BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1678
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Date of Hearing: May 19, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 1678 (Lieu) - As Amended: April 13, 2010
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote: 4-2
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill rolls back provisions of the 2009-10 Budget Act that
authorize the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
(CDCR) to place persons who have completed prison terms for
non-serious, non-violent, non-sex offenses, who have no serious,
violent or sex offense priors, who are not validated gang
members, and who have passed a validated risk assessment, on
non-revocable parole (NRP). Specifically, this bill:
1)Provides local law enforcement veto power over NRP by stating
NRP shall not be granted if a local law enforcement agency
objects.
2)Specifies that if CDCR agrees with local law enforcement, NRP
is denied. If CDCR disagrees, the Board of Parole Hearings
(BPH) must hold a public hearing. Absent a two-thirds vote of
the full BPH in favor of the NRP, it shall be denied.
3)Creates a list of additional offenses ineligible for NRP:
a) Solicitation of murder
b) Stalking or domestic violence, as specified
c) Possession of an explosive or destructive device
d) Causing an inhabited structure or inhabited property to
burn
e) Cruelty against children
f) Battery resulting in serious bodily injury or battery
against an official
g) Evasion of a peace officer.
4)Prohibits NRP if the parolee is required to register as a gang
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member, is listed on the Department of Justice CalGang System,
or has self-identified as a gang member.
5)Requires CDCR to publish specified information on its public
Web site, including: a) the number of persons paroled on NRP;
b) the crimes for which the parolees have been convicted; c) a
list of each crime and the number of persons released.
FISCAL EFFECT
Major annual GF costs, likely in the range of $80 million.
1)CDCR projects a $95 million savings as a result of NRP in
2010-11, with about 20,000 parolees on NRP. (There are
currently about 9,300 parolees on NRP.) Assuming this bill
makes about 4,000 parolees ineligible as a result of the
specified offenses, and local law enforcement successfully
objects to 75% of the remaining NRPs, the annual GF cost would
be about $72 million.
2)The BPH has a budget of about $100 million for adult hearings,
and held about 100,000 hearings in 2008-09, most of which were
neither full board (en banc) hearings, nor public. This bill
would require the board to hold an additional 10,000 or so
public en banc hearings, creating an annual GF cost of about
$10 million. In addition, the BPH would need to create
processes, establish legal representation requirements, and
procure hearing space.
Absent significant staffing increases, BPH would likely face
litigation, as it has in several cases regarding delays and
due process. Moreover, legal representation would likely drive
additional BPH costs, as it is not clear how a prospective NRP
parolee would respond to a generic law enforcement
"objection."
3)Moderate annual GF costs, likely in the range of $150,000 for
CDCR to post a significant amount of data on its website; data
that changes daily.
4)Validating the proposed expanded gang affiliation would create
moderate annual GF costs, likely in the range of $100,000 for
a position equivalent. CDCR would have to create a new process
and system to validate information not contained in the
inmate's central file.
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COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The author contends this bill protects public
safety by limiting the use of NRP, which has been in effect
since February (SBX3 18, Ducheny, Statutes of 2009). The
author asserts that by keeping these parolees on caseloads of
about 80:1 for one to three years, and restoring the state's
authority to return them to prison for an average parole
revocation term of about four months - rather than
adjudicating them for a new offense and a longer prison term -
the public will be better protected.
2)Current law , adopted in 2009 as part of the budget agreement,
provides CDCR shall not return to prison, place a parole hold,
or report any parole violation to the BPH regarding any
parolee to whom all of the following criteria apply:
a) the parolee is not required to register as a sex
offender, as specified;
b) the parolee was not committed for a serious felony or a
violent felony, and does not have a prior conviction for a
serious felony or a violent felony;
c) the parolee was not committed to prison for a sexually
violent offense, and does not have a prior conviction for a
sexually violent offense, as defined;
d) the parolee was not convicted of a serious disciplinary
offense while in prison;
e) the parolee is not a validated prison gang member or
associate, as defined in CDCR regulation;
f) the parolee did not refuse to sign parole conditions,
including, as specified; and
g) the parolee was evaluated by CDCR using a validated risk
assessment tool and was not determined to pose a high risk
to re-offend.
3)Federal court order to reduce California's prison population
by about 40,000. On January 12, 2010, a federal three-judge
panel ordered California to reduce its prison overcrowding to
137.5 percent of design capacity, in accord with a plan
submitted by the state on November 12, 2009. The court stayed
the population reduction order, however, until the U.S.
Supreme Court decides on the state's appeal. It is unlikely
the Supreme Court will decide the appeal before late 2010 or
early 2011.
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The recent population reduction order is the result of lengthy
litigation initiated when federal judges who oversee
California's prison medical and mental health care systems
ordered that a three-judge panel be convened to consider
placing limits on California's prison population. The orders
were issued after the judges concluded California prisons are
unable to provide constitutionally-adequate medical care
(Plata) and mental health care (Coleman) due in part to severe
overcrowding.
On August 4, 2009, the three judge panel ruled that
overcrowding is the primary cause of unconstitutional
conditions in California's prisons, such as the system's
inability to provide competent and timely health care for
prisoners. The judges also found compelling evidence that
reducing the prison population is the only way to address the
problems.
On November 12, 2009, the state submitted a population
reduction plan that was accepted by the court. Included in the
plan are changes included in SBX3 18.
4)Three-judge panel comments excerpted from Aug. 2009 court
order regarding parole reform.
"California has a "very abnormal practice" of sending a high
number of technical parole violators to prison for a short of
amount of time. In California, more than 70,000 parolees are
returned to prison each year for technical parole violations,
approximately 17,000 of whom are "pure technical violators"
who have not been arrested for a new crime but have only
violated a term or condition of their parole."
"Evidence - including testimony from Thomas Hoffman, Director
of the CDCR's Division of Adult Parole Operations -
overwhelmingly showed that California's practice of sending
parole violators back into the state prison system for an
average of four months and incarcerating them during that time
in crowded reception centers endangers public safety and
burdens the criminal justice system."
"We conclude that simply slowing the flow of technical parole
violators to prison, thereby substantially reducing the
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churning of parolees, would by itself improve both the prison
and parole systems, and public safety. Diversion of parole
violators to community alternative sanctions programs would
serve to significantly reduce recidivism. We therefore find
that diverting parole violators to alternative community
sanctions programs would reduce the prison population while
having a positive rather than a negative effect on public
safety and the operation of the criminal justice system."
"California's parole system is significantly out of step with
that of the other states. California is the only state that
puts every inmate leaving the prison system on parole, usually
for one to three years."
"The upshot is that California's parole system is so
overburdened that parolees who represent a serious public
safety risk are not watched closely enough, and those who wish
to go straight cannot get the help they need."
"The evidence conclusively showed that public safety would not
be adversely affected by releasing low-risk, nonserious,
nonviolent offenders from the prison system without placing
them on parole supervision. Such individuals can be identified
using a risk assessment tool."
"Based on this evidence, we find that shortening the length of
parole or limiting the use of parole for certain offenders
would ease the present burden on the parole system. These
reform efforts would also improve the public safety impact of
the parole system by concentrating resources on high-risk
offenders who need supervision and by offering incentives to
all offenders to participate in rehabilitative programming."
5)Support . On record are the Association of L.A. Deputy
Sheriffs, Crime Victims United, and the Riverside Sheriffs'
Association (RSA). According to the RSA, "AB 1678 is a modest
step in addressing some of the unintended public safety
consequences arising from passage of last session's SB 18 3X.
AB 1678 will help ensure a closer working relationship with
CDCR and local law enforcement and enhance public safety. Most
importantly, it helps reduce some of the unintended public
safety risks arising from passage of last year's legislation
with minimal fiscal impact."
6)Opposition . The defense bar and the Prison Law Office (PLO)
(which sued the state in the Plata class action suit)
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reference the federal three-judge panel's recommendations
regarding parole reform. According to the PLO,
"AB 1678 further burdens an already beleaguered CDCR with
increased costs and bureaucratic hurdles with no gains in
public safety. It creates the illusion of increasing public
safety by adding additional criteria that automatically bar
parolees from qualifying for non-revocable parole, even though
high-risk parolees are already barred under current law. The
result is that AB 1678 acts in direct opposition to the intent
of the changes to the Penal Code that took effect on January,
25 2010, to reduce prison overcrowding by preventing low-risk
parolees from being reincarcerated for minor parole
violations.
"Existing law sufficiently protects public safety. The
existing law that AB 1678 seeks to amend relies on a validated
risk assessment to determine a parolee's risk of reoffending.
This assessment takes into consideration all of a parolee's
previous felony convictions with additional weight placed on
convictions for particular felony and misdemeanor offenses,
including those involving domestic violence. The current law
also includes automatic ineligibility for non-revocable parole
if a parolee has committed any violent or serious felony, is
required to register as a sex offender, has been found guilty
of a serious disciplinary offense while in prison, or is a
validated member of a prison gang. The existing law already
appropriately limits non-revocable parole through the use of
the validated risk assessment instrument and automatically
excludes all parolees in these additional categories based on
offense. There is no need to further restrict eligibility to
improve public safety."
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081