CALIFORNIA IS FAILING THE PRISON TEST

The California Legislature has failed several times to change
backward sentencing and parole policies that keep the state's prisons
dangerously overcrowded with too many minor offenders sent to jail
for too long. These failures, which have driven up corrections costs
by about 50 percent in less than a decade, came home to roost earlier
this month, when a federal court ordered the state to cut the prison
population significantly. Days later, an ominous riot broke out in
the men's prison in Chino.

The time for ducking this issue has clearly passed, but a reform plan
approved by the State Senate after being championed by Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger is in danger of being gutted in the Assembly.
Democratic lawmakers who should know better are running scared of the
prison guards' union and of being labeled "soft on crime."

The heart of the problem is California's poorly designed parole
system. A vast majority of states use parole to supervise serious
offenders who require close monitoring. California has historically
put just about everyone on parole. According to a federally backed
study released last year, more people are sent to prison in
California by parole officers than by the courts, and nearly half of
those people go back on technical violations like missed appointments
and failed drug tests.

The reform package that passed in the Senate would allow the state to
focus parole efforts on serious offenders and end the costly practice
of cycling people back to jail for technical violations. Under
another provision, low-risk offenders like the elderly and the infirm
could be removed from costly medical care in prison and sent to
alternative custody nursing homes, where they would be monitored with
electronic ankle bracelets. Low-risk inmates who completed college
degrees or vocational programs would earn credits shortening their sentences.

This bill should have easily passed in the Assembly, which has a
Democratic majority supposedly in favor of reform. But the Democrats,
many of whom are running for other offices, are clearly fearful of
even taking a vote that would allow a sick, 80-year-old inmate to
spend what remains of his life in a nursing home wearing an ankle bracelet.

This is a low moment for Democrats in California. Those who put their
parochial career interests ahead of the public good deserve to be
called to account for it.