State to Scrap Key Parole Reform

Corrections officials will scrap the centerpiece of their effort to reform California’s beleaguered parole system because there is no evidence the new approach is working, according to a memo obtained by The Times.

Beginning Monday, parole violators will no longer be diverted into drug treatment programs, halfway houses and home detention instead of being returned to prison, according to the memo.

That strategy had been pushed by the Schwarzenegger administration as a way to save the state money by reducing the prison population -- and to improve the odds that ex-convicts would turn their lives around.

Though popular in other states, the approach has drawn criticism here from some crime victim advocates. Some parole agents also said they felt pressure from supervisors to allow dangerous parole violators to avoid prison -- and possibly go on to commit new crimes.

Such concerns were among factors prompting the change in course, said Youth and Adult Corrections Secretary Roderick Q. Hickman, who signed the memo.

In an interview, Hickman said the new options for parolees were not delivering the intended results: “When you start down a path and then realize the path is not leading you where you need to go, it’s time for a change,” Hickman said.

He added, however, that the action should not be seen as a retreat from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pledge to make California a place where prisons rehabilitate, rather than merely punish felons.

“We are committed to protecting the public by making sure offenders are successfully reintegrated into society,” Hickman said. “But these programs weren’t helping us get there.”

The shift in parole strategy probably will please the state prison guards union. At a Senate hearing on the issue last month, Mike Jimenez, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., called the diversion approach a flop and a danger to public safety.

Leaders of a crime victims group heavily supported by the union agreed. Two weeks ago, Crime Victims United of California began airing television ads accusing Schwarzenegger of abandoning those who have suffered from crimes and suggesting his parole policies put communities at risk.

Informed of the change Friday, the group’s president, Harriet Salarno, was ecstatic: “You’re kidding! You mean my commercial did it?” she said. “I am so thrilled. This is step one, but we have a lot more to do.”

Eliminating alternative sanctions as an option for parole violators will undoubtedly drive up the inmate population and exacerbate overcrowding in the California prison system, already jampacked to nearly twice its design capacity. Experts say such conditions -- with inmates stacked in triple-decker bunks and wedged into gyms, hallways and other spaces not intended as housing -- are a recipe for riots.

Already, California prisons -- the nation’s largest system, with about 162,500 men and women -- report nearly twice as many assaults behind bars as Texas, which incarcerates nearly as many people.

But Hickman said any dangers from more overcrowding were less critical than the threat posed by ineffective parolee programs: “You don’t play around in this arena. The consequences can be devastating.”

Some inmate advocates were surprised and disheartened by Hickman’s decision. They argued that alternatives to incarceration had been shown to improve the odds of parolee success, at a lower cost to taxpayers.

“I’m very disappointed, and I certainly hope they’re not caving in to pressure from the unions based on the fact that the governor’s poll ratings seemed to be declining,” said Donald Specter of the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit law firm that works to improve conditions for inmates.

One expert on parole, UC Irvine criminologist Joan Petersilia, took a different view. She said the move suggests the state is serious about its commitment to fund only programs that are supported by solid research.

“I applaud this, because it’s the first time I’ve heard someone at [Hickman’s] level say, ‘We’re not going to do this because there’s no evidence it’s working,’ ” said Petersilia, who has been advising the state on corrections issues but had not seen the memo.

Petersilia said that in attempting to revamp how it handles parolees, California is 10 or more years behind the rest of the nation. In the 1990s, most other states -- facing budget crises that forced them to cut their prison populations -- began developing alternative sanctions, such as community detention, electronic monitoring and other forms of supervision.

“While the other states were doing that, California was still building prisons,” Petersilia said. “So we have a long ways to go. And the fact is, we need to do it thoughtfully. This is not something you do in a piecemeal fashion.”

The parolee programs to be shelved next week were first put in place under former Gov. Gray Davis but were expanded about a year ago. They came on the heels of a report by a nonpartisan watchdog agency, the Little Hoover Commission, that hammered the parole system as “a billion-dollar failure” because 67% of ex-convicts -- nearly twice the national average -- return to prison.

To reduce the recidivism rate, the Department of Corrections began allowing some low-level parole violators to go into jail-based drug treatment for 30 days, halfway house programs or home detention with electronic monitoring.

But a variety of setbacks, including contract disputes and delays in obtaining the monitoring devices, prevented those programs from reaching their full potential, according to testimony at last month’s Senate hearing. Meanwhile, parole agents and leaders of the guards union said that some parolees allowed to avoid prison were going on to commit serious crimes.

Statistics show that at the end of 2004, there were 2,529, or 4.1%, fewer inmates in prison on parole violations than in 2003. But officials said they could not provide data on how many of those parolees who avoided incarceration had later been arrested on new offenses.

Hickman stressed that by abandoning the current programs that had served as alternatives to prison, leaders were by no means giving up on plans to help more parolees succeed, an outcome he called critical to public safety.

“We are going to have many tools in the toolbox,” he said. “The key is developing the right kind of supervision and intervention for each person.... We’re just not there yet.”