California should close 5 prisons to save money after releasing 25,000 inmates, analyst says
California should close five state prisons to capture savings from a shrinking inmate population, the Legislative Analyst’s Office recommended Thursday.
Combined with the planned closures of youth prisons, closing five adult institutions would save the state $1.5 billion per year by 2025, according to the report.
The recommendation, based on inmate population figures, follows Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement earlier this year that he plans to close two state prisons. The first will be Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, which the corrections department plans to close in September.
The state’s 35 prisons hold 21% fewer inmates than they did just before the coronavirus arrived. The inmate population dropped to 97,700 inmates by the end of October, the report says, as the corrections department released non-violent inmates and those who were near the end of their sentences to help manage the coronavirus.
Crime also dipped during the pandemic, according to the report. Voter-backed changes to state sentencing and probation laws over the last decade will help keep the prison population at around 100,000 inmates, the report says, while acknowledging “significant uncertainty” in the estimate.
The state spends about $16 billion per year on corrections. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s budget this year is $13.4 billion, while related programs and offices spend the rest.
The budget effects of the coronavirus have accelerated Newsom’s plans to start closing prisons, reversing a decades-long trend of building new ones in the state. The state projected a $54 billion deficit in the spring. While revenues have exceeded expectations since then, the analyst’s office anticipates growing operating deficits in the years ahead.
Without changes, the state’s prison spending will keep climbing, driven largely by employee compensation costs, the report says.
California correctional officers make an average of about $87,000 per year, not counting overtime, according to an LAO analysis of Human Resources Department pay data. The prisons also employ a range of health care, administrative, maintenance and custodial workers.
The system’s average cost per employee reached $158,000 per year in 2019, up from $110,000 per year in 2011, according to another report from the analyst’s office.
Their total compensation is on track to increase by another $2.5 billion by 2025, the report says. Closing five prisons would keep the spending growth to $1 billion.
Closing an institution is one of the few ways to save a lot of money within the system. Twelve of the oldest prisons need $11 billion worth of repairs, while the other 22 need $8 billion worth of work, according to a study the state commissioned.
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 4:38 PM with the headline "California should close 5 prisons to save money after releasing 25,000 inmates, analyst says."