Jerry Brown

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July 21, 2011 | 9:32 AM | By

Poll: California voters prefer sentencing reform to building more prisons

How should California comply with the Supreme Court’s order to reduce overcrowding in its 33 state prisons? In theory, the state could build additional prisons or transfer more inmates to private facilities, but both of those options would require taxpayer outlays. A new poll of registered California voters suggests that voters would prefer sentencing reform to any option that requires raising taxes. (The full poll, conducted for the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles Times, is available here.)

Here are some highlights:

  • 79% of those polled said they favored moving low-level offenders to the county level — perhaps good news for Gov. Jerry Brown’s realignment proposal,
  • Interestingly, 69% of those polled said they favored releasing nonviolent offenders early. Both Gov. Brown and CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate have repeatedly said they hope to comply with the court order without doing that — Cate says all the changes will be prospective, so CDCR won’t have to release any current inmates before their term is up.
  • 62% of offenders said they’d favor reforming the state’s three strikes law to reduce sentences for third-strike offenders convicted of property crimes.
  • In comparison, only 23% of respondents said they favored raising taxes to construct new prisons, against 55% who said they “strongly opposed” such a measure (and another 18% who said they were “somewhat opposed”).
  • And a measly 12% said they favored cutting education or health care spending to help pay for prisons.
  • Latinos were more likely than whites to oppose shorter prison sentences. 71% of white respondents said they would favor early release of nonviolent offenders, compared to 59% of Latino voters.
FILED UNDER: Corrections, Politics, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Jerry Brown, Matthew Cate, Prison Overcrowding, Prisons, Realignment, US Supreme Court
June 21, 2011 | 10:55 AM | By

Could a death penalty ban succeed in California?

CDCR

Death Row

A much circulated study released yesterday found that California spends about $184 million a year on its policy of capital punishment. That means, from a cost-result perspective, that for each of the 13 executions completed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, California has spent $308 million. The study came not from an anti-death penalty group, but from U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon, a former prosecutor, and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell.

The money issue in capital punishment has become a big one. Recently, Governor Jerry Brown halted a construction project that would have revamped and expanded death row at San Quentin State Prison, citing the project’s $365 million price tag.

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FILED UNDER: Capital Punishment, Politics, Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris, Lonnie Hancock
June 7, 2011 | 1:36 PM | By

California releases its prison overcrowding plan

CDCR

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation filed its formal plan with the Federal District Court in the Northern District of California today for how it will reduce the state’s prison population by about 33,500 inmates over the next two years. Among the take-aways from the filing, two main points echoed a few times: first, CDCR says it will not be releasing inmates early, contrary to popular wisdom; and second, the system has already come some way towards reaching the final goal. Specifically, the state has a number of ideas of how they’ll get to the eventual goal of 137.5 percent of designed prison capacity:

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FILED UNDER: Corrections, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Jerry Brown, Prison Overcrowding, Realignment, US Supreme Court
June 3, 2011 | 9:57 AM | By

Prison overcrowding: What’s the backup plan?

US Supreme Court

A new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California seems to show a tough (but not impossible) road for Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to extend and increase taxes to help alleviate some of the state’s fiscal problems. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

According to the poll, 62 percent of likely voters said they want a special election, up 6 percentage points from April and 11 percentage points from March. However, 46 percent of likely voters said they supported the taxes while 48 percent said they opposed them.

According to an analyst interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, the tax measures need to be polling in the 60s–at least 12 points higher than now–to have any prayer of passing if they’re put on the ballot. But Brown does not seem deterred–he’s pledged to fulfill his campaign promise of letting voters decide whether they want to tax themselves and save certain functions of state government, or not tax themselves and absorb cuts.

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FILED UNDER: Politics, Budget, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Jerry Brown, Prison Overcrowding, Realignment, US Supreme Court
May 27, 2011 | 9:26 AM | By

Governor Brown takes 180-degree turn on parole for lifers

Nancy Mullane

rnest Morgan being greeted by his mother Hilda McCline on 5/12/11.

While many prisoners ask to be released for medical reasons, others seek to get out because they have turned their lives around, even when they’ve committed the worst possible crimes.

Often though, those serving time for murder, for example, are denied parole, even if they’re eligible. That’s because for 20 years, the Governor’s office has had the authroity to reverse parole decisions and keep those offenders in prison, even if they were approved for release on parole. And that has been the trend, until now.

Since he took office a little over five months ago, Governor Jerry Brown is allowing the parole board’s decision to stand for 80% of lifers found suitable to be released. That’s a significant shift, a reversal of the policies of the past four governors, who cancelled or reversed the parole for 8 out of every 10 lifers found suitable for parole by the governor’s own parole board.

KALW’s Nancy Mullane has been following the stories of prisoners inside San Quentin State Prison who are serving life sentences for murder. Yesterday, she sat down with KALW’s Hana Baba for an in-depth look at the issue. (Transcript after the jump.)

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FILED UNDER: Corrections, Board of Parole Hearings, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Jerry Brown, Lifers, Parole, San Quentin State Prison
May 13, 2011 | 10:54 AM | By

The politics of paroling murderers

Ali Winston

Governor Jerry Brown has departed from his predecessors on a hot-button political issue.

Governor Jerry Brown has taken a much different tack than his predecessors when it comes to one of the most fiery political issues in the criminal justice arena: paroling murderers. Mainly, Brown is allowing more “lifers”–those sentenced to life-in-prison with the possibility of parole–out of prison than any governor in recent history. According to papers dug up by the Sacramento Bee in April, in the first quarter of the year, Brown let 106 out of 130 parole decisions allowing people convicted of murder stand–that’s 82 percent:

Brown’s deference to the state Board of Parole Hearings is in contrast to his predecessors, who more aggressively used their power to overturn parole grants.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger let stand only about 27 percent of parole decisions. Gov. Gray Davis was even less lenient, letting only nine of 374 paroled killers out of prison while he was governor.

One of those benefitting from Brown’s parole philosophy is Ernest Morgan, who was freed from San Quentin State Prison yesterday morning. Morgan has been in prison since he was 18 for second degree murder of his stepsister. He’s now 42 and according to prison officials, has spent his time in prison reforming himself. Schwarzenegger repeatedly denied Morgan parole–citing the heinous nature of his offense–but Brown declined to review the decision to let him out.

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FILED UNDER: Politics, Board of Parole Hearings, Jerry Brown, Lifers, Parole
May 9, 2011 | 3:00 PM | By

Jobs and ideology in the prison budget debate

Andrew Magill

Overtime costs pile up.

Writing over at California Progress Report, Joshua Page, assistant professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota and author of the new book The Toughest Beat, makes a point that’s strangely often left out of the debate over cutting the prison budget. People assume that correctional officers oppose prison closures because they want to keep their jobs. That’s true, Page writes, but it’s not the only factor in play when groups like the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) oppose reforms that would cut the prison population or prison budget–”it’s also ideological.”

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FILED UNDER: Politics, Budget, California Correctional Peace Officers Association, Jerry Brown, Joshua Page
May 5, 2011 | 4:40 PM | By

Framing the juvenile justice debate in California

An editorial in the Bakersfield Californian has a non-traditional take on the debate over closing California’s youth prison system, the Division of Juvenile Justice. In an era where the governor and Republican members of the legislature are in deadlock over budget cuts and tax hikes (with Governor Jerry Brown even threatening to cut services in Republican districts, so they can see what small government feels like), the paper, which is located in Kern County, makes an interesting point:

We love to talk about how we’re overtaxed and overgoverned, and how self-reliance is an underappreciated characteristic in both individuals and societies. Evidence for the merits of those arguments is abundant enough.

Not when it comes to juvenile justice, however. In fact, as a recent snapshot reveals, Kern County is on the state government dole like few others.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed realignment of the state’s juvenile prison system, which attempted to reduce state spending by shifting the burden of incarcerating and treating violent youthful offenders to county-run programs, has shed light on harsh disparities among counties. Some counties fund their juvenile justice systems almost completely; others rely tremendously on the state.

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FILED UNDER: Courts, Budget, Center on Juvenline and Criminal Justice, Jerry Brown, Juvenile Justice, Prisons, Realignment