Prison cop-out

POLITICIANS CALL THEIR craft the art of the possible, but the deal on state prisons that the Legislature approved Thursday was more like the art of the dodge. With disgruntled federal courts threatening a takeover of the broken corrections system beginning as soon as next month, lawmakers presented a plan that looks designed to fail.

California’s dire prison overcrowding has two main causes. The simplest is that an ever-expanding state population means more people behind bars. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative Republicans convinced Democrats to address that problem by adding 53,000 more beds, mostly to existing state prisons and county jails, and by building “reentry” centers -- sort of like high-security halfway houses for inmates near the end of their sentences.

But there is a more complicated, policy-driven cause. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation neither corrects nor rehabilitates. The state has a recidivism rate of 70%, the nation’s highest, signaling a breakdown of the rehabilitation process. Harsh sentencing and strict parole rules mean prisons are clogged with substance abusers, who are best treated elsewhere, and nonviolent parolees who have technically violated the conditions of their release. Schwarzenegger had a worthy plan to create a sentencing commission that would address these root causes of overpopulation, but it was jettisoned by the Legislature on the appalling grounds that it was too sensitive politically.

The ray of light in Thursday’s agreement is that Democrats and Republicans alike demonstrated a healthy embrace of rehabilitation, a notion that has been all but forgotten after generations of tough-on-crime legislation and initiatives. But it’s nowhere near enough. The proposed reentry centers, slated to house 16,000 inmates, could help prepare prisoners for a safe and successful return to society -- or they could just end up being new prisons.

California’s prisons and jails contain 172,000 inmates in a system designed for 100,000. Three federal judges have warned that unless these conditions are convincingly reversed, they will issue their own draconian fixes, including dumping felons onto the streets. Yet the legislators’ main response is to build more prison space years from now and to try to ship 8,000 prisoners out of state, if legal challenges fail. It’s almost as if Sacramento wants to punt the issue to the courts.

If legislators truly seek to avoid a federal takeover, Thursday’s deal should be followed by Friday courage to tackle the reforms they once again put off. But if this is the best they’ve got, Sacramento needs a new generation of leaders who take more seriously the responsibility of governance.