BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2787
Page 1
Date of Hearing:April 25, 2000
Chief Counsel: Bruce E. Chan
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Carl Washington, Chair
AB 2787 (Leonard) - As Introduced: February 25, 2000
SUMMARY : Authorizes the Department of Corrections (CDC) to
build a separate prison designed to incarcerate prisoners with
special needs due to age or HIV status. Authorizes the sale of
San Quentin state prison and the relocation of its death row.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Authorizes CDC to build a prison facility designed for
incarcerating inmates with special health needs separate from
the general prison population.
2)States legislative findings that many inmates in CDC have
special health needs due to either advanced age or infection
with the HIV virus. States that it is the Legislature's
intent to develop a prison facility that addresses these needs
in a manner consistent with CDC policy.
3)Authorizes CDC to sell the California State Prison at San
Quentin and apply the proceeds from the sale to pay for
revenue bonds for the purpose of building a special needs
prison facility.
4)Provides that the necessary funding for construction of the
prison facility may be obtained through lease-purchase
financing arrangements. The Public Works Board (PWB) may
issue additional bonds in order to pay the costs of acquiring
and constructing or refinancing the special needs prison
facility.
5)Authorizes the PWB to allocate additional amounts necessary to
establish a construction reserve and other costs associated
with the financing of construction.
6)Authorizes closing the California State Prison at San Quentin
and to begin the process of searching for a site for
relocation of its inmates. The director of CDC is authorized
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to prioritize the north Bay Area as a possible location for a
new facility to mitigate the reassignment of corrections
staff.
7)Authorizes the director of CDC to designate another state
prison to house prisoners subject to the death penalty and
within which the judgement of death may be executed.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Provides that the PWB may finance prison construction using
lease-purchase arrangements by the issuance of bonds and may
authorize any additional amounts to pay the costs of
financing, including the interest accrued during construction
of the project and a reasonable reserve, with a total limit of
$650 million. (Government Code Section 15819.3)
2)Authorizes the CDC to enter into a lease with the BPW for
prison facilities. (Government Code Section 15819.1)
3)Provides for additional prisons through the enactment of new
Government Code sections for each additional prison.
(Government Code Section 15819 et seq.)
4)Provides that the judgement of death shall be executed within
the walls of the California State Prison at San Quentin.
(Penal Code Section 3603.)
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)Author's Statement: According to the author, "This bill seeks
to address several issues facing California's correctional
system. The San Quentin Correctional Facility is no longer
the optimal location for California's death row. In fact, the
CDC has been having internal discussions about potential
locations to move death row. However, state law designates
San Quentin as the sole facility for death row and it will
take a new law to move it. AB 2787 authorizes this move.
"The San Quentin facility is a 147 year old antiquated facility
that sits on a very valuable piece of bay frontage property in
Marin County. By closing San Quentin and selling the
property, the state could use this new revenue stream to help
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finance the construction of a new correctional facility.
"AB 2787 also sets forth a priority for the new facility to
serve inmates with special health needs including geriatric
and HIV and AIDS. As of June 30, 1998 there were 1,859
inmates aged 60 and older in California's prisons and by 2025
it is estimated that there will be 7,079 aged inmates.
According to Jonathan Turley, founder and director of Project
for Older Prisoners, the cost of housing older offenders is
three times that of younger offenders.
"By developing a facility that is constructed to accommodate
special needs prisoners the state of California can lower the
cost of care through economy of scale while at the same time
providing facilities that are appropriate for these inmates."
2)The State Department of Corrections: Currently, the CDC
operates 33 state prisons. The CDC system also includes 13
reception centers to process newly committed prisoners, 16
community correctional centers, 38 fire and conservation
camps, the Richard A. McGee Correctional Training Center,
alternative sentencing programs, 136 parole offices in 70
locations, 8 prisoner mother facilities, and outpatient
psychiatric services for parolees and their families.
Included are contracts with local city and county governments
and private organizations for 7,648 beds for felons. The total
number of inmates in all prisons and camps as of March 1, 2000
is 160,846. The total number of persons on parole is 118,136.
The annual budget is $4.6 billion, 7.2% of the state General
Fund. The average yearly cost per inmate is $21, 243.
3)General Obligation And Lease-Revenue Bonds: The Legislative
Analyst has described the different bonds as follows:
"General obligation bonds require voter approval. The
principal interest (that is, debt service) of the bonds is
backed by the full faith and credit of the state's taxing
authority. As a result, these bonds carry a lower rate of
interest than those that are not fully backed by the state.
"Lease-payment bonds (commonly referred to as lease-revenue
bonds or Public Works Board bonds) do not require voter
approval. The debt service on most of these bonds is paid
from the General Fund (usually through annual lease payments
made by the state agency using the facility), but is not
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backed by the full faith and credit of the state.
Lease-payment bonds are rated lower than general obligation
bonds and therefore are sold at a higher interest rate. In
addition, these bonds typically require reserve funds for the
construction period, another reserve fund over the life of the
bonds, additional administrative costs, and in some cases
insurance costs. As a result of all these factors,
lease-payment bonds cost more than general obligation bonds,
and therefore, use up more of the state's debt capacity
without providing any additional program benefits.
"It is also important to note that, whenever the state chooses
to fund its needs by using bonds, the state is making an
additional long-term commitment of General Fund monies. For
instance, for every $1 billion in general obligation bonds
sold, the state is committing to pay about $71 million in
annual debt service costs for the next 25 years.
Consequently, there is a trade-off between using bonds to fund
the state's infrastructure needs and funding the state's
ongoing General Fund programs. It is, therefore, critical to
weigh the costs and benefits of these long-term investments
against the costs and benefits of providing other state
services."
4)Statement In Opposition: The California Attorneys for
Criminal Justice states, "Our primary concern is with the
potential relocation of death row inmates. As you know,
capital appeals are lengthy and expensive. The universe of
attorneys who can and will accept capital appeals is extremely
small. It often takes years to find counsel. Moving death
row out of its current geographical area will exacerbate the
problem, further lengthening the time and expense of the
appellate process.
"? Motions, Petitions and applications must be filed with the
California Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals,
both of which are located in San Francisco. It makes sense to
keep death row near the lawyers who represent the inmates and
the judicial entities that must ultimately rule on last-minute
requests.
"Fiscally, this measure is ill-advised. The State of California
recently spent millions of dollars developing, among other
things, the Habeas Corpus Resource Center (located in San
Francisco). The office of the State Public Defender employs a
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substantial number of attorneys in San Francisco. Most
capital appellate lawyers are court-appointed, which means the
taxpayers pay their bills. Moving death row will increase
governmental agency expenses."
The Friends Committee on Legislation states, "We think it is not
wise to use public resources to construct large special
purpose institutions for these populations. In fact, it would
be most economical, and serve the interest of public safety to
keep these prisoners in existing or more localized facilities.
"Statistics from the CDC cast doubt on any need for additional
prison beds. Most prison space is not devoted to inmates
serving sentences for violent offenses. And that many spaces
are occupied by parole violators. We understand that many of
these individuals could
have succeeded on parole if they had proper mentors to obtain
and maintain employment. Before state and local governments
commit themselves to the longer-term costs required by high
rates of imprisonment, we recommend the vigorous exploration
of the more cost effective alternatives suggested by the
recent report of the Little Hoover Commission."
The AIDS Legal Referral Panel states, "While we understand the
need to address the special medical needs that aging prisoners
and people with HIV might have, AB 2787 does not do that.
Instead, it merely calls for these prisoners to be segregated.
We certainly do not believe that the best way to treat the
special medical needs of these prisoners is to quarantine them
within one institution. In addition, there may be other
prisoners for whom particular attention is required in order
to adequately address their medical problems; prisoners with
special medical needs do not just fall into the categories of
advanced age and HIV. If a hospice or facility for the
seriously or chronically ill is warranted, we would want to
see it be available to all prisoners who suffer from serious
or chronic conditions - with advanced medical care and
treatment provided.
"Rather than quarantining prisoners with HIV or advanced age, we
would suggest fuller use of the current compassionate release
law. California's Penal Code allows for this option and we
believe that it is a much more appropriate avenue through
which to address the seriously failing health of the
incarcerated population in general."
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5)Similar Legislation: AB 1535 (Florez), Chapter 54, Statutes
of 1999, authorized the construction of the Delano II state
prison, using lease-purchase financing arrangements. $24
million was appropriated for site acquisition and planning.
$15.5 million was appropriated for new parole officers.
6)Prior Legislation. AB 2485 (Prenter) of the 1997-98
Legislative session failed passage in the Assembly Committee
on Public Safety.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Crime Victims United of California
Opposition
AIDS Legal Referral Panel
AIDS Project Los Angeles
California Attorneys for Criminal Justice
Friends Committee on Legislation of California
HIV in Prison Committee
Analysis Prepared by : Bruce Chan / PUB. S. / (916) 319-3744