Beleaguered parole system being rebuilt

By Andy Furillo -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, May 12, 2004

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State corrections officials announced Tuesday they have embarked on a strategic shift in parole policy, one they believe holds promise for saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars annually while keeping the streets safe.

A major objective is to keep parole violators out of prison through a package of alternative sanctions, some of which have been in effect for several months.

In one new proposal unveiled Tuesday at the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency headquarters, officials said they intend to implement a pilot global positioning satellite surveillance program to monitor the movements of some 500 sex offenders.

Other elements of the plan previously revealed include: electronic monitoring and halfway houses for less-serious parole violators, bolstered partnerships with local law enforcement agencies, more drug treatment and new re-entry programs for inmates getting out of prison.

In part, the efforts are designed to reduce the number of parole revocations, which are crowding prisons. But some of the proposals could add to inmate returns.

Chief among them would be a requirement that as a condition of parole newly released inmates must make restitution payments to victims as ordered by the courts when they were sentenced.

Agency Secretary Rod Hickman told reporters the new parole strategy would fix a failed $1 billion-a-year system that has produced the highest recidivism rates in the country while doing little to help parolees readjust to life on the outside.

"The current parole system doesn't promote public safety, it ignores victims, shortchanges taxpayers and fails the residents of this state," said Hickman, the Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointee who sets policy for the Department of Corrections, the California Youth Authority and the Board of Prison Terms.

"This tactic will make the parole system ... hold offenders accountable," he said, "while ensuring that they can successfully transition back into the communities without returning to crime."

Although revoking fewer paroles will reduce the state's prison population and decrease spending, some of the parole reform proposals, such as the GPS monitoring, will add to the corrections budget.

Even with the governor's spring budget revisions due out on Thursday, Hickman provided no dollar figures on the potential net savings. Schwarzenegger has called for a $400 million cut from the Department of Corrections' $5.7 billion budget.

Documents obtained by The Bee suggested that two of the parole changes alone could cut prison costs nearly $160 million.

A six-page "draft parole model" estimated that as many as 8,000 parolees could be placed on electronic monitoring rather than being sent back to prison at a net savings of $38 a day per inmate, or $111 million a year when that program is running full bore.

Halfway houses for technical parole violators, meanwhile, could save $16 a day per inmate, the document states. With Department of Corrections spokesmen estimating another 8,000 parole violators could be redirected to halfway houses, an additional $46.7 million a year could be saved.

Agency spokesman J.P. Tremblay said he has not seen the draft and could not comment on the dollar figures.

But officials reported Tuesday that the policies already are resulting in fewer parolees being sent back to the state's 32 prisons.

Rick Rimmer, deputy director of the corrections department's parole division, said in a recent interview that the department has cut the number of parole revocations by 10,000 compared to a year ago.

"We have demonstrated that we can do better than we have in the past," Rimmer said. "We're encouraged by that."

Corrections officials know they will be bombarded with criticism if an inmate allowed to remain in the community despite a parole violation commits a violent crime, particularly a murder or rape.

Hickman said that parole officials "plan on continually evaluating" the system and that they will make changes if some aspect of the program breaks down.

"If it jeopardizes public safety, we'll have to stop it," Hickman said.

Rimmer said that parolees "will commit crime, regardless of what you do."

"The only thing I can say in anticipation of that," he said, "is that we will have done everything we possibly can to correctly assess the risk presented by parolees under our jurisdiction and to minimize any potential threat to public safety."

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