Pubdate: Mon, 09 Jul 2007
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Page: A3
Copyright: 2007 The Sacramento Bee
Contact:  http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Note: Does not publish letters from outside its circulation area.
Author: E. J. Schultz
Referenced: The Little Hoover Commission report at 
http://www.lhc.ca.gov/lhc.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?244 (Sentencing - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Little+Hoover
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/women.htm (Women)

FEMALE INMATES: JAMMED BEHIND BARS?

Chowchilla Lockups Are at More Than Double Their Capacity, Provoking 
Health Concerns

State corrections officials have crammed hundreds of inmates into two 
already overstuffed women's prisons in Chowchilla -- an influx that 
the state's prison medical czar says could cause health care services 
to "collapse entirely" in one of the prisons.

By moving about 600 inmates from Southern California, prison 
officials have worsened crowding in the state's three all-female 
prisons. And with most of the attention on the state's jampacked male 
prisons, not much relief is in sight.

"Because of the sheer numbers of men, women have just become what we 
call 'correctional afterthoughts,' " said Barbara Owen, a criminology 
professor at California State University, Fresno, and a national 
expert on women's prisons.

Populations at the Valley State Prison for Women and the Central 
California Women's Facility have swelled by 8 percent, leaving both 
prisons housing more than twice as many inmates as they were designed to hold.

About 400 women are sleeping in prison gymnasiums, squeezed side by 
side in bunk beds. At Valley State, the increasing demand for medical 
care forced officials to shut down a preventive care clinic to focus 
on urgent aid.

The prison is providing the care required under legal guidelines, but 
only because medical staff members are working overtime, said Dr. 
Daun Martin, Valley State's acting health care manager.

"We are struggling every day," she said. "We're constantly under the 
gun to make sure that our patients get good care."

The transfers started in April when the state Department of 
Corrections and Rehabilitation shut down the women's wing of the 
California Rehabilitation Center in Norco. The aging facility did not 
have the space needed to properly care for female inmates, officials say.

The transfers, completed in late June, had been planned for a long 
time. But Robert Sillen, the court-appointed overseer of prison 
medical care, said he wasn't consulted enough on the decision and 
that the transfers would have a "severe" impact on medical care.

Medical care at Valley State is "already at a crisis stage" and the 
influx of new prisoners "may well cause the medical delivery system 
at (the prison) to collapse entirely," Sillen said in a recent update 
to a federal judge.

Wendy Still, associate director for female offender programs, said 
Corrections and Rehabilitation has responded to Sillen's concerns. A 
representative from his office now sits in on weekly population 
meetings, she said.

"I think it's important that we work very closely together," she said.

Martin said Valley State needs more medical staff members and more 
vehicles to take inmates to off-site hospitals and clinics.

Sillen -- who has complete control of the prison medical system -- 
has ordered more than 100 vans for all of the state's prisons, and 
Valley State should get new vehicles later this summer, said Rachael 
Kagan, the medical overseer's spokeswoman. Also, Sillen is reviewing 
Valley State's request for 17 more nurses and one doctor at the 
prison, which now has five full-time doctors, six nurse practitioners 
and more than 30 nurses.

"We have massive, massive health care needs," Martin said. Many 
inmates "haven't taken care of themselves. They haven't eaten right. 
They've been prostituting, living on the streets."

Long-range plans call for moving thousands of inmates from the 
state's three women's prisons to several community-based facilities, 
where women would get better access to rehabilitation services, 
corrections officials say.

But the Legislature has failed to pass the proposal, which is opposed 
by unions.

This year's version -- contained in Assembly Bill 76 by Assemblywoman 
Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View -- would have added 2,900 beds at 
community-based facilities, with no more than 200 beds in each 
facility. But Lieber had to take the proposal out of the bill in the 
face of opposition from Service Employees International Union Local 
1000, which feared the bill would result in "privately operated 
facilities that lack proper oversight." Lieber and other supporters 
- -- including the Corrections and Rehabilitation Department -- still 
hope a deal can be cut this year.

The recently approved $7.9 billion prison construction plan mostly 
ignores women. Some 16,000 beds will be added at male prisons, but 
none at women's prisons.

Owen blames the inattention on "the tyranny of the numbers." Of the 
state's 166,171 prisoners, just 11,136 are women.

Yet female prisons are just as crowded as male prisons -- and getting 
worse. About 4,600 more women are imprisoned now than in 1990, 
leaving women's prisons stuffed to nearly double their capacity.

Owen and other experts say the spike is due to stiffer penalties for 
drug crimes.

Nearly 65 percent of female inmates are incarcerated for nonviolent 
drug or property crimes, compared with about 40 percent of male 
inmates, according to a 2004 study by the Little Hoover Commission.

Historically, female prisoners have been treated like male prisoners. 
But research suggests women have different needs.

A majority of female inmates have mental health problems, and four in 
10 were physically or sexually abused before age 18, according to the 
Little Hoover report. Many are the primary caretaker of a child, yet 
the state isolates the women in "large, remotely located prisons" 
with limited access to counseling, the report found.

The result: Half of those released from prison violate parole and end 
up back in prison.

Owen, who consults with the state on prison issues, said Corrections 
and Rehabilitation has a good plan in place but that the "processes 
to implement the plan are very slow-moving." The community-based 
facilities are a key part of the strategy to free more space for 
counseling and drug treatment. But without significant new money for 
the facilities, the department has had to take a piecemeal approach.

Today, about 10 percent of female inmates are housed in 
community-based centers, Still said. The goal is to move nearly 50 
percent of inmates into the centers.

Meanwhile, prisons like Valley State struggle to keep up with the 
growing population. Martin, the health manager, said she's been 
lobbying for modular buildings to provide more clinic space.

"We have to have more space," she said. "We cannot continue doing 
what we're doing and do it well ... without more space." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake