Bob Porterfield, “Revolving parole door hits state's pocketbook,” The Associated Press, March 8, 2004

Bob Porterfield, “Revolving parole door hits state's pocketbook,” The Associated Press, March 8, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO - California has a take-all-prisoners approach to ex-convicts, a policy so tough that more than half the inmates in state prisons are behind bars for violating parole, an Associated Press

analysis has found.

More than 82 percent of these returned parolees are sent back to prison for less than a year, serving new sentences for such minor violations as being drunk in public, driving more than 50 miles from home or driving with a suspended license.

The policy has proven costly for state taxpayers -- returning so many parolees for such short sentences accounts for more than 20 percent of California's prison spending, which has cost $1.58 billion over the

past five years, the AP found.

The percentage of parolees in the state's prisons is 10 times higher than that of Texas, which has nearly as many inmates as California. According to a 2002 study by the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center, California accounts for 42 percent of all parole violators returned to state prisons in the United States.

Prison officials justify the huge number of parole revocations as a means of taking dangerous ex-cons off the streets. But the practice is increasingly criticized as wasteful and ineffective, especially for

nonviolent offenders struggling to become productive members of  society.

California settled a class-action lawsuit late last year that will add legal protections for parolees in hearings and substitute substance abuse treatment for prison sentences in some cases. And the Legislature is likely to take reforms further, given mounting budget overruns.

"We've got to solve the parole problem before we tackle the (prisons) budget," said state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Rosemead, chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Corrections.

The percentage of parole revocations has risen steadily in recent yearsand is now well over 60 percent per year, causing problems for California's overcrowded prisons. Each of the state's 33 prisons are above capacity, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars in  unbudgeted

overtime for prison guards.

Prison officials say revoking parole in administrative hearings often buys time for prosecutors to build stronger cases.

"It's a safety net," said Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the Board of Prison Terms, the agency responsible for parole revocation proceedings. The revocations avoid having to put criminals on trial for minor

offenses, and when major crimes are involved, "we can keep a parolee behind bars until a case can be made."

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown says his city suffers because of the parole system.

"The revolving door is failing. They aren't getting the marketable skills and literacy they need in prison. It's a big, huge problem," Brown said.

Oakland is not waiting -- the city started its own intervention program aimed at the substance abusers among the city's estimated 3,000 parolees.

California starts with a huge group of parolees because of the state's blanket policy of placing every released inmate on parole for three years.

California's percentage of revoked parolees behind bars is more than double that of the six next-largest states. In Texas, only 5 percent of the prisoners are revoked parolees. Only Illinois, New York and Ohio

have double-digit percentages.

Gail Hughes, executive director of the Association of Paroling Authorities International, said California's parole policy is not unusual. What is unusual, he said, is the decision to enforce it strictly by returning so many of the ex-convicts to prison. "Those numbers skewer the national averages."

According to AP's calculations, California returned 85,551 parole violators to prison in 2002, resulting in incarceration costs of almost $1.1 billion, or 21.6 percent of the entire Corrections budget. The

Year before, 88,806 parole violators were returned at a cost estimated to be $1.13 billion, or 24.2 percent of that year's budget. Numbers for 2003 have yet to be released.

These expenditures do not include the nearly $500 million spent annually on parolee supervision.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the corrections budget reduced by $400 million in the coming fiscal year, but it's uncertain where they can cut without a sharp drop in revocations.

"The way to save money," says Margaret Pina, a budget analyst for Romero's committee, "is not sending people to prison."