Federal
health-care oversight should end by 2013
SACRAMENTO – In the wake of a
declining prison population resulting from Realignment, the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) today released a plan to
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 plan is titled “The Future of California
Corrections: A Blueprint to Save Billions of Dollars, End Federal Oversight,
and Improve the Prison System.”
“My goal is to end federal court
oversight of medical, mental health and dental care by next year,” said CDCR
Secretary Matthew Cate. “This plan builds on the improvements made possible by
Realignment. It will go a long way towards making our correctional system more
efficient and secure and, at the same time, lower our high recidivism rates.”
CDCR’s plan will:
·
Reduce CDCR’s annual budget by more than $1.5 billion upon full
implementation, including $160 million dollars in savings from closing the
California Rehabilitation Center;
·
Eliminate $4.1 billion in construction projects that are no longer
needed because of population reductions;
·
Eliminate $2.2 billion annually that would have been spent had
Realignment not been implemented;
·
Return all out-of-state inmates to California by 2016 to bring back
jobs and manage offenders closer to home while saving millions in taxpayer
dollars;
·
Satisfy the U.S. Supreme Court’s order to lower the state’s prison
population;
·
Satisfy the federal courts that CDCR has achieved and maintained
constitutional levels of medical, mental health and dental care to avoid costly
oversight;
·
Incorporate a standardized staffing formula to better manage staff
levels and cost;
·
Improve the classification system to provide proper inmate housing
placement and reduce the reliance on costly high-security facilities.
This plan ends a long-term uptick
in corrections costs. CDCR accounted for just three percent of General Fund
spending 30 years ago, which increased to 11 percent in FY 2008-09. CDCR’s plan
will lower it to 7.5 percent in FY 2015-16. When realignment is fully
implemented, CDCR expenditures will drop by 18 percent overall.
CDCR has responded to a string of
class-action lawsuits dating back to 1990 challenging the levels of medical,
mental health and dental care for inmates. In 2006, federal courts appointed a
federal court-appointed Receiver to bring health care up to constitutional
standards. Mental health care is overseen by a Special Master and dental
care is monitored by Court Experts.
“CDCR has made substantial
progress in assuring the courts that it is providing Constitutionally-mandated
levels of care to inmates,” said Cate. “We are committed to ending federal
oversight of our prisons’ healthcare systems.”
The courts have indicated that
California is making vast improvements and is on track to end the Receivership.
Earlier this year, a federal judge cited “significant progress” in medical care
delivery and wrote that “the end of the Receivership appears to be in sight.”
The court also called for negotiations to take place on returning health care
authority to CDCR.
Similar progress is being made in
other aspects of prison health care. Mental health bed waiting lists that were
once hundreds of patients long have fallen sharply or been eliminated. Dental
care has improved markedly as well, with 30 out of 33 prisons having passed
audits of their dental program and the remainder expected to pass soon.
Many of the improvements are due
to the reduction in prison overcrowding made possible by Public Safety
Realignment signed into law by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. last year.
Since Public Safety Realignment
took effect, CDCR’s offender population has dropped by approximately 22,000
inmates and 16,000 parolees. Overcrowding has been reduced from a high of
more than 200 percent of design capacity to just 155 percent today. The
thousands of makeshift beds in gymnasiums and dayrooms that CDCR had been
forced to use for years are now gone.
“Realignment has given California
a historic opportunity to invest in a prison system that is not just less
crowded, but more efficient, while saving billions of state taxpayer dollars,”
said Cate.
CDCR’s spring
population projections suggest that the department may fall just short of
meeting the final court-ordered crowding-reduction benchmark. In June 2013, the
department’s prison population is projected to be at 141 percent of design
capacity rather than the 137.5 percent goal set by the federal Three-Judge
Court and affirmed by the Supreme Court. The measures proposed in this plan
will allow the state to seek and obtain a modification of the order to raise
the final benchmark to 145 percent of design capacity. In its order, the
Supreme Court anticipated this as a possibility and said the state “will be
free to move” the court for modification.
“We are confident
that this plan will satisfy the court’s order,” said Cate.
To read or download a copy of the
plan “The Future of California Corrections: A Blueprint to Save Billions of
Dollars, End Federal Oversight, and Improve the Prison System”, go to www.cdcr.ca.gov.
###
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
April
23, 2012
Contact: Jeffrey Callison
(916) 445-4950
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