BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair S
2013-2014 Regular Session B
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SB 1391 (Hancock) 1
As Amended: April 10, 2014
Hearing date: April 29, 2014
Education Code
JRD:sl
COMMUNITY COLLEGES:
INMATE EDUCATION PROGRAMS: COMPUTATION OF APPORTIONMENTS
HISTORY
Source: Author
Prior Legislation: SB 413 (Scott)-2008, Vetoed
SB 574 (Hancock)-2009, held in Senate
Appropriations
AB 1702 (Swanson)-2010, held in Senate
Appropriations
AB 216 (Swanson)-2011, held in Senate
Appropriations<1>
AB 1271 (Bonta)-2013, pending before the Senate
Education Committee
Support: Alliance for Boys and Men of Color; Community College
League of California; Kern Community College District;
Los Angeles Community College District; Los Rios
Community College District; Legal Services for
Prisoners with Children; Peralta Community College
District; Rio Hondo Community College District; South
Orange County Community College District; West Kern
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<1> AB 216 was amended to deal with voter residency issues and
was passed out of Appropriations.
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Community College District; Yosemite Community College
District; Yuba Community College District
Opposition:None known
KEY ISSUE
SHOULD THE LAW BE CHANGED TO PROVIDE INMATES IN STATE CORRECTIONAL
FACILITIES BETTER ACCESS TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE COURSES?
PURPOSE
The purpose of this legislation is to: (1) waive the open course
requirement for community college courses offered in state
correctional facilities, and (2) require the Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation to establish the Innovative
Career Technical Grant Program, as specified.
Current law authorizes a community college district,
notwithstanding open course provisions, to claim state
apportionment for classes it provides to inmates of any city,
county, or city and county jail, road camp, farm for adults, or
federal correctional facility (not for inmates in state
correctional facilities). Under current law the attendance
hours generated by these classes, whether credit or noncredit,
are counted as noncredit attendance hours for apportionment
purposes. (Education Code § 84810.5)
Under existing law classes provided to inmates of state
correctional facilities are not currently authorized for state
apportionment (funding). In addition, no funds provided for
inmate education programs can be considered as part of the base
revenues for community college districts in computing
apportionments. (Education Code § 84810.5)
This bill waives the open course requirement (where courses
must be offered to the general public) for community college
courses offered in state correctional facilities and allows
attendance hours generated by credit courses to be funded at the
credit rate, instead of the noncredit funding rate.
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This bill requires the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation in collaboration with the Chancellor of the
California Community Colleges to establish the Innovative Career
Technical Education Grant program, as specified.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the last several years, severe overcrowding in California's
prisons has been the focus of evolving and expensive litigation
relating to conditions of confinement. On May 23, 2011, the
United States Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its
prison population to 137.5 percent of design capacity within two
years from the date of its ruling, subject to the right of the
state to seek modifications in appropriate circumstances.
Beginning in early 2007, Senate leadership initiated a policy to
hold legislative proposals which could further aggravate the
prison overcrowding crisis through new or expanded felony
prosecutions. Under the resulting policy, known as "ROCA"
(which stands for "Receivership/ Overcrowding Crisis
Aggravation"), the Committee held measures that created a new
felony, expanded the scope or penalty of an existing felony, or
otherwise increased the application of a felony in a manner
which could exacerbate the prison overcrowding crisis. Under
these principles, ROCA was applied as a content-neutral,
provisional measure necessary to ensure that the Legislature did
not erode progress towards reducing prison overcrowding by
passing legislation, which would increase the prison population.
In January of 2013, just over a year after the enactment of the
historic Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011, the State of
California filed court documents seeking to vacate or modify the
federal court order requiring the state to reduce its prison
population to 137.5 percent of design capacity. The State
submitted that the, ". . . population in the State's 33 prisons
has been reduced by over 24,000 inmates since October 2011 when
public safety realignment went into effect, by more than 36,000
inmates compared to the 2008 population . . . , and by nearly
42,000 inmates since 2006 . . . ." Plaintiffs opposed the
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state's motion, arguing that, "California prisons, which
currently average 150% of capacity, and reach as high as 185% of
capacity at one prison, continue to deliver health care that is
constitutionally deficient." In an order dated January 29,
2013, the federal court granted the state a six-month extension
to achieve the 137.5 % inmate population cap by December 31,
2013.
The Three-Judge Court then ordered, on April 11, 2013, the state
of California to "immediately take all steps necessary to comply
with this Court's . . . Order . . . requiring defendants to
reduce overall prison population to 137.5% design capacity by
December 31, 2013." On September 16, 2013, the State asked the
Court to extend that deadline to December 31, 2016. In
response, the Court extended the deadline first to January 27,
2014 and then February 24, 2014, and ordered the parties to
enter into a meet-and-confer process to "explore how defendants
can comply with this Court's June 20, 2013 Order, including
means and dates by which such compliance can be expedited or
accomplished and how this Court can ensure a durable solution to
the prison crowding problem."
The parties were not able to reach an agreement during the
meet-and-confer process. As a result, the Court ordered
briefing on the State's requested extension and, on February 10,
2014, issued an order extending the deadline to reduce the
in-state adult institution population to 137.5% design capacity
to February 28, 2016. The order requires the state to meet the
following interim and final population reduction benchmarks:
143% of design bed capacity by June 30, 2014;
141.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2015; and,
137.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2016.
If a benchmark is missed the Compliance Officer (a position
created by the February 10, 2016 order) can order the release of
inmates to bring the State into compliance with that benchmark.
In a status report to the Court dated February 18, 2014, the
state reported that as of February 12, 2014, California's 33
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prisons were at 144.3 percent capacity, with 117,686 inmates.
8,768 inmates were housed in out-of-state facilities.
The ongoing prison overcrowding litigation indicates that prison
capacity and related issues concerning conditions of confinement
remain unresolved. While real gains in reducing the prison
population have been made, even greater reductions may be
required to meet the orders of the federal court. Therefore,
the Committee's consideration of ROCA bills -bills that may
impact the prison population - will be informed by the following
questions:
Whether a measure erodes realignment and impacts the
prison population;
Whether a measure addresses a crime which is directly
dangerous to the physical safety of others for which there
is no other reasonably appropriate sanction;
Whether a bill corrects a constitutional infirmity or
legislative drafting error;
Whether a measure proposes penalties which are
proportionate, and cannot be achieved through any other
reasonably appropriate remedy; and,
Whether a bill addresses a major area of public safety
or criminal activity for which there is no other
reasonable, appropriate remedy.
COMMENTS
1. Need for This Bill
The author states, in part:
Current law specifically prohibits community colleges
from collecting funds generated by attendance hours
for programs that are not "open to the public".
Because inmate education is not "open", community
colleges have been hamstrung on the types of education
offered inmates. Correspondence courses and
television/video courses cannot substitute for
in-person, hands on, experiential courses. Especially
when the goal is to provide work-world skills that
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lead to jobs upon release of the inmates.
Community colleges have a great deal of experience
with career technical education; faculty is both
experienced in the field and classroom. CTE faculty
have established programs and a good understanding of
the work world, the economic needs of the communities
and a wide network of workforce development/economic
development contacts.
The second part of the bill is to create a grant
program funded with funds from the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Administration and conditions of the grants along with
goals and an evaluation process are to be subject of
an interagency agreement with the Chancellor's Office.
Currently the two entities have an interagency
agreement on other education collaborations.
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2. Effect of this Legislation
This legislation is designed to reduce recidivism by offering
inmates additional educational opportunities. According to a
2014 study released by the California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation, inmates released from prison in fiscal year
2008/2009 had a 61 percent three-year recidivism rate. (2013
Outcome Evaluation Report, January 2014,
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Adult_Research_Branch/Research_Documents/O
utcome _ Evaluation_Report_2013.pdf.) A recent RAND study
found, with regard to inmate education and recidivism:
College instructors and instructs external to the
facility can potentially infuse the program with
approaches, exercises, and standards being used in
more traditional instructional settings.
Additionally, these instructors provide inmates with
direct, on-going contact with those in the outside
community. Programs with a post release component
provide continuity in support that can assist inmates
as they continue on in education and/or enter the
workforce in the months immediately after they are
released. Although we are limited in our ability to
classify programs and to establish causality, the
findings here provide suggestive evidence that
correctional education may be most effective in
preventing recidivism when the program connects
inmates with the community outside the correctional
facility.
(Evaluating the Effectiveness of Correctional
Education: A Meta-Analysis of Programs that Provide
Education to Incarcerated Adults, Lois M. Davis,
Robert Boznick, Jennifer L. Steele, Jessica Saunders,
Jeremy Miles, 2013.)
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