Sacramento – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.
on Wednesday signed into law an historic reform of California’s penal system.
Known as the blueprint, the plan will cut billions in spending, comply with
multiple federal court orders for inmate medical, mental health and dental
care, and significantly improve the operation of California’s prison system.
The Governor’s approval of the blueprint follows its release by the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in April and its approval
by the State Legislature yesterday.
The multi-year plan for CDCR will cut
billions in spending, enable the State to comply with multiple federal court
orders concerning inmate health care, and significantly improve the operation
of California’s prison system.
“We appreciate the confidence of the
Legislature in our plan for a safer and more efficient correctional system,” said
CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate. “The passage of our blueprint will show the
federal courts that California is serious about ending the long-standing
lawsuits overseeing much of our operations.”
Highlights of the CDCR blueprint include:
·
Spending less
taxpayer money on prisons. The operational General Fund budget of CDCR falls
next year to $8.55 billion, nearly half-a-billion dollars less than the current
year. When the blueprint is fully implemented, CDCR’s budget will fall by more
than $1.5 billion.
·
Improving and
expanding health care facilities and rehabilitative programming. CDCR has
achieved and will maintain constitutional levels of medical, mental health and
dental care, thus ending the significant cost of litigation and court
oversight.
·
Building and staffing
a more efficient prison system. CDCR is changing its staffing levels and ratios
to take into account the falling inmate population. In the 2012-13 budget, CDCR
also gets authority to start work on more cost-effective prison housing. Infill
projects will replace California Rehabilitation Center, and old and costly
prison in Norco to be closed by 2016.
Many of the improvements in California prisons are due to the
reduction in overcrowding made possible by Public Safety Realignment signed
into law by Governor Brown last year. Since Realignment took effect, CDCR’s
offender population has dropped by approximately 23,000 inmates. Overcrowding
has been reduced from a high of more than 200 percent of design capacity to
approximately 152 percent today. These declines are projected to continue
through further implementation of Public Safety Realignment.
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