Can the People Who Built California Prisons Be Trusted to Close them?

Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB)
Will Name Alternative Commission to Recommend Closures

Sacramento , CA : The panel appointed last week to recommend prison closures and corrections reform is comprised exclusively of people who have overseen and enabled prison expansion in this state and across the nation. In response, Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), a coalition of three dozen organizations calling for prison closures, is assembling an alternative commission.

Last week, the Governor named Governor Deukmejian, and three others to a panel that would recommend prison closures and other reforms to the state's embattled corrections systems and youth authority. The panel is charged with reporting closure recommendations to the Governor within 60 days.

But information compiled by a coalition of 38 organizations calling for prison closures questions whether the panel can be expected to close the institutions they built. “This is a panel of experts on building more prisons and expanding prison budgets. Where is the expertise on reducing prison populations, creating alternatives and saving money in corrections?” asked Sitara Nieves of CURB.

During former Governor Deukmejian's term (1983-1991), the state's prison population more than doubled, from 38,000 to 98,000, nearly a third (10) of California's 32 prisons were opened, and t he CDC budget increased from a 3.7% share of the general fund to 6.7%—an 81% increase in Corrections' share of the General Fund during the Deukmejian era.
   
“We're in this mess because of policies and practices initiated under George Dukemejian's leadership,” says Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a University of Southern California professor, and long-time prison expert. “Voters should be dismayed that Schwarznegger has commissioned foxes to investigate mismanagement and mayhem in the chicken coop.”   Panelist Robin Dezember was a deputy director of Corrections under Governor Pete Wilson. Wilson oversaw construction of 9 prisons, and a 67,857 person increase in the state's prison population. Dezember was also a principal at the Kitchell Corporation, which has worked with the CDC as program manager to plan and oversee the construction of over 30 prisons. Kitchell's website claims “our record of success has helped the CDC gain the support of the legislature through four separate administrations.”  

“If the Governor was sincere in his desire to ‘blow up boxes,' rather than simply ‘move them around', then he needs to hear from people that have been in those prisons, their families, and people who have studied what the state needs to do to build safe communities,” says Rose Braz of CURB, noting that numerous California polls have all found that Californians want cuts to prison spending. “The panelists named last week to recommend prison closures built a system that this state can no longer afford.”
 
Panelist George Camp was the director of the Missouri Department of Corrections and is a longtime consultant to state corrections' heads—most of which have seen prison growth and expansion. A federal judge ruling on a New York case in which Camp provided expert testimony found that Camp's correctional research was "biased," and his conclusions "baseless" and "misleading." When Camp was recently named to an independent commission in Massachusetts studying correctional reforms, advocates succeeded in having the panel reconstituted to dilute Camp's influence.   “Californians don't need ‘biased' and ‘misleading,' so-called experts, when this state has dozens of people and groups that are stepping forward, and can guide the state in making pragmatic decisions about closing prisons,” says Barbara Oldershaw of CURB.   In originally calling for a commission to recommend prison closures, the Governor's budget noted, “while population reductions provide substantial savings on the margin, entire institution closures nearly double the potential savings.” The average California prison costs $98 million to operate each year.  

CURB will be naming an alternative commission and plans to issue their recommendations for prison closures in the coming weeks.
 
Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB),
a broad based coalition of 38 organizations, seeks to CURB prison spending by reducing the number of people in prison and the number of prisons in the state.