Throughout recent years the state of California has made attempts to enact several reforms of the criminal justice system. Governor Jerry Brown, the state’s governor, recently, signed various changes for the criminal justice system particularly, concerning the states correctional system. The specific focus of these correctional system reforms is on either reducing or eliminating the rates of unfair incarceration and sentencing rates and reducing overcrowding in the state’s prisons. Initiatives to make these reforms take place prompted the need for collaborative efforts from both party representatives, Democrat, and Republican (Sholkoff, 2018). California is deemed and known for mass incarceration, and these proposed reforms aim at eradicating this problem. Therefore, this paper seeks to focus on the budget proposal made by the governor to address issues of overpopulation in prison facilities, improving the prison environment by repairing roofs and installing video surveillance at the California State Prison and increase of wages for those inmate workers allocated to maintenance jobs.

Budget choices reflect corporate priorities and values financially. The California Budget Center ensures that budgetary issues are not only easy to comprehend but also accessible. The reason behind this is to provide that participation during debates are extensive to foster the implementation of quality policies to Californians (Hoene & Graves, 2019).  The role of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is to oversee the imprisonment of criminals considered as adults particularly in the provision of medical services, training, and education of these inmates. There are approximately 130,000 inmate prisons and the 43 conservation camps in California Prison Systems. Around 8,000 adult convicts are out of state and in-state contracted prisons (Soderborg et al., 2018). Furthermore, 620 minor offenders got incarcerated in three prisons and a conservation camp.

According to Governor Jerry Brown, he proposed that the budget should allocate $12 billion specifically for the operations of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in the 2018-2019 budget. Concerning the proposed figure, there is an increase in expenditure of $125 million which is a 1% estimate (Soderborg et al., 2018). Reasons behind the increased spending value are to reflect on improving prison living conditions. Some of the initiatives included replacing the roofs and molding of the damaged prison facilities, replacing the radio communication and installation of video surveillance in some housing units in the state prison. California’s governor basedon Proposition 57 proposal focus was to help reduce the prison population. In the previous years, California received a federal court order which instructed the state to reduce the mass incarceration of people which is the reason the prisons are overcrowded.

The court discovered that the reason why the state found it difficult to sustain the prison population by providing proper health care to the inmates is due to overpopulation in the state’s prisons. Thus, to comply with the federal court orders, the state took some initiatives to reduce prison populations. Some of these initiatives include using the contract prison facilities as places to house inmates and constructing more prison capacity. The governor proposed in that effect that there should be the realignment process which involved removal of the inmates fro, Mississippi and Arizona contract facilities and vacates them to CDCR prisons. Legislative Analyst’s Office, on the other hand, agreed partially to the governor’s proposal and declined the part that involved closing down the Arizona contract facility (Soderborg et al., 2018). Consequently, this allowed the state to increase its net savings and increase the compensation costs for inmates allocated to facility maintenance jobs.  The legislature gets to decide what initiative serves best interests.

Employment opportunities rendered to inmates fall into three; California Prison Industry Authority (CaIPIA), Inmate Ward Labor Program (IWL) and other jobs. The CaIPIA issues vocational training and tasks to inmates and funding of this program happen through the selling of goods and products created by the inmates. IWL employs the inmates on repair projects within the prison facility and other jobs focus is on the daily activities of the prison’s operations such as clerical support and maintenance of facilities. The state’s governor proposed a $1.8 million fund in the 2018-2019 budget to raise the wages for other jobs inmates to equalize with those of CaIPIA and IWL (Soderborg et al., 2018).However, the Legislative Analyst’s Office counter-argues that the implementation of this proposal would attract unintended consequences due to reduced IWL and CaIPIA inmate laborers. Among the results of the project is the reduction of the number of products and services purchases made through transactions operations of CaIPIA.

Lastly, the video surveillance proposal at California State Prison brought promoted the need to install video surveillance in particular housing units, CDVR house inmates in restricted house units, temporarily, for inmates that either committed serious crimes or those whose presence in the less prohibited areas pose as dangerous. Security Housing Units are the restricted housing units used to hold the inmates for more prolonged periods while Administrative Segregation Units are for shorter sentences (Soderborg et al., 2018). However, the Legislative Analyst’s Office concerning the governor’s proposal suggested that implementation of the video surveillance at the restricted house units in California State Prison should wait on the assessment of video surveillance installation at High Desert State Prison (HDSP) is done. The governor proposed the allocation of $1.5 million from the 2018-2019 budget.

Based on all these proposals made by the governor concerned with the state correction systems I conclude that these proposals are excellent strategies that would assist California State Correction System to decongest prison population and make the state correction system more effective. The idea that the governor wants employed to reduce overcrowding by using realignment it is a useful course of action since it will ensure more net savings for the state. The reason why this is an excellent idea is that the net savings can get used to raising the wages for the inmates in maintenance jobs within the prison facilities. The idea that the installation of video surveillance at restricted house units at California State Prison should wait upon completion of the HDSP similar project is excellent. Based on the fact that they are same projects it is better for California State Prison to watch the effectiveness of installing video surveillance if it would address the specific issues that need to get handled. Thus, preventing the waste of resources due to premature evaluations.

Reference

Drew Soderborg, D. (2018). Governor’s Criminal Justice Proposals. Retrieved from https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2018/3762/2018-19-crim-justice-proposals-022818.pdf

HOENE, C., & GRAVES, S. (2019). Budget – California Budget & Policy Center. Retrieved from https://calbudgetcenter.org/issues/budget/

Sholkoff, R. (2019). ‘A major step forward’: California passes criminal justice reforms in 2018. Retrieved from http://www.dailycal.org/2018/11/29/a-major-step-forward-california-passes-criminal-justice-reforms-in-2018/

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