Posted on 04/20/2004 5:34:04 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - After months of scathing reports and hearings detailing shortcomings in California's correctional system, a flurry of bills designed to spark reforms began moving through Senate committees Tuesday. One of the most controversial requires the attorney general to review allegations of employee conduct in state prisons, potentially second-guessing local prosecutors such as those in San Joaquin County. The district attorney's office there declined to file charges against California Youth Authority employees internal investigators say beat two youths and filed false reports about the January incident.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office already is reviewing that decision to see if local prosecutors abused their discretion. His office objects to being required to make initial charging decisions, in part because they don't have the money, testified Special Assistant Attorney General Scott Thorpe.
"God forbid you found out someone broke the law and you might have to do something about it," retorted Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco. "As I remember it, your boss is pretty good at grabbing funding."
The measure passed the Senate Public Safety Committee, 4-1.
Other measures advanced through the committee by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, include barring release of confidential reports during investigations; settling a lawsuit over parole revocations; and requiring the Youth Authority to create a transition program for youths released from state facilities.
Romero teamed with Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Daly City, to advance two other bills that grew out of the series of hearings they led into the youth and adult correctional systems. Those bills would make public reports by the prison system's inspector general, and increase supervision and tracking of internal investigations.
Speier advanced bills insulating the inspector general from politics with a 10-year term in office and a protected budget, and requiring corrections officials to establish a code of conduct Speier said would combat the current "code of silence."
A bill by Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, would set standards for when inmates must be paroled. While Vasconcellos criticized the Board of Prison Terms for acting arbitrarily, his measure is opposed by major law enforcement organizations.
The Department of Corrections would have to develop ways to predict the likelihood that individual inmates would commit new crimes, under a bill advanced by Sen. Charles Poochigian, R-Fresno.
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On the Net:
Read SB1676, SB1731, SB1640, SB1642, SB1352, SB1400, SB1342, SB1431, SB1522 and SB1715 at www.sen.ca.gov
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