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Big Win for Public Safety: California to Scrap Parole Reform Policy
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April 9, 2005 - A memo was released by Rod Hickman, Secretary of the Youth & Adult Correctional Agency, stating that effective Monday, April 11th parole violators will be returned to prison and will no longer be merely placed into drug treatment programs, home detention or halfway houses. The policy - which had been promoted heavily by the Schwarzenegger administration as part of its budget cut initiative within the state's overcrowded prison system - had not shown any evidence of benefit to the prison program. Instead of helping ex-convicts turn their lives around through social placement programs, the policy was shown to have had a negative affect on parole violators, increasing returns for violent crimes rather than the violations they would have returned for previously.
Crime victim advocates have heavily criticized the initiative - and some parole agents spoke out stating that they felt pressure from supervisors to allow dangerous parole violators avoid prison - and possibly commit new crimes. It was these concerns among other statistical factors released recently that prompted the change, Rod Hickman said in a memo to the press. He also stated that this change does not mean that the Governor will back off from his pledge to make California prisons rehabilitative institutions rather than merely sentences of punishment.
CCPOA Sacramento has spoken publicly on their stance against the parole policy, and in a hearing last month Mike Jimenez called the approach "a flop" and "a danger to public safety." The Crime Victims United of California group agreed with Jimenez and a few weeks ago began airing television ads that accused the Governor of abandoning the victims of the crimes, suggesting that the reform policies were also putting communities at a safety risk.
But while this is a huge relief for public safety issues and parole agencies alike, it just means more of the same for correctional officers that work the nation's largest prison system. Currently there are about 162,500 men and women institutionalized within the state's 32 facilities, which report nearly two times as many assaults behind bars as are reported in Texas, which houses nearly as many inmates.
As the Governor and politicians like Senator Gloria Romero continue to work against the system by focusing on minute issues such as name changes for the department, the public is unaware of the high-risk situation growing within the prison walls. Inmates are stacked in triple-level bunk beds in gymnasiums originally intended for exercise… they are living packed into hallways and other areas that are clearly not intended for housing… the safety risk for officer and inmate grows with every passing day. Experts call the current situation a recipe for riot.
Because of this many inmate advocate groups were upset by the decision to overturn the parole policy, feeling that the community support group programs were actually helping to improve the odds of parolee success, rather than increase violent crimes as recent reports have shown.
However one expert, who has been working intimately with the state's plans for prison reform, a criminologist at UC Irvine told the press that she feels this move shows that the state is serious about its commitment to find a program that will work. With 67% of California's parolees returning to the system - nearly twice the national average - something will need to be done soon.
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