BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  SB 601
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   July 13, 2011

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

                    SB 601 (Hancock) - As Amended:  June 28, 2011 

          Policy Committee:                             Public 
          SafetyVote:7-0

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:              

           SUMMARY 


           This bill requires the Secretary of the California Department of 
          Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to develop a Corrections 
          Accountability Report for each institution and post it on CDCR's 
          website. Specifically, this bill:


          1)Requires CDCR to develop a Corrections Accountability Report 
            for each institution on January 10, March 15, and a fiscal 
            year-end report, and post the information on CDCR's website. 


          2)Requires CDCR to post reports dating back three years for each 
            institution, and requires CDCR to post corrections made to 
            inaccurate data to current or previous reports. 


          3)Requires each report to include the three-year recidivism 
            rate, a brief biography of the warden, and a brief description 
            of the prison, including the total number of inmates. 


          4)Requires each report to use, when possible, information 
            collected via the Compstat (computer-assisted statistics) 
            report for each prison, including:

             a)   Total budget, including expenditures, staff vacancies, 
               overtime, sick leave, and number of authorized staff 
               positions.
             b)   Rehabilitation programs, including capacity, enrollment, 








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               and completion rates.
             c)   Medical inspection grade.
             d)   Average length of lockdowns.
             e)   Number of deaths, specifying homicides, suicides, 
               unexpected, and expected deaths.
             f)   Number of use of force incidents.
             g)   Number of inmate appeals and disposition.
             h)   Number of inmates in administrative segregation.
             i)   Contraband seized, specifying the number of cell phones. 


           FISCAL EFFECT  


          Absorbable costs to CDCR as this information is currently 
          available and needs only to be shifted from the governor's 
          transparency website to CDCR's website.  


           


          COMMENTS  


           1)Rationale.  The author contends displaying this information on 
            CDCR's website will add transparency. 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 effectiveness of 
            management and services being provided at California's 33 
            prisons?. By requiring the Secretary of the CDCR to repackage 
            the data and post the reports online, the public and the 
            Legislature could hold the department accountable for the 
            overall management of the correctional facility, including 
            administrative services, expenditures, safety and security, 
            and program support services."  


          2)Compstat  , short for computer statistics, is a CDCR tool 
            designed to help monitor and provide operational review of 
            prison and parole operations. As part of Governor 
            Schwarzenegger's government transparency efforts in 2009, 
            Compstat reports were moved from the CDCR's website to the 
            Reporting Transparency in Government's Web site. Proponents of 








                                                                  SB 601
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            this bill, however, contend Compstat reports and audits are 
            hard for the public to find and review among the many reports 
            on that site. This bill is intended to make Compstat 
            information more readily accessible and easier to understand. 


           Analysis Prepared by  :    Geoff Long/ APPR. / (916) 319-2081