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The legislative analyst
recently documented the dangerous and expensive failure of
the state's parole system. The governor and legislators need
to pay attention. Both public safety and public dollars are
at stake.
California taxpayers
spend $245 million a year to monitor 100,000 newly released
inmates. An astounding 67 percent of them return to prison
because they fail on the streets, either by committing new
crimes or by violating the conditions of their parole.
That's a higher parolee failure rate than in any other
state. When parolees fail, taxpayers spend another $1.5
billion to return them to prison and maintain them
there.
It's money that would be
better spent, as the analyst recommends, on housing, drug
and alcohol counseling and job help, programs to assist
ex-cons to live productive, crime-free lives.
Sadly, California invests
almost nothing to reduce parolee failure. Some 80,000
parolees are unemployed, but the parole system offers no job
help for most of them; 85,000 are alcoholics or drug
addicts, but the system has only 750 treatment beds; an
estimated 10,000 are homeless, but there's shelter space for
just 200.
The legislative analyst
calls for sensible and long-overdue reforms: more extensive
monitoring of the most dangerous inmates; more investment in
parolee housing, job help and drug and alcohol
rehabilitation; and return of control for the parole system
from the politically appointed Board of Prison Terms to
parole agents and the Department of Corrections.
No doubt the legislative
analyst's report will be dismissed by some as a liberal ,
soft-on-crime document. It is not. Money spent to help
former criminals conquer their drug and alcohol addictions,
get jobs and lead stable lives is cost-effective crime
prevention.
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