BILL ANALYSIS
AB 999
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 13, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 999 (Skinner) - As Amended: March 31, 2009
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote: 5-2
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill establishes a system of sentence credits for wards
under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation's Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF), and
prohibits extending a ward's parole consideration date (PCD) by
adding time for ward misconduct.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Provides DJF with the authority to award one month of program
time credit to wards for every month of satisfactory
performance in specified programs designed to help the ward
reenter society.
2)Provides that credits may be forfeited for serious misconduct.
The extent of credit forfeiture depends on the misconduct and
other circumstances.
3)Deletes DJF's authority to add time to a ward's PCD as a
sanction for misconduct.
FISCAL EFFECT
As proposed, this bill could save hundreds of millions of
dollars (GF) by dramatically reducing DJF length-of-stay. While
the bill needs additional development and leaves unanswered
several questions, such as the application of presumptive
credits in an indeterminate sentence system, and whether
existing time-cuts would be subsumed by the proposed credit
scheme, and while it is not possible to precisely estimate the
overlay of additional credits and reduced time-adds, by adding
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credits and eliminating time-adds, this proposal would result in
a massive net savings over the course of about three years.
Eliminating time-adds . The average time-add was 4.8 months per
ward in 2008. At a per capita cost of about $240,000, and a
DJF institutional population of 1,700, this could result in
savings of up to $160 million.
Establishing a month-for-month credit scheme . If 75% of 1,700
wards received six months of credit, at $20,000 per month per
ward, the savings could exceed $150 million, though by
recognizing the .6 month average time-cut per ward
administered in 2008, which amounts to an annual
cost-avoidance of about $20 million, the net savings for the
credit scheme presumably would be reduced by this amount.
Forfeited Credits . If 25% of the 75% of wards who might
receive full month-for-month credit forfeited all of their
credits due to misconduct, the foregone savings would be about
$38 million.
The population reduction would also lead to unspecified facility
closures, saving tens of millions of dollars.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The author's intent is (a) to create a more
effective incentive for ward programming that may lead to a
more successful societal reintegration, and (b) to curtail
what the author sees as an undue reliance on time-adds as a
sanction for misbehavior that is costly and ineffective.
According to the author, "AB 999 will replace the ineffective
system of punitive discipline in California's DJJ youth
prisons with a system that provides youth with incentives to
participate in their education and programming in a positive
manner. AB 999 gives youth the opportunity to earn program
credits that allow them to appear before the Juvenile Parole
Board at an earlier date. AB 999 also eliminates the DJJ's
outdated use of 'time adds,' an ineffective disciplinary
practice that contributes to disproportionately long sentences
for youth in California. AB 999 is modeled after Penal Code
Sections 2931 and 2933, which allow adult prisoners to earn
time credits for program participation. As under the adult
system, AB 999 provides that consequences for misconduct shall
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include forfeiture of earned time credit, under specified
conditions."
2)Background . There are about 1,700 wards in DJF's six
institutions and two camps. The average age is 19.6; the
average length-of-stay - based on an indeterminate sentencing
system - is almost three years. This population is down from a
high of 10,122 in 1996. The population is projected to
decrease to further to about 1,600 by July 1, 2009. The
dramatic population decrease is due largely to three factors:
a) The sliding scale, beginning in 1996, which increased
fees counties paid to house youths in DJJ facilities based
upon the severity of the commitment offense.
b) Counties received increased funding to build treatment
facilities.
c) SB 81 (2007), which prohibited the intake of specified
non-violent, non-serious offenders to DJF. These offenders
would remain in county care and custody. SB 81 also made
all non-violent, non-serious offenders released to parole
after September 1, 2007 the responsibility of the counties.
The vast majority of offenders are now directed to county
programs, facilitating access to their homes, families, social
programs and services, and other support systems. The
offenders now sent to DJJ have been adjudicated for the most
serious and violent crimes. These offenders represent about
one percent of 225,000 youth arrests each year.
3)DJF critics , including the Prison Law Office, Commonweal,
Books not Bars, the Friends Committee, and Youth Law Center,
have for years railed against the DJF and it's predecessor,
the California Youth Authority (the renaming came about in a
failed 2005 effort to rebrand state corrections), regarding
conditions of confinement, length-of-stay, ineffective
programming, recidivism, and institutional violence. All
support efforts to increase credit opportunities and decrease
what many organizations view as indiscriminate, inapprorpriate
and ineffective time-adds.
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Length-of-stay and time-adds have been an issue at DJF/CYA for
more than 20 years. In the late eighties the Legislature
imposed a net time-add of one month on the Youthful Offender
Parole Board (also since rebranded as the Board of Prison
Hearings). Since that time net time-adds have careened from
close to zero to today's 4.8 months. Critics point out that
because DJF wards all have a maximum available confinement
time, the effect of increasing time adds and extending parole
dates means that more wards simply "max out," leading to a
situation in which DJF has virtually no control over the ward,
inside or out.
According to Commonweal, which has reviewed DJF/CYA practices
for deades, "Time adds are justified by DJF and by the Parole
Board as legally authorized adjustment of youth indeterminate
sentences, and as the additional time necessary to ensure
rehabilitation and public safety upon release. However, there
is little in the way of research evidence to support the
thesis that longer time served in DJF institutions produces
better outcomes and lower recidivism rates. Recidivism and
revocation rates remain high for this population, despite
longer stays in confinement.
4)Concerns . DJF notes that it does have a credit scheme, the
"ward incentive program." DJF also notes concerns that
dramatically reducing ward length-of-stay also reduces
programming opportunities and potentially public safety. DJF
also notes, as have others, that this proposal should be
broadened to include discussions with the courts, the parole
authority, and local probation.
5)Opposition . The CA District Attorneys' Association states,
"Minors who are sent to DJF are given indeterminate
commitments and therefore features of a determinate sentencing
system (in this case, early release credits) should be not
applied to them. Additionally, the purpose of youth
incarceration has more traditionally been focused on
rehabilitation and therefore the activities listed above
should be a part of their programming on the natural, not an
extra incentive to have their sentence reduced.
"Also of concern is the provision that eliminates DJF's
ability to extend a ward's parole consideration date. Time
adds, as they are known, are a meaningful sanction and we are
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not convinced that sufficient reason has been provided to
abolish their use. Over the last 13 years, the DJF population
has shrunk from approximately 10, 000 wards to fewer than
1,700. Those who are left in the system are, for the most
part, hardcore juvenile offenders and we should not hamstring
DJF in its oversight of those wards."
6)Prior Legislation. SB 1373 (Romero, 2006) would have required
DJF to have as a performance objective, the reduction of the
average length-of-stay and a reduction of net time added to
all ward PCDs for disciplinary reasons. In his veto message
the governor stated, "While the objectives contained in this
bill will measure a change in the system, the objectives by
themselves do not necessarily indicate that the State is
providing wards with better services."
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081