Prison workers say more rehab programs needed

By ANDY FURILLO
Thursday, March 08, 2007

California's second-largest correctional workers' union issued a report Wednesday criticizing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $10.9 billion prison and jail construction plan, saying the administration is going too heavy on new buildings while falling short on new rehabilitation programs.

Service Employee International Union Local 1000, in a 35-page report, offered a counter-strategy that focuses more on academic and vocational programs for inmates and parolees, as well as changes in the state's parole and sentencing structure. The report also calls for filling 1,000 vacancies in the ranks of SEIU 1000's prison bargaining units, getting better training for non-custody correctional workers and paying them more money.

The report said the governor's $41 million plan to reduce inmate recidivism is dwarfed by his construction proposals. They seek to add 16,238 beds at existing prison sites, 5,000 to 7,000 beds in new community re-entry facilities, 45,000 county jail beds for state and local inmates, 10,000 additional prison hospital beds to satisfy the federal courts and 5,000 juvenile beds.

"You cannot solve this problem just by building another prison," said SEIU 1000 representation and organizing vice president Marc Bautista of the state's prison overcrowding crisis. "Something else has to be done now, and sentencing reform and parole reform are the first steps. If you're successful, you won't have to build a new prison."

Bautista said the union only favors building the prison hospitals. The rest of the governor's construction plan, he said, is "excessive."

In a prepared statement, Schwarzenegger's correctional drug treatment director Kathryn P. Jett said the prison system needs the massive new space so it can provide the rehabilitation programs SEIU 1000 wants.

"This will allow inmates to participate in substance abuse treatment, vocational training, anger management and other effective programs while in prison," Jett said.

Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine criticized the union's opposition to new construction by noting that SEIU 1000 was a party to the recent suit to block out-of-state inmate transfers.

"If we follow their suggestions it will leave us with only one option _ releasing prisoners early _ and Senate Republicans will not support such a proposal," Ackerman said in a press release.

SEIU 1000 represents some 14,000 nurses, teachers, office assistants, case record analysts and other non-custody employees in the state's 33 prisons. It is the second-largest union of correctional workers behind the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which represents 31,000 prison cops.

CCPOA spokesman Lance Corcoran said SEIU 1000 "certainly has concerns that their staffing levels are equally threatened." He said the CCPOA agrees that the prison system needs to improve its rehabilitation program, but that it needs new bed space, too.

"At the end of the day, the immediate concern is, where are we going to put the inmates?" Corcoran said. "CCPOA certainly believes there's an absolute need for additional beds. But additional beds isn't the sole answer."

The SEIU 1000 report predicted that improving rehabilitation programs for inmates and parolees will reduce the projected increase in the prison population by about 10,000 inmates over the next five years, at a savings to taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars. The union also is pushing for the creation of a sentencing commission with the power to regulate the flow of inmates into the system and full staffing in the correctional agency that now has more than 1,000 vacant positions in 16 non-custody job categories.

(Contact Andy Furillo at afurillo(at)sacbee.com.)