Prisons: going nowhere

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER’S collapse on prison reform is one of the most disappointing failures of his tenure. Soon after taking office in 2003, he embraced initiatives to reduce the inmate population. The extent of his retreat in the face of opposition from the guards union is evident in his new four-part plan for the prisons.

The centerpiece of the governor’s plan is a bill by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) to build two prisons using lease revenue bonds, which are advantageous for politicians because they don’t require voter approval. The downside is that they are horribly expensive, with higher interest rates than voter-approved bonds. The two prisons, which would cost at least $500 million each to build, could end up costing taxpayers a total of at least $2 billion.

The expense might be worth it if building new prisons were the solution to California’s correctional problems. It is not, which is why voters refuse to back them. New prisons are much like new freeways, in that they don’t do much to solve overcrowding problems -- as soon as you build them, they fill up. Further, although overcrowding is a serious issue, the state’s corrections system also is plagued by ineffective management and a dangerous shortage of guards; building more prisons alone would only exacerbate the latter two problems while doing little to solve the former.

The governor also wants to use lease revenue bonds to build “parole reentry facilities” -- secure detention centers in communities where male inmates would be released and where those near the end of their sentences could be sent for mental health counseling and job training. It’s a fine idea, though politically impractical -- if there is a community in California that would welcome the construction of a small prison, we’d like to see it. The costs of these facilities are unknown, but the funding mechanism guarantees that they would be steep.

Equally problematic is the governor’s proposal to shift 4,500 nonviolent female inmates to community rehab centers near their homes. This might work if there were enough existing centers to house the inmates or guards to staff them, but there aren’t. That means building even more expensive mini-prisons in communities that don’t want them.

The governor’s plan does nothing to address the concerns of a federal judge investigating abuses of inmates by guards. It doesn’t address the shortage of guards nor the management problems that make California’s prisons a national embarrassment. Though ostensibly aimed at overcrowding, it doesn’t even propose genuine solutions to that problem, such as reforms in sentencing laws and a major boost in rehabilitation programs. If the Legislature, which met in special session Tuesday night to discuss the governor’s proposals, wants to set things right, a radical shift in approach is required.