Ailing Prison System Finds Friend in Criminologist

The messages are rarely short. After decades of watching California corrections slide into disarray, Petersilia has lots to say.

What's remarkable, says the renowned criminologist from UC Irvine, is that important people inside government are willing to listen.

For the last 15 years, those who managed the nation's biggest prison system mostly ignored outside experts. The bureaucrats knew their business; they needed no advice.

But this is a different day. For 15 months, Petersilia has been advising the man in charge of fixing the state's dysfunctional prisons, Corrections Secretary Roderick Q. Hickman.

With her blend of academic smarts, diplomatic skills and real-world know-how, Petersilia has been embraced as a sort of guru who can help California fulfill one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's most ambitious mandates: creating a corrections system that corrects, rather than merely locks up, lawbreakers.

That mission is anchored in the belief that today's approach -- producing parolees who typically stumble and return to prison -- is failing taxpayers and convicts alike. Unhappy with such results, most states are charting a new course, acknowledging that helping prisoners make the delicate transition from cell to sidewalk is an investment in public safety.

After decades spent studying parole, Petersilia knows this turf well, and she has been hired to help California rethink its approach. It is an opportunity she relishes. But change, she warns, will not come quickly.

"This is not rocket science; it's harder than rocket science," says the pragmatic 54-year-old mother of two grown sons. "It took us 20 years to create this monster. It would be foolish and dangerous to assume we can fix it overnight."

The pace of Petersilia's schedule belies her own axiom. On any given day, she rises at 3:30 a.m. in Santa Barbara, often hopping a flight to Sacramento for a prison powwow. She lives her life as if there is no time to lose. Because this, she says, is a rare moment for which her entire career has prepared her.

Born in Pittsburgh, Petersilia is the third of four daughters of an Air Force general who moved his family hither and yon before retiring in Pacific Palisades. An effervescent brunet, she attended Santa Monica High School, where she was a cheerleader and self-described "party girl" who nobody figured would go on to earn a doctorate.