The California Fix

CUTS DIM INMATES' HOPE FOR NEW LIVES

State Eliminates 40% of Funding for Rehab Programs Aimed at Helping
Prisoners Succeed After Release.

Gina Tatum spends her days in a compound surrounded by electrified
fence in the sun-baked heart of the Central Valley, hoping to change her life.

She will soon turn 50, and after two decades in and out of prison,
she says she is tired of victimizing others, tired of stealing, tired
of doing drugs.

"I can't afford any more years up here -- I've lost too many," said
Tatum, who is serving a four-year stint for forgery at the Valley
State Prison for Women in Chowchilla. "I'm trying to learn things to
change my thinking, change everything about me, so I can go home.
It's so easy to get caught up here and never leave. I don't want to
die in prison."

But because of cuts in the state budget, Tatum and thousands of other
inmates and parolees in California are about to lose access to many
of the programs the prison system has offered to help them turn their
lives around.

Officials plan to chop $250 million a year from rehabilitation
services, more than 40% of what the state now devotes to them and a
quarter of the $1 billion it is slicing from its prison system.

The cuts occur four years after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger persuaded
lawmakers to change the name of the Youth and Adult Correctional
Agency to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

"We don't want to just put the name on it," he said in 2007,
proposing to expand rehabilitation services for prisoners. "We have
to heal them. We have to get them ready to go out so they can get a
job, connect with society and never commit a crime again."

Federal Pressure

The rehabilitation services are being slashed at the moment when they
may be most needed: The state is under pressure from federal courts
to reduce overcrowding driven by the high rate at which inmates
return to prison after they are released.

Substance-abuse treatment, vocational training and educational
programs, all scheduled to be cut back, were designed to give
offenders skills to help them hold jobs and make other changes. They
are taught to handle anger, build self-esteem and search for the
roots of their decisions to commit crimes, the better to avoid repeating them.

At eight prisons, substance-abuse programs will close; scaled-down
versions will remain at only 12 of the state's 33 lockups and one of
its privately run prisons. Up to 900 instructors and staff, many of
whom provide academic and vocational education, could be laid off.
Arts programs will no longer be available.

State officials say they will attempt to use their reduced resources
more efficiently, by cycling inmates through programs for shorter periods.

"We're very much targeting the resources on those who most need it,"
said Elizabeth Siggins, who is in charge of rehabilitation for the
state prison system.

But advocates for rehabilitation and program providers contend that
the cuts mean a return to an old way of thinking, in which prisons
were intended to punish but not improve those society sends there.
And they say the changes could have an effect on safety in California
streets and within its prisons.

Kathy Jett, formerly Schwarzenegger's top aide for prisoner
rehabilitation, said gangs may attempt to fill the void created by
the absence of programs.

"I think you'll start to see a shift back to lots of violence," she
said. "These are pretty draconian, pretty severe cuts. . . . The
wardens really are not going to have many tools to manage those inmates."

The changes could also subvert the state's recent moves to lower
incarceration costs and ease crowding.

The governor and state lawmakers last month agreed to reduce
supervision of parolees so fewer would be returned to prison for
failing drug tests and other low-level violations. At the same time,
the state is eliminating 45% of the seats in its substance-abuse
programs for parolees, which experts say increases the likelihood
that they will commit new crimes and go back to prison anyway.

And the state may undermine another recently enacted measure that
gives inmates more time off their sentences for participating in such
programs: Prisoners cannot earn the credit without access to the programs.

At Valley State, two nonprofit groups hired by the state provide
rehabilitation to 756 women four hours a day, five days a week. The
state has canceled a contract with one of the groups, Phoenix House,
as of this month and will end a contract with Walden House as early
as December. After that, officials plan to award a new contract for
only 175 women to receive services.

At Walden House's program one recent day, about 125 women arrived at
a building that resembles a small civic center. They sat quietly for
"accountability time," arms folded, feet tapping, while attendance
was checked. When the session began, women stepped to the center to
perform a previously assigned task intended to teach responsibility.

One read a poem. Another recounted the day's news from television
reports. A third offered inspirational proverbs. The women sang a
boisterous "Happy Birthday to you -- Woooo" for one inmate.

The goal, counselors said, is to get inmates, some of whom are
required to attend against their will, to connect with others and
learn trust. The program is for women who have used drugs or
committed drug-related crimes, but the curriculum extends beyond
controlling addiction to maintaining relationships, parenting and
anger management.

"We ask them, 'Why are you here? What has happened in your life that
brought you to prison?' " said Charmaine Hoggatt, a program director
for Walden House.

"We get them to try to be honest about some of the choices they made.
That's when the tears start to come, the confusion starts to come,
and the guilt and the shame."

Mary Rubio, in the 23rd year of a life term for a crime she would not
discuss, completed the program in 2005 and is a paid mentor to others.

"This program saved my life," said Rubio, 54. In "the jungle" of the
prison dorms and yards, she said, she never could have reflected on
her life, on how self-destructive she had been. In prison, "it's, you
know, eat or be eaten," Rubio said. "So when I came into this
program, it gave me a safe place . . . to look at my behaviors and
the reason for them."

Not all inmates engage. Informed about the cutbacks, some applauded,
Hoggatt said. As several women sat talking about the coming changes,
they said that though they had initially resisted participating in
the program, encouragement from fellow inmates and counselors helped
them believe that they could make the future better than the past.

Tatum, shedding tears and brushing back hair streaked with gray,
called the program "one of the best things I've ever done in my
life." It could also be her last chance to save herself, she said,
because with two strikes on her record, even a fight after her
release could land her back in prison for the rest of her life.

'Let Us Stay'

"I know you help some people even though they don't want to be
helped," Tatum told Hoggatt. "Those of us who want to be here, let us stay."

Tatum won't be eligible, because the state plans to put inmates in
that rehabilitation program for only the three months immediately
before their release dates, rather than the current three-year
maximum. She is not scheduled to get out until the end of 2011.

Siggins said the inmates chosen for such services will be those
deemed to be most in need or at the highest risk to offend again.

Similarly, the state will give preference in education programs to
those who can most benefit, Siggins said.

With fewer teachers, the most classroom time will go to prisoners
with lower reading levels, while those at higher levels or who are
preparing for graduate equivalency tests will have more individual
"self-study."

But David Beck-Brown, an artist and former instructor who left his
job at a San Diego prison earlier this year, said that with little to
do, prisoners grow restless.

"We have to have programs," he said. "We have to treat inmates with
dignity. All that is going under now."