Better, Cheaper Prisons

Protecting public safety should be the paramount responsibility of any elected leader, but for too long California officials have used that obligation as an excuse for coddling the state’s wasteful prison and parole system.

Since 1980, the prison budget has grown from $409 million to $5.2 billion, consuming 9% of state general funds, compared with the national average of 7%. The extra spending might be worth it if it deterred crime. But California has the highest repeat offender rate in the nation, accounting for about 40% of all known parole violators even though it has less than 15% of the nation’s parole population.

The state’s budget shortfall has finally prompted some legislators to scrutinize the latest bit of complacency: Gov. Gray Davis’ proposal to boost spending for the California Department of Corrections, in part by speeding the opening of a new maximum-security prison in the Central Valley and building the department a $160-million headquarters.

As early as today, the Senate Budget Committee will consider a measure to change sentencing laws that require petty thieves with prior nonviolent convictions to serve time in state prison. The bill, by Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford), would trim prison costs by just $15 million this year and $34 million next year.

However, it could spur the state to consider more controversial reforms such as moving severely ill inmates who pose no public safety risk from prison hospital beds costing more than $120,000 a year to unlocked long-term-care facilities, which, unlike state prisons, are eligible for generous federal Medicaid funding.

Legislators should also push to change laws so that judges can sentence more low-risk offenders to house arrest with electronic monitoring, restitution, education and work programs or military-style boot camps -- all cheaper and, in many cases, better ways to stop criminal behavior in the long term than prison.

Davis and many legislators will probably resist such changes, fearing that the public will perceive them as being soft on crime -- and that the powerful prison guards union will perceive them as insufficiently grateful for its generous contributions. In fact, such so-called intermediate sanctions put heat on criminals to improve their behavior -- and that’s ultimately good for the law-abiding people who pay for California’s vast criminal justice system.