            by layers of bureaucracy between managers and functions.  
            Accountability is conspicuously absent, as is 
            transparency for the public into the system's inner 
            workings.  Clear, uniform policies governing the system's 
            most vital functions - fiscal matters, personnel and 
            training, internal affairs, information technology, and 
            health care - are equally lacking.  Boards, commissions, 
            and other entities that have evolved over the decades 
            perform duplicate and overlapping functions.  And the 
            system's organizational structure has not kept pace with 
            the massive growth in inmate population or with the vast 

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            geographical spread of the institutions.  

          The sheer size and complexity of the correctional system, 
          the critical nature of its mission, and the severity of the 
          problems dictate the need for wholesale reform, and that 
          reform should begin with the system's organizational 
          structure.  The Corrections Independent Review Panel 
          therefore proposes that the state's correctional agencies 
          be reorganized according to the plan described in this 
          chapter.  While the restructuring alone will not produce 
          the necessary reforms, it will serve as the foundation for 
          cleaning up the prison system, reining in costs, curbing 
          misconduct, holding correctional administrators accountable 
          for the system's performance, and making communities safer 
          by doing more to ensure that inmates and youth wards leave 
          custody better prepared to function in society.

          The IRP, which recommended a restructuring that "'flattens' 
          the organization by removing layers of bureaucracy that 
          have obscured lines of authority and accountability between 
          top managers and the functions for which they are 
          responsible," identified the following management 
          principles as key to reforming the state's correctional 
          system, and in particular recommended:

            Transforming the culture of the Department of Corrections 
            and the California Youth Authority into one in which 
            personal integrity and loyalty to the department mission 
            consistently take precedence over loyalty to co-workers 
            suspected of wrongdoing, requires a vigorous, 
            multi-pronged approach.  The effort should be guided by 
            quality management principles incorporating clear 
            objectives and purpose; key performance measures; 
            consistent monitoring; and a system of correction and 
            reward.  Quality management principles accomplish the 
            following: 

                 Provide clarity of purpose in each employee's job; 
                 Link each person's work to the department's 
               mission; 
                 Foster continual improvement; 
                 Bring accountability to all department levels.

          With respect to management staff, the IRP stated the 

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          department "must provide supervisors, managers, and 
          executive management every possible opportunity to succeed. 
           

            These individuals must be given a clear understanding of 
            the responsibilities of their positions.  They must also 
            receive performance evaluations to ensure that they grow 
            in their positions and know how to improve their 
            performance.  To accomplish that purpose, the Department 
            of Correctional Services should take the following 
            actions: 

                 Develop specific job objectives in the job 
               description for all managers, and executives, and rate 
               job performance by these objectives at least annually. 
                The specific job objectives and method of rating job 
               performance must be standardized to ensure 
               consistency. ?

               These basic management steps must be incorporated into 
               the performance evaluations of each manager and 
               evaluated at least annually.  Clear standards lead to 
               better accountability of employee actions and help 
               identify employees who need further training or 
               mentorship. ?"
           
          Specifically with respect to wardens, the report states:   

            To provide a model for exceptional performance by wardens 
            Secretary Lehman of the Washington State Department of 
            Corrections noted: 

               There are five questions to ask top performing wardens 
               to find out how effectively they deal with an issue:  
               (1) What alternatives or options were considered? (2) 
               What were the expected results? (3) What data was 
               tracked? (4) What barriers were encountered? (5) What 
               actions were taken to improve the problem?

          Following the IRP report, in 2005 Governor Schwarzenegger 
          proposed to reorganize what then was the "Youth and Adult 
          Correctional Agency."  Accountability was a key goal of the 
          proposed reorganization:


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            Restructuring will establish clear lines of reporting, 
            accountability and responsibility and performance 
            assessment that will improve services, reduce the 
            likelihood of repeat offenses and eliminate abuses within 
            the current system.  It will centralize services and 
            activities to remove duplication and leverage the scale 
            of the Department's $6 billion spending authority, thus 
            reducing the cost of operations.  The reorganization will 
            deliver a safer society at less cost to the people of 
            California.

          In its report assessing the Governor's proposed 
          reorganization, the Little Hoover Commission stated in 
          part:

            The plan clarifies and strengthens the chain of command 
            from the secretary to the prison wardens and Youth 
            Authority superintendents, who under the current system 
            operate with little accountability to the secretary or 
            loyalty to the organization.  Wardens and superintendents 
            will report to the secretary through a division director 
            and chief deputy secretary and will not require Senate 
            confirmation.  The proposed reorganization would give the 
            secretary necessary authority over all activities in the 
            agency and its subordinate departments, thereby 
            increasing the ability of the Governor, lawmakers and the 
            public to hold the secretary accountable for the 
            performance of correctional programs.

            ? The lack of a unified structure for prison work and 
            education programs has diminished their effectiveness.  
            The longstanding practice of allowing prisons to operate 
            independently has hindered accountability and hampered 
            the standardization of policies, contributing to inmate 
            abuse and expensive lawsuits.

          With respect to wardens prior to the 2005 reorganization, 
          the Little Hoover Commission noted:

            Under the current system, the Secretary reports to the 
            Governor, but he does not have the actual power to change 
            the operations of the Department of Corrections and the 
            California Youth Authority that administer the 
            correctional institutions. As a result, the Governor 

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            cannot truly hold the Secretary accountable for the 
            performance of the correctional system or enact major 
            reforms in the way prisons are administered.  Nor can the 
            Secretary dismiss a warden of an institution. Currently 
            the system's 32 wardens and eight superintendents do not 
            report directly into the Secretary.  Each warden employs 
            different standards and different operating procedures.  
            This decentralized framework, along with Senate 
            confirmation of wardens, has helped create a system of 
            operational silos with little accountability or sharing 
            of best practices outside the facility walls.

          FISCAL EFFECT  :    Appropriation:  No   Fiscal Com.:  Yes   
          Local:  No

          According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:

                          Fiscal Impact (in thousands)

             Major Provisions                2011-12     2012-13    
             2013-14               Fund  

            Monthly report for            minor, absorbable costs 
            to CDCR             General
            prison institutions
           
           SUPPORT  :   (Verified  5/31/11)

          Friends Committee on Legislation of California 

           ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT  :    According to the author:

            "California's correctional system lacks transparency and 
            accountability.  The public as well as the Legislature 
            have no clear way of accessing information on the 
            management and performance of each warden at California's 
            33 prisons.  SB 601 would require the Secretary of the 
            CDCR to develop a monthly report for each warden and the 
            warden's prison.  The institution report would include 
            information such as the number of inmates disciplined, 
            the number of inmate appeals of disciplinary actions, 
            inmate reading levels, and the number of programs 
            available.  This information is already collected by the 
            department using Compstat (short for computer 

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            statistics).  This measure requires the CDCR to post the 
            report on the CDCR website once a month. 

            "Compstat is an organizational management tool modeled 
            after Los Angeles and New York Police Departments to 
            monitor and reduce crimes and is easily accessible to the 
            public. In 2006, the CDCR designed and implemented 
            Compstat to monitor and provide operational review of 
            prisons, parole, and the department as a whole.  As part 
            of Governor Schwarzenegger's government transparency 
            efforts in 2009, the Compstat reports were moved from the 
            CDCR website and made available on the Reporting 
            Transparency in Government website, but they have gotten 
            lost among the thicket of reports on that site and are 
            harder for the public to find and view.  In addition, the 
            Compstat audits and reports are non-descriptive and 
            difficult to understand.

            "The institution report, established by this bill, is 
            intended to be straightforward and easy to read because 
            the report would be a descriptive quick read presented in 
            a graphically easy to understand way.  By requiring the 
            Secretary of the CDCR to repackage the data and post the 
            warden reports online, the public and the Legislature 
            could hold wardens accountable for the overall management 
            of the correctional facility, including administrative 
            services, expenditures, safety and security, and program 
            and support services."


          RJG:mw  5/31/11   Senate Floor Analyses 

                         SUPPORT/OPPOSITION:  SEE ABOVE

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