PRISON CRISIS AT A BOIL

Everyone knows the state's corrections system is broken, but no one
has the political courage to fix it.

It isn't surprising that the drug treatment programs in California
prisons are a billion-dollar failure, as the state inspector general
reported last week. Their failure has been amply documented for
years. What would be surprising is the governor and the Legislature
doing anything about it.

The inspector general's report is only the latest scathing critique
of the corrections system, whose healthcare programs are so dangerous
to inmates that they had to be taken over by a federal receiver and
whose overcrowding crisis has become so bad that the state may soon
be forced to start releasing felons early. The inspector general
revealed that the state spends $143 million a year on rehab programs
for prisoners that do nothing to help them go straight.

The message of the report isn't that prison drug treatment is a waste
of time and money. It's that if you're going to do it wrong, you
might as well not do it at all. The prison programs don't spend
enough time on inmates, don't involve enough counselors and don't
keep participants separate from the general prison population, which
they must do to be successful.

Further, they are administered by a bureaucracy that has been asleep
at the switch for years. Though the state has spent $8.2 million
since 1997 on studies that have pointed out the many problems with
the rehab program, the reports' recommendations have been ignored.

The latest report seems to be prompting some attention. Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger has given the drug treatment operation a higher
profile within the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and
appointed a new director. But that won't scratch the surface of what
ails California's prison system.

A federal judge has given California until June to show progress in
reducing overcrowding or he might impose a cap on prison admissions.
Schwarzenegger had hoped to relieve some of the pressure by
transferring inmates out of state, but after a Superior Court judge
ruled last week that the transfers were illegal, that may no longer
be an option. It was a temporary solution at best. So is the latest
plan from the governor and top lawmakers, announced Thursday, to
consider early release for old and feeble inmates.

What's needed is a comprehensive overhaul of California's parole
practices, so that the state stops sending nonviolent ex-cons back to
prison for technical violations of their parole conditions.
California also needs a sentencing board to revisit and retool
sentencing policies and more job training. Schwarzenegger has
proposed some of these reforms, though so far his suggestions haven't
taken the form of legislation.

It's well past time for the Legislature to rouse itself from its
traditional lethargy on prison issues. Voters don't put prisons high
on the priority list, which is why the problems have been allowed to
fester for so long. But if a judge imposes a cap that puts dangerous
criminals back on the streets, that's going to change.