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The Legislature convenes Monday for a special session to try to fix the state's broken prison system amid powerful competing pressures that demand reform but, at the same time, make sweeping changes unlikely.
Those pressures are both political and practical.
There is pressure on the prisons themselves, which are bursting with inmates -- more than 170,000, or almost double the intended capacity. Thousands of prisoners are sleeping in double- and triple-bunk beds in gymnasiums.
There is pressure on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, after vowing to stand up to the powerful prison guards union, has come under scathing criticism recently for allegedly cozying up to the union in a bid to enhance his re-election prospects.
There are money pressures. Schwarzenegger's prison reform plan carries a $6 billion price tag at a time when the state faces an estimated $5 billion deficit next year.
There is pressure on prison officials from reform advocates who want greater emphasis on rehabilitation. Seventy percent of inmates return to prison within three years, experts say, the highest recidivism rate in the country -- and a major contributor to overcrowding.
And there is pressure on the Legislature to show that it is capable of managing a seemingly intractable problem -- in the face of federal judges and court officials with sweeping powers to act unilaterally if lawmakers do not.
At the same time, prison reform has never been a big vote getter.
"It's hard to think of any major California politician who's won an election by getting better treatment for prisoners," said John Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. Lawmakers "know they need to get something done, but on the other hand they are aware of public opinion and don't want to be seen as overly lenient."
Schwarzenegger called the special legislative session in late June, just days after a federal watchdog accused him of reneging on crucial prison reforms. Schwarzenegger came in to office in 2003 vowing to clean up the prisons, but court-appointed watchdog John Hagar wrote that the governor retreated under pressure from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
The 31,000-member guards union is a legendary force in Sacramento politics, having helped elect governors and defeat unfriendly incumbents with millions of dollars in campaign contributions.
Schwarzenegger's prison reversal, the special master added, led to the resignations of two prison chiefs in a span of two months this year.
Although the governor's staff denied the allegations, Schwarzenegger responded by calling the special session to consider a package of reforms. Politically, the move allows him to take credit if the Legislature passes his proposals or shift the blame if it does not.
But politics aside, there is widespread agreement that prison reform can't wait much longer.
"We have a very serious problem on our hands," Schwarzenegger said in announcing the special session. He warned that the federal courts, which in recent years have been scrutinizing the management of state prisons, "may very well take over the entire prison system and order early release of tens of thousands of prisoners."
Schwarzenegger's plan includes building two prisons at a cost of $1.2 billion, constructing 10 "community re-entry facilities" across the state to rehabilitate prisoners before they're released ($2 billion), paying other states to house 5,000 inmates scheduled to be deported once their sentences end and moving 4,500 nonviolent female inmates into community facilities where they can be closer to services and family.
"The point of the special session," said Adam Mendelsohn, the governor's communications director, "is to put a special emphasis on taking up reforms that will create the space necessary to alleviate the overcrowding crisis."
Some criminal justice experts have called the governor's plan a hasty, election-driven response to a complex problem.
Robert Weisberg, law professor and criminal justice expert at Stanford University Law School, was more generous, calling it "a starting point in the conversation."
Weisberg, who directs Stanford's Criminal Justice Center, said the governor's emphasis on new prison facilities may be warranted but needs much more analysis.
More important, what Schwarzenegger and others are neglecting, Weisberg said, is the huge effect that California's parole system has on overcrowding. Nonviolent parolees, he said, are routinely sent back to prison for technical violations of their parole terms.
One study found that 10 percent of California prisoners cycled in and out of prison at least six times over a seven-year period.
"I think there is only a small core of state legislators," Weisberg said, "who are interested in this and aware of it."
The timing of the special session in the midst of the governor's re-election effort could complicate reform efforts.
As he campaigns against Democrat Phil Angelides, Schwarzenegger is negotiating a new contract with the prison guards union. The CCPOA has yet to decide on an endorsement but is prepared to spend millions of dollars on the race.
Schwarzenegger's dilemma is this: Offer too generous a contract, as his predecessor Gray Davis was accused of doing, and he would likely face charges of trying to buy off the union. Or fail to reach an accord and the union could work to defeat him.
Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Legislature may be reluctant to hand Schwarzenegger a victory on prison reform before the election.
"There's a great deal of politics wrapped up in solving the prison crisis," said Lance Corcoran, the CCPOA's chief of governmental affairs. Contract negotiations, Corcoran added, are not going well so far.
"We're at a standstill," he said. "We're having difficulty even developing ground rules with the state."
As for the governor's call for a special session, Corcoran said: "There is some talk that it is nothing more than a political exercise. We remain cautiously optimistic it is more than that."
One legislative leader, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, indicated on Thursday that he's not expecting sweeping reforms in the next several weeks.
He was skeptical of the governor's proposals, saying, "I haven't seen anything right now that looks to me like a reform plan. ... The problem is I think there's a little too much thinking on the run."
But Perata and other legislators face a real possibility that court officials will take matters into their own hands.
It has already begun to happen: Robert Sillen, the federal receiver who in February was handed control over the prison health care system because of substandard care it has been providing, suggested to MediaNews last week that he would unilaterally seize state funds for two new prison hospitals if lawmakers don't agree to build them.
"We're not dependent on the state," he said.
And a federal judge last week ordered the Schwarzenegger administration to present a proposal to the Legislature for 550 more mental health staff members in the prisons.
Meanwhile, overcrowding continues to escalate. James Tilton, secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the state is on track to run out of prison beds by mid-next year.
"The fact is," Weisberg said, "the Legislature has had almost nothing to say on these issues in recent years, and they're going to have to get involved."
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