Prison Health Care Official Predicts Setback in Reforms
California's prison medical receiver Robert Sillen on Tuesday said that prison reform legislation signed into law in May will set back by up to five years his efforts to bring the prison health care system up to constitutional standards, the Sacramento Bee reports.
The legislation (AB 900), backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and lawmakers, seeks to reduce inmate overcrowding by building 53,000 new beds and expanding rehabilitation services.
Sillen in a speech to the Sacramento Press Club said, "Before I started, I said this could be done in five years." He added, "Six months later, it was five to seven years. Since the passage of AB 900, it's seven to 10 years."
In a report filed on May 15 to U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, Sillen said the bill will not provide enough new clinical space to meet the added inmate capacity (Furillo, Sacramento Bee, 7/11). Henderson last year appointed Sillen to oversee health care reforms to state prisons (Myers, "Capital Notes," KQED, 7/10).
Bill Maile, spokesperson for Schwarzenegger, said the governor "will continue to push forward to implement AB 900." Maile added that Schwarzenegger and state corrections officials "are committed to making improvements in the delivery of medical and mental health care in all of our institutions."
Assembly member Todd Spitzer (R-Orange) said Sillen "doesn't have any respect for the legislative process." He added, "I think it's fair to say we want a showdown with" Sillen (Sacramento Bee, 7/11).
The Legislature this week also has moved to secure funding for Sillen's proposed construction of a new medical facility at San Quentin Prison, the Sacramento Bee reports.
Sillen backed legislation (SB 943) by Sen. Mike Machado (D-Linden), which would have provided about $146 million in revenue bonds to fund the project, but Republican lawmakers pushed for the construction to be financed using bonds approved earlier this year to fund a larger prison construction project.
Rachel Kagan, a spokesperson for Sillen's office, said that the receiver's office is "glad the Legislature has found a way to fund" construction of a new medical facility at San Quentin (Furillo, Sacramento Bee, 7/12).
In other prison health news, Sillen this week said his staff is investigating the deaths of four California inmates serving their sentences in out-of-state prisons, KPCC's "KPCC News" reports.
Nearly 400 California inmates are housed at out-of-state facilities to help reduce prison crowding in California.
The KPCC segment includes comments from:
- Sillen; and
- Seth Unger of the Department of Corrections (Small, "KPCC News," KPCC, 7/11).
A transcript and audio of the segment are available online.
Capital Public Radio's "KXJZ News" also reported on the investigation.
The segment includes comments from Sillen (O'Mara, "KXJZ News," Capital Public Radio, 7/11).
A transcript and audio of the segment are available online.
Summaries of an editorial and opinion piece addressing prison health care appear below.
- Fresno Bee: "California's prisons are in such a mess that the state has essentially given up on a solution to overcrowding and the many related problems such as poor medical care for inmates," a Fresno Bee editorial states. "Even when prison officials try to act, they are stymied by the Legislature," according to the editorial. "It's long past time to solve the prison problem, but don't expect the governor and Legislature to change their pattern. It will take a court order to reform California's prisons," the editorial concludes (Fresno Bee, 7/11).
- Lois Davis, San Diego Union-Tribune: Improving the prison health care system would benefit the overall population in part because released inmates with untreated illnesses "strain the already overburdened public health care system in California," Davis, a senior policy researcher at RAND, writes in a Union-Tribune opinion piece. Davis calls for health care reform proposals "to include funding for community organizations that work with the ex-offender population," noting that increasing enrollment in health insurance and prevention programs could provide a substantial public health benefit to the state (Davis, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/12).