FEWER STATE EX-INMATES RETURNING TO PRISON

SACRAMENTO Fewer than 40% of the inmates released from state prisons
in 2003 were back behind bars one year after their release, the lowest
rate in a quarter of a century, corrections officials announced Monday.

California's two-year return rate, which some experts consider a more
useful barometer, also has declined, reaching its lowest point since
1991.

That number has been dropping steadily over the last four years. Of
the 54,877 inmates who were paroled in 2003, a little more than half
51.09% were back in custody after two years of freedom.

The rate at which parolees run afoul of the law again recidivism is
widely viewed as the most telling measurement of how well programs for
inmates and ex-convicts are working.

The reasons for the downward trend are not yet clear. But officials
speculated that expanded parolee and prisoner programs, changes in the
law and better community services for ex-convicts all played a role.

Acting Corrections Secretary Jeanne Woodford called the new data,
calculated by her researchers, "promising."

"While it is still early, this kind of information shows we are
heading in the right direction," Woodford said. She added that "every
drop in the recidivism rate means fewer victims in our
neighborhoods."

In testimony before the state Legislature recently, Woodford said her
goal was to reduce the recidivism rate an additional 10% by 2010. She
repeated that pledge Monday.

Although other states report better rates than California, comparing
recidivism among jurisdictions is difficult because of differences in
the definition and in how such rates are calculated.

Nationally, the Bureau of Justice Statistics the research arm of the
U.S. Justice Department reports that 41% of convicts released from
state prisons in 2000 successfully completed their parole. That
number, the bureau said, has remained relatively unchanged since 1990.

While encouraged by the numbers in California, experts who monitor
trends in incarceration and parole said unraveling what has caused the
drop would be complicated.

"There's no question that this is a hopeful sign," said Barry
Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency,
an Oakland research and advocacy group. "But to really understand what
it means, you have to plow deeply into the data."

Among the unanswered questions, Krisberg said, was what proportion of
the inmates were sent back to prison for new crimes and what
proportion were rearrested for violating terms of their parole.

Krisberg also said he was a bit surprised by the data, partly because
of the severe crowding plaguing California prisons, which corrections
officials say are at 200% of their intended capacity. Among other
things, crowding has consumed classrooms and other prison space
intended for expanded education and vocational programs, undermining
efforts to better prepare parolees to stay crime-free.

"The Schwarzenegger administration is doing a lot to expand in-prison
treatment and reentry programs for parolees," Krisberg said. "I just
wouldn't expect to see a payoff yet."

California researchers calculate the recidivism rate by tracking
felons paroled in a calendar year and calculating the ratio of those
who have been returned to custody over a one-year and two-year period.

Included in the total are those who commit a new felony and those who
violate their parole and are sent back to prison for a brief term,
usually about three months.

Slightly more than 38% of all inmates released in 2003 landed back
inside by the end of the next year, the lowest rate since 1979. That
one-year recidivism rate has been dropping overall since 1997, when it
was just under 45%. It peaked in 1988 at about 54%.

Of the 54,977 parolees released from prison in 2003, the largest
number 4,416 were returned to custody for narcotics possession. An
additional 2,336 were sent back to prison for assault and battery,
while 2,103 were rearrested for second-degree burglary and 2,080 for
auto theft.

At any time, California has roughly 115,000 parolees under
supervision, most of them for two years.