BILL ANALYSIS
SB 127 (Polanco)
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SENATE COMMITTEE ON Public Safety
Senator John Vasconcellos, Chair S
1999-2000 Regular Session B
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SB 127 (Polanco)
As Introduced December 22, 1998
Hearing date: March 23, 1999
PenalCode
SH:br
INMATES - CREDITS - EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS
HISTORY
Source: Author
Prior Legislation: None
Support: Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau; Los Angeles
County District Attorney
Opposition:
ACLU; California Public Defenders Association; Friends
Committee on Legislation; California Attorneys for Criminal
Justice
KEY ISSUES
SHOULD AN INMATE BE INELIGIBLE TO EARN FULL-TIME WORK OR EDUCATION CREDIT ON
HIS OR HER TERM OF IMPRISONMENT IF HE OR SHE DOES NOT HAVE A HIGH SCHOOL
DIPLOMA OR GENERAL EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT EQUIVALENT UNLESS HE OR SHE IS
ACTIVELY PARTICIPATING IN AN EDUCATION PROGRAM THAT WILL LEAD TO A HIGH SCHOOL
DIPLOMA OR GENERAL EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT (GED) EQUIVALENT?
SHOULD THE ONLY EXCEPTION TO THE REQUIREMENT BE ANY INMATE WHO IS DETERMINED
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TO BE INCAPABLE OF OBTAINING A HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA OR EQUIVALENT BASED ON
TESTING OF INTELLECTUAL ABILITY?
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to limit the amount of
full-time work or education credits which an inmate may
earn if the inmate is not a high school graduate and is not
actively participating in an education program, as
specified.
Under existing law the Legislature finds and declares that
the purpose of imprisonment for crime is punishment.
(Penal Code section 1170 - effective July 1, 1977, when the
current Determinate Sentencing Law took effect.)
Under existing law , the Director of the Department of
Corrections is vested with the supervision, management and
control of the State prisons and is responsible for the
care, custody, treatment, training, discipline and
employment of a person confined in those prisons. The
Director may prescribe rules and regulations for the
administration of the prisons. (Penal Code sections 5054
and 5058)
Existing law contains a Prisoner Literacy Act which
requires the Director of Corrections to implement a program
to ensure that upon parole inmates are able to achieve a
ninth-grade reading level. (Penal Code section 2053.1 et
seq.)
Existing law generally provides that inmates who
participate in full-time work or education programs receive
time credits of 50%. Inmates housed in reception centers
and inmates awaiting a full-time work or education slot
receive 33% credit. (Penal Code sections 2933, 4019)
Inmates who are committed for first-time violent felonies
are now eligible for only 15% credit pursuant to AB 2716
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(Katz, Chapter 713, Statutes of 1994) (Penal Code section
2933.1) Inmates who are convicted of any felony who have a
prior conviction for a violent or serious felony are
eligible for 20% credit. (AB 971, Jones/Costa, Chapter 12,
Statutes of 1994 and Proposition 184) (Penal Code sections
667, 1170.12)
This bill provides that an inmate shall not be eligible to
earn credit on his or her term of imprisonment if the
person does not have a high school diploma or General
Education Development equivalent unless the inmate is
actively participating in an education program that will
lead to a high school diploma or General Education
Development equivalent; this provision would not apply to
any inmate who is determined to be incapable of obtaining a
high school diploma or equivalent based on testing of
intellectual ability.
COMMENTS
1. Need for This Bill
According to the author:
The Penal Code currently requires CDC to offer
literacy programs that are designed to ensure a ninth
grade reading level (Section 2053.1). The Little
Hoover Commission, in its report last year, found that
approximately 50% of all inmates are illiterate and
70% of parolees are unemployed. The direct
correlation between lack of education and criminality
is well documented. This bill would give inmates an
incentive to make productive use of their time while
"doing their time." Encouraging inmates to achieve at
least a high school-equivalent education will increase
the likelihood that, upon release, they will find a
job that contributes to society. This enhances public
safety and decreases the burden on the taxpayer.
In addition, the bill would indirectly encourage CDC
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to allocate more of its large budget to provide enough
of these classes to every inmate who wants to take
them. Currently, there are waiting lists at most
prisons for basic education classes.
2. Background on Issue of Education in Prisons
Last year's Little Hoover Commission report "Beyond Bars:
Correctional Reforms to Lower Prison Costs and Reduce Crime
(January 1998)" included the following:
Despite the statutory requirement that CDC offer
literacy training to 60% of eligible inmates by
January 1, 1996 -- with the goal that eventually all
prisoners achieve ninth grade literacy --the
department reported in 1997 that only 35 to 40% of
eligible inmates had access to literacy programs. A
1997 study by California State University, Sacramento
put the median reading level of state prison inmates
at between the sixth and seventh grades and reported
that two-thirds of inmates were reading below the
ninth-grade level.
Policy analysts, service providers and academic
experts identified a number of specific shortcomings
in the State's programs that limits their potential to
reduce future crimes and long-term prison costs:
No program planning for inmates. Inmates are
not assessed to determine which programs --
education, job training, counseling, drug treatment
-- could be expected to help them not return to
prison. Under the old indeterminate sentencing
system prison sentences were guided by a diagnosis
performed at the beginning of the term and the
inmate's release depended upon the inmate's
continued progress. Today inmates begin a sentence
at one of the State's reception centers where they
undergo evaluation devoted mostly to determining
security risk rather than program needs.
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Reliance on inmate labor. Because CDC depends
on inmates to perform prison support tasks, the
department gives institutional needs precedence over
the need for inmates to receive meaningful job
training or attend classes. If an inmate is needed
in the laundry, he may not receive other job
training and educational opportunities. As the
acting supervisor of correctional education programs
at North Kern State Prison said: "We can't offer
educational services to everyone because they have
to work to run the institution. If we took 100
percent of them our food's not going to get cooked."
Inmates may choose work assignments as opposed to education
for several reasons, including "pay" - from fifteen to
ninety-five cents an hour with an average reportedly around
thirty-five cents an hour (when on actual fire duty, an
inmate at a fire camp may receive one dollar an hour).
That pay may be used for both personal needs as well as to
pay restitution fines and orders. As noted by the Little
Hoover Commission, the CDC has an incentive to fill work
assignments for the normal operation of the prison system.
It may be unclear how this bill would affect that equation
for both the CDC and for inmates.
WOULD PENALIZING INMATES WHO DO NOT MEET THE MANDATES OF
THIS BILL - AND COSTING THE STATE FOR ADDITIONAL
INCARCERATION EXPENSES - RESULT IN UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
AND COSTS GIVEN THE REPORTED PRIORITIES OF THE CDC AND
POSSIBLE LACK OF AVAILABILITY OF EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES
FOR INMATES?
3. Current CDC Population and Education Statistics
The February 1, 1999, "CDC FACTS" provides the following
characteristics about the population of the inmates in the
33 state prisons, 38 state camps, and 6 prisoner mother
facilities:
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FACILITIES: 33 state prisons ranging from
minimum to maximum custody; 38
camps, minimum custody facilities located in
wilderness areas where inmates
are trained as wildland firefighters; and 6
prisoner mother facilities.
POPULATION: All Institutions: 159,706. One
year change: 2,966 + 1.9%.
Prisons: 147,121. Camps: 4,095. Community
Facilities: 7,320 Outside
CDC: 1,824 At large: 388 USINS (Immigration)
Holds: 21,178.
Top 5 counties: LA; 35.3%, San Diego; 8.0%,
San Bernardino; 5.9%, Orange;
5.3%, Riverside; 5.3%.
CHARACTERISTICS: Males: 92.8% Females: 7.2%
Parole Violators:
17.0%. Race: 29.6% white; 31.3% black;
34.1% hispanic; 5.1% other.
Offense: 42.1% violent; 23.5% property; 27.8%
drugs; 6.6% other.
Classifications (males): 34.0% Level I; 19.8%
Level II; 23.8% Level III; 20.3%
Level IV; 2.1% Special Security. Lifers:
19,422 LWOPs: 2,303 Condemned:
527 Avg Reading Level: Seventh grade Median
Age: 34. Employed: 59.0%
Ineligible: 29.0% Waiting List: 12.0% Avg
Sentence: 41.4 months; Avg
Time Served: 23.0 months. Commitment Rate:
388.3 per 100,000 Calif.
population. Assault Rate (per 100 ADP): 4.3
in '97; 3.3 in '96; 3.2 in '95.
Escape Rate (per 100 ADP): 0.04 in '97; 0.05
in '96; 0.06 in '95.
4. Opposition to This Bill
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The California Public Defenders Association writes in
opposition to this bill:
While CPDA applauds the author's good intentions, this
bill is unworkable. SB 127 places the Department of
Corrections in the position of determining which
prisoners have the ability to learn and which are
simply incapable. Corrections staff are woefully ill
equipped to make complicated judgments related to an
individual's intellectual ability and learning
capacity.
CPDA believes that a far better approach would be to
use a carrot rather than a stick. Instead of
punishing the failure to learn, award additional good
time credits for those who actively pursue and receive
a GED or other diploma while in custody. After all,
most educators agree that a rewards based method would
result in a vastly greater success rate than one
predicated on punishment.
The ACLU writes in opposition:
While we wholeheartedly support the need for educating
people in our prison system, we are concerned with the
approach: keeping people in prison longer for their
failure to participate. Denying people their liberty
should be exercised very carefully for egregious
behavior, not the failure to complete their schooling.
We are also concerned that the prison system may not
be prepared to provide educational services to all
those people who need them, and therefore, individuals
would be penalized for something beyond their control.
Rather we would recommend providing people with a
positive incentive to enroll in classes (i.e., giving
them credit or some other benefit for enrolling in and
completing their high school or GED equivalent).
The California Attorneys for Criminal Justice makes similar
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argument in opposition but adds that "an inmate with the
benefit of a high school diploma should not be given
preferential treatment because he or she was fortunate
enough to obtain that degree."
The Friends Committee on Legislation also makes similar
arguments and adds the need to have educational activities
at all levels of the prison system and as part of a
continuum for those offenders eligible for release/parole.
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