BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 601|
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VETO
Bill No: SB 601
Author: Hancock (D)
Amended: 9/2/11
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
SENATE FLOOR : 25-13, 6/2/11
AYES: Alquist, Calderon, Corbett, Correa, De León,
DeSaulnier, Evans, Hancock, Hernandez, Kehoe, Leno, Lieu,
Liu, Lowenthal, Negrete McLeod, Padilla, Pavley, Price,
Rubio, Simitian, Steinberg, Vargas, Wolk, Wright, Yee
NOES: Anderson, Berryhill, Blakeslee, Cannella, Dutton,
Emmerson, Fuller, Gaines, Harman, La Malfa, Strickland,
Walters, Wyland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Huff, Runner
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 79-0, 9/7/11 - See last page for vote
SENATE FLOOR : 39-0, 9/8/11
AYES: Alquist, Anderson, Berryhill, Blakeslee, Calderon,
Cannella, Corbett, Correa, De León, DeSaulnier, Dutton,
Emmerson, Evans, Fuller, Gaines, Hancock, Harman,
Hernandez, Huff, Kehoe, La Malfa, Leno, Lieu, Liu,
Lowenthal, Negrete McLeod, Padilla, Pavley, Price, Rubio,
Runner, Simitian, Steinberg, Strickland, Vargas, Wolk,
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Wright, Wyland, Yee
NO VOTE RECORDED: Walters
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 Corrections Accountability
Report, as specified.
Assembly Amendments recast the bill with the same intent as
when it left the Senate. Instead of a monthly report it is
now to be completed three specific times per year and the
content of the report was streamlined.
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
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,
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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))
This bill requires the Secretary of CDCR to develop a
Corrections Accountability Report for each institution on
January 10, March 15, and a fiscal year-end report and post
those reports on the department's Internet Web site. CDCR
is required to post both current fiscal-year reports and
reports for the immediately preceding three fiscal years
for each institution. CDCR is required to also post
corrections made to inaccurate or incomplete data to
current or previous reports.
Each report shall include the three-year statewide
recidivism rate, a brief biography of the warden, including
whether he or she is an acting or permanent warden, contact
information for the warden, and a brief description of the
prison, including the total number of inmates.
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Each report shall be created using, when possible,
information collected using the Compstat (computer assisted
statistics) reports for each prison, or other verifiable
information collected by CDCR, and shall include, but not
be limited to, all of the following indicators:
Total budget, including actual expenditures, staff
vacancies, overtime, sick leave, and number of authorized
staff positions.
Rehabilitation programs, including capacity, enrollment,
and diploma and GED completion rate.
Average length of lockdowns.
Number of deaths, specifying homicides, suicides,
unexpected deaths, and expected deaths.
Number of use of force incidents.
Number of inmate appeals, including the number being
processed, overdue, and dismissed.
Number of inmates in administrative segregation.
Total contraband seized, specifying the number of
cellular telephones.
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
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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
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
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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
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. ?"
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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:
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
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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
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
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SUPPORT : (Verified 9/7/11)
Friends Committee on Legislation of California
SEIU Local 1000
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
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
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could hold wardens accountable for the overall management
of the correctional facility, including administrative
services, expenditures, safety and security, and program
and support services."
GOVERNOR'S VETO MESSAGE:
"I am returning Senate Bill 601 without my signature.
This measure would require the Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation to post on its website prescribed
information and reports and to update them every four
months.
This measure is unnecessary and redundant; existing law
already requires the Department to provide this
information. I am happy to work with the author on ways
the Department could better organize its website, but I
don't think this takes a law."
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 79-0, 9/7/11
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Beall,
Bill Berryhill, Block, Blumenfield, Bonilla, Bradford,
Brownley, Buchanan, Butler, Charles Calderon, Campos,
Carter, Cedillo, Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Davis, Dickinson,
Donnelly, Eng, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Furutani,
Beth Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick, Gatto, Gordon, Grove,
Hagman, Halderman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi, Roger
Hernández, Hill, Huber, Hueso, Huffman, Jeffries, Jones,
Knight, Lara, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mansoor,
Mendoza, Miller, Mitchell, Monning, Morrell, Nestande,
Nielsen, Norby, Olsen, Pan, Perea, V. Manuel Pérez,
Portantino, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Swanson,
Torres, Valadao, Wagner, Wieckowski, Williams, Yamada,
John A. Pérez
NO VOTE RECORDED: Gorell
RJG:mw 1/4/12 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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