Here is a press release on one of the latest reports on CDCR: a California Roadmap for Reducing Recidivism and Overcrowding. There is link to the full report if you don't want to bother with the press release.
An intriguing idea...creating a 'roadmap' to lead California out of a federal takeover of its prison system. There are lots of concrete measures in this report that could help prevent legal action and actually improve the quality of life in California's beleaguered prison system. Here you have a group of experts who have come up with eleven key ways to reduce recidivism and crowding in the CDCR system.
Here is the list, taken directly from the press release:
Recommendation 1 - Reduce overcrowding in prison facilities.
Recommendation 2 - Enact legislation to expand positive reinforcements for offenders who complete rehabilitation programs and follow the rules.
Recommendation 3 - Select and utilize a risk assessment tool to assess an offender's risk to reoffend.
Recommendation 4 - Determine offender rehabilitation programming based on the results of assessment tools that identify and measure risks and needs.
Recommendation 5 - Create and monitor a behavior management (or case) plan for each offender.
Recommendation 6 - Select and deliver a core set of programs for offenders that cover major offender areas.
Recommendation 7 - Develop systems and procedures to collect and utilize programming process and outcome measures.
Recommendation 8 - Continue to develop and strengthen formal partnerships with community stakeholders.
Recommendation 9 - Modify community based programs to ensure they target the crime patterns of offenders, meet their basic needs upon return, and identify risk factors in their home community.
Recommendation 10 - Engage the community to help reduce likelihood offenders will return to a life of crime.
Recommendation 11 - Develop structured guidelines to respond to technical parole violations, based on risk and seriousness.
The Second Chance Act, a federal bipartisan attempt to stir interest and activity in meaningful reentry programs for released prisoners, would authorize as much as $65 million in grants to state and local governments and another $15 million to community organizations to develop reentry initiatives or helping services. For an update on the status of legislation try the Reentry Council.
As an editorial in the New York Times says today, "The Second Chance Act would bolster the re-entry movement with money, training, technical assistance--and the federal stamp of approval." Even Texas has found value in giving tax credits to businesses that hire parolees, reduce recidivism and save their state money, and that is progress. Since nearly all prisoners come back to the community it seems foolhardy to encourage local communities to maintain the enormous barriers to reentry that exist for ex-offenders. Local and state governments often do not know where to begin the process. Fortunately there has been a lot of recent thinking in this area to get the U.S. out of its imprisonment binge and focused on what really counts at the moment--getting offenders reintegrated into society.
California has been trying to put some money where its mouth is in the area of parole reentry by funding various reentry projects under its Division of Community Partnerships. Time will tell whether these projects and planning grants bear fruit. There is nowhere to go but up!