SACRAMENTO- Plans to build thousands of new prison beds for women
were rejected today when the Assembly Public Safety Committee
rejected AB76, even after the bill's it's author, Assemblymember
Sally Lieber (D-Mountain View), stripped thousands of new prison
beds for women from the bill.
"This is a great victory for those locked in California's women's
prisons and anyone who cares about real solutions to California's
prison crisis," said Marina Sideris of Californians United for a
Responsible Budget (CURB), a statewide coalition who opposed the bill.
In January 2006, Gov. Schwarzenegger announced that the CDCR had
identified 4,500 people in women's prisons who didn't need to be
there. Instead of developing a plan to release them and provide
transitional services, the CDCR proposed building 4,500 new beds in
urban mini prisons, called Female Rehabilitative Community
Corrections Centers.
"Building more prison cells isn't the answer to prison
overcrowding. Building smaller prisons isn't the solution to having
women in prison who don't need to be there " said Susan Burton of A
New Way of Life from Los Angeles. "It is time to move our focus
and our tax dollars away from prison construction and towards
rehabilitative solutions."
"A truly 'gender responsive' policy would start by discharging the
4,500 people the CDCR identified as no longer needing to be in
prison," said Vanessa Huang of Justice Now. "It's fiscally
irresponsible to spend taxpayer dollars to expand a system that's
devastated families across the state. Instead of wasting money
locking up more Californians, we should be investing in the public
resources independent of the criminal legal system that women and
transgender people need to keep our families and communities whole
and intact."
The defeat of AB 76 also spelled the end of plans to institute a
"Female Offender Reform Master Plan," which had also concerned many
advocates. "Leaving thousands locked up in Chowchilla after the
CDCR has determined they don't need to be there isn't the answer.
The Legislature needs to find ways to get people back to their
children, back to their communities, and out of prison," said John
Lum of CURB. "We urge the Legislature to lead us in the right
direction by ensuring that prisons are not the only place where
Californians can receive services."
Shachie Day, a woman currently imprisoned at Central California
Women's Facility, said this is a crucial opportunity for
legislators to both enable "more free world staff providing
services like counseling and job training that is actually useful
for finding work on the outside" and "build more sober living
homes, rather than small prisons. Sure, these services would take
money. But they're a lot cheaper than the economic and social costs
of prison expansion."
Advocates for people in prison relayed opposition to the new prison
beds in AB 76 from over 3,300 people in California's women's
prisons.
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Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) is a broad
based statewide coalition of over 40 organizations committed to
curbing prison spending by reducing the number of people in prison
and closing prisons.
