RETHINK PRISON POLICIES

Reform of the system will require new leaders and cooperation across
ideological lines.

In the last year, state investigators have uncovered scores of problems in
California prisons, from substance-abusing inmates to guards goading
prisoners into fistfights. Young wards of the system have been drugged to
keep them quiet or brutally disciplined. In his budget last week, Gov. Gray
Davis sensibly recognized the need for more penal system scrutiny,
allocating $2.3 million to fund a new inspector general's office to
investigate wrongdoing in and by the prisons.

Davis won't be able to completely rout out the problems, however, until he
brings new blood into the system's leadership. The resignations of three top
officials in the California Youth Authority, the division that oversees
juvenile inmates, give the governor an opportunity to do that.

California does not have the only troubled prison system in the country, but
by several measures it has fallen behind other states in implementing
methods that reduce prison violence and heighten public safety.

For instance, California officials now assess parolees' risks based on their
most recent criminal offenses, giving short shrift to telling variables like
age, history of substance abuse or mental illness and attitudes toward
society. Even more antiquated is the state's 1960s-era system for tracking
parolees; it does not employ effective high technologies like electronic
monitoring bracelets. In Florida, the bracelets allow parolees to be tracked
as they work or attend classes.

The department also has yet to rein in substance abuse and looming health
problems. John M. Vierling, medical director of liver transplantation at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, recently told state legislators that the
Department of Corrections appears unprepared to deal with the soaring rate
of hepatitis C infections in its prisons.

The virus that causes the disease, often communicated by prisoners using
infected needles for tattoos or intravenous drugs, can cause fatal liver
failure.

Infections acquired in prison are likely to be spread further when a
prisoner is released.

Hepatitis C currently afflicts about half a million Californians in and out
of prison, far more victims than in any other state.

State legislative leaders haven't done much to help. In Sacramento, prison
reform remains a highly charged issue, dominated and held back by ideology.
Political posturing will not solve problems like the spread of hepatitis C
and the failure of prison officials to keep track of violent parolees.

Solutions will come only when smart policies are crafted by prison officials
working in tandem with legislators and the governor.