Plan Puts Female Inmates in Centers by Their Families
SACRAMENTO — Radically reshaping their approach to women prisoners, Schwarzenegger administration officials plan to move 40% of the state's female inmates out of their cells and into neighborhood correctional centers.
Most would probably be housed in Los Angeles County, which sends more women to prison than any other county.
The inmates -- about 4,500 to start -- would be able to live closer to their families and receive education, job training, drug and alcohol counseling, and other help that few now get in California's severely overcrowded penitentiaries.
All of the new centers would be secure facilities run by private companies under contract to the state. Only inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes, such as drug or property offenses, would be eligible. Some prisoners would be allowed to have their children live with them.
The plan, most of which requires legislative approval, reflects a growing consensus among experts nationally that female inmates are ill served by a one-size-fits-all correctional system designed for violent men. If adopted, the initiative would make California a leader among states remaking prison systems to reflect differences between the sexes.
The proposal also offers the state a way to ease the severe overcrowding plaguing the $8.1-billion correctional system.
With the total inmate population at an all-time high of 168,000 -- enough to fill Dodger Stadium nearly three times -- tensions on cellblocks are rising and wardens are wedging convicts into gyms, TV lounges, even hallways. Almost every prison is packed to twice its intended capacity.
The crowding, coupled with a severe vacancy rate in the correctional officer ranks, requires some guards to work as many as six double shifts each month.
By moving 4,500 women into community beds, officials could free up an entire prison for the overflow of male inmates, providing temporary relief while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pushes his proposal to build two new lockups with bond money.
The plan for female convicts is buried in the state budget the governor proposed last month and has not been widely discussed in public. Officials acknowledge that shifting prisoners into community beds may alarm some neighborhood residents.
Resistance also is likely from the powerful guards union, which wields considerable influence in the Legislature and has long been bitterly opposed to the privatization of prisons.
