California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

California Department of

Corrections and Rehabilitation:

It Fails to Track and Use Data That Would Allow It to More

Effectively Monitor and Manage Its Operations

September 2009 Report 2009-107.1

CALIFORNIA

S TAT E A U D I T O R

The first five copies of each California State Auditor report are free. Additional copies are $3 each, payable by

check or money order. You can obtain reports by contacting the Bureau of State Audits at the following address:

California State Auditor

Bureau of State Audits

555 Capitol Mall, Suite 300

Sacramento, California 95814

916.445.0255 or TTY 916.445.0033

OR

This report is also available on the World Wide Web

The California State Auditor is pleased to announce the availability of an on-line subscription service. For

information on how to subscribe, please contact the Information Technology Unit at 916.445.0255, ext. 456,

or visit our Web site at bsa..

Alternate format reports available upon request.

Permission is granted to reproduce reports.

For questions regarding the contents of this report,

please contact Margarita Fern¨¢ndez, Chief of Public Affairs, at 916.445.0255.

Elaine M. Howle

State Auditor

CALIFORNIA STATE AUDITOR

Doug Cordiner

Chief Deputy

Bureau of State Audits

555 Capitol Mall, Suite 300

S a c r a m e n t o, C A 9 5 8 1 4

September 8, 2009

916.445.0255

916.327.0019 fax

w w w. b s a . c a . g o v

2009-107.1

The Governor of California

President pro Tempore of the Senate

Speaker of the Assembly

State Capitol

Sacramento, California 95814

Dear Governor and Legislative Leaders:

As requested by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, the California State Auditor presents this audit report

concerning California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation¡¯s (Corrections) impact on the state budget.

This report concludes that Corrections fails to track, maintain, and use data that would allow it to more

effectively monitor and manage its operations. Specifically, Corrections¡¯ expenditures increased by 32 percent

in the past three years to $10 billion; however, its ability to determine the impact various factors such as

overcrowding, the transition of the health care function to a federal court-appointed receiver, escalating overtime

costs, and the presence of aging inmates have on the cost of its operations is limited by a lack of information.

Furthermore, despite rising costs for incarcerating inmates, Corrections does not have sufficient information to

identify how much specific inmate characteristics contribute to these costs and how changes in Corrections¡¯

operations would affect expenditures. For example, housing, security, and support are the largest contributors

to the cost of incarceration, but the number of custody staff associated with specific populations of inmates¡ª

which are not tracked by Corrections¡ªdepends on the security and custody levels of the inmates as well

as various institutional considerations. Custody staff costs include $431 million paid in overtime during fiscal

year 2007¨C08; however the cost to recruit and train new correctional officers, combined with the significant

increases in the cost of benefits in recent years makes hiring a new correctional officer slightly more expensive

than paying overtime to those currently employed by Corrections.

Nearly 25 percent of the inmate population is incarcerated under the three strikes law, which requires individuals

to serve longer terms. By comparing the sentences these inmates received to what they might have received

absent the three strikes law, we estimate that the increase in sentence length for inmates incarcerated under the

three strikes law will cost the State $19.2 billion for the additional time these inmates are sentenced to serve.

However, our analysis does not consider various factors that depend upon inmate behavior, including credit

earned toward early release and recidivism¡ªthe likelihood that an inmate will return to prison for committing

another offense.

Additionally, while Corrections¡¯ budget for its academic and vocational programs totaled more than

$208 million for fiscal year 2008¨C09, its system for accessing, processing, and tracking inmate educational data

is extremely inadequate, and therefore it is unable to determine the success of its programs. Finally, the use

of telemedicine is in the early stages and although the receiver plans to transition additional medical care to

telemedicine, progress in doing so is impeded by a manual scheduling system and limited technology. Without

systemwide improvements, it is unlikely that significant amounts of additional care will be provided via this

delivery method.

In a subsequent report, we plan to provide additional analysis of some of these issues including the size and

additional costs of specific populations of inmates incarcerated under the three strikes law, information on

medical specialty visits, and additional information related to vacant positions for custody staff.

Respectfully submitted,

ELAINE M. HOWLE, CPA

State Auditor

California Department of

Corrections and Rehabilitation:

It Fails to Track and Use Data That Would Allow It to More

Effectively Monitor and Manage Its Operations

September 2009 Report 2009-107.1

California State Auditor Report 2009-107.1

September 2009

Contents

Summary

1

Introduction

7

Chapter 1

A Lack of Accurate Data Complicates Identification of Specific

Characteristics That Affect the Average Annual Cost Per Inmate

25

Recommendations

57

Chapter 2

Without a Current Staffing Plan Based on Inmate Needs or Adequate

Data, Corrections Cannot Effectively Allocate Resources or Ensure

That It Is Meeting Inmate Education Needs

59

Recommendations

67

Chapter 3

Telemedicine Expansion Is in Its Infancy

69

Recommendations

74

Appendix A

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Average

Inmate Cost by Institution Based on Average Daily Population for

Fiscal Year 2007¨C08

77

Appendix B

Serious or Violent Felonies as Defined by California State Law

83

Appendix C

Selected Programs Available by Institution

87

Appendix D

California Prison Health Care Services¡¯ Progress in Implementing

Recommendations for the Telemedicine Program

93

Responses to the Audit

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

97

California State Auditor¡¯s Comments on the Response From

the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Prison Health Care Services

99

103

vii

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download