BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 601 Hearing Date: April 28, 2015
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|Author: |Hancock |
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|Version: |April 20, 2015 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|JRD |
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Subject: Corrections: Prisons: Reports
HISTORY
Source: Author
Prior Legislation:SB 601 (Hancock) - 2011, vetoed
Support: Unknown
Opposition:None known
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to require the secretary of the CDCR
to develop and make public a quarterly "data dashboard," as
specified.
Current law creates in state government the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), to be
headed by a secretary, who shall be appointed by the Governor,
subject to Senate confirmation, and shall serve at the pleasure
of the Governor. (Government Code § 12838.) CDCR shall consist
of Adult Operations, Adult Programs, Health Care Services,
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Juvenile Justice, the Board of Parole Hearings, the State
Commission on Juvenile Justice, the Prison Industry Authority,
and the Prison Industry Board. (Id.) As explained in the
Legislative Analyst's Office Analysis of the Governor's 2015-16
Proposed Budget:
The CDCR is responsible for the incarceration of adult
felons, including the provision of training,
education, and health care services. As of February
4, 2015, CDCR housed about 132,000 adult inmates in
the state's prison system. Most of these inmates are
housed in the state's 34 prisons and 43 conservation
camps. About 15,000 inmates are housed in either
in-state or out-of-state contracted prisons. The
department also supervises and treats about 44,000
adult parolees
and is responsible for the apprehension of those
parolees who commit new offenses or parole violations.
In addition, about 700 juvenile offenders are housed
in facilities operated by CDCR's Division of Juvenile
Justice, which includes three facilities and one
conservation camp.
The Governor's budget proposes total expenditures of
$10.3 billion ($10 billion General Fund) for CDCR
operations in 2015-16.
Under current law the Secretary of the Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation is required to establish the Case Management
Reentry Pilot Program for offenders under the jurisdiction of
the department who have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment
under Section 1170 and are likely to benefit from a case
management reentry strategy designed to address homelessness,
joblessness, mental disorders, and developmental disabilities
among offenders transitioning from prison into the community, as
specified. The department is required to submit a final report
of the findings from its evaluation of the pilot program to the
Legislature and the Governor no later than three years after the
enactment of Assembly Bill 1457 or Senate Bill 851 of the 201314
Regular Session. (Penal Code § 3016.)
This bill would require the Secretary of CDCR to develop a data
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dashboard, as specified below, on a quarterly basis and post
those reports on the departments Internet Web site.
This bill would require CDCR to "post both current fiscal-year
reports and reports for the immediately preceding three fiscal
years for each institution."
This bill would require that each report 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) A brief biography of the warden, whether he or she is an
acting or permanent warden.
(2) A brief description of the prison and the total number and
level of inmates currently residing at the prison.
(3) Staff vacancies, overtime, sick leave, and number of
authorized staff positions.
(4) Rehabilitation programs, including enrollment capacity,
actual enrollment, and diploma and GED completion rate.
(5) Number of deaths, specifying homicides, suicides, unexpected
deaths, and expected deaths.
(6) Number of use of force incidents.
(7) Number of inmate appeals, including the number being
processed, overdue, dismissed and
upheld.
(8) Number of inmates in administrative segregation.
(9) Total contraband seized, specifying the number of cellular
telephones.
This bill states that the report should include two items not
currently collected or displayed by COMPSTAT:
(1)Total budget, including actual expenditures.
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(2)Number of days in lockdown.
This bill states that the report on the Case Management Reentry
Pilot Program is due to the legislature and the governor by July
31, 2017.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the past eight years, this Committee has scrutinized
legislation referred to its jurisdiction for any potential
impact on prison overcrowding. Mindful of the United States
Supreme Court ruling and federal court orders relating to the
state's ability to provide a constitutional level of health care
to its inmate population and the related issue of prison
overcrowding, this Committee has applied its "ROCA" policy as a
content-neutral, provisional measure necessary to ensure that
the Legislature does not erode progress in reducing prison
overcrowding.
On February 10, 2014, the federal court ordered California to
reduce its in-state adult institution population to 137.5% of
design capacity by February 28, 2016, as follows:
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.
In February of this year the administration reported that as "of
February 11, 2015, 112,993 inmates were housed in the State's 34
adult institutions, which amounts to 136.6% of design bed
capacity, and 8,828 inmates were housed in out-of-state
facilities. This current population is now below the
court-ordered reduction to 137.5% of design bed capacity."(
Defendants' February 2015 Status Report In Response To February
10, 2014 Order, 2:90-cv-00520 KJM DAD PC, 3-Judge Court, Coleman
v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (fn. omitted).
While significant gains have been made in reducing the prison
population, the state now must stabilize these advances and
demonstrate to the federal court that California has in place
the "durable solution" to prison overcrowding "consistently
demanded" by the court. (Opinion Re: Order Granting in Part and
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Denying in Part Defendants' Request For Extension of December
31, 2013 Deadline, NO. 2:90-cv-0520 LKK DAD (PC), 3-Judge Court,
Coleman v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (2-10-14). The Committee's
consideration of bills that may impact the prison population
therefore will be informed by the following questions:
Whether a proposal erodes a measure which has contributed
to reducing the prison population;
Whether a proposal addresses a major area of public safety
or criminal activity for which there is no other
reasonable, appropriate remedy;
Whether a proposal addresses a crime which is directly
dangerous to the physical safety of others for which there
is no other reasonably appropriate sanction;
Whether a proposal corrects a constitutional problem or
legislative drafting error; and
Whether a proposal proposes penalties which are
proportionate, and cannot be achieved through any other
reasonably appropriate remedy.
COMMENTS
1. Need for Legislation
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 California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to
develop a quarterly report for each prison. This
measure would require the CDCR to post their report on
the CDCR website.
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The report would include the following information:
Staff vacancies, overtime sick leave, and
the number of authorized staff prisons
Rehabilitation programs, including
enrollment capacity, and actual enrollment, and
diploma and GED completion rate
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, dismissed and
upheld
Number of inmates in administrative
segregation
Total contraband seized, specifying the
number of cellular telephones and drugs
Total Budget, including actual
expenditures*
Number of days in lockdown*
*Data not currently collected by the department
using COMPSTAT.
2.Background
For the last several years the CDCR has been the subject of a
great deal of scrutiny and criticism. In March of 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 of 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."<1> The
IRP, which assessed a state correctional system prior to the
reorganization approved in 2005,<2> stated in part:
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<1> Report of the Independent Corrections Review Panel (June
2004), p. 26. The report is available online at
http://cpr.ca.gov/Review_Panel/.
<2> The reorganization of the corrections agency was codified
in SB 737 (Romero), Ch. 10 Stats. 2005.
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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 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.<3>
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<3> Id, p. 1 (emphasis added).
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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,"<4>
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.<5>
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
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<4> Id. p. 4.
<5> Id., p. 20-21 (emphasis added).
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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. . . . <6>
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?<7>
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
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<6> Id., p. 75.
<7> Id. p. 94.
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the people of California.<8>
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.<9>
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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<8> Governor's Reorganization Plan, Reforming California's
Youth & Adult Correctional Agency (Appendix "A," Reconstructing
Government: A Review of the Governor's Reorganization Plan:
Reforming California's Youth and Adult Correctional Agency,
Little Hoover Commission (Feb. 2005).
<9> Id (emphasis added).
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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.<10>
WOULD THIS BILL IMPROVE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR PRISON OPERATIONS?
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<10> Id. (emphasis added).