NCJ Number
217316
Date Published
2007
Length
98 pages
Annotation
This Little Hoover Commission report describes the problems of California’s corrections system and offers three key recommendations for reform.
Abstract
The first Commission recommendation for the repair of California’s corrections system is that the Governor and legislature should immediately implement a comprehensive strategy to relieve prison overcrowding and enhance public safety. More specifically, policymakers are encouraged to implement prior reform recommendations made by the Little Hoover Commission and to establish a corrections interagency task force to enhance in-prison and reentry programming. An alternative recommendation is offered if the Governor and legislature are unwilling or unable to immediately proceed with the first recommended reform. In lieu of governmental action, policymakers are encouraged to appoint a board of directors with the power and authority to enact reform measures. The second recommendation of the Commission is that the State must immediately implement evidence-based policies to reduce overcrowding and hold offenders accountable for improving themselves. More specifically, the Commission encourages the State to reinvent parole, try offenders who commit new crimes, shift responsibility for postrelease supervision to communities, expand offender programming and create incentives for completing programs, expand local corrections capacity, and expand the role of judges. The third Commission recommendation directs California policymakers to establish a sentencing commission to guide the State’s criminal justice sentencing policies. It is further recommended that this sentencing commission be protective, independent, diverse, authoritative, data-driven, and accountable. The Little Hoover Commission offers these recommendations in response to the ever-increasing crisis facing California’s corrections population, which is critically overcrowded, has the highest recidivism rate in the country, and offers virtually no offender programming due to overcrowding and budget restrictions. Tables, figures, appendixes, notes