Matthew Cate

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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
July 13, 2011 | 3:08 PM | By

CDCR Chief: “We incarcerate too many short-term offenders”

CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate recently spoke with PBS NewsHour about the recent Supreme Court ruling that California must reduce its prison population. The full video, available here, is worth a watch, but here are some key points from Cate’s remarks:

  • On his initial reaction to the Court’s order in Brown v. Plata: “Well, it’s a mixed reaction. I fundamentally agree that our prisons are overcrowded and it makes life very difficult to run an effective, efficient prison system when you have 180% of what you’re designed to have. I disagreed with some of the particulars regarding the status of our medical and mental health care. I think we’re providing pretty good care now. But the bottom line is we had to agree that we’re overcrowded and have been for some time.”
  • On the inefficiencies in the California criminal justice system: “We’re spending almost $10 billion on prisons in California and far less than that on higher education. It used the be the other way around. And what’s really changed is that we incarcerate too many short-term offenders and low-level offenders in California. One example would be last year we incarcerated 47,000 Californians for 90 days or less. Incredibly inefficient, ineffective system.”
  • On Gov. Jerry Brown’s “realignment” proposal to shift low-level offenders to the county level: “The whole point of realignment is that counties elect sheriffs to make decisions about public safety and they hire probation chiefs to supervise their own offenders. The state has taken on more and more of this responsibility. We think, and [the county sheriffs] think, that they can do a pretty good job. … I think there’s about $1.5 billion coming their way [from the state], so we’re not going to short them on the money … We’re going to do some jail construction as well. The state’s agreed to fund 90% of jail construction in California.”
  • On public safety: “Well, there’s a lot of confusion about realignment and the U.S. Supreme Court’s order and you hear the term ‘inmate release’ all the time. From our perspective … anybody who’s in prison today is going to serve their full sentence. All of these changes will be prospective. So it’s diverting tomorrow’s inmate to jail instead of prison, for example, to serve their time.”
FILED UNDER: Community, Corrections, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Matthew Cate, Prisons, Realignment, US Supreme Court
May 24, 2011 | 8:35 AM | By

Q&A: Corrections Secretary Matt Cate on how to reduce prison population

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that California must reduce prison overcrowding, potentially by releasing tens of thousands of inmates to correct the persistent violation of inmate rights. Soon after the ruling, some lawmakers and officials began predicting that chaos would overrun the streets as inmates were released en masse to comply with the ruling. The Prison Law Office’s Rebekah Evenson, who helped litigate the suit, disagreed:

What we have seen over the past years is that a number of high-level officials in California government and officials from states all over the country have demonstrated that there are many safe and effective ways to reduce prison populations without increasing crime. So we’re very hopeful that this is going to be taken as an opportunity to take this positive step forward to not just fix what’s wrong in California’s prisons but to start to address the public safety aspects as well.

Rather than awaiting this decision, state officials have been planning on what to do for some time if California were required to reduce overcrowding. The major plan on the table right now is what’s being called the “realignment” of the prison system–essentially shifting about 30,000 inmates from prison to local jails, eliminating parole supervision for many inmates, and downsizing the state’s juvenile prisons. For more on that plan, I sat down with Secretary Matt Cate, head of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation last week.

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FILED UNDER: Corrections, Budget, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Matthew Cate, Prison Overcrowding, Realignment
April 1, 2011 | 3:38 PM | By

Secretary Matt Cate on pressing prison issues

CDCR

Secretary Cate is rumored to be staying as head of CA corrections.

Corrections Secretary Matt Cate appeared on KQED’s Forum the other day (audio above). Among the highlights:

  • On taking over the job three years ago, Cate said he may have come into the position with “optimism that was unwarranted.” Reforming the prison system is tough, Cate said, and it’s “hard to understand how polarizing corrections policy is.” Cate did say he’s hopeful that Governor Jerry Brown’s “realignment” plan, which would reduce the role of state prisons and parole, will go forward.
  • On whether or not recidivism can go down, Cate pointed out that an incentive program that urged county probation departments to work on keeping probationers out of prison resulted in 4,000 fewer people being sent to prison last year.
  • On rehabilitation, Cate said it’s important for everyone to understand that despite some rhetoric, California prisoners are not coddled. He said that cuts to rehabilitation are not in our long-term interest, but that cuts over the past few years have given the department the opportunity to close some ineffective programs.
  • On capital punishment, Cate didn’t give his personal opinion, but said that it’s no secret the death penalty is a cumbersome, expensive system (to the tune of $150 million a year to operate). Cate said the debate is whether the costs of the system are worth the societal benefit.
FILED UNDER: Corrections, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Matthew Cate
August 19, 2010 | 4:53 PM | By

Evening LinkUp: NIMBY, guns in Pt. Reyes, and keeping parolees out of prison

Historic parole reforms increase public safety and rehabilitation (Capitol Weekly) Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation takes up the pen to tout the state’s recent introduction of non-revocable parole, a reform aimed at reducing the number of parolees being sent back to prison on technical parole violations.

L.A. Supervisors want parole change (everythinglongbeach.com) But some believe that too many people are let out of prison and put on minimal supervision: like “known gang members.”

Fight Breaks Out Over Redwood City Jail Plan (Wall Street Journal) A not-in-my-back-yard (or in this case, not-on-my-main-street) fight goes to the heart of the question of incarceration.

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FILED UNDER: Corrections, Police, Politics, Marijuana, Matthew Cate, Parole, Proposition 19