Faced with a two-month deadline to produce a plan that meets court-ordered prison population reductions, California state officials admit that the long-term projection is for prison growth and that they exaggerated the number of low-level offenders eligible for transfer to county jails.

A three-judge federal panel gave the state until January 7, 2013, to figure out how to cap its overcrowded prisons at 112,032-they are meant to hold 81,000 inmates-in order to provide proper medical care and living conditions. A recent report by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation projected a prison population of 128,606 by the June 2013 deadline.

The state, which has already reduced the prison population by 27,000 inmates during the past year, argues that it can provide that care without meeting the court's demands.

In making early projections about how effective its prisoner reduction plans were, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Matthew Cale said in March that 47,000 inmates in 2011 served sentences of less than 90 days. New realignment regulations would shift those inmates to local jails and relieve prison overcrowding, Cale said. At the time, Cale also said the state was on track to meet the court directive, principally because of the high number of low-level offenders.

But California Watch reports that Cale misstated the number of inmates who served short sentences and that only 26,283, less than half his figure, churned through the system in 2011. “The 47,000 number was produced for the secretary and found to be in error,” Corrections spokesman Jeffrey Callison told the publication. Cale resigned his post last month, effective November 11, to take a job as director of the California State Association of Counties.    

The state prison population peaked at 173,312 in 2007, shortly after the federal courts took control of the prisons' $1.5 billion health care system. Court-appointed overseer Robert Sillen called the Corrections system “broken beyond repair,” including but not limited to “medical records, pharmacy, information technology, peer review, training, chronic disease care, and specialty services.”

He said the care failed to meet constitutional standards of decency.

-Ken Broder

To Learn More:

Fewer Prison Inmates Eligible for Transfer to County Jails (by Michael Montgomery, California Watch)

Even after Realignment, Prison Projections Rise (by Paige St. John, Los Angeles Times)

Fall 2012 Adult Population Projections (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) (pdf)