Get Real on Parole Policies

Last fall, Jennifer Shull was arrested and sent to Chowchilla state prison. Shull had been on parole after a 1995 arrest in Marin County for dealing drugs, was employed and had stayed out of trouble for several years when she was deemed guilty of a technical parole violation.

Like most in the state’s correctional system, Jennifer Shull hasn’t lived a model life. But she clearly is not Public Enemy No. 1. Yet the state of California is spending money to keep her incarcerated. Because she’s locked up, she may even lose custody of her soon-to-be-born child, also at the public’s expense.

Shull is an example of a $5.7-billion prison and parole system fixated on the wrong priorities. It is spending too much time and money punishing people who are of little risk to the public and not enough keeping track of criminals who are dangerous.

Legislative hearings in Sacramento haven’t addressed other key correctional system problems -- such as a 37.2% pay raise the Legislature recently granted to prison guards. That is money that could have been used for the sort of educational, job and counseling programs that keep inmates from cycling in and out of prison.

State Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who chaired last week’s hearing, and state Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), who will join Romero in chairing two more hearings on prison reform next week, should commit to reversing two-thirds of the raise that hasn’t yet been paid out, a step that would save taxpayers about $518 million a year. That exceeds the $438 million Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the prison and parole system to cut in his budget proposal released Friday.

With the state budget in the shape it’s in, this is no time to be spending money foolishly. Incarcerating parolees like Shull who are unlikely ever to commit violent crimes costs the state hundreds of millions of dollars each year. No one knows how much for sure because state prison officials keep that information away from the eyes of legislators and the media. Romero and Speier should push to remove the shroud of secrecy that the department has been allowed to drape over itself for decades.

For example, state prison officials use a tool called the Inmate Classification System to determine which inmates should be imprisoned for life and which could be released earlier without a threat to public safety. The details of that system are withheld from legislators and the public. The department should be required to disclose that information.

With greater openness, the state parole system could focus its attention on its most important mission: keeping a watchful eye on dangerous felons and returning them to prison when necessary. That means not wasting its time trying to lock up pregnant parolees who pose no credible threat to society.