BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1452
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 29, 2010
Counsel: Nicole J. Hanson
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Tom Ammiano, Chair
SB 1452 (Runner) - As Amended: June 24, 2010
SUMMARY : Permits local law enforcement agencies to place
global positioning system (GPS) technology on nonrevocable
parolees. Specifically, this bill :
1)Provides that a nonrevocable parolee may be required to wear a
GPS or other electronic monitoring device, for the duration of
the parole period, by a local law enforcement agency if the
following conditions are satisfied:
a) The local law enforcement agency requiring the parolee
to wear a GPS or other electronic monitoring device has
primary jurisdiction over the location where the parolee
resides.
b) The CDCR has, in its discretion, authorized the local
law enforcement agency to use GPS technology or to
otherwise monitor nonrevocable parolees.
c) The local law enforcement agency, prior to any
electronic monitoring of nonrevocable parolees, has entered
into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with CDCR that
establishes conditions under which the local authority may
use GPS technology or otherwise monitor, supervise, or
manage nonrevocable parolees in a manner consistent with
evidence-based practices. For purposes of this
subparagraph, "evidence-based practices" is defined as
supervision policies, procedures, programs, and practices
that have been demonstrated through scientific research to
reduce recidivism among individuals who have been released
or who are on probation or parole and that would be likely
to improve the probability that, while on parole, a parolee
to whom this section is applicable would not commit a new
offense.
d) The local law enforcement agency shall reimburse CDCR
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for its costs in preparing, entering into, and performing
any actions pursuant to the MOU.
2)Assigns the cost of acquiring, leasing, and monitoring any GPS
or other electronic equipment to the local law enforcement
agency requiring the parolee to wear a GPS or other electronic
monitoring device.
3)Prohibits the use of a GPS or other electronic monitoring
device by law enforcement and does not create an obligation on
the part of any law enforcement agency or local government
agency in connection with the discretionary use, or nonuse, of
these monitoring devices.
4)States this section shall not be construed to require CDCR or
any local law enforcement agency to use, or to authorize the
use of, any GPS or any other monitoring technology or program.
EXISTING LAW :
1)states notwithstanding any other provision of law, CDCR shall
not return to prison, place a parole hold, or report any
parole violation to the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH)
regarding any person to whom all of the following criteria
apply (Penal Code Section 3000.03):
a) The person is not required to register as a sex
offender;
b) The person was not committed to prison 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 person was not committed to prison for a sexually
violent offense and does not have a prior conviction for a
sexually violent offense;
d) The person was not found guilty of a serious
disciplinary offense, by CDCR, during his or her current
term of imprisonment;
e) The person is not a validated prison gang member or
associate;
f) The person did not refuse to sign any written
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notification of parole requirements or conditions; and,
g) The person was evaluated by CDCR using a validated risk
assessment tool and was not determined to pose a high risk
to reoffend.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)Author's Statement : According to the author, "SB 1452 allows
the local law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction over a
parolee to require the parolee to wear an electronic
monitoring device for the duration of their parole period.
"The local law enforcement agency is responsible for the cost of
acquiring, leasing, and monitoring the electronic monitoring
device.
"Existing law requires the CDCR to release a prisoner on parole
after the inmate has served his or her sentence.
"Under existing law, CDCR is authorized to return a parolee to
prison if the BPH determines that the parolee violated the
terms of his or her parole.
"Per SBx3 18 (Ducheny), on January 25, 2010, the state began the
process of releasing thousands of inmates to the parole system
without CDCR support or supervision. These parolees will not
be subject to parole revocation for the commission of new
crimes or violation of the traditional terns of parole.
"Several local law enforcement agencies have expressed concern
that police and sheriffs will be required to do the job of the
state corrections without adequate resources or even the level
of authority to monitor parolees.
"With respect to former inmates given early, unsupervised
release to parole, SBx3 18 changes state law in several ways:
a) "Thousands of inmates will have their sentences reduced
by more than half. In addition to six months credit for
each six months served, many inmates will be awarded an
additional six weeks of early release credits each year
before unsupervised release;
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b) "For state prisoners, CDCR has begun determining which
prisoners to release without parole supervision, also known
as non-revocable parole; and,
c) "Rehabilitation programs in state prisons are being
gutted and 600 to 800 vocational and educational prison
instructors will be given pink slips.
"These changes are significant because as large numbers of
inmates are released back into our communities without
rehabilitation services or parole surpervision, local law
enforcement agencies are concerned that their communities will
become less safe because they have no mechanism to monitor the
large number of parolees in their jurisdiction."
2)Parole : The status of parole is granted to any prisoner
released from a California prison after serving his or her
sentence. (Penal Code Section 3000.) Although no longer in
physical custody, a parolee is required to comply with
specified restrictions to his or her freedom. [People v.
Burgener (1986) 41 Cal.3d 505, 531.] A prisoner on parole can
be either a determinately sentenced prisoner or an
indeterminately sentenced prisoner serving a sentence of life
with the possibility of parole.
The purpose of parole is to provide a transition period for
formerly incarcerated persons so that they may reintegrate
into the community. In general, parole involves supervision
and surveillance. The goals of parole include public safety,
reintegration of the parolee back into society, and making
parole decisions that are fiscally responsible on behalf of
California. [Penal Code Section 3000(a).] Parole is meant to
be reformatory in purpose; the object is to mitigate the rigor
of the prison system and to allow the prisoner to reenter
society by replacing continued incarceration with a
conditional freedom controlled by parole conditions. [Penal
Code Section 3056; People v. Denne (1956) 141 Cal.App.2d 499,
507.] Parole provides a testing period for the reintegration
of a prisoner into society. [In re Carabes (1983) 144
Cal.App.3d 927, 931.]
3)The Enactment of SBx3 18 : Parole in California has long been
identified as a large, under-resourced and over-burdened
component of the correctional system. In 2007, the Little
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Hoover Commission stated:
"California's parole system remains a billion dollar failure."
(Solving California's Corrections Crisis: Time Is Running Out
(Little Hoover Commission) (Jan. 2007). Nonrevocable parole,
which became effective on January 25 of this year, was
developed as part of a broader corrections reform effort by
the Schwarzenegger administration to improve parolee outcomes.
Governor Schwarzenegger's Rehabilitation Strike Team described
California's parole system in its December 2007 report,
Meeting the Challenges of Rehabilitation in California's
Prison and Parole System (Joan Petersilia, Ph.D., Chair):
"About 120,000 inmates get released from California prisons
every year. Every one of them is put on parole supervision,
usually for one to three years. Because California's prison
populations has more than quadrupled in the past twenty years,
so too has its parole population. California's parole
population now equals about 126,000 persons, and is growing at
a faster rate than its prison population (8% in 2007 for
parole vs. 0.4% for prisons). 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 can not get the help they need.
Nearly 17% of all California parolees - more than 20,000
people - are 'parolees at large,' meaning they have absconded
supervision and their whereabouts are unknown. This is the
highest abscond rate in the nation and is far above the 7%
national average.
"About 80% of all California parolees have fewer than two,
15-minute face-to-face meetings with a parole agent each
month, and nearly all of them take place in the parole agents'
office. And even the most high-risk parolees have little
supervision. Current rules require agents who supervise the
most dangerous parolees to have the same two face-to-face
contacts per month, but one of those visits must take place in
the parolees' residence. Parolees may also be drug tested,
but in no instance, is the required drug testing more frequent
than monthly.
"This low level of supervision and programming does not prevent
crime . . .
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"Two-thirds of all California parolees (67%) will be back in
prison within three years, twice the national average. In
Texas, the state most comparable in the size of its prison
population to California, the figure is about 20% (Petersilia
2006). Due to their high failure rate, parolees account for
the bulk of California prison admissions. In 2006, 68,000
parolees were returned to California prisons for parole
violations, serving an average prison term of about four
months each for those violations."
Research suggests that intensive parole programming directed
at higher risk offenders is more likely to produce improved
public safety outcomes than supervision approaches applied to
all offenders regardless of risk. In a December 2008, Public
Safety Policy Brief, the Pew Center on the States concluded
the following:
"Research has demonstrated that evidence-based interventions
directed towards offenders with a moderate to high risk of
committing new crimes will result in better outcomes for both
offenders and the community. Conversely, treatment resources
targeted to low-risk offenders produce little, if any,
positive effect. In fact, despite the appealing logic of
involving low-risk individuals in intensive programming to
prevent them from graduating to more serious behavior,
numerous studies show that certain programs may actually
worsen their outcomes. By limiting supervision and services
for low-risk offenders and focusing on those who present
greater risk, parole and probation agencies can devote limited
treatment and supervision resources where they will provide
the most benefit to public safety." [PEW Center for the
States, Putting Public Safety First: 13 Strategies for
Successful Supervision and Reentry (Dec. 2008).]
In describing nonrevocable parole in the context of SBx3 18
(Ducheny), CDCR stated it had created "a $100 million savings
while allowing agents to focus their attention on higher-risk
parolees deemed more of a risk to the public; . . . "
[Hinkle, CDCR, Press Release, CDCR Implementes Public Safety
Reforms to Parole Supervision, Expanded Incentive Credits for
Inmates (Jan. 21, 2010) (as of June 8, 2010).]
In addition thereto, CDCR believes nonrevocable parole is
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beneficial because nonrevocable parole removes low-level
offenders from parole supervision, allows CDCR to focus parole
supervision on the most serious and violent parolees, gives
law enforcement the ability to continue to conduct warrantless
searches on these parolees, reduces the number of parolees
returned to custody for parole violations, and decreases the
need for bed space in county jails and state prisons. [CDCR,
Division of Adult Parole Operations, Non-Revocable Parole,
(as of June 8,
2010).]
In January, CDCR made changes in its parole practices with the
implementation of SBx3 18. First, CDCR "reduc[ed] agent
caseloads to an average of 48 parolees for one agent from the
previous ratio of 70 to one. This gives agents a better
opportunity to supervise parolees more aggressively, and
interact more frequently with local law enforcement,
rehabilitative service providers and other community
partners." (See Hinkle, supra.) Second, "1,000 parolee gang
members were placed on active GPS supervision and will add
2,000 electronic tracking devices for parole violators as an
alternative to incarceration." (Id.) Third, "increased
monitoring requirements were placed upon sex offenders on
parole who are supervised using GPS." (Id.) Fourth, CDCR
"reclassified existing parole positions to create 190 parole
supervisors to oversee line-level parole agents." (Id.)
Fifth, "30 field training officers were added to maintain
proper training standards for parole agents." (Id.) Last,
CDCR used "measurement guidelines for supervision that focuses
on a parolee's successful transition into the community rather
than how many times they revoked." (Id.)
With respect to nonrevocable parolee case reviews done at CDCR
institutions, CDCR provided the following information:
NONREVOCABLE PAROLEES
(As of June 14, 2010)
-------------------------------------------------------
| |Prior Week | To Date |
| | | (Since |
| | | 1-25-10) |
|---------------------------+-----------+---------------|
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| Cases Reviewed | 20,249 | 20,519 |
|---------------------------+-----------+---------------|
| Cases Not Eligible | 8,610 | 8,745 |
|---------------------------+-----------+---------------|
| Cases Eligible | 11,639 | 11,774 |
|---------------------------+-----------+---------------|
| Cases M/NRP and NRP | 12,292 |12,788 |
| Approved | | |
-------------------------------------------------------
4)Effectiveness and Cost of GPS : California continues to expand
"what is already the nation's biggest GPS monitoring program
of convicts, coming three years after voters required
satellite tracking of more than 7,000 paroled sex offenders.
"It also invites added scrutiny from critics of GPS monitoring,
who contend that the technology has not been adequately
studied in California to see if it cuts crime, lowers
recidivism and justifies its cost: about $9,500 annually per
parolee.
"The gang program will not result in the early release of
inmates. It will equip 'the worst of the worst' recent
parolees with GPS devices,' said state Parole Administrator
Denise Milano, replacing scattered pilot programs that have
tracked as many as 160 gang members at a time.
"Fifty parole agents will handle caseloads of 20 gang members
each, Milano said. The state has not yet decided which
counties to choose, she said, although agents in Alameda
County said they expected to handle at least one caseload.
" 'GPS use is something that's here to stay,' said Gordon
Hinkle, a spokesman for CDCR, which supervises 107,000
parolees. 'We've never claimed GPS is going to be the answer
to all of our problems, but it's an additional tool we've
found very useful.'
"The state is hoping to exploit a technology that has
revolutionized how people navigate everyday life.
Particularly intriguing is the automation offered by GPS:
authorities can, for example, enforce a ban on convicts
leaving their homes during certain hours by creating an
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electronic bubble. Breaching the bubble would activate an
alert.
"The potency of GPS is eye-opening. Turn on a computer, as
parole agent Brett Everidge did on a recent morning in
Oakland, and there they are: 300 rapists, molesters and
flashers in Alameda County represented by small dots on a map,
or arrows if they're on the move.
"All the paroled sex offenders on Everidge's screen were fitted
with GPS anklets because of voters' passage of Proposition 83
in 2006, which also barred the parolees from living within
2,000 feet of a school or park.
" 'To have eyes on an offender 24 hours a day, seven days a week
- that's golden,' said Everidge, who monitors 20 to 40
parolees at any one time with GPS. 'You have the opportunity
to learn someone's habits and routines.'
"But fighting crime with GPS has been a challenge. The devices
have yielded valuable information and have helped solve
murders and robberies, officials said, but they are costly and
don't tell agents anything about what is happening at their
location.
"The anklets also come with a problem endemic to surveillance
cameras and other high-tech tools that have tantalized police
agencies with their power to collect volumes of data: that
information is worthless without people digging through it for
clues.
" 'It's a tool, a good tool, but it's not everything,' Everidge
said. 'It still takes a human being to act on information.'
" . . . The growth is prompting a harder look from critics, who
call GPS monitoring an expensive and uncertain substitute for
programs that could do more to cut recidivism, such as drug
treatment, housing aid and jobs for parolees.
"California officials concede that no studies have been done on
whether GPS monitoring has affected sex offenders' recidivism
rates since voters passed Prop. 83. A UC Irvine study on a
GPS pilot program for high-risk sex offenders, published the
year before the initiative passed, concluded that the
monitoring 'appeared to have little effect on parolee
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recidivism.'
" 'GPS as an alternative to incarceration could be an important
part of reforming our criminal justice system,' said Michael
Risher, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of
Northern California. 'But simply tacking it on as an
additional requirement and expense is not the way to go.' . .
. . " [Bulwa, State to expand tracking of parolees with GPS,
S.F. Chronicle (Jan. 24, 2010)
(as of June 8, 2010).]
This bill suggests that we place GPS technology upon
nonrevocable parolees despite the fact there is inadequate
proof its benefits. In addition thereto, imposing GPS
technology upon nonrevocable parolees defeats the purpose for
why this class of parolees was created, i.e. to alleviate
California's budget and prison overcrowding crisis. Moreover,
instead of alleviating the budget, this bill will create more
costs.
An alternative to GPS monitoring is to provide to nonrevocable
parolees with services that help them reintegrate into
society and prevent recidivism. This alternative approach is
applied in AB 2290 (Bradford). AB 2290 requires CDCR to give
notice to local law enforcement prior to the release of
parolees released on nonrevocable parole and encourages local
jurisdictions to provide them with services. The author of AB
2290 states "that because of California's continuing budget
crisis and its inability to provide services to recently
released, nonrevocable parolees that local law enforcement, if
possible, should help provide all inmates released to their
jurisdiction on unsupervised, non-revocable parole with
information regarding services available in their
jurisdiction." The bill further states "that local county
agencies and other local service providers, to the extent that
both have resources available, should be encouraged to provide
nonrevocable parolees with services to facilitate their
successful re-integration into communities within their
jurisdiction."
5)Argument in Support : According to the Los Angeles Sheriff's
Department , this bill "would serve as an effective tool for
law enforcement to prevent further victimization of the
community. Used for non-revocable parolees (NVP), such as
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high risk to recidivate offenders or gang member, it can serve
as a deterrent for the NVP to commit additional crimes or
continue relationships with other gang members or criminals.
Without these relationships with other gang members of
criminals and knowing they are being monitored, the
probability of success for the NVP increases.
"In an attempt to prevent failure and facilitate success of
these individuals on NVP, I have assembled teams of deputy
personnel to address this issue. Once a NVP is released from
prison, deputy personnel will go to their residence and
provide them with information about various programs and
services available, for issues such as drug and alcohol
addiction or mental health issues. If the individual is
interested, we could help them connect with their preferred
program or service."
6)Argument in Opposition : According to the California Attorneys
for Criminal Justice , "It is our position that the intent to
protect society is adequately already contained in the
language of Penal Code Section 3000.03. That is, leaving only
that class of parolee who is essentially low level and
non-violent not be returned to prison or have a parole hold
placed on them pursuant to Penal Code Section 3056 for
technical violation(s) of parole.
"The proposed amendment to the existing law, having local law
enforcement monitor these low-risk parolees by electronic
monitoring or global positioning throughout the duration of
parole, is unnecesary and a potential 'watering down' of local
law enforcement resources. There has been no need shown to
have these low-risk parolees so monitored.
"Certainly, the uneven treatment of low-risk parolees from
different counties, cities, unincorporated areas will be
evident and will be dependant on the amount, and source, of
local law enforement funds and funding."
7)Related Legislation : AB 2290 (Bradford), requires CDCR to give
notice to local law enforcement prior to the release of
parolees released on non-revocable parole and encourages local
jurisdictions to provide them with services. AB 2290 is
waiting to be heard in the Senate Committee on Appropriations.
8)Prior Legislation :
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a) SBx3 18 (Ducheny), Chapter 28, Statutes of 2009,
prohibits CDCR from returning specified parolees to prison,
placing a parole hold on the parolees, or reporting parole
violations to BPH.
b) AB 1678 (Lieu) would have limited what parolees may be
placed on unsupervised nonrevocable parole and created a
system for preventing non-revocable parole of individuals
upon the objection of local law enforcement. AB 1678 was
held in the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
c) AB 2673 (Nielsen) would have prevented parolees from
being released on non-revocable parole if they have been
identified as gang members. AB 2673 failed passage in this
Committee.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office
Peace Officers Research Association of California
Riverside Sheriffs' Association
Opposition
American Civil Liberties Union
California Attorneys for Criminal Justice
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Taxpayers for Improving Public Safety
Analysis Prepared by : Nicole J. Hanson / PUB. S. / (916)
319-3744