Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor and Transportation

The Senate Budget Subcommitee number five on public safety, judiciary, labor and transportation will come to order. Good morning. The Senate continues to welcome the public in person and via the teleconference service. For individuals wishing to provide public comment, today's participant number is 877-336-4436 and the access code is 725-2315 sorry, the access code is 725-2315 we are holding our committee hearings, and I ask all members of the subcommitee to be present as you are in room 1100 so we can establish our quorum and begin our hearing.

We have five issues on today's agenda covering several key issues in the state prison system, including wages, unemployment, canteen costs, communication and visitation, programming reentry and parole. Most of the items today are informational, and any action items will be held open so no votes will be taken. We will take public comment on all items at the end of the hearing. Before we hear presentation on the issues, consultant, maybe please establish a quorum.

[Roll Call] A quorum is established.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Let us begin with item one, wages and employment. We will begin with CDCR. And we have with us Tracy Johnson, acting warden, Folsom State Prison CDCR; Michele Kane, assistant general manager, external affairs at CalPIA; Rusty Bechtold, assistant general manager, CalPIA Workforce Development Branch; Vera Martin, CalPIA participant; and Kenyatta Kalisana, CalPIA participant. So we will have Ms. Johnson.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Tracy Johnson. I'm the acting warden of Folsom State Prison. Thank you for allowing me to speak on this issue. So, currently, CDCR has approximately 44,000 paid jobs in the institution. Jobs are broken out into a couple of different categories, including support jobs like cooks, dining room workers, custodians, and clerks. That is about 70% of the jobs, and those are the lower pay ranges between eight and 37 cents an hour.

And we also have about 30% of our jobs, which is what we consider like an industry level. Those are the firefighters. We have literacy clerks, offender alcohol and drug counselors, and plan ops positions. So we have plumbers, electricians, carpenters. So the incarcerated persons, they complete a career technical education program, which is primarily in our building trades, and then they receive an industry recognized certification at the end of the program.

These individuals are placed in one of the nearly 2000 plant operations positions or intimate day labor positions that we have actually getting work experience. So the graduates have the same knowledge and skills for the trade that they would equal to, like, a first year apprenticeship in a union. So these are the jobs that really lead to the success upon release. And so these are the higher paid level jobs.

As noted by Secretary McCumber during a previous hearing, CDCR is currently doing a work and pay evaluation. This evaluation is going to analyze the number, the type, the time base and the pay of the jobs within our institutions. So, for example, many of our jobs are considered full time at actually six and a half hours a day. This actually limits the time that these individuals can be programming, going to rehabilitative or education or self help programs.

So we feel it's more advantageous to maybe split these jobs into two halftime positions, making a higher wage, allowing the individual to work three to 4 hours a day. Then they can go and they could take a two hour substance abuse life skills program. Then they can go and take a two hour education class to work on their high school diploma, GED, or a college class. There's even self help programs that they can attend.

So going to a more halftime work model for the support positions and then really allowing more programming is more advantageous. So this is just one component that we're reviewing. We are anticipating that this evaluation should be done in the next couple of months, but we're also evaluating the pay for conservation camp firefighters. We know the benefits for conservation camp firefighters that they bring to the community with wildlife, wildland, fire response, rescue operations.

There's also benefits to the offender with training, certifications, and the ability to apply for state, federal and private firefighting positions. So this is the evaluation that we're doing currently. We should have this done in the next couple of months. So this concludes my presentation. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Okay. For now, we'll go on and then come back for questions. Okay. Next we have. Michele Kane. Yes.

It should light up.

Is it lit up?

It's lit. There we are. It was lit. We're here. Technical difficulties, we're good. Good morning. Chair Durazo and committee members. I'm Michele Kane, CAlPIA's assistant General manager for external affairs. First off, we want to thank you for inviting us to share this valuable information about CalPIA. CalPIA, or the California Prison Industry Authority, has been around for a long time. We have been around since 1947. It was formerly California correctional industries. It was renamed CalPIA in 1983. We are overseen by an 11 member board.

It's similar to almost a corporate board, but many are appointed from the governor, the senate, the assembly, labor. The secretary of CDCR oversees our board. Our mission is to provide rehabilitative job training to incarcerated individuals for successful reentry into the communities. We're just about changing lives. We are about reducing recidivism. Through our partnerships with employers, unions, and with CDCR, we are able to provide those rehabilitative job training to all the individuals in our programs with a goal.

Our number one goal is to make sure an incarcerated individual never comes back to prison and has a livable wage when they get out. We want them to provide for themselves. We want them to provide for their families. CALPIA provides job training programs inside all the prisons. Statewide we provide about 6500 incarcerated individual positions right now, we have 4738 being filled at this point. There is a waitlist for our programs. CAlPIA partners with CDCR in the committee review process and that waitlist is maintained by CDCR.

CAlPIA has some incredible programs and all of our programs and enterprises have industry accredited certifications attached to them. In addition, incarcerated individuals can earn milestone completion credits up to 12 weeks a year. Some of our programs include computer coding. We partner with the last mile. We have Autocad, Revit and inventor. We partner with Autodesk. We have a dental lab. We have optical labs. Participants can earn certifications from the American Board of Opticianry or they can become dental technicians through a productivity training corporation.

We have a braille program where we partner with the Library of Congress and the National Braille Association. We have a commercial dive program. You're going to be hearing from Kenyatta soon. We partner with the associated of Diving Contractors International. Guys in our program at CIM and Chino, they learn underwater welding. Underwater welding. It's amazing. They work out in the Gulf, they work out in the Pacific. They have successful careers. They can get out of prison and earn six figures.

Our healthcare facilities maintenance program, you may have heard HFM, that is very successful. We are at all the prisons statewide right now and the graduates go through a TPC training program. They learn how to clean at a hospital level. We make sure that they learn how to clean bloodborne pathogens, hazmat. They learn all of these skills that they can go out and be successful. We have guys working in hospitals right now, Scripps Hospital. We have guys working in dental offices.

We have women actually owning their own cleaning businesses. We have metal fabrication, welding. We have many in our enterprises learn how to drive a forklift. We have guys working at Costco, Home Depot. They learn that Overton Forklift certification. They get that certification they get a job. It's wonderful. We also have pre apprentice programs. Our pre apprentice programs. They are amazing. We have pre apprentice carpentry, pre apprentice construction labor, pre apprentice roofing, pre apprentice iron working.

With all of our pre apprentice programs, we partner with the trade unions. Once an individual graduates from our program, we make sure that they sign up with that trade union and we pay for their first year of union dues. We also provide their tool belts. We provide them with a new set of tools so they can be successful when they leave. We have 180 positions right now in our pre apprenticeship program and the total graduates from this program, 347 since 2019.

Of course, that was with COVID and all. Now in California prisons, incarcerated individuals can achieve apprenticeships while working for CalPIA. It's through a partnership we have with the California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Apprenticeship Standards, Das. CALPIA has established an apprenticeship system with all CDCR institutions. To earn a completion certificate, apprentices must have a minimum of 2000 to 8000 job related hours of job training. They also have to have 144 hours of curriculum.

As of last month, there are 3250 incarcerated individuals actively registered for CalPIA State Apprenticeship program and 2373 have been awarded an apprenticeship completion certificate by DAS. That is incredible. They can put that on their resume when they get out. Examples of some of those certificates include coffee, roaster, maintenance, mechanic. We even have data entry clerks that graduate with those certifications. Recidivism study I want to briefly highlight the recidivism study. I think we passed it out right beforehand. You should have it in front of you.

This study was completed by the University of California, Irvine. It shows incarcerated individuals who participate in CalPIA. This is the recidivism study. We have fewer rearrest, fewer reconvictions and lower return of custody rates. This study compared those who participated in our programs to those who were qualified to but did not participate in CalPIA. We didn't want to do a recidivism study comparing just CDCR to CalPIA because that's apples to oranges.

We wanted to show this recidivism study that there is a waitlist, these people qualify, and then we can compare those people to that waitlist. And it wasn't just 1020 people. No, we utilized 8600 formerly incarcerated individuals. UC Irvine tracked down 8600 and what they found is if they have this job training, 15% only went back returned to custody. Guess what that bigger number is? 85%. 85% with job training did not come back to prison. That's huge.

The results showed that participation in CALPIA is associated with reduced offending overall and now I spoke way too long. So here's an update of our reentry pre release support as well as our joint venture program. Here is Rusty Bechtold. He oversees workforce development for CalPIA.

Thank you Michele. Here's my mic. Today I'll be providing some information on several workforce development key projects directly related to CaLPIA's joint venture and re entry preparation the Joint Venture program, otherwise known as JVP, is a partnership with California business nonprofits that provide real world job opportunities for incarcerated individuals to gain valuable work experience, job skills, and training to have a successful reentry. The JVP currently has seven active business or nonprofits involved in the program. There are 40 job assignments associated with those JVPs.

The recent Covid-19 restrictions impacted business decisions and accesses to the space and site institutions of recent which created some slowdown to the JVP growth currently. The businesses and nonprofit participants are job areas of electronics and circuitry panels in Chowchilla, modular building construction in Lancaster, e waste and recycling in Soledad, commercial laundry in Solano, crops in Susanville, 3d knitting in corona, and a vertical hydroponic farming set to go in Chowchilla.

The JVP employers shall pay the incarcerated individual employees a wage comparable to wages paid by the employer to nonincarcerated individual employees in the similar work. Net pay distribution is unique for JVP. The individuals in the program are required to pay federal and state taxes. The remaining pay is then distributed as the following: they have 20% for CDCR room and board personal another 20% for personal or local crime victims restitutions and fines. Three, they can put 20% for family and wage garnishments.

Number four, which is a big one, is this mandatory savings account of 20% and the final 20% can be used for institutional personal use. The individual can reenter their community with an average of around $7,800 upon their release from their savings account, plus they also get those real job skills to continue with meaningful employment. Each incarcerated employee pays restitution regardless if they owe it or not. Some of those contributions go back to the local crime victim programs near the institution.

Annually, the JVP program individuals provide an average of about $47,000 a year to those crime victim groups in those areas. Some of the reentry preparation and support CALPIA provides in prerelease, the CALPIA developed the IEP otherwise the Industry Employment program in 2001 to enhance the ability of CALPIA participants to obtain meaningful jobs upon release, thus reducing recidivism and contributing to safer communities. CALPIA requires factory supervisors to prepare and evaluate job skills, experience, education, work habits acquired by these participants assigned to those enterprises.

CALPIA work assignments allow participants the chance to obtain and apply the skills and experience in a real work environment. CALPIA participants also develop a valuable work portfolio that can be used by the parole, parole agents and employment specialists for the job preparation and placement upon their release. Some of the special projects that we've been working on here recently are the civil service job placement.

Govops started the prison to employment initiative, otherwise known as B to E. They asked CALPIA to lead the initiative with CDCR and other state partners such as CalTrans, the California Workforce Development Board, CalHR, and DGS. Our goal is to offer civil service, that is, civil service jobs, to incarcerated individuals just prior to release. We completed two civil service hiring events for the entry level CalTrans positions at a male and female institution. All the incarcerated, not just PIA, were involved in this process.

The team held town halls explaining the process. We set up computers to take exams and apply for these civil service positions, and then CalTrans actually went inside the institutions to hold interviews in person for the final selection. The positive results attained the past two events included 30 CalTran intent to hire letters and currently five have been released and are currently working full time in CalTrans civil service positions.

Due to the success of these prior events, CaLPIA plans to continue these events with the help of our partners and other state agencies. This project leads to the next part that I'm going to talk about and a more permanent, ongoing prerelease job placement. Our entry to employment network. The E to E network objective offers CaLPIA incarcerated individuals an opportunity to make a connection and obtain employment prior to release from prison.

CALPIA continues to lead the way in this institution job search capability and will be the first to offer this method of preemployment connection. It is the mutual desire between Calpia and the Employment Development Department EDD to assist individuals to obtain permanent employment. The e two e network will share an existing EDD platform and database, as we know is called Cal Job services. These will be inside the institution and available to them prior to release.

CalJOBS, again, is a web based job assistant system operating in a secure desktop connection and kiosk at a secure CALPAI location. The network will provide incarcerated individuals access to most CALPIA job tools but will not allow access to Internet based websites, email, direct messaging, and applications. The incarcerated individual will receive full access to EDD's CalJob systems at the time of release.

This full access will allow a seamless transition to receive further EDD services, connect to local American job centers or AJCs, and access to all their own resumes and employer contacts that they developed in their incarceration. CALPIA plans to pilot this e two e network project in July and anticipates to roll out to 13 institutions in the next fiscal year. My final comment here is going to be our transition to employment program, which helps with the reentry part before they're released.

CALPIA's industry employment program, or IEP, that we talked about earlier, developed a process in 2022 just recently to electronically share incarcerate individuals what we call transition to employment. CALPIA is employment documents that I mentioned earlier, training certificates, apprenticeships, pre apprenticeships, work history, et cetera. This development allows the re entry individual and outside support to quickly know skills, knowledge and abilities to help find the right job for the right person. CALPIA started first with CDCR's division of adult parole operations, or as DAPO in Southern California.

For the pilot, we partnered with DAPO agents in providing a more successful reentry program and services by getting that information into their hands. We implemented a statewide model in late January 23. CaLPIA electronically has transmitted over 70 packages to DAPO agents statewide in the first four months of this program. This concludes my presentation, and I appreciate and thank you very much for allowing us to share that information with you today. Thank you.

And CalPIA has hundreds of success stories of our graduates obtaining amazing careers when they leave prison. And that's what it's all about, I'm happy to say that we hire formerly incarcerated and the next person who's going to be speaking right now is a true CalPIA success story. Kenyatta Kalisana, he paroled in 2008 after graduating from our commercial dive program. He worked successfully in California and the Gulf of Mexico as a certified welder and a commercial diver. CalPIA had an opening last year.

We had our senior navy chief retired and we were looking for a dive instructor, and it was really hard to find a dive instructor who wants to teach diving inside prison. And Kenyatta was so successful on the outside and he wanted to give back to this program. We hired him last year. He now works for PIA. He is doing great things, giving back, and I am so proud that he's here to speak to you today. So, Kenyatta.

Thank you, chair Durazo and senators. Yes, I came back to the program just last year, August, and it's been an honor to come back and give back to what started me out in 2008 with the skills that I learned as a commercial diver and welder, I was able to go out and continue my education, welding and getting certified. And I just came out running because I just wanted to gain all the knowledge I could and be the best commercial diver that I could be.

And it took me a minute to first get started because of some of the hoops that we have to jump through dealing with TWIC cards and certifications like that. But I was so determined to continue, and I wanted to get wet is what we call a splash dive. Get in the water, because all the blood, sweat and tears that we put through in dive school, you just don't want it to go to waste. And it's a brotherhood.

So, yes, I was able to go out into the gulf and successfully start my career and continue the career of commercial diving. I was successful enough to own a home, buy a home in the Gulf, which I still own today in Mississippi, and work here with some of my colleagues and some of the guys that came out of the program. Some of them have started their own companies here in California.

And it's just a beautiful triangle to get some of these guys that I'm teaching to continue the network and some of these guys that I went to school with who have started their own companies want to hire us Chino hands. And we have a reputation here in the Gulf, we have a reputation on the west coast as being the nitty gritty divers of the. So it's just one of those things that it's an honor to come back and teach.

We have a lot of stuff going on with the closure of the institution and stuff like that. But that stuff doesn't deter us from keeping the program going because we know what it means to people like myself and incarcerated individuals to get a skill. And this is like no other. This skill is unique because who else wants to get into the water and help build the infrastructure of bridges and dams and power plants and stuff like that that we work on.

It's very dangerous, but it's also exciting. It's something that you can take to your families and have some pride with yourself and supporting your families and making some good money. So, yeah, it's just one of the things that I just love coming to work every day, despite everything else that goes on. And some of these guys, when you're incarcerated in that situation, when you go to dive school, it's like you're not even in prison because it's just such a unique environment that we work in. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Thank you, Kenyatta. Thank you. You can be asking him questions, too, down the line here, another success story before this will be our last presentation, here is Vera Marin. She is a graduate of CalPIA's pre apprenticeship programs at the California Institution for Women. Vera, she is a rock star. She's a mother of six. Yes.

Who climbed her way up the construction ladder as well as the carpentry ladder. She went immediately worked for Southwest Carpenters, and she is promoted from foreman to now she's project engineer for NEF construction in Ontario. So it gives me great pleasure to be sitting next to Vera Salcedo. But now Marin, she just got married, so we switched the name. So there you go. Go, Vera.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the senate. Thank you for allowing me to be here and to share my story. So I was incarcerated. I was sentenced to 13 years of state prison. And with that amount of time, I started wondering how life was going to be once I returned. And I had a lot of fears of going home and not being able to be successful and not being able to have a future to provide for my family. I heard about CalPIA construction program.

Try not to cry. I heard about CalPIA construction program, and I knew I had to get into that program. I never in my wildest dreams imagined a woman, a female, being on the construction industry. But there was an opportunity, and I knew I had to take it. I heard they were felon friendly, and I thought that was my avenue. That was my hope. So I did everything that I could to get to CIW, where the construction program was.

I signed up, and it took me a year to get in. But I didn't give up. I prayed hard and I showed up at the gate every day, just like you would a real job. Showed up at the gate every day and talked to the supervisors there and told them that I wanted the opportunity. I finally got into the opportunity to take the program. I took the construction laborers and I took the construction carpentry just so that I would have more cards in my pocket.

I really enjoy the program. I learned so much. And it wasn't only the basic skills of using the tools and the curriculum, but it was the life skills, the work ethic, and the confidence that I needed. And I knew when I was in that program that that's what I wanted to do. When I went home, I told my family about it. My mom was able to be there for my graduation ceremony. Never graduated before.

I didn't graduate from high school, so it was a huge achievement, to have my mother sit there and to see me be successful, to complete something and give her peace of mind that things were going to be better when I came home. She was taking care of my children for me, so she was my angel. I promised all of them that I was going to make a difference when I came home, and I did. When I got out, I immediately signed up with the union.

Three months later, I received my first phone call that I was accepted into a job. With the union, I showed them my certificate that I earned from CalPIA and I was able to start off at a higher level rather than starting off at the bottom. And from there I started working. Three months out, I got my first job and I haven't stopped working since. I went through my apprenticeship. Thankfully, I had the help of the tools to set me up.

And my first year of dues took off a lot of the weight that wasn't going to be able to meet those needs. And the books that were required for the union. CalPIA picked that up and took that for me. And that was a huge weight because that was money that I could spend towards my children. And I completed my apprenticeship. I earned my journeyman certificate, and I was working as a concrete carpenter, building high rises, building concrete buildings, warehouses.

And then I went to construction management and started working on schools. So we oversee the construction of schools with enough construction. And I started off as a journeyman. I went up to a foreman. Now I'm a project engineer, working my way up to be a superintendent. So I think back all the time, and I loved being able to come and share my story, to let other people know that it's possible.

And it's possible because there was something there for me when I had no hope and no vision of a future. CalPIA changed all that for me. They were the foundation that I needed and the encouragement that I needed and the help that I needed when I got home. And now I could take care of my family, I could take care of my grandchildren. And I earn six figures, so I am able to livable wage, not have to have the worries and the burdens that normally would come without that help. Thank you for your time.

And I told them, just speak from their heart and notice we're the ones with the notes, right? Look at them. So just thank you for hearing about our job training programs. And I'm so glad you allowed us to provide this information because I love sharing. This is the best part of my job. This is why I do what I do every single day. It's the success stories.

And I get to see and interview and talk to the people that make it out of prison that are doing great things. And we need to share that more with the population. We need to encourage people and have that positiveness that just these people are shining lights of what the prison system is all about. They did it. Anyhow, I'm very passionate about this, and you can tell this is my purpose. This is where I have found it. Right? I left broadcasting for this, and I love this.

You're a good broadcaster.

Thank you. Thank you. But left the anchor desk and I somehow ended up in prison. But I love this. This is what I believe in. I know I can see a book. Okay. But anyhow, thank you again.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Really appreciate not only everyone's presentation here to give us a clear picture, but in particular Kenyatta and Vera. Your life story matters because otherwise it's a bunch of numbers and words on reports that are given here. But without the life stories, it doesn't necessarily add up to what we're looking for. So thank you very much and congratulations on every level that you've reached in, in your life. Appreciate you. Okay, members, who wants to go first?

Thank you. And thank you, everybody for being here, but especially the graduates. Really impressive. So I'm intrigued by the joint venture program, which. Interesting, but clearly fairly small. I'm showing 23 total participants across five programs. Is that correct?

Yes.

And so I guess two questions. How does a company first become aware of the JVP, and then how's that promoted and how are they onboarded?

So we take a private sector approach in regards to the marketing of the joint venture program, attending trade conferences, trade shows, cold calling, reaching out to a specific industry that we think would fit behind the wall at the institution. We try to take space and try to match it up with the business.

So we take a private tier marketing approach of trying to get the information out to the private businesses the best way we can in order to get that message out so we can have the conversation. Because usually, as you can imagine, the first two sentences of a conversation about putting a business inside of an institution is very awkward in regards to their premonition about what that looks like and how they would do that. So we try to do a lot of one on one, having a conversation, explaining that, but that's how we market the program. What was the second part of your question?

How do you grow it? I mean, it seems like, it seems like a wonderful concept, but there's 115,000 inmates or something right now. So how can we help you develop this program to some level of scale where it's not only serving those businesses, but providing those opportunities for gainful employment and experience for your inmates?

Having something just like this is the best thing to have to get the word out to explain that. Yeah.

And so what are your plans? I mean, where are you in the sort of the development of this program? What's your carrying capacity or your goals?

Well, as we're probably not five, we're limited by space. And matching the space with a business, like most of the things are inside the institution is if somebody comes to us with 10,000 sqft requirement for light manufacturing, that's just not going to happen because we just don't have the space to put that kind of business. So we have to convert spaces. What's available? Where's the location? That's the part. That's the hard part to try to correct, is trying to match the business to a space.

We might find the space, but it's a 500 square foot closet and they just can't do anything with it because that's the only thing we've got for them in that particular space.

Let me ask you a way. So if you have five current participants, what are your goals? How many applicants did you have to get to those five? Where would you want to be in, say, two years, by way of number of partners and number of inmate participants?

If we were to set out a goal, it'd be something like 20 businesses in two years with approximately 50 to 100 participants in that pro program would be a goal that we've always been shooting for.

Second question. It relates to one of the products that CalPIA produces is eyeglasses, correct? Yes, eyeglasses. And my understanding is you're the sole source provider for medical funded eyewear.

Yes.

And so I've had a couple of meetings recently with practitioners, and I understand there's a backlog. Is that not true?

That is not true.

Okay.

And I can show you all the data we're right now at. We average about a 4.4 turnaround time. And our redo rates, the quality of our products, it's less than 1%. And that is the industry standard. There was a little backlog, like all manufacturing across the nation, across the world, during COVID but we actually hired outside labs to help us with that, to make sure there was a little backlog. But we're now back to that 4.4.

Okay. I appreciate it. I'm glad you corrected.

Yes, we corrected it. So we want this program in place because it helps 420 incarcerated individuals in those optical labs. And that program is so sought after for the incarcerated because they learn how to become opticians. They can partner with the American Board of Opticianery, but they can also learn how to become. And I'm going to, hopefully, I don't butcher the name, optical techs. So we have guys working at Lenscrafters. We have guys working site for sore eyes.

I have three gentlemen working for VSP, where we get our glasses, national vision. So they go on and work at optical labs, and they can have those successful careers. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Newman. I appreciate it.

The record, at least for me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

No, I don't need them on right now. I wanted to go back to a little bit of follow up on his question about, you had said something about space, and that makes sense. Just like in the schools, when they run out of space for the kids, they have to accommodate them somehow. And one of those ways is they've used modulars and things like that. Would that be a helpful approach to trying to create more classroom and training space? Anybody? CDCR?

I'll start the question, and I'll turn it over to my colleague, Warden Johnson, for maybe more specifics about Folsom, since I know you had the opportunity to take a look at that. So as secretary. Sorry, Madeline McClain, Deputy Director for CDCR, as secretary McCumber mentioned in our hearing in early March, that's one of the things that we're looking at right now, is kind of doing that space needs assessment as far as, like, rehabilitative programming and these types of vocational programs.

So that's going on right now statewide. And we're hoping, like I said, in the next few months for that to be completed. And that will kind of pave the way to kind of take a broader, holistic look across all the institutions about what we need. And it may be spreading folks out, it may be doing those kind of targeted things, but that's part of that analysis. And I will turn it over to Warden Johnson to talk specifically about Folsom, since I know we did have a chance to tour that.

Yes, I did. Awesome.

Some space issues.

So thank you. And I'm glad you got a chance to tour before the hearing. So, for Folsom State prison, because we are the second oldest prison in the state, there is definitely a space issue. I mean, my goal as Warden is really to get every offender into a program, and we used every classroom we can get. We've even seen some giant closets that we can convert into some type of programming space.

And we look at programming space from 7:30 in the morning until about 8:30 at night. So we are programming all day, every day and on the weekends trying to get them into either a rehabilitative program, an education program, and we've got dozens of self help programs, so it's trying to get them to program and work all day to keep them from reoffending. So that's really the goal. Our problem is space.

Now I can't say that for every prison and I think the space needs assessment would provide that, but for an older institution like ours, having modulars or additional space and being able to provide more rehabilitator programs would be definitely beneficial.

Thank you. Because it just seems to me that this is the chief reason that we have or the chief responsibility of our system rehabilitation and getting people ready to reenter the working world again. I had a couple of questions for you guys. Okay. Where would you be if you hadn't had access to these programs?

I see a lot of people that have returned home and didn't have the opportunities that I had in there, didn't take the opportunities that I had in there. And I still see them struggling and I try to get them into the programs that we have out here just to give them an avenue. I really believe that if I didn't have CalPIA, I wouldn't have the life that I have now. I wouldn't have the future and the career that I have now for sure.

And while no one likes to be incarcerated, arrested, do you think that probably changed your life?

Yes. I tell a lot of people I didn't realize the prison that I was in before I got arrested and I found so much freedom inside of the prison. And I believe that I was a better person based on the situation that I was in. And the outcome?

The outcome is kind of hard to say, but yeah, I am very grateful for the time that I had to get me out of the situation that I was in before incarceration and just changed my whole mindset around and my whole perception on life and really built me up, not only the CalPIA program, but I said the life skills and I was determined to make a difference and make the pathway not only for myself but for others that come behind me.

Myself, I spent 10 years going through a revolving door of jails and institutions. I've been to prison twice. The first time I went to fire camp Susanville, came back probably about a year and a half and went back to prison trying to what I thought hustling what I thought was the easy money and so thinking I can support my daughter that way and so going back and finding out about PIA and the dive program and all that it has to offer totally changed my view it's like how come I didn't know about this sooner type of deal that's what propelled me to where I'm at today.

Even so I came out of decent I went to college I did all that stuff but we have and I know we're getting into now mental stuff going on but sometimes we get caught up and that's just the way it is so learning some skills with my hands I was able to defeat the odds.

You both have amazing stories and really sheds light on the things we can do to help people who have maybe gone down the wrong path or in a situation that if they don't get the help they need they'll never get out of and so thank you appreciate it.

Well, success stories one after another. So I want to thank you all and congratulate you all for doing that. Just a few questions because as I try to understand all the service and the program is you have the non CalPIA and CalPIA programs. Right. And what are the differences in terms of job training and career development opportunities that you see? And what makes those differences?

So on the page three, on the second table, it talks about 13,000, what they call industry jobs. Half of those are about our CalPIA jobs and the other half are CDCR jobs. So our Office of Correctional Education has a little over 20 career and technical education programs, which are what we used to call vocational programs. And they do a lot of similar programs. We don't have hydroponic farming, but there are things like carpentry, electrical, HVAC, welding.

And now they're actually trying to focus on more of the computer driven, like desktop publishing and network cloud management and things like that. So they're constantly doing a reevaluation of the programs, determine the ones that have the highest profitability during employment. So we do a lot of those education programs to build into plan operations jobs where they can actually get the work experience. And then when they do get released, then they can work with the unions.

And then the other thing is the firefighting jobs with the Department of Alcohol. There's the offender mentor program, which they actually become alcohol and drug counselors. It's a couple of year program and then it's a higher paid job. They can make up to $2 an hour. So there's a lot of those higher paid jobs and that's part of the 30% that we talked about. So with that, we're really trying to focus on gaining more programming as well as education, which is key, and the rehabilitative programs to get the substance abuse and the life skills. Does that answer your question?

And we partner with the trade unions. So with all the unions, we partner with our pre apprentice programs, also with employers. And we have the industry employment program, which is very successful in contacting an employer. For instance, I get emails just from folks that are out need. I need help with this, this I send them to Rusty and his Department.

And so they get them on a list with an employer that's looking for a welder or in the place where they are paroling or they've returned home. So we try to get that connection is so important, right, because we want to make sure that they have a livable wage when they leave prison. And that's what it's all about. We don't want them just making minimum wage. We want them to have a career.

Yes, Josh.

So kind of relevant to that, I think we have in the analysis, we have a list of pay scale and positions in the comparative, like CDCR versus CalPIA. Why wouldn't they be the same? Why wouldn't the pay scales be the same across both kinds of work?

To speak to that. So the first pay scale that you see is the lower level pay scales. Those are the 8 cents to 37 cents an hour. And those are the support jobs. The second table, which is what they call industry jobs, those figures actually are PIA jobs. Like, half of those are PIA jobs. Half of those are CDCR jobs.

We're talking about this page.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes. And so those run anywhere from 45 cents up to 2 dollars an hour. So offender mentor, are those at $2 an hour. A lot of your plant ops positions run about 65 cents to 1 dollar an hour. Literacy mentors, which are your tutors, they can run about the same. So this actual scale includes both.

Am I reading it wrong? So it's not true that a CALPIA position, the same position pays more per hour, or is it true?

It depends on the position.

I see. So then this is a confusing chart. Okay. Appreciate it. So it is not because there is a difference or a distinction being made between the type of program it has to do with the work and not whether or not it's a CDCR sourced job or managed kind of work versus CalPIA or does CalPIA pay more?

Well, we are a self funded program, so we don't take any money out of the General Fund. Does that make sense?

No, that's not my question. It's just like, if I'm an inmate, I assume you probably want me to gravitate toward these more innovative programs, but that might be a good reason. But it seems from our analysis here, it appears that the typical job pays more for a CalPIA position than it does for a CDCR position. Is that true?

No, there's about the same amount. So what we could do is we could take this table and actually split how many of those 13,000 jobs are PIA and how many are CDCR. So, for example, a plan ops job at a lead level, they could be making this pay level one, which is 80 cents to 1 dollar. So about half of the positions in each of these.

So then I just have a bad chart in front.

No, sorry. I apologize. So what we were trying to do is we grouped them together for a reason, is because they make the same. So plant operations positions are similar to the ones that are CalPIA positions and they make the same pay.

Then it's just. This is confusing to us because one is titled CDCR Pay Scale. And the other is titled CalPIA Pay Scale.

And it says includes both CalPIA and industry jobs. So we should have put it probably helpful to put a CDCR industry jobs. That's what you mean.

That's what you mean by industry - means CDCR.

To us might mean something else.

And just for a reference, we had a budget change proposal in 2018/19 that changed the pay scale for plant operations positions to make the pay scales similar to the CalPIA.

So the goal is actually.

Yes, Parity.

All right. But that has not yet sort of worked itself out.

It has.

It has. All right, then this is just a very confusing chart and we can move on.

No. And we can work with the consultant again, it's all about how you slice and dice the data.

Otherwise it seems relevant to conversation. I thought we were having about one set of jobs versus the other, but we're not. This is still edifying. So thank you.

Just a little bit more in terms of the pay scales there. And the top one is all CDCR. Yes, the top chart here. Yes, it's all CDCR.

See, it's even confused the Senator. She is much smarter than I am. So that's proof.

But you catch things. And so with those plus some other number in the lower chart or CDCR. The vast majority, well, at least over half are on the lowest paid. Right. 8 cents to 13 cents per hours. Okay and then if you take the other two at 8000 each, those are 11 on the low end to 24 cents. So anywhere between 8 and 24 cents an hour is the - pretty much the vast majority of the CDCR jobs.

And I have to ask one last question. The 13,000 in this chart is a subset of the 44,000 in this chart, is that correct? In addition to.

It's in addition to.

Yeah, we need a better chart next time.

Yeah. We could provide some additional information. What you're looking at is like, for a job level five. I think this chart actually includes some non paid for jobs in here. But the level five, those are your inmate porters, is that we call in the housing units that do the cleaning. They could be a dining room worker working in the yard. So it's your very lowest level. A level four would be somebody like a Clerk and they want to work up into a higher level job and then get themselves into a program where they can't get into an industry job.

Okay. I just hope next time we have a clear set of data.

In terms of the wage scale, how do you determine the wage scale and how do you decide or who decides? How does this wage scale, does it get adjusted? Is there a routine sort of way of adjusting it? Tell me more about how you end up there and how it can.

So it's built based on the actual position and it's built on the Department of Labor. I think it's occupational transport. I can't remember. They call it DOT, but it's from the Department of Labor standards. And so they do the analysis based on the Department of Labor standards. And that's what builds into each one of these categories, whether it's a labor or if it's a lead person, based on that position, they would put it into specific categories.

As far as the classification?

Yes, as far as the classification.

Not the amount, not the wage.

The wage has been built into our regulations for several years.

You have another question?

It's on the same subject. Okay, I'm sorry, Senator. Eight cents an hour is the lowest level pay for level five labor. Where did that come? Why eight cents versus 20 cents? 30 cents trued up for inflation. Why that number? Especially when a significant portion of whatever money is earned over time is going to go toward restitution, why eight cents?

That was the amount that was determined. And again, it was part of our regulations that went out. And so that's our standard right now. We are funded for the jobs through our annual population adjustment. So there's this base amount that's built in for every incarcerated person for this pay.

So that's based on funds available and how those are distributed as opposed to accounting for inflation over time for instance.

Correct. We call an allocated rate. Or the adjustment is basically the cost to basically house and feed an incarcerated person and for the job. So, yes, it has remained static, and that's what Warden Johnson was talking about earlier, is that wage review that we're working on, and it's kind of reassessing and all the different job types. Like she mentioned that 70% of the jobs are in this lower eight to 37 cent category, and most of them are full time jobs. So maybe it makes sense to, instead of having 50,000 full time jobs, to have 25,000 half time jobs at double the pay so that they can.

Or maybe it makes sense for us to provide you more money so those jobs are meaningful, especially by way of incentivization. Go ahead, Senator Seyarto. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Is the goal of the program to get people that are incarcerated, trained and ready to go out into the world or to focus on how much money per hour you make? Because it seems to me along the lines of what you were saying is if that money is more concentrated, in other words, you raise up the wages, you're not going to create a living wage situation in an incarcerated environment. I have the floor. Thank you.

And so what I would like to kind of ask you is, so if they raised up their wages, what happens to access to programs for the other individuals? Because, I mean, for the prison population, because if that's the trade off, I'll take more access for that. Unless, as my colleague was saying, there was a significant investment by the state to create more wages. And I'm not sure what they would do with that beyond what we're doing with it now.

If I can try to answer this, definitely from a broader perspective. So we want to be cognizant of General Fund resources and so at the same time we want to be able to provide offenders maximum opportunities. Again, I think we've all recognized that our current number of jobs, the makeup and type of jobs that we have, that's been around for years and years and years. And that probably doesn't make sense now in this changed world where we more focus on rehabilitation.

And so what we're looking at is, yes, we're recognizing that wages haven't changed, but we're also trying to be cognizant of General Fund resources and providing offenders opportunities to do both. Think of it as managing a lifestyle. When you get out of an institution, you have to get up in the morning, you have to go to work, maybe you go to school at night. And so it's that bigger, broader look. It's not so much as the wage. While we recognize that the wages haven't changed in several years. So that's the approach that we're trying to take.

Thank you and CalPIA, do you have any thoughts on that?

Yeah.

She pretty much covered it?

She's covered. We're good.

We're good.

Awesome.

And Senator Seyarto, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I do think there's a context here that's interesting. So one of the witnesses actually mentioned the dual challenge or the inmates consideration of programming versus work. Clearly there's a question here about motivation or incentivization and what's the right level of set of incentives?

Not really about wages per se, about motivating inmates to go do work to gain those skills versus the perception that maybe a better use of their time would be programming that gets them an associate's degree or trained for something else that they might do later. But also within that, my understanding, is restitution. Right. So that is the primary source of restitution funds for an inmate, which must be a powerful motivating factor.

And I would think at the lowest level, that's a lot of work versus something else you could do versus at a slightly higher level, you're going to start making a dent on your restitution obligations. So all of these things are probably relevant. And to your point, I do respect the desire not to impact the General Funds, but from our point of view, I think these are important questions.

And I would say in this instance, you shouldn't worry about that because what we're trying to figure out as a Subcommitee here is what are the right sort of balances around allocations that actually satisfy not only your program needs, but get at that larger question about how do we position inmates to make the right choices during their time behind bars. Thank you.

I'm still not quite sure in terms of how the wages are determined and there's a different set. And you said CalPIA is somewhat independent or quasi independent. You have your own board. Some level of decision making is yours alone. So how do we get at this issue? I think that, and I shouldn't be speaking. Maybe we ought to have our graduates here speak on this, but seems that when you make 8 cents an hour and 20 % to CDCR or to room and board, 20% to rest. That was not right.

Sorry. It's 50% to restitution. They don't pay room and board.

50 to restitution.

Yes, 50% to restitution.

20% was the joint venture. Okay, so 50% goes to restitution and then what percentage goes to room or board?

They don't pay room and board.

Okay.

Correct. The balance is for them to use for things like canteen purchases or whatever they would like to use out of their trust account. There are other items that get paid from any deposits in their trust account, like if they have a damaged item or something like that. But generally restitution is the number. Restitution and child support are the number 1 and 2 things.

And the services or the products that are made. Right. They're sold to or they're made for the state. Could you give some examples of that?

Some of the examples. State hospitals, CHP. We work with Caltrans, DMV and CDCR.

To do what? You work with them to do what? What do you do for them?

So we provide some of the goods and services and only to government entities. We don't do private sector. So we're not private prison industry. Does that make sense? We're .ca.gov as well.

I can give you an example. Our old chairs, before we got these new snazzy ones, the big brown chair that you had behind your desk, that was a CalPIA.

And carpenters made the chairs and then we have upholsters. Yes. And I have a gentleman working down at California chair down in Ventura, and he's an upholsterer. So he learned that skill in the furniture operation.

Ms. Kane, is it true that there's still the CalPIA catalog?

Yes.

So state departments, every state department can pull up the CalPIA catalog and purchase things like binders, chairs, desks.

Exactly.

All of that stuff is.

And I want to point out that all of our jobs have industry accredited certifications attached to them. So that is huge. So even somebody in metal fab or license plates, what are they learning? They are learning - they get the Overton forklift certification that I mentioned. There's a lot of certifications. Heavy machinery operator. So they can learn how to work with machines. They can work with their hands. I say a lot of our jobs are the trades that you've seen kind of diminish in the schools, in the education system.

But you see those trades, and those trades are so important because not everybody's going to want to go to college, right? Yeah, my husband didn't go to college, but I did. But not everybody. But that's the job training, the rehabilitative job training that we provide.

Well, first and foremost, the fact that we're creating that opportunity to learn the skills. I think had those opportunities beforehand been available, maybe. Right. Some folks might not have ended up in prison, but once they're there to have the opportunity to do that, I guess I'm just trying to understand the finances behind all of this. And you sell the products back to the state, and so that's a good thing. It's not selling them for profit out there.

But since the overwhelming majority of the CDCR are at such a low level, I'm trying to see what can be done to increase those wages so that there is more incentive. There is more of a sense of I'm getting paid more, I have more to look forward to. I'm not going to be here at 8 cents the whole time that I'm incarcerated. And if it's going to go towards restitution or family or fund savings, that's also an incentive.

And it seems to me that should be part of, but I still don't and maybe won't answer it all right here, if you have a semi short answer to that. Otherwise, I would really appreciate. I don't have a sense of all the finances.

Understood. Let me see if I can try it again in a different way. So yes, CDCR sets the hourly rate, and that's through our regulations process, but that's also governed by how much funding we receive per incarcerated person.

Okay.

So through our annual population adjustment, we receive $20 per person. And that covers like food and it's actually 76. I shouldn't use 20. I apologize. Food and clothing and payment for jobs. It's governed by both things. The rate is set by CDCR, which is governed by how much funding we receive per incarcerated person for that service. So again, I definitely appreciate your comments because it is definitely an issue. And I think we've definitely acknowledged this.

With inflation and the cost of goods and the cost of services increasing throughout the state, I don't want to diminish that in any way. And so we're looking at the wage that is happening right now, but we're also taking a deeper level look, as Ms. Johnson mentioned, is that what benefits the incarcerated person the most? Right. And we're working with inmate family council and trying to get their sense and ideas as well. We're not trying to do this in a vacuum.

And so, yes, is it maybe working a few less hours but making a higher rate so that you can go to mental health programs and do education so that you need those skills before you can move on to a plant operations type position? To get that higher level certification, to either go into a plant ops position or a CalPIA position, for that job certification, you have to have that base level of education and rehabilitation first. So that's kind of that bigger, broader, holistic look that we're taking at jobs and wages. Does that help a little bit?

That sounds great. Yeah. Thank you. And then two last questions. One is, with regards to all the jobs, is there already or a way to get, as you mentioned, the certification? It may not be for the level of carpentry or being a diver, but many of these other jobs, since the overwhelming number are not in the more specialized areas, is there a way of getting some acknowledgment certification in that sense, a certification, even if you're at the labor level or technician level?

Because it seems to me that's also part of the incentive. You have something to show for your work and that your work should be acknowledged in some way, either the number of hours or what you did. Does everybody get some version of a certification?

No, they don't get a certification, but they do get that experience and to mirror kind of real world activity. So it's when you're in an institution and you're working, you have to balance your time, right? You have to say, okay, if I'm going to work so many hours in the morning and you're still learning a skill - I get being a job level five laborer, where you're cleaning a dining room, it's still a skill that is transferable on the outside.

You could go be a bus wait person or cleaning the table at a restaurant. That's still a skill you're learning. While it may not be certified, it's still something that they are working towards and it allows them to work up the ladder to, okay, I'm going to start emptying the trash and then maybe I'm going to move on to this. As I get more experience and I complete my education and rehabilitative programming, those things go hand in hand.

And that's something that CDCR is really trying to do is again, look at all of the pieces in totality and not just isolate them, because to be successful on the outside, you have to balance all of those things and you have to have all of those skills. So I don't know that there is certifications. I mean, we can definitely take a look to see if there is. I don't want to discount it for by any reason.

I say that because especially in the time of COVID and others cleaning, there's specialized cleaning.

So Chair Durazo that for CalPIA. I'm sorry. All of our areas have a certification attached to every one of their jobs. So depending upon their level, obviously, is the level of their certification. But we have hundreds of certifications from general food handling all the way up to a certified welder. So depending upon what job level they're at, we do offer a certification at basic level all the way to the high level for any of our PIA factories and enterprises.

Great. So we do that at CDCR. And just final question for our two special guests, Vera, and, um, Kenyatta is there any specific thing that you would say with regards to all that we've talked about that you think could have been done differently to help you? Anything that would have just helped you better, especially with regards to the training and what led to your being so successful after your release.

Coming back into the prison and teaching and seeing what the individuals are going through that get released, coming out of the program, there's still some hoops that they have to jump through and the reentry programs. Commercial diving is so unique and it's a small industry, which is the good thing about it. And with our program and with me is, I don't just say, all right, see you guys later. Bye.

I have to get involved with these guys on the outside because of my contacts that I've made over the years and all our contacts. So we have a guy that got out and paroled to Susanville, and he wants to dive. So there's no diving going on in Susanville. So he changed his parole and came on down here to Long Beach, is where he's staying, and he's in a halfway house working at Taco Bell. So, you know, I had to get in contact with my guy, Pham, who came through the program, who owns his own dive company, and say, hey.

We got him. He's working at Taco Bell. Let's get him prepared, get him ready. And then one of the things we have to do is they have to go through a dive physical. They have to do this and that and the other, which requires money. They have to have their wetsuits, they have to have that stuff. It's a reentry experience that they have to learn and do that.

And if you don't have a good network or a good home base, someone out there watching, helping you out, it's kind of difficult to continue with that stuff because it requires money. But like I say, if you make the decision, not you want to dive, hey, the guy's working at Taco Bell so he can get up the money and get what he needs so that he can get out of Taco Bell and go dive somewhere.

So we can do more on those services.

Yes, services like that.

So I started off my first position inside of the prison at 8 cents an hour working in the kitchen and had to pay restitution. So it was difficult because my family couldn't take care of me. So I was always on the indigent list and getting the free shampoo and soap that I could. And then working my way up to a lead position in the kitchen, making 24 cents an hour as a lead cook.

And I appreciated all the skills that I was learning. As she said, it was teaching me the skills that I needed - transferable skills to take everywhere and the hard work that paid off of going from8 cents to 24 cents. That was a huge achievement for me having a lead position. And like I said, I heard about the CalPIA program, and it wasn't the wages that encouraged me to get that job.

It was what I was going to learn in that program. I didn't even know it was a pay scale. And so that wasn't my vision, that wasn't my goal. I just wanted to get into the program so that I would have something to help me when I went home. And there was no other programs like that inside the institution.

If there was more programs that helped you with reentry, I'm not saying how to be like a CALPIA program, but more help with the pre entry reentry into society, that would have helped a lot. But knowing that there wasn't anything there, and I've seen a lot of people walk to the gate not knowing where they were going to go, and I've seen a lot of them come back, I didn't want that for me. So I made sure that I made a way to make sure that I had something when I went home, and that's why I chose CalPIA.

Very helpful. Thank you, Senators.

Yes, I have one more question, and I'm sorry to belabor this. We've talked a little bit about wages. I have a question, really about, I guess, management. We've had prior hearings. I've had other conversations with inmates who've talked to attention that relates, as I mentioned earlier, to how they allocate their time programming versus work, where they've said, in the case of work where they have not been given the flexibility to amend their work schedule so they could do the kinds of programming they thought was important for their post reentry plans. So to the warden or to CDCR generally, how are you thinking about that right now?

So as we emphasize work, there's a whole nother sort of body of effort going on around emphasizing programming that they intersect somewhere. Do inmates who have a job, how are their hours determined? To what extent do they have an option of modifying those hours to make sure that they can actually do both work and also participate in the kinds of programming that they think is important?

So a lot of these are based on our inmate assignment office. And so if you have a dining room worker, they will just schedule them for six and a half hours. And the computer system, our strategic vendor management system, if you're in six and a half hours a day, then you can't overlap that with a rehabilitative program. So that's how the scheduling works.

So that's, I think, really the goal of this whole evaluation is to bring that six and a half hour full time job down to about a three and a half, four hour job. That gives them look, if we look at increased pay, that gives them additional funding, but it also gives them the flexibility to go to a GED or high school diploma class, to a community college class, to a life skills or substance abuse program.

And so it really lets them do multiple programs at the same time. So with that flexibility, and we're looking at every single assignment - I've been assigned the lead on the project. We're looking at a lot of these jobs don't need to be six and a half hours. You don't need six and a half hours cleaning a dining room. We could reduce that time, give them a little bit more pay, but really help them to get into the programs that you're.

That is encouraging, because I guess the backdrop of this is, it's not like me. You can't quit. Right? You can't be like, hey, I've changed my mind. I'm not going to work in the dining hall anymore. They're assigned that work. They are paid for that work. But it is challenging to figure out how the day plays out. But you're looking into that, and that's actually quite encouraging. Thank you.

Yeah, I think at the end of the day, I'm more interested in the outcome, like these two people over here, than all the details of how you get there. Because that's why we hire wardens, is to cause that outcome. And our goal is to give you the tools you need to make that happen. The more successful outcomes we have.

That tells me that whatever you're doing, whether it's wages, working hours, or whatever it is, it's working, because if you want that outcome, they do have to get that. And you'll make adjustments on their working hours. And I trust that that's happening. And the way we know it's happening is we have these two outstanding people here telling us that it's happening. So thank you.

Okay, well, we've had a very good conversation here. I thank you all very much. I congratulate you all very much. And we're going to work hard to make sure that CalPIA and CDCR get more resources so that we could have more of these outcomes, because that's really what matters, and that's what we're all looking for. Thank you all. We're going to move on to item two, the Inmate Welfare Fund. We'll have Ms. McClain and from the LAO's office, Ms. O'Neill and Department of Finance, Ms. Mendoza. Mendona. Mendonza. Okay. I never saw that. Never saw that version before. Okay, who wants to begin here?

I'll go ahead. Good morning. Okay, so what I'm going to briefly talk about is the budget change proposal requests. And I know there are other questions surrounding the Inmate Welfare Fund and canteen, so happy to answer those questions as well. But generally, the budget change proposal request before you today is additional expenditure authority of 26.8 million to ensure that CDCR has adequate resources to sufficiently stock and maintain the institution canteens. Generally, the canteens operate in all correctional institutions and generate revenue through the sale of goods.

Funds in the IWF are used to support canteen activities for the benefit of the incarcerated individuals. And these benefits include things like recreational and rehabilitative programming, supporting and supporting family visiting. Due to variance in the annual canteen purchases, CDCR is also requesting provisional language to allow the Department the ability to increase spending authority an additional 5% during the year and the ability to review and adjust the Inmate Welfare Fund authority through an annual technical adjustment.

I just want to make sure, I reiterate here that the proposed increase to the authority does not affect the prices of the goods sold in the canteens. It just allows the Department to purchase those items to restock the canteen using its available funds. Generally, the markup on canteen items has stayed at 65%. Excuse me. And has remained that for quite some time.

The revenue generated from this markup, like I said, is used to cover those costs of staff and incarcerated persons that directly support canteen activities and those purchase of goods. CDCR is in the process of evaluating the markup and anticipates the results of that evaluation to be completed in the early summer. Thank you for the opportunity to present and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have on this.

Great. Ms. O'Neill, do you like to go next? Or Department of Finance? Whoever wants to.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Caitlin O'Neill with the Legislative Analyst Office. We didn't raise any concerns on this proposal, but I'm available for questions.

Thank you.

Cynthia Mendonza, Department of Finance. We have no further comments on this issue, but we're available for questions.

Great. Thank you. Thank you very much, colleagues, comments or questions?

Real quickly, I'm looking at the analysis and there's a census. Incarcerated individuals rely on canteen purchases to supplement the often inadequate food and products supplied to them. There's a footnote and there's a link, but I would assume that is not the point of view of CDCR. That the products provided inmates is inadequate.

Now the types of things that are purchased in the canteen are supplementary to the food and other things that are already provided to incarcerated individuals.

Guess I've got a piece of paper, so I can't click on the link, but I'll look into it. That's sort of an editorial statement there. This is supplemental, right? Okay, I appreciate that.

Yes, Senator.

So essentially what this is saying is price of goods have gone up. Our ceiling cap is preventing you from providing the same amount that you had before. And so unless we raise the ceiling cap of the overage, then there will be less goods in the store.

Absolutely.

In the canteen for folks to buy.

Correct.

Thank you. Yes. Inflation has affected everybody, including our CDCR.

Yes. Okay. A couple of questions on that. How did you come up with the 65% markup rate?

Sure. The 65% markup has been established, and I said it's been the same for quite some time. And it was the amount that was determined because the fund needs to be self sufficient, so it needs to generate enough revenue to cover all of its costs and not rely on any outside source.

Okay. But the fund currently has a reserve of almost $50 million.

That is correct.

If the markup was meant to make sure that the fund was solvent, but you have a reserve of $50 million, what's the plan for that money? And why continue with the markup of 65%?

As I indicated, that's one of the things we're looking at right now. And actually, we're almost completed with - finished with our analysis, and we're going to be speaking again with folks at the institutions and with inmate family council before we even implement anything, because this is affecting those in the institutions and their families. So we want to make sure whatever we do, whatever change that we make is supported by those individuals.

And so I want to kind of highlight that the reason the fund balance jumped fairly significantly over the last couple of years because folks had more purchasing power and there were record deposits into the inmates trust accounts. And so we kind of had a year where we exceeded by far, I think we had a 28% growth in the terms of - in the number of items that we sold, whereas our normal annual growth is around 5%, 6% in the items we sold.

So we definitely recently had a very large increase in our fund balance, primarily due to a couple of years of high spending. And so as soon as we were doing this BCP, this budget change proposal, we started doing that analysis to see what can we do with the markup so that we can spend that fund balance down. But whatever we do, we want to make sure it's sustainable over the long term.

So what I don't want to have happen is reduce the markup to 0% for like eight months and then put right back up to 65. So maybe it's a hybrid, like going down to about 40% that gives incarcerated people and their family relief, but allows us to spend that fund balance down over a very long period of time so that the markup doesn't fluctuate. And so that's something that we're going to approach with. Like I said, the inmate family council groups to make sure that that's something that. Would they prefer that or would they prefer some other kind of option? But we are coming up with different analysis to support that.

Yeah, because having that much money in reserve, I'm not sure what was the original purpose of it, just to have a cushion of that. But it's getting so high.

Yes, again. And that jump in fund balance has just been over the last couple of years. But generally accepted accounting principles usually indicate that you need to keep at least two months in reserves, which is about 16.8 million. So if you take 16.8 million off, it's still not going to argue a substantial fund balance that we need to spend over. But around 17 million should be kept in reserve to cover two months of expenditures. That is standard accounting.

And the amount the markup includes also the cost of staffing the canteen.

Yes. So the revenue that's generated from the markup covers the cost. Both CDCR staff and inmate workers that work in the canteen, it covers their costs, their salaries, basically.

I'm sorry, this is a little blurry. I don't have it exactly. Personnel services. What's that amount? It's a little blurry. This copy here to the chart more clearly.

So it's about 23.5 million.

That's the staff. The canteen.

Correct. Statewide staff supports about 274 state staff and approximately 500 inmate workers.

Inmate. I'm sorry, if you could just quickly.

Sure.

So there's friends outside visitor center contract.

Correct. So yeah, the first item is canteen expenses, if you're looking at the fund condition.

Yes.

And that's 66.8 million. And that is to actually purchase the goods.

That are going to sell.

And then personal services. Again, we discussed the staff costs and then there are other items that are covered, what we call their rehabilitative programming. Innovative programming grants, victim impact grants that are covered through the Inmate Welfare Fund. And so that's what those next few items are. Our friends outside, DRP, innovative programming grants, inmate benefits, things like that. So inmate benefits is things like supplies for visiting the visiting rooms, athletic equipment, things that CDCR does not purchase or is not required to purchase for them.

And pension liability expense. Whose pension is that?

Generally so it's the pension of the workers that are paid out of that fund. So it's CDCR workers, state workers.

So the personnel services that 23 million doesn't - that's not like full payroll cost?

Yes, that's annual payroll.

But in addition to that payroll, there's another pension.

Correct. Of about $500,000. That we keep in reserves for that because we are required to make the payment. They're paid out of this Inmate Welfare Fund. So that right now, if most everyone else at CDCR, they're paid out of the General Fund. And the General Fund covers that pension liability. The same. It's the equivalent.

Yeah. I just thought that all staff. All employees of CDCR were you know by our usual. Right. Memorandum agreements that are negotiated.

Yeah. Correct. So they're paid from the Inmate Welfare Fund. So it's the same MOU type requirements. But they're paid from the Inmate Welfare Fund. So we show that on our fund condition statement. Because we're required to. This fund is audited every year by both state controller's office and the Department of Finance Office of State Audits and Evaluations. So it's a legal requirement.

Okay. Thank you. Yes, please.

Now I'm curious. What's the friends outside visitor center contract to the tune of a couple $1.0 million a year?

I don't know if I have my spreadsheet.

It's the line under personal services.

Let me see if I have it. It's a program that offers. I'm sorry. I'm completely blinking. I apologize.

But it's an outside contract with an outside entity.

Yeah. That comes in and provides services to incarcerated folks.

In addition to. So this is outside of staffing the canteen. This is something else that is included as part of the canteen's funding revenue flow.

So it's an expenditure out of the fund because it is something that directly supports the incarcerated individuals. So it's a contract with an outside group that come in to provide services for incarcerated. Like innovative programming grants. It's the same thing. It's an outside group that comes in to provide cognitive behavioral therapy or any kind of.

And it's funded out of the canteen revenues.

Correct.

And that's provided by a single vendor across the whole system.

I will have to double check that. I am not sure.

Not inexpensive. All right, thanks.

Thank you. So essentially, the canteen program and all of the funding for this particular Inmate Welfare Fund is well funded. You have a good reserve. So that when there are fluctuations, you don't have to come back to us to ask for more money. You can respond to those because some years there's good and then there's some years of not so good. But if you can go in here, everything works. And with this fund, you're able to provide some additional services like we were just talking about. And it sounds like a well run and well budgeted thing. Maybe you can talk to some of our state.

I will have to give absolute credit to my accounting team that run this like I said our Inmate Welfare Fund is audited by both the state controller's office and the office of State Audits and Evaluations. And generally we have zero material differences.

When I say state, I mean the Legislatures. Okay.

I was trying to.

Thank you.

Okay, if there are no more questions, I think we've handled this. Thank you all very much. We're going to move on to item three. This is communication and visitation. And we're going to have Ms. McClain, Mr. Davis, Ms. O'Neil from LAO's office, Ms. Tomlinson, Department of Finance and Ms. Hewitt, Department of Finance.

Ms. Hewitt is unavailable. I'll be here today. Cynthia Mendenza.

Okay.

I would just wanted to check with the Chair. Would you like me to cover free calling first and then wait for that discussion to end and then go into visitation? Or would you like me to do remarks for both write off at the same time.

All right. It's best if you do all of them. Okay. Yeah.

Hello again. I will first start with free calling. So SB 1008 requires CDCR to provide free calling to all incarcerated persons. The request the budget change proposal request before you provides 30.7 million ongoing General Fund and two positions to support the provision of SB 1008. The requested funding was calculated utilizing a mix of actual and estimated call data due to the potential variance of annual calling usage.

CDCR is also requesting provisional language to augment or reduce the annual funding as actual data becomes available, as well as the authority to update funding levels through an annual technical adjustment. Just as a reminder, in addition to free calling, CDCR, through its communications contract also provides 15 minutes of free video calls every two weeks, and the 2021 Budget act included funding for an additional 60 minutes of free voice calling every two weeks and 60 electronic messages.

The funding was reappropriated and CDCR continues to provide 60 free electronic messages per month for each incarcerated person. In addition to the free calling, just generally wanted to highlight that our current phone contract was amended very recently to go on a more tiered structure. So the first 45 million minute are 2.9 cents with tax and between 45,000,070 5 million minute it's 2.2 cents per minute with tax including tax, and then over 75 million minute it's 1.9 cents per minute plus tax.

So our contract was recently amended upon the passage of implementation of SB 1008 and so our request does not include that right now and we will be adjusting it at the mayor revision to account for this change in contract. But generally, free calling is provided to all individuals and they still get the 60 free email messages per month from the previous funding going to visitation.

Recognizing the importance of maintaining family and community connections, the 21 Budget act provided 20.3 million General Fund and 124.1 positions for an additional day of visiting and funding to support the reunification transportation bus program. The contract for the reunification bus program was executed in July of 2022 with service starting in September of 2022. CDCR was still under Covid-19 health and safety protocols during the 21-22 and 22-23 fiscal years and as such provided the additional day of visiting via a 1 hour video visits.

Video visiting allowed for persons who are unable to travel to see their loved ones and for incarcerated persons to witness a variety of life events and experiences that would otherwise be unavailable with in-person visiting, such as child's birthday parties, family pets, and school projects. Video visiting occurs in the same location as in-person visiting and requires computers to be set up on visiting room tables.

CDCR staff must verify the identity of the caller and monitor the video calls during the duration, which provides the same security complement as in-person visits. Due to space limitation and other factors, video visiting and in-person visiting typically occur on separate days. However, I will note that the Department will be switching to three days of in-person visiting in July of 2023, and that kind of coincides with a tablet rollout. Completion of the tablet rollout thank you for the opportunity to present on these issues. Myself and I have Mr. Davis here are here to answer any questions that you might have on these two issues.

Okay, Ms. O'Neill, would you like to.

Thank you. Caitlin O’Neil with the LAO we have recommendations on three different aspects of this proposal, all rather technical in nature. First, with regards to the proposed funding amount, in our review of the Governor's Budget, which was before the Department had renegotiated the contract with the vendor, we found the amount to be reasonable. However, we do note that it was based on limited calling usage data that was collected given the timing prior to the implementation of SB 108.

And also, of course, the contract has been renegotiated since then to a new pricing model. So we recommend withholding action on the funding at this time and requiring updated data on calling usage to be provided at the May revision with the revised proposal. The second aspect that we have a recommendation on is the proposed provisional language. Specifically, the budget includes language that would allow DOF to augment or reduce the budget year amount based on actual or estimated expenditure data.

And we found that this language is unnecessary and limits legislative oversight. And that's because the budget already includes a mechanism for the Department of Finance to augment departments budgets in the event of unexpected cost increases. That's item 9840. It includes 40 million across the state for expected General Fund increases that can be authorized by Department of Finance with JLBC notification in the event that 40 million isn't adequate.

There's a process for DOF to come forward with a supplemental appropriation request, so we do recommend rejecting this proposed provisional language. And third, the Administration is requesting authority to adjust the annual budgeted amount going forward through a technical adjustment. And typically, the technical adjustment process, we find, doesn't afford transparency because it doesn't typically come with backup justification on the methodology or data that was used to submit to make the adjustment.

So we would recommend instead that the Legislature direct the Department to adjust the annual level of funding for this item going forward using the existing population budget adjustment process, and that process through that process, the Administration typically submits methodology and information about usage rates, et cetera, and this would make it.

Having that information would make it easier for the Legislature to understand whether the requested amount is justified, whether there have been any kinds of policy changes or other factors that might affect the need for funding, as well as just to provide oversight more broadly over this issue area. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Ms. Mendonza.

Sarah Tomlinson, Department of Finance. No worries. We just would like to note that the Administration acknowledges the requested amounts were based on historical data and projections and that additional data has become available that could potentially be used for refinement purposes. We look forward to more discussion following the release of the May revision. Additionally, a note on the provisional language. The administration's intent was not to limit legislative oversight, and we are open to working with the Legislature to refine the provisional language as necessary.

Our priority is to have a mechanism available to adjust the amount available for SB 1008 implementation, given the potential that the amount needed to implement the legislation could exceed or fall below projected levels. From a technical perspective, the Administration does not find that item 9840 or a supplemental appropriation would be a viable option for funding augmentation related to SB 1008 costs. We would be happy to share more details on our specific current concerns if that would be helpful.

These mechanisms are typically used for emergency or costs that are unknown at the time of the budget. Are unknown at the time the budget is enacted. It would be challenging to argue that these would apply in the case of enacted legislation, and the Administration is open to working with the Legislature regarding the best mechanism to adjust annual funding levels.

No additional comments. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you all very much. We're going to move on. My colleagues. Questions or comments? I got a few questions, if you would. I think this is for Ms. McClain. If you could talk a little bit more about the tablet rollout in terms of where it stands right now.

Certainly. So the plan is to have all tablets rolled out by the end of the fiscal year?

We have deployed all, but could you lower the microphone?

I apologize.

Thank you.

We've deployed to all but 10 institutions. We're finishing up a couple in April, but the remaining 10 will be happening over the next couple of months before the end of the fiscal year.

Did you mention July? You say the tablet rollout by July?

Yes, sorry. End of June, 30 July.

Okay. That's when all institutions will have them. Okay. And then talk to me some more about the in person and video visitation. How is that moving forward? You mentioned they get an hour free 1 hour free. Is that the no. 1 hour video visitation is 1 hour per how often per weekend.

So there's video calling.

If you can just explain it, because I'm getting it all.

No, it's okay. So there's video calling. That happens on the tablets. And the current phone contract provides 15 minutes of free video calls every two weeks. 15 minutes every two weeks from the tablets. Those are video calls. And then the CDCR has three days of visiting Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And right now it's a hybrid where typically an institution generally will provide two days of in-person visiting and one day of video, 1 hour free visitation. So it's in lieu of that third in-person day.

And that was instituted because of COVID So we wanted to make sure that individuals could still connect with their families. And so it was incredibly popular, the video visitation. And so we went to a hybrid model based on discussions with incarcerated individuals in meet family council. And so now with the tablet rollout concluding in June, early July, we're going to switch to in person three day video visits on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And incarcerated still have the ability to use their tablets at any point in time during the week for video calls, video chats.

But you're going back to the three, correct?

Three? Yes beginning in July in person.

Okay. In July, in person. Okay. And there was a mention of that video and in person visitation require the same amount of staff. Could you explain that?

Correct, I'm actually going to defer to my colleague, Mr. Davis, for that.

Good afternoon. Ron Davis, Acting Deputy Director, CDCR. As Ms. McClain mentioned, generally speaking, we use the same space. There's been a lot of talk about space in our facilities, programming space, visiting space. So we have to use the same space that we use for in-person visiting. And using that space for the video visiting requires the same custody coverage to provide supervision of that space. That's not a normally staffed space. It's only staffed when it's utilized for visiting.

So whether it's the incarcerated persons in the visiting room on the computer doing the video visitation or the incarcerated persons in the visiting room with their loved ones who have come in to visit, we still have to have the same number of staff in there to provide custody supervision for that space.

Okay. And speaking of the spacing, tell me how that is going in terms of finding additional space for the video visitation.

Space within all of our facilities is at a premium. As mentioned earlier, we're doing space evaluations to see what we have. In addition to providing video visitation and in person visitation in those visiting rooms, most of our institutions on non visiting days are providing some type of rehabilitative programming in that space. We're really working to maximize the use of our space. Our education classrooms that during the day are for education, during the evenings may have a college program or some other rehabilitative type program.

We don't have any space that's left unused. Pretty much everything between the hours of 08:00 a.m. To 08:00 p.m. Are being used seven days a week. So we're really trying to maximize that. And that's what that evaluation is right now, is just taking a look at all that space and do an evaluation.

And if you could talk a little bit more about the demand for visits and how that's being handled. I know I'd heard the difficulty that people were having to be able to book their visits there. Was that online, right? Right, yeah. And the difficulty that if you weren't calling in exactly at 06:00 a.m. Or something, 601, it's booked anyway. But I'd rather hear from you.

Absolutely. So initially, when we rolled out the online visiting, the whole state went live at the same time. So you had visitors for every adult institution competing with that same computer program. And just like anything else, you're going to have bandwidth issues. You're going to be waiting in line, just like buying tickets from Ticketmaster, you're going to be waiting in line for your spot. So what we did was we staggered it by a half hour. So the northern region will go live first.

So you're only going to have a third of the prisons that are eligible to book visits. And half hour later the central region comes online and then a half hour later the southern region comes online. That big rush is generally within that first 30 minutes to get it. So what we've found is by doing that, we're having less congestion within the system so people are able to get through. And the complaints have all but gone away since we've gone to that.

But we still continue to work with our stakeholders and get feedback from the inmate family councils. Just trying to make the experience and the process as user friendly as possible.

I appreciate that a lot because it's how we do it right that matters. Absolutely. To them, to the families. I heard issues about the quality of the calls. If you could talk a little bit more about that, the hours and the access to calling, certainly.

So generally, phones are available and Mr. Davis can correct me if I'm wrong. From eight to 11, eight in the morning till 10 or 11 at night. But in the event that there is an issue with a phone, actual wall phone, or a tablet, the current phone contract provider has a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week manned phone line for both incarcerated individuals and their families to call to report any issues.

They have an investigative suite of tools that can narrow down to an actual certain line of a certain phone. So as soon as we hear about these issues, we definitely want to get the actual details behind it so that we can troubleshoot right away. Our offender communication team meets with the vendor three times a week to talk about these types of issues and work through any technical or garbled calls that you have.

I mean, I will note that I think we were notified of one institution that had a week of randomly dropped, intermittent calls. And so they ended up doing, going back and isolating the actual number of minutes, the actual minute when the call was dropped to see if it was like an issue with the handset or the line. And they've since resolved that. So we always encourage individuals and their families to please use the hotline number. There's a poster that's in the visiting rooms.

It's above each phone bank, in every housing unit that has a 1800 number. Actually, it's a 1866 number to call and report these issues. You could also email. Your family Members can email. And so the more information that they provide on around the date and time that the call or the issue that happens, the faster that we can resolve the issue.

Great. Glad to hear that video calls are individuals. Will they receive free video calling on the tablets or. I know video calls cost something like $12 an hour. Could you explain that whole system here?

Sure. That's all part of our phone contract. That includes the emails, the actual physical phone calls and the video calls. So the current contract provides 15 minutes of free video calls through the tablets every two weeks. They get 30 minutes of free video chats per month.

Per month.

And then after that it's 20 on the tablet. On the tablet. And so to use that, to use the tablets, you actually go to a little docking station or a kiosk in a housing unit and you have your set time and you set up your tablet and you connect and you have your video chat again. That's different from the 1 hour in person visitation that happens on the weekends. That is through the tablets. And so that is, again 30 minutes free every month.

And after that it's 20 cents per minute as part of our current phone contract.

Yeah, I think the cost when you go above and beyond. Right. The cost of that can be pretty hefty. At $12 an hour, it would end up being. Does that sound right to you?

Correct.

If we were just talking about the wages.

I definitely acknowledge, but it's not their only form of communication. Again, they have free calling, and that has actually been played out. How much they're taking advantage of it. On average, the last six months of 2022, we averaged about 36 million minute per month. And for January, February and March, we're averaging 71 million minute of just phone calls. So incarcerated individuals and their families are taking advantage of the free calling. Again, video calls, video chats are not the only form of communication.

They are a very helpful tool. We acknowledge that, but it's not the only form of communication.

Great, I'm glad to hear that. And then finally, the Viapath contract, if the law changes or with agreement, can be amended, have you thought of other changes that can be made to reduce the cost to the state?

So, generally the state has a current six year contract, and generally the only things you can amend are for, like, length of time or cost increases or decreases in this case. So we are bound by state contracting laws. So the provider came to us through mutual agreement because they did not have to agree to reduce their rate for us, but they did because it was mutually beneficial for both parties to do so.

So in March of 2021, signed a six year contract with that provider to provide a set rate. And so we are still within that contracting window. And so right now, the rate that we currently have is what will be provided through this contract period. Definitely encourage people to bid when it comes up for rebid, but it's part of an overall package.

So it's not just the rate that's provided to the state, it's also all of the infrastructure, the maintenance, the tablets, the full investigative suite of tools that is provided. So it's not just the rate in our contract, it is a detailed scope of work, which I would be more than happy to provide you from the RFP, if you would like.

If you would like that. Okay, good. Thank you very much, Senator. Yes, of course. I was reading in the report that. We're considering.

In a request for $3 million to go along with that, and you were just talking about the contract that we have existing. Are those going to be in conflict, and is that going to create a potential issue with us having to pay any penalties or anything like that with the existing contract that we have so that 3 million winds up ballooning up to something else?

I'm not certain that's a proposal that is before the Legislature. So we, as the Administration, don't have a comment on that proposal.

So it might be a legal question we need to ask in the Legislature.

Okay, great and an implementation question, I think.

Great. Thank you.

Okay. I think that's moving. We're going to move. Thank you again. Thank you very much.

If I may. Of course. Actually, Senator Newman, I would like to go back to your question on the friends outside contract. Sorry. As I'm sitting up here, my brain.

Guard there, extra credit for keeping me on my toes. I appreciate it.

He's listening to you, by the way.

And I'm listening to you. Okay.

So the friends outside contract provides childcare and clothing if you happen to show up at an institution in inappropriate clothing. They also provide a comfortable place to decompress before and after a visit and assistance with public transportation and links to social services. That's what the friends outside.

And that program is funded out of. The.

Correct.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to.

All right.

You've earned significant goodwill moving forward.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Again, appreciate all of your work. We're going to move on to panel two, and we have a presentation to be made. Mr. Galvin from Ameelio and April Feng, also and Abigail Salim. This is to hear an option for prison communications.

I'll get us started.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Chairperson Durazo and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I am April Feng, the Chief Operating Officer at Ameelio. I'm joined today by our public policy and advocacy manager, Nick Galvin, and our co-founder and CTO, Gabe Saruhashi. I'm here to speak about Senator Becker's budget request to Fund a one-year pilot program for communication and educational technology to be administered by CDCR.

Through this pilot, Ameelio is proposing to provide access to video call, voice call, and e-messaging technology to 10% of CDCR's population, at no cost to the incarcerated. We'd like to briefly talk about who we are as Ameelio give a quick overview of the multibillion predatory prison communication industry that we're working to disrupt, and finally talk about some recent regulatory changes that we believe emphasize the importance of this budget request and pilot program.

Ameelio is a technology nonprofit working to combat mass incarceration by democratizing communication and education technology in prisons and jails. We are currently operating in five states. Our mission is to cut recidivism and sustainably reduce prison populations in the long term. We believe access to all forms of visitation, remote and in person, is essential to successful rehabilitation and reentry, leading to a 22% reduction in recidivism rate, according to decades of research. Placing these resources behind a paywall is counterintuitive to rehabilitation.

However, a paywall is exactly what exists in most prisons and jails in the United States. Today, over 80% of the prison telecom industry is controlled by just two companies, biopath and Securus. This duopoly enables them to charge exorbitant fees, extracting more than an estimated $1 billion a year. Biopath, formerly GTL, is the current provider of phone calls and other communication services at CDCR. Securus, through subsidiary JPay, previously provided tablets to CDCR as well.

The prices charged by for profit companies are so high that one in three families with incarcerated loved ones have gone into debt in their efforts to maintain contact. Rates can go as high as $15 for a 20 minutes phone call. Compare that to the nonprofit like Ameelio would charge, and you begin to understand the sort of inflated price that we're trying to combat. Much to its credit, California already goes far beyond most other states.

As today's agenda notes, CCR currently provides 15 minutes of free video calls and 75 minutes of phone calls every two weeks. While we applaud this, we believe that the proposed pilot can demonstrate the benefits of offering even greater access to free communications at a fraction of the cost under the current contract. It would also allow CDCR to gather usage data for video calls and e messaging when they are completely free. In the future, I want to pass on to Nick to talk about some regulatory changes on the federal level and state level as well.

Hi everyone, again, my name is Nick Galvin and I'm the public policy and advocacy manager. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. We want to highlight some of the recent developments at the state and federal level, which further demonstrate the building momentum around the free communications movement. So, while Connecticut and California are the first states to make phone calls free for the incarcerated, there has since been a groundswell of legislation with similar bills submitted in more than a dozen states in the past six months.

Even if only a few of these efforts pass, it's clear that soon California and Connecticut will not be alone in providing free communication to the incarcerated. However, as more states do begin to offer free communications, if they don't push for reduced rates or look for new providers, their budgets will need to increase to meet the increased demand that we see under these expanded free communication pilots.

Even in San Francisco, the first county that made communication completely free, the county is paying Viapath $90 per device per month. As a nonprofit, our cost for the same services would be half of that at $39. Because of this, we think it's important that California begin to explore new vendors that are mission driven rather than profit driven. Senator Becker's proposed pilot is a great first step in that direction.

Additionally, with the passage of the Martha Wright-Reed Act earlier this year, the FCC has been granted significantly increased oversight of the prison communications industry. This includes the ability to regulate both interstate and intrastate costs, as well as more advanced forms of communication to include video calls and e-messaging as well. The FCC is also expected to issue new rate caps in July 2024, with states only being allowed 90 days to get in compliance.

States who have contracts with for-profit vendors whose rates will almost certainly exceed those caps as they did when the rates were last put in for phone calls, will have to find a way to make up for those costs. It will most likely be either the incarcerated or taxpayers who will be expected to pick up that tab.

An even worse potential outcome is that to save on costs, the quality and availability of these services will continue to diminish. For the reasons outlined today, I hope we have demonstrated the potential value of a pilot program like this, and we thank the Members and the Committee Staff for the opportunity to speak today. We would be happy to answer any questions you might have, and we look forward to being able to potentially serve the State of California. Thank you for your time.

Great. Mrs. Saruhashi? No. Okay. No comments. All right, Senator.

Ok. Kind of almost the same question I asked the other panel. In your past experiences with however many agencies you've been able to go into, did you do pilot projects with them, and did they have existing contracts and were there any conflicts with those existing contracts?

Yes, we did. In all cases they have existing contracts. We either secures or global telling. Now, Viapath. We're able to operate those independently because there was a non exclusivity clause, that there was not an exclusivity clause in those cases. So we were able to operate those services.

So we have to be mindful of that. If they have a current contract.

That's all we've already done the research.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for answering that question. I appreciate it.

Go ahead, Senator.

Yeah. Appreciate the presentation. Also appreciate the work that you're doing. Very admirable that you sort of organize yourselves to solve this problem. This is actually an interesting way for us to approach this particular. What's this is interesting for us. I understand you have a proposal before the State Senate, and maybe you can't answer, but what's the contracting kind of process that we are either entering into or in the middle of? And maybe that's not for you folks, but they do a pilot.

But we don't typically do a sole source pilot directly from the, it's going through the ledge, but from the Subcommittee. Right. So this is kind of new to me. What's your hope here? That we'll have the information needed to include this in the budget I assume?

I can give a first shot at this. So we are speaking to the budget requests that actually indicate that there is a willingness for a pilot. Ameelio is a nonprofit, and we do not obviously need to be the actual provider for this pilot at all. We do like to function as an alternative, as a choice for the state. If we have the opportunity, obviously, to serve the State of California, then we would love.

That. So, Ms. O'Neil, if you don't know, this is sort of new for me. Right. So we do lots of things here, but I don't recall recently hearing from a particular vendor to solve a problem. What's the larger context for a proposal like this, and how do you think about it?

We haven't had the opportunity to review the details of this proposal, of course, because we're hearing it for the first time as well, happy to look into it and provide analysis to you and your staff, Senator. In terms of the broader context, there have been cases I can think of in the past where Budget Subcommittees have approved pilot programs and awarded funding directly to specific organizations to pilot those programs. I'll be discussing one later in my comments on the parole hearing process.

And by that I mean, of course, it was ultimately adopted by the full Committee, et cetera, and Legislature. So I think there have been examples of that in terms of how it interacts with contracting code and the existing contract with Viapath. I really don't think I could comment on that.

I wouldn't expect you, but that's something I think clearly we'll have to figure out.

Yeah, I would imagine. And we're happy to do our best to work with your staff to help address any questions.

Good, because this is truly interesting, but I want to make sure that I have a larger context. So we're either not making a false promise or otherwise making something more complicated than it has to be.

Yeah, clearly we're not right now saying we're going to take action and give a contract out. It was to just expose us to a potential possibility, just to look at prison communications from a different lens. And that was it. So I think our questions should be, how can something like that work?

You have answered my question, and I don't have any questions about technology. I think it's actually wonderful that you're providing an alternative that is both probably better technology, but also immensely cheaper to inmates and their families. So I just want to make sure that I had a context in which to consider how this would be integrated into a larger budget process. So thank you. Sorry to sneak up on you.

Good on segue from that is how are you able to offer such lower prices than you gave examples of the difference in pricing with Viapath? How are you able to do that? It's a pretty significant difference.

Well, the first and I think most obvious answer is, again, we're a nonprofit, so we are offering at cost. We are also developing and deploying our own software. We are not licensing out to others who then might license out to someone else and then passing those costs along to the doc, which is what you see happen in a lot of states with the larger for profit companies.

Our technology is newer, faster, it's more streamlined, and it looks like the technology that a lot of us use in the modern age. And so we have a team. Gabe can speak to some of the technical aspects, but our technology is essentially, we are free of some of the bloatware, the term. You see a lot of extra things getting added on that continue to add additional costs.

We are very focused and streamlined on providing communication, service, scheduling and really just the basics that are needed to provide this really essential service.

And with regards to has to do a little bit with the pilot. In terms of the size of the pilot, how does that get determined? Or I guess is that something that we then ask you to, you or any other company that wants to put in a proposal? And the reason I ask that is because the California prison system is pretty big.

Even though the population has decreased every year, it's still vast. And so is that something that you could scale up to that you could? I know you're doing pilot, so I'm not trying to jump ahead here, but oh, good, do something in a smaller scale versus the size of California's prison is not the same.

Yeah, for sure. And so when it comes to the 10%, it's a number that we actually previously have spoken with CDCR about. We want to set a number that is small enough that allow us to learn a lot of the most important things about serving.

Obviously, California as a unique state, so have a lot of learning, but at the same time also making sure that it's large enough that we actually are making an impact and the learnings that we're getting from the incarcerated folks that we're serving is meaningful enough. And so that being said, we're very willing to work with this Committee or CECR, any of the agencies that are implementing the pilot, to decide if there is a better and more suitable percentage.

When it comes to scaling, our technology ensures that we can scale quite fast. As Gabe mentioned just now, when we're in the State of Iowa, we actually started facility by facility. So in a sense, a pilot as well. And then when it comes to scaling to the state, particularly because our fundamental technology underlying those services, we scale quite fast.

And we were able to expand our team, specifically customer service, so that we make sure folks who have questions utilizing our service can get in touch with us and get their problem solved. And so we scale our team very fast, as well as our technology platform. And so modern technology is built to scale. So that's where we're on.

I'll just add on to that and say that although we're a nonprofit, the way we operate and the way we hire is very much like know big tech for profit that you see out there. All of our technical team Members are from big tech, such as Facebook, Google, all these big companies that have scaled and served millions right now, so we build a technology that can serve an entire correctional space in the US.

All right, well, those are all the questions. Any other comments or questions from our colleagues? Okay, well, thank you. I don't know if there's a final comment you want to make. No? Okay, well, thank you for being here and appreciate your time. We're going to move on now to panel three. Abigail Salim, Empowering Women II, and Karen McDaniel, founder and Executive Director of The Place4Grace. Good afternoon. Who will be starting first? Okay. Abigail. Okay. I don't think you're.

Very well. Thank you. I appreciate you. Senator Newman, good afternoon, esteemed Chair and Committee Members. My name is Karen McDaniel. I am the Founder and Executive Director at The Place4Grace. We have been serving families impacted by incarceration since 2009 at 16 CDCR prisons. I'm here today to discuss ongoing barriers to visiting a loved one inside a CDCR institution. More than 357,000 visits to CDCR institutions in 2019 were made by minor children.

That was nearly a half million opportunities to reduce the already significant trauma of parental and familial incarceration or to further increase the burden of children and families that are impacted by mass incarceration in this great state. It's been noted here today that $20.3 million was set aside for a third day of visiting and transportation to all CDCR prisons. What good is $20.3 million if, once families arrive, they can't get inside the very prison that they have traveled to?

What good is $20.3 million if, once they get inside, they cannot stay for the duration of their visit because they're forced to make choices that no parent should have to make about their child's well being. When I started visiting CDCR prisons in 2007 with my then infant and toddler children, I was limited to two premade bottles for a six hour visit at Calipatria State prison, where temperatures often hover well above 110 degrees during the summer.

My daughter's bottles would spoil, often within hours of us being at our visit, and I would have to make the choice between her hunger and our family's precious time together. Today, my daughter is nearly 17 years old, and those same antiquated policies are still in place. Still only two bottles. Still only three containers of baby food. Still only one change of clothing. Still only one blanket. Ms. Diaz comes to mind, who tried to visit just two weeks ago with her infant child.

She reported that she was turned away because her breast milk was denied, this after traveling 5 hours to have her husband meet their baby for the very first time. We hear countless experiences from families who are continuously faced with these barriers.

Families must leave visit prematurely because their children's clothing has become soiled, families forced to feed their toddlers in nutritious vending machine food such as chips, candy and soda, or not eat anything at all due to broken or improperly stocked machines and antiquated policies that do not allow simple toddler finger foods. We also hear about families limited to one blanket, even in below freezing temperatures and inclement weather. Families are continually turned away for clothing that is clearly allowable, yet a local officer has deemed inappropriate.

Just this week, CDCR released a draft of a visiting poster depicting allowable items and clothing. It immediately caused confusion and dissension across the state amongst inmate family council Members as they shared local policy at each of their prisons that in fact prohibited much of what the new poster depicted. Just to be clear, green dinosaurs as depicted in CDCR's new prison are not allowed at many of CDCR's prison.

This can be verified by Zoe Suarez, daughter of Sandra and Jesse Suarez, who was told to put her green dinosaur in the locker as she cried just last year. California is only one of four states in this country that allows extended overnight family visits, understanding the incredible benefits of keeping families connected. Yet there are no uniform policies regarding allowable items, including linens.

So, for instance, some families are allowed to bring sheets, a blanket, and a towel for their overnight visit, while others are made to use institutional laundry. I would ask if anyone on this panel, on the desk, or in this room would ever sleep on linens that have been institutionally laundered with 3000 other people's laundry. That not only defies health and safety standards and logic, but it most certainly defies any basic standard of dignity for families of the incarcerated.

Allowable items and allowable clothing certainly are not the only barriers to visit. Currently, if you visit with a child, you must present an original, certified copy of their birth certificate each and every time that you visit. If that birth certificate is forgotten, becomes lost or tattered, your visit is denied regardless of how far you have traveled. Those vital documents can simply be scanned and available to visiting staff. It is an undue and unnecessary burden for families to be made to produce documents over and over again.

I would ask where you all keep your birth certificates, certainly not in your car or your purse. You keep them locked away safely. We recently heard from Ms. Fridas, who told us this past weekend I forgot my children's birth certificates. My son is 16 our daughter, 15. All three of us have been visiting since 2010, family visits since 2017. This is the first time I went without our birth certificates, so I was hopeful we would be shown a little understanding and grace.

Instead, we weren't even able to ask and were turned away. Given the incredibly long distances that many families travel to see their loved ones, it is imperative that prison visiting policies are uniform, consistent and based in common sense, not further traumatized families that are already suffering prison visitation policies that dehumanize children and their caregivers only serve to further the adverse impact of incarceration on families and must cease.

CDCR ought listen to incarcerated people and their families who are best able to highlight the barriers to visiting as well as the solution to those barriers. After listening to testimony here today, I would also note that families of Athena incarcerated are also best equipped to answer many of the questions that you have and that I have heard today. It's been very frustrating to sit in the gallery as many of your questions were not able to be answered, but in fact, we knew the answers.

With that, I will turn it over to Abby. Thank you for your time today.

Thank you. Thank you Ms. McDaniel.

Good afternoon Chair Durazo and Members. My name is Abby Salim and I'm co-founder of Empowering Women Impacted by Incarceration.

Just 1 second, the mic is not.

Can you hear me? Okay, great. Sorry. My name is Abby Salim and I am co-founder of Empowering Women impacted by incarceration. I'm also system-impacted and I have been serving the community since 2019. I'm here to discuss the struggles with what families have with connection and calls and tablet communications. Since effective date of Bill 1008 and January 2023, we've noticed the issues with phone calls and tablet communications have increased. The communication issues has always been there. However, today's have been so much more.

We are co-sponsors of the Bill 108 and kept in contact with the families to get feedback on any lingering issues with communications. We utilize our social media platform to get feedback and here are some of the examples that families have run into families from various facilities. All 30 plus have been reported loved ones trying to call about three to five times before it connects or when pressing five to accept the call. There is a long pause before connection and connection.

When connection does happen, the call drops. In my personal experience, just this morning alone when my husband called, I heard no voice and after a five second lag, I heard the operator and another lag pressed five and then another lag and then the call dropped and this just happened just this morning. We have families living out of the country and their loved ones can no longer call an international phone number. Some of the international families have reached out to GTL and have received no response.

We are fully aware of the 866 number that is available for families and email GTL with no response. They've even tried to contact the facilities, but of course the facility will say, please go back to GTL for any connectivity issues. One of the other issues that we run into is in certain facilities, in every yard, there's only one to two phones working, which causes hardly any communication with their loved ones.

So it could be about a week or two before they are able to reach out to their families. When we hop over to the issues with the tablets, the feedback has been reported that they have drop calls, can't connect to video. It has to be done several times to get through with the messaging system and the video chats. There are also certain words that are called flag words that won't let messages get approved.

And some of these flag words are examples of our everyday words, such as black, Starbucks, white, method, target, colors, remember, guitar, entitlement. And these are just a few examples of words that families have reported that will cause their message not to be approved. One of the other issues with tablets is that we're most concerned about is the crossing of lines. The crossing of lines of phone calls utilizing tablets. While a family member is talking to their loved ones, another conversation crosses their line.

The concern surrounding that is, if a child was on the phone with their father or grandfather or uncle, and another party comes in and they're having an intimate conversation, then the child would be able to hear that. So there has been numerous reports of that and it's just really disheartening that it happened. Another issue is that the tablets will say that they have funds, but currently when they send a message or try to make a call, they'll get a message saying they have no funds.

And with the facilities that don't have the tablets and they're using the messaging system that facilities are able to print out their email messaging, a lot of facilities will state that they are not equipped, they have no supplies, or they're out of supplies to print out the messages or emails. So the turnaround time for that is between two to three weeks, sometimes longer.

Another issue that we also heard today about the staggering of appointments, it was actually, I was going to discuss that today is when families making an appointment for video visits or in person visits, we still struggle even with the staggering times all families are not able to make them. Some facilities appointments drop at 06:00 a.m. Within seconds, they're all gone. Video visits are even harder. At times. Families that do get appointments, they don't get their email confirmations until the day of.

And at times the links doesn't even work. This has been an ongoing issue since we transferred over to GTL. We have reports of some facilities not being able to claim their account as a first time visitor due to an error from the facility, incorrect spelling of their names or middle initial not included. The facilities that are the most visited, for example, would be Calipatria. State prison only has 112 slots with a population of 1900 available, which leaves 100 families not being able to get an appointment.

Yes, there is a walk in process, however, not all are able to be accommodated. These are just some of the many issues that families run into. And our goal with SB 1008 was to keep families connected and to continue the bond and efforts of rehabilitation. Due to these issues, the family connections have been minimized and strained. Thank you.

Well, I appreciate very much the work that you do every day and representing the being voices for those families and for our incarcerated. We wanted to have a special panel that zeroed in on these issues. And that's why you're so important in coming to share with us. I just seem. Can you talk a little bit? You might have touched on this is what's it like in the visitation spaces available in the institutions.

So the example that I gave was my co-founder is a visitor at Calipatria State Prison, and she's also a member of IFC. So there's 1900 as a population, and there's only 112 slots available in every yard. So the families still struggle to fight for appointments. She logs in at. I think Southern California is at seven, so all appointments will be gone at 75. And that leaves.

You're thinking about older ladies that aren't tech savvy, that don't know how to get on VSA and make an appointment. And once they learn, they still try, but they still can't get it. So those are the things that we struggle with every week or since COVID happened.

Has it changed better, worse, whatever, since COVID during COVID?

Well, of course, It was worse during COVID but now they created a walk in process. But again, walk in, it's not 100% that you're going to be able to get a visit. So why would I tell my mom, who drove 6 hours away to mom, let's try to get a walk in appointment and then be turned away.

And the hotline, there was mention of a hotline that's available to be able to report all these issues, correct?

Majority of the time. I even try to call the hotline at 1.0 and what they tell me is to go back to the facility. But when we talk to the facility they say you got to call GTL because it's not our issue. Or if my husband calls and the calls keep getting dropped and we have to call GTL and they not. There's nothing wrong with your connectivity and I don't get it. It can't be my cell phone carrier.

That's what they mean by the hotline, Is to call GTL?

They have the hotline that the young lady earlier stated that. There's posters on the visiting rooms. However, when the families utilize it, they ever rarely get any type of responses.

Okay, for you, I know you gave examples, but if you can sort of sum up, do individuals have access to communications when they need them and when they want them?

It's hard at times. Not all facilities have the tablets, so it's hard. Some facilities have in 1 yd, say my husband is in b yard and there are supposed to be six phones, but only two phones are available. So the calls are still very limited. And we don't have tablets so we don't get the messaging action that other facilities do. So it's still a struggle.

Well, we look forward to the tablets getting to you by July. What was said today. Right. Okay, any questions, or comments? Just quick comments.

Thank you. Thank you for being a voice for your community. Thank you for ensuring that we have an additional set of insights. I think it's really important as we consider the work that we're doing. So please do continue in the work that you're doing.

Ok, can I just have someone from CVCR still here?

Thank you for staying, Ms. McClain and Mr. Davis, I appreciate you, all these hours. You heard some of the testimony right now, and so I just want to get a sense from you, give you an opportunity to respond or any comments.

I absolutely appreciate and encourage them to speak up because that's how we fix the problem. So we definitely acknowledge it's not a perfect system. We're not trying to say that it is a perfect system. I will definitely are going to look into the 866 number because I actually tried it myself the other day just before I came to the hearing to make sure, and I was able to get to a live person and have an issue recorded.

So there's a disconnect there and I don't know what it is, so we're going to resolve it. And as I mentioned during my testimony, our offender communications team within our IT services meets with the vendor three times a week to go over these issues.

I'll defer to my colleague, Mr. Davis, but in response to, I think, the comment that was made about the list of items that you can bring to visitation, that is our attempt to standardize across the institution so that we don't have different rules between institutions. And so there is a very detailed list of items that you can bring in. I definitely acknowledge that. If you have anything else you wanted to add on this.

No, absolutely. It's just in an attempt to standardize clothing items that are allowed to be brought in so that we don't have institutions that are implementing their own rules. These are departmental, this is the clothing type that's allowed. These are whatever other items are allowed, just so that it's the same across the board. That's particularly the poster that she mentioned.

I did also wanted to go back to the online, the visiting application again, visits are very popular and that's why we have three days of visiting. And so it is true that visits do get, lack of better term, gobbled up in the first few minutes. But as there's cancellation, we do encourage folks to log back in at another time during the day, because if someone cancels that video visit or that visit, appointment time comes back open for someone to log into.

So I would love to get their contact information. I think that's one of the things that we committed to after the hearing last year where we had heard a lot of stakeholder input, highlighting some of the issues. I think that they are facing is to have these dialogues and discussions with them, and I would definitely hope that they would feel comfortable giving one of us their contact information. So that we can start to work through this.

I think there were actually some changes that were made as of the hearing last year. We definitely completed the transportation bus contract. We looked at providing other healthy options in the visiting rooms because of that discussion that we had in the Committee last year.

Okay. Yeah. And what we want, obviously, to see is the changes are being made for the well-being of those families and those inmates. It is bothersome to hear some of the same issues being brought up over and over and over again. So if I hear it, I'm not in that situation. I can only imagine the families, if we're going to remain true to our commitment to those families, that they have access, that there aren't going to be issues on the whim, somebody's whim, right.

To deny them entrance, especially after they have traveled so far. Those things just seem pretty basic and somehow they're not being addressed.

Understood. And I also wanted to discuss the issue, I think that was brought up about having to bring your birth certificates and other items. So that's one of the things that we're actually looking at, is developing an application within our strategic offender management system to have these items scanned for regular visitors. It's something that we're absolutely looking at. Again, that was something that came out from the hearing last year. So we are hearing you. I don't want you to think that we're not hearing you.

We are hearing you. We are working tirelessly to make these processes better across the state. I think we are very large and it's not always going to be perfect. And we're acknowledging that it's not always going to be perfect. But to the extent that we can minimize a lot of these things that maybe we see happening consistently, then that is definitely our goal.

Yeah. And I'm glad I'll end it with this. The consistency. There's a higher bar in some places. A good higher bar that, for example, the documents. Scanning the documents. That does happen in certain institutions, as I understand it. And so, to have it done in a way that allows families to, okay, if they forget their birth certificate, they can still go in. But if that's happening in certain institutions, then we're talking about making it universal across all institutions.

Exactly. And that's one of the things we're looking at, is an application that can be implemented statewide so that regular visitors can. You can have the birth certificate, the marriage certificate, the things that you need to do the visitation, so they have those on file for an approved visitor so that you aren't carrying those very important documents with you. We fully know just something that we're working on actively right now.

Okay. Well, I know you mentioned it first, but I encourage you to have that direct communication with these organizations of family members. They live it every single day. We don't. And I can only imagine how disheartening it is to have your call cut off or denied entrance after you've looked forward to it with your family. So thank you for staying here. Thank you. Okay, we're now done with issue three. We're moving on to issue four, programming and reentry. Okay.

For issue four, I'll just have you all introduce yourselves as you speak on the issue. We'll begin with CDCR, and you're going to discuss the San Quentin proposal and give us an update on community reentry centers.

Certainly. Madeline McClain, CDCR. So as far as the San Quentin proposal, I feel like I'm just letting you down at the end of the day, we don't have a full proposal before you yet is still something that the Department is working actively on with the Administration. I would just note that as highlighted in the Governor's press conference, obviously what we're trying to do is bigger and broader than CDCR.

And so it's definitely kind of a one of a kind type facility that we're looking to implement here. And so we're asking that we have that additional time to work through that proposal. So I apologize, but we do not have anything to discuss with you today other than the fact that. To say that we'll be releasing it no later than the May revision.

Okay, well, all for not. Ms. O'Neill, do you want to comment on the nonproposal?

I do have some comments prepared. As was noted, the proposal is not available at this point, but based on some broad outlines of the proposal that the Governor discussed at a press conference on March 17, we have prepared some broad kind of questions for the Legislature to start thinking about as it considers those initial components that are discussed in your agenda and were discussed at the press conference, as well as when it receives the details of the proposal.

So the first question is that the secretary has said that CDCR is developing a comprehensive plan to incorporate lessons learned from the Norwegian correctional system into California prisons, and he's termed this the California model. He's also reported that the Department has taken steps toward developing the California model, including implementing pilot programs at three prisons. However, the details of the California model haven't been made public or presented to the Legislature at this point.

In addition, the results of these pilot programs aren't known at this point in his press conference, the Governor indicated that the proposal for San Quentin is tied into this California model. So the Legislature may want to ask, what is the California model and how does the San Quentin proposal fit into it?

The second question is that given that there's many different approaches or possible ways for implementing Norwegian correctional principles in prisons, and there's many different attempts at that being piloted in California as well as other states, and they all look different, these different types of approaches or ways of adapting the principles can be done toward different goals and objectives, and those different goals and objectives could lend themselves to different approaches.

For example, in North Dakota and Oregon, the correctional systems have used Norwegian approaches or principles with the explicit goal of trying to reduce the restricted housing populations. Restricted housing is often otherwise called, sometimes solitary confinement or security housing units, for example. So the Legislature may want to ask, what are the goals and objectives of this proposal?

And then from that it could help the Legislature determine whether the particular approach that is ultimately laid out in the proposal makes sense and whether it agrees with those goals and objectives.

Next, we would suggest the Legislature consider asking how we're stakeholders, or how our stakeholders alters within the Department, within the frontline staff, incarcerated population, and the broader community in the world of corrections in California consulted in developing this proposal, in selecting the goals and objectives as well as this particular approach, including the selection of San Quentin in particular. So, in addition, the $20 million that's being requested or the placeholder amount that's in the Governor's Budget for this proposal has been characterized as planning money.

But the potential full costs have not been discussed at this point. So a key question is, what are the potential full costs of this program, and then for the Legislature, how will the Legislature weigh these potential full costs, given other General Fund priorities in the budget year and in the future, given the budget condition and ongoing cost pressures? Next question going forward, is there a plan to keep the Legislature informed of developments in the initiative at San Quentin?

Given that many of the details are expected to be determined, it seems, by an advisory board that is yet to be convened, how will the Legislature stay informed of developments in the California model more broadly? And then finally, is there a plan for how the state will learn from whatever changes are implemented at San Quentin if this is approved, such as an evaluation study, what baseline data will be collected, et cetera? Thank you.

Just if Department of Finance has any comments, especially with regards to the questions that were just raised.

Sheridan O'Neill, Department of Finance at this time, the Administration does not have the ability to provide specific details. However, we anticipate being able to provide more details after May revision.

Details. You don't even have the general right. I mean, none of that is being presented with us for us here today. So we're just sort of, what do we talk about on this issue? I mean, I appreciate all the thought that you're putting into it in terms of, these are the issues that should be handled or included questions that should be answered in there.

Okay, just real quickly to Ms. O'Neil's point, do you folks have an idea of what is meant by the California model? And it's fair to say mean, this is a work in progress, obviously, but to the extent that we read about these things, we talk about these things. Is there an internal consensus as kind of broadly where we're going, especially around seemingly big changes like the San Quentin repurposing?

So the California model, again, it's derived from the Norwegian model, which it kind of changes the behavior between staff and incarcerated individuals. And so the San Quentin proposal is a piece of, I guess you could say, of the California model. And so it starts, the California model is a separate project. It's something that the Department is working on in terms of getting a governance structure in place and figuring out how we roll that out.

But it's generally changing the behavior between how the incarcerated individuals and staff interact, among other things. But it's just behavioral changes that happen that we've noticed that the Norwegian model has done. It's also been implemented in Oregon, and our folks have actually gone up there to see how that has been implemented up there. It's basically behavioral changes.

I appreciate guess you'd refer to that as the Oregon model and you'd say the Norwegian model, these elements. But if you refer to the California model, it at least implies that it is those elements from these other systems that we have adopted as ours. But that's not yet super clear.

It's still being worked through. It's still being a plan that the Department's working. And again, it started out as a fact-finding mission, going to Norway, going to Oregon, and seeing how they implemented it. And yes, I get correctional system, it's a correctional system, but how we operate is different. And so it's taking those lessons learned and those best practices and figuring out the way to apply them in CDCR.

To be successful, I guess. And I do appreciate Ms. O'Neil's point, which is if we're going to frame things around something called the California model, where there should be a fairly clear initial set so that we understand what we're responding to as opposed to building it with you, but it's fine. And clearly, this is not ready. But these are, I think, really interesting concepts, but clearly very complex, and we will get to them at some point from May on.

And you got funding, consultant funding that was provided last year. What's the status of that? And then whatever you can tell us. I mean, you're not ready with the full proposal, but where in the process are you in that, in coming up with the proposal? And how do you get the legislators involved?

Certainly. So the 500,000 that was allocated last year hasn't been spent. Obviously, when this thought came about, we didn't want to spend money unnecessarily. So it is likely that some of that will be repurposed for this project. So that hasn't been spent. The $20 million that's in the budget was a placeholder amount to get the concept out there, and the press conference was the next step in that.

So as I tried to, the idea is that this new San Quentin rehabilitation center is going to be a bigger effort than just CDCR. And so it's taking in other stakeholders, other state partners, philanthropy groups, looking at incarceration a different way. And so those details are what we're working through right now and will be in the May revision proposal.

Okay, so that's when you expect to have a proposal.

And we're only a few weeks away. So you're almost ready to go, right? It's almost ready to go. And then just one more. In terms of the particulars, there was part of what was, I guess, included or announced as a building, actually build a building.

In May?

Correct?.

Correct.

So I think it talked about repurposing an old Cal PIA warehouse that's not being used anymore.

Not a brand-new building. It's like $20 million.

So it may. So that's part of that evaluation we're looking at now, is repurposing that building or building something new. But again, the idea was that unused Cal PIA warehouse, which I think only has computer programming or in it right now, be repurposed for this broader effort, if that's how it plays out in the overall planning.

So three years ago, I think it was my first year or second year, I did go to Norway, and Secretary Diaz was on that, and the number of individuals, the union officers were in there as well. And it was quite a powerful experience. So I'm glad I had that experience. As you're talking about, the model is to change the relationship between the staff and the incarcerated. It's a very different model from what we've had here forever. And if we could adopt anything like that.

We met the warden from the Oregon prison who had gave us an example of what the cross-training had led to. And it was quite extraordinary from a human point of view. So if that's where we're going, that's a good thing, but it'd be nice to get some details.

And I think what I can provide you and I will go back and get some additional information. But we have implemented some portion of this in our psychiatric inpatient program at Salinas Valley prison. So these techniques and these best practices in this model to that small, very small population to see how it works. And we've noticed that it's definitely reduced on incidents between staff and the incarcerated. It's reduced mental health incidents, and it's reduced rules violations.

And so I will go back and try to get you some additional information. We have implemented that in a small, like I said, very small scale to see how it works. And so it definitely does work.

Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. We look forward to an actual proposal. I think what we're moving on, if you could. Ms. McClain, with regards to the male community reentry program, that's really.

I'm actually going to defer to Deputy Director Kevin.

Good afternoon. My name is Kevin Hoffman. I'm the Deputy Director over program operations for the Division of Rehabilitative Programs. Good afternoon to all of you. We are currently working on expansion of the male community reentry program. We have locations in Stockton, and we're negotiating for that program. We are negotiating for a program in Fresno, and we are also looking at repurposing the FWF facility in Folsom for a reentry program. So that's where we're currently at right now. We're in the negotiating process.

I think the first facility that we'll probably open would be Stockton. It's the one that's most ready to implement. So we're currently negotiating with a vendor for that program. And we actually are going to have a vendor walkthrough at FWF tomorrow to explain our vision there and hopefully get some feedback from those individuals on if they believe it's feasible. We hope they do. There is a similar program called the VTC Ventura Training Center, which was formerly a DJJ institution that has been recreated.

And if you go there, it doesn't even look like an institution. They tore out all the industrial-type seating and things like that, put in wooden chairs and tables, new flooring, new furniture, and it does not resemble a former institution whatsoever. So we're hoping that people can see that vision. It's kind of tough to do when you walk into a former institution, but we believe that it is a good location. There are plenty of job opportunities in the area of Folsom.

We know that there are large industry construction groups that are interested in having a able-bodied people that would come to work for them. So we believe that it could be a good location. And we're still working through the details.

Okay, you've not entered, you said you're negotiating contracts right now. You've not entered into. What's the time frame for entering into those contracts?

My timeline is back there, can I grab it?

Oh, sure.

Thank you. Trying to stay organized. So for, let's see here, we do have a walkthrough, like I said, at Sacramento tomorrow. I think for Stockton, we are hoping at the latest July of next year, but we think we can do that quicker. And Fresno, there was a site identified. However, the site got sold before the vendor could enter into arrangements to buy that property. So they are looking for a property now.

But generally speaking, it's usually a year to a year and a half to implement these programs. We enter into contract. The vendors have time to do any repairs or modifications to the program buildings. We have to bring up staff, CDCR staff, and there's training that has to be done. So generally it's about a year and a half to bring these programs up.

These aren't incarceration, these aren't prisons or jails.

No, generally they're like the one in Stockton was a former elderly home. It's an 82-bed facility. It's actually kind of perfect for what we're looking for. It's in the community. They'll have access to employment, education and resources from the community. FWF was a former facility, but like I said, we have a similar program down in Ventura that we remodified into a program that is a very successful program. And like I said, the building does not look like it used to be an institution at all.

So we think that we can do that at FWF. That's our vision and we hope others see the vision, too.

Okay. And how are you going to handle, we just talked about this for a little bit. Is the culture change that's going to make the model work? Because the physical layout is really important. Again, having been to Norway and seen that, it sort of strikes. It really hits you how different it is just physically. But what really hit heart was this new relationship between the staff and the incarcerated, completely different.

I think in one it was even that the success of the guards was depending on the success of the inmate. That's how they were judged. So that's just one example. I'm sure there's many, many more of the kind of culture change that's going to be needed. I know you mentioned one small example of where you're implementing some changes, but we're going to open up these centers. How will you be ready for that?

So the MCRPs and the CCTRPs, the female version, they're a totally different beast. The culture is much different. You're in the community. You're working with a vendor that basically works with custody staff. It's like a treatment team. These programs are very successful. They don't resemble a prison. They resemble a community program. And like I said, we work with many vendors. It's very therapeutic. There's a lot of groups going on. There's anger management, criminal thinking. There's substance use disorder treatment.

These individuals are allowed to go out into the community, to go to college, to go to church. For instance, there's programs in LA. They take a lot of guys, they go see baseball games, they go see Dodger games. They do that in San Diego. There was just a real. I'm sorry, what did you say? Oh, gosh, that hurts. Oh, yeah. The giants are not doing too well right now. They won it yesterday, though. So they don't resemble prisons whatsoever.

And the custody staff that end up working there assimilate very quickly to understand that this isn't a prison, this is a community program. And these individuals, although it's done through a pass system, everything has to be approved. They do come and go from the facility out into the community. There are lots of resources that come into the facility, community resources. So these facilities are basically bombarded with resources for these individuals, and they do not resemble prisons whatsoever.

So the culture in these community programs is pretty well taken care of. Sometimes it might take a minute when we're bringing up a new program because we do have correctional officers that are in the program, but I have a real good team that puts these programs together.

And that's one of the things we stress from the very beginning is culture change. And we do a lot of cross-training with UC San Diego that they come out and talk about what we're doing, and everybody needs to look at each individual and understand their perspective. So we break down a lot of barriers. But for these programs, there's no challenge with culture, it's good.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Mr. Hoffman, thank you. So the facility we're discussing, it happens to be in Folsom. But it's not co-located with the prisons?

No, it's a separate site. It's over by PIA, to be honest with you.

But I presume it's not simply for formerly incarcerated Folsom inmates, it's for other.

No, it would be for those from Sacramento County and surrounding counties. That's our goal, is to bring in people that are from the communities, the local communities, or were in the local communities. That way, reunification and all of those things are easier done. So they would be from the surrounding communities.

And for that particular facility, I think you said it was a former senior center.

Oh, that was Stockton.

Oh, that was Stockton. Is there a facility identified already in Folsom? A location? It was RFP out for that, or have you already identified it?

So through budget language last year, we were given the ability to negotiate directly with vendors. So we asked for what's called an RFI, a request for information, and then they submit a proposal. A team of individuals will look at the proposal for its feasibility and generally the best proposal submitted. The CDCR would then negotiate with that vendor to provide the services.

Has that vendor in this case been identified already?

Not at FWF. Tomorrow is a walkthrough with the potential vendors, and then they will then submit because we want them to understand the facility, what it looks like, what the challenges could be, and then at that point, we'll show them what our vision is. We have a bunch of pictures from VTC and showing them what it could look like. Then we will ask them to submit a final proposal.

And I believe that's May 22, is when the final proposals will come in, and then we will at that point, negotiate with the vendor that has the best proposal.

If it's possible, it probably would be helpful for us to have some insight on some of the vendors kind of the work that they've done, the programs they've run.

Sure.

So that we can think about that not only as we budget, but also with respect to trailer language that might cover this.

I think we have plenty of documents talking about our programs. There's also the Stanford report that talked about individuals that stay in these programs for a longer period of time, the recidivism rate.

I have no doubt. I'm more interested in sort of the community of vendors that are actually providing these services right now. So we have some insight as to who they are and how they approach these things.

Sure. Would you just, like, a document that shows who they are and what they do? Okay. Yeah, we can do that.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. Maybe we'll see you sooner than later. Panel two, we have coming up here, Ken Hartman from Transformative In-Prison Workgroup. Patine Jackson from the Grip Training Institute. And Manny Thomas from Success Stories.

Okay. Oh, that's the one. Who's--do you all know what order you're going to go in first? Okay. Okay. Well, welcome. Thank you for being here. Go ahead. You just--you keep pressing.

Is it working? That's working. Okay, we'll start over. I'm Kenneth Hartman, the Advocacy Director for the Transformative In-Prison Workgroup, which is a collective of more than 85 community-based organizations that provide rehabilitative, restorative healing programs in all the prisons in California, and they collectively serve literally tens of thousands of folks inside. So it's a very large pool of people in the prison system.

I was also sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, and I served 38 years in the CDCR before Governor Brown commuted my sentence. I've been out about five years now. I'm honored to speak before you today about the Rehabilitative Investment Grant for Healing and Transformation, the RIGHT Grant, Version 2.0, which is the fruit of our continued partnership with Assembly Member Bonta.

We're also grateful to Senator Becker for his support for this ask, and we're excited that this Committee has agendized our request for 25 million dollars, which would be dedicated to program provision inside of the prisons. It's no exaggeration to say that there are years long waiting lists in the prisons for programs that are desperately needed to realize the goals of successful reentry and healing. These funds will create another noncompetitive collective grant program that prioritizes quality programs in all of the prisons.

And even with this, our member organizations will be receiving close to one half of one percent of the CDCR's budget. So it's actually a very small percentage of what the CDCR gets. While I have this opportunity right now, I'd like to address a few issues that I think some of these have come up as we've been sitting here. I'd like to start with the research question.

The reality is there exists years of quality research that demonstrates rehabilitative programming does work to lower recidivism, contrary to what is often assumed, and we'd be happy to share that research with the Committee and be happy to send it to you all if you'd like to read it. The TPW is excited to be working in collaboration with the Lab for Economic Opportunity at the University of Notre Dame.

This will create more high-quality research that we and our member organizations are confident will again provide definitive proof of the efficacy of rehabilitative programs in the prisons. They do work and people do know that in the research community. And then, this has come up quite a bit: the space problem, and I actually had this written before I heard what was said today. Our member organizations let us know over and over again their problems with space to provide programs inside of the prisons.

I know from personal experience--I lived there for 38 years--that there's actually more than enough existing space to allow for a huge expansion in program offerings. The space is often being used for storage or extra offices or any number of less important things. The space to expand and provide more programs is less about space and more about the willingness to use the space that exists. Literally, there's no reason to build anything. There's plenty of space available to run programs.

And finally, last year we were privileged to work with Assembly Member Bonta to create the first version of the Rehabilitative Investment Grants for Healing and Transformation, which made 20 million dollars available to our member organizations for capacity building. Our member organizations are deeply committed to building their capacity to provide more programming. This year's RIGHT Grant will fund those programs. As we recently heard Governor Newsom say, more than half of the people who exit prison return. It is clear that what California is doing right now isn't working.

Please join us in doing something different by investing in transformation, rehabilitation, and healing. This benefits all Californians in and out of prison, and the last thing I'll say before I pass it on is, just for the record, I've been to Norway three times since I've been out of prison. I've toured their prisons. I've met with folks over there, and be happy to answer some questions about some of the things we've been talking about earlier. Thank you very much, and I'll pass it to my friend Fateen.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. My name is Fateen Jackson, Senior, and I currently work for an organization called the GRIP Training Institute as a senior facilitator and trainer. We offer the GRIP Program in several prison institutions within the CDCR system. GRIP, standing for Guiding Rage into Power is a yearlong comprehensive offender accountability and healing program. Its focus is on having incarcerated students process past traumas and purge shame from previous bad acts that led them to prison.

Also, it honors victims and survivors who have been harmed by violence with a dedication of making a living amends to them. It is one of the most transformative violent prevention programs in CDCR in my humble opinion. Before my employment with the GRIP Training Institute, I was a student of the program. I am formerly incarcerated and sadly served over 21 years for a violent offense myself. Early in my 36-year sentence, I began pursuing opportunities for healing and transformation.

There were not many emotional literacy programs available at other institutions at the time. I took the GRIP Program in 2013 while at San Quentin State Prison and it completely changed my life. I denounced all criminal and gang activities to become an ambassador of peace. I became a certified GRIP facilitator while still incarcerated, and now I am going back inside in various institutions to facilitate the GRIP Program as a free person.

Because of the GRIP Program and other rehabilitative programs at San Quentin, I was awarded a sentence commutation myself by former Governor Jerry Brown, and I was subsequently released ten years early. GRIP is not only effective in theory, it is also evidence-based. We have over 1,300 graduates within its ten years of operation, and from those graduates, over 600 has been released, and we have less than one percent recidivism from the GRIP alumni.

Most of the returning citizens are hardworking and maintaining their transformation by giving back to their communities. A note about the GRIP Program from former San Quentin Warden Broomfield stated, he started talking to the men on the yard and could tell that their lives were changed. I asked, 'what was the secret sauce here? What's the most impactful program you've been part of?' And what came up over and over, he said, was 'GRIP, GRIP, GRIP.' This program is the real deal.

Also, CDCR Office of Research authorized an independent academic research review of GRIP, which found that the GRIP curriculum resulted in a profoundly altered sense of agency and responsibility. GRIP students see themselves, and in many cases are identified as well by other incarcerated people on the yard as agents of positive change. Furthermore, it costs much less to provide a GRIP Program to incarcerated people than it is to house them. As you already know, the cost of one inmate per year is roughly around 100,000 dollars.

And while it only costs about 3,500 dollars a year for per student in GRIP, GRIP success to cost efficiency will be tremendous savings for the state. We absolutely need state funding as much as possible to help expand the access of the GRIP Program to all convicted lifers and long-term violent offenders. I believe if we had more financial support statewide, then programs like GRIP can reach every institution in California. So thank you for listening, and I'm totally open for questions.

Thank you. Chair Durazo, other Members, Member staff, thank you for allowing us the space to speak from a real lived experience and to see us. I think often sometimes we're in the shadows and that's been exhibited earlier. I'm seeing questions being asked to folks that really don't know. So the opportunity to be here, to really address something from lived experience, I can't thank you enough for that. My name is Mannie Thomas III.

I'm the Co-Executive Director of Success Stories, a program that helps build safe communities by delivering feminist programming to people who have caused harm. It's a 12-week program. Throughout the program, you will discover what's important to you, whether or not your behavior and how you're spending your time supports that, how toxic masculinity and patriarchy have informed your beliefs and contributed to harmful gender norms, and then you will also be giving tools that will help you overcome those while also developing complex language to express complex emotions and develop feature-based thinking to deal with impulsivity.

I went to the program for the first time while I was incarcerated at the correctional training facility in Soledad in 2016. I later became a facilitator when the program was documented in the CNN documentary 'the Feminist on Cellblock Y,' and began working for the program immediately upon my release in 2019.

I also, like my other two fellows here, was commuted by the then Governor Jerry Brown. I was supposed to be serving a sentence of 32 years of life. I did 15 years, five months. But thankfully, I'm here before you now, and I'm able to give back to my community in ways that I can only do. Being in these positions and being able to receive state funding is extremely important because it's a commitment.

It's a commitment to the state to recognize the work that CBOs are doing and to also know that this meaningful work is effective and it's being supported by our leaders. This work has not only assists folks in personal transformation, but it contributes to public safety and it changes the culture of prisons.

Meaningful and dedicated funding allows CBOs to hire the graduates of their programs to do work not only in their communities, but to be able to reach some of the more isolated community prisons that we have a harder time delivering program at. It also allows organizations like ours to continue programming with alumni and to have resources to give them beyond graduation. Most people also end up giving so much to the communities that they once harmed.

I think that these are important things that should not be overlooked because it's a way that we can continue to not only do work that's meaningful to us, but we're actually exhibiting living amends by continuing to do the work with populations that we know and love. Which leads me to my next point. It is beyond crucial that formerly incarcerated individuals are allowed to do this work.

Even if you look at the preliminary research that our organization has done by the marginal research, it's found that relatability is key not only to participants in order for them to buy in, but to believe in a program's curriculum. Relatability is expressed in two ways. First, the participant's identification with the facilitator's experience, and second, in participating with peers who had similar experience. Also, all interviewees mentioned that they appreciated the facilitator and their peers having faced similar situations to them, like incarceration.

This is extremely important because self-betrayal is real, and when someone can say that this person doesn't know what it's like to be incarcerated, it becomes an easy way out for those who are having a difficult time embracing new information that's pivotal to change. The sad fact is you and I can go into a room of incarcerated individuals and say the exact same thing: coming from me, it's going to mean more.

It also gives them hope and allows them to see what their future is going to look like. One of the things that I've heard just recently was by us going in there and delivering program, individuals said that he sees his future more clearly than he has over the past 21 years, and I don't think that should be overlooked. There are some, as we've talked about, there's been many opportunities today where we've talked about some of the barriers.

Access, I think to me is one of the biggest ones. We've talked about space, but to be honest, the way in which space is used is not utilized to the best of its ability. We've gone through the process where some of our coaches have been in facilities for six months to a year, which means they should have access to receiving a brown card, which then means they don't need staff to be there with them, which opens up that staff to then go do another program somewhere else with somebody else, and they'll come up with arbitrary reasons to why that's not happening.

Also, anytime there's any type of change in administration--I've been dealing with one facility for over two years that every time someone in their administration trains, we have to then resubmit all of our paperwork for clearance, and now it's on their desk for the fourth time. We've been cleared to be in there since 2021 and we're still filling out paperwork. So when we talk about access, that's unforgivable.

Why is it that we're dealing with a two-year delay in delivering program on somewhere that we're already cleared to be? The last thing that I would say is creating avenues for people like us who have the lived experience to be able to go in and speak to a population that we are uniquely not only qualified to do, but that we're passionate about seems to be the common sense thing to do.

Because not only are we giving these folks tools to live a more healthy, well-rounded life and be reintroduced back to the communities that they love, but we're also a real living example of hope and what's possible for them. Unfortunately, when you're doing time behind CDC's walls, the thing that you're constantly reminded of is that you don't any longer have value. You're valueless. You're reminded that you're just a number no matter how hard folks try.

When they see us walk in those doors, that changes immediately, and new things become possible for their future. So I think I just wanted to make sure that I was able to note that today. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak today, and I'm open for any questions that you may have.

I, unfortunately, have to catch a flight, but I wanted to make sure that I stayed through your presentation, and I want to commend you three, but everybody else here and who over throughout this process, come to us and give us the insight that only you can provide. These are big systems. These are big numbers. Your last point is the best one. These are real people.

These are real lives, and if we believe in rehabilitation, but just as importantly, in redemption, we should make sure that we are listening and that we're providing an open mind and funding for the kinds of programs that you are innovating and then delivering and doing so in ways that nobody else can. And so appreciate that. As far as Norway, Norway, Norway, so I'm going to Norway this fall. Everybody's going to Norway. So I'm actually very much looking forward to it.

I spent the last year deliberately trying to spend as much time sort of in and around the system as I can, and I can say, as your average generic guy, you cannot appreciate what it's like behind the walls unless you've been behind the walls. And I am also aware that I cannot fully appreciate what it's truly like to be there because I get to go in and out. And so thank you. And the work continues, and I'm very grateful to have Chair of the Subcommittee and Senator Durazo. We collectively are very committed to finding not only the ideas, but the resources to make these things possible. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Senator Newman. I just have one question that each of you could answer in your own way. When you're able to get, I guess, you figure out a relationship with a certain one of the prisons, and you go in and talk to the warden or you make a proposal--I'm not sure exactly the details of how that happens.

Do you need to work with other organizations as well as your own to make sure that there's a successful--that you successfully provide for each of the men and women that you're working with? There's both being on the inside and the needs while they're still incarcerated, and then there's needs getting ready to be released and then there's needs after they're released. So do you try to go in with the full service of, for, during, after? Do you provide them all yourselves?

What are the models that you represent? Because I suspect it's not just a matter of while you're incarcerated and then when you're released, that's the end of it. That's the end of it all. That's probably the beginning of all the things that are going to be needed to get back on track with yourself and your family. So, any comments about that?

Yeah, I think so. That can look a myriad of ways. We do try to--at Success Stories--we try to make sure that we have many access points, but we also work with others because we allow our participants to tell us what's needed, and if there's resources that we can provide, then we provide them, which is why our alumni network is so powerful, right.

We want to make sure that, okay, what resources are you not getting from us and then what sister organizations can we then collaborate with to make sure that happens, whether that be housing, whether that be job placement, whether that be how we show up in our community. Some of them want to go to certain advocacy groups and learn how to affect change in their community and what it means to write legislation and all that. So we might partner with someone like IJ.

We might partner with other organizations that are doing work with families that you might need to develop a new form of effective communication that maybe you didn't necessarily develop in a 12-week period that you were going through with us, but it's constant programming like that. We have leadership programming. We've done stuff where we did credit, how to fix your credit, how to build credit, how to buy a home.

So if we can provide it, yeah, but at the same time, we understand that individual success is based upon how interactive they are with their community, and we model that by working with one another. I think that that's why the TPW is so powerful because it shows you what's possible when 85--or is it 85 member organizations?

When 85 member organizations come together that says, 'okay, we're going to collectively look at the needs of our people and then figure out how to give them what they need so that they are in the best position to succeed when they get home.'

Individually go to that institution and to provide the service that's going to be needed, either inside or outside? Do you each individually go in to do that or do you go in as a group or coalition of organizations?

So I think it's both and there may be times where organizations go together, but more often than not, organizations are probably working at delivering their particular program, and then as things come up or there's things that are needed that maybe that isn't answered in that direct program, most programs will find another program to meet whatever that need is. But most, like, for instance, Success Stories and GRIP don't necessarily go in together, right.

But if somebody needed further training or they showed interest or whatever it was, it's just like, 'okay, well, I know another organization that you can go to to get that specific thing.' Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. Like what Mannie was saying, most of the organizations that go inside the institutions operate from their organizational philosophy, whatever that is, that they're going to deliver the program. That's the focus. Like GRIP, that's our focus. We currently are operating in five prisons, and we're looking to expand to two more, which is CCWF, CCWF Chowchilla, as well as SATF Corcoran.

So this is new to expand GRIP, along with another pilot program we have called the Breath of Freedom, which is a standalone program for folks to learn. We do all that on our own. We have operations, folks in the office that make sure that formerly incarcerated folks like myself, who are facilitators, are able to get clearances to go in for at least a year to deliver the program. That's not always an easy thing.

We be getting denied over not having a letter from our parole officer or the warden, just not ready for formerly incarcerated folks to come in and deliver a program. So it varies. Like you said, it varies far as barriers, as far as access. But when it comes to alumni that graduate our program and are released, they are part of a larger community of GRIP and will have access to aftercare resources.

And aftercare resources is someone helping them with the important documents they need in order to find gainful employment, like the IDs, the birth certificate, things like that. It will be somebody assigned to help them get that. And we also have what is called the Circle of Love, which is a space for folks to just be in meetings and to just vent if they have to, to just depressurize what the world is showing up in their lives.

And so we make sure we try to be present for that so folks feel supported and to not feel alone and isolated, where a lot of those factors is where folks reoffend.

And similarly, Success Stories has the same thing where we call it pod mapping, where you identify folks who are going to be there for you for whatever the need is, right, and everyone doesn't have the same group, right? You may have this person you reach out to if you're feeling stressed, this person if you're having interrelationship turmoil, whatever.

So yeah, I think each organization will have their way to deal with that, but there's times where we don't need to reinvent the wheel. If I know GRIP is good at a particular thing, I'm going to call GRIP, 'hey, I got this alumni that needs this, how can we introduce them to your program?

Yeah, and I would just add, so speaking from the perspective of TPW, so we don't provide programs directly, but we represent organizations that do provide programs, and we've tried to build this collective of 85 organizations now. I think it'll be closer to 90 fairly soon. I think we have mostly every community-based organization, nonprofit that provides these kind of programs in the prisons in California, part of the TPW.

What we try to do is basically pool all these talents so that we become a resource and a clearinghouse for when GRIP reaches out to us and says, 'hey, we want to do this,' we can say, 'oh, you could talk to here, here, here, and here.' We can connect people. And probably at this point, and for my own--what I do actually--is come here and represent all these organizations to you and to the CDCR, to the Governor's Office, to other places.

I think the message that we feel is most important to be heard is--and it's not a coincidence that there are three formerly incarcerated people sitting in front of you--there's a credible messenger issue is what I think we've been kind of getting around, right? When we go in and talk to people, they're going to listen to us more than they're going to listen to pretty much anybody else because I was there with you recently myself about five years ago.

But I think the biggest message here is that people coming in from the community with lived experience, and not just with lived experience, but people from the communities that are most impacted, people that look and have had similar lives, like the people inside, I think those are the people that can have the biggest impact on helping people recover from the things that led them to prison in the first place so that they can get out and they can be successful citizens who are contributing to society.

I would not be out and be able to do what I'm doing if it were not for the programs that I represent now. So, I mean, that's what saved my life and that's what made me able to become here and do what I'm doing right now, and I don't think I would have been able to do that without those kind of programs, frankly.

So I think the reason these programs matter is if we're going to actually transform California's prison system to the California Model, whatever that turns out to be--curious myself, too--there has to be a culture change inside. You mentioned that yourself, and I cannot agree with you more, and it's a radically different culture change than what we have right now. There's no question about that. And part of that has to be that rehabilitation comes from the community.

It comes from people who come in because they care. And if you go to Norway, and I believe you've been there, I remember one of the prison officials saying, 'we don't do any rehabilitation programs because we're not good at it. The community comes in to do rehabilitation programs because we're at the best place to get them.' And we believe that to be true here because Norway is full of human beings and we're human beings too. Yeah, I know they look a little different, but they're human beings too. So that's, I think, that's like our biggest message.

Good. Well, thank you very much for waiting as many hours as you have to be here with us. Your sharing of your stories is very important to us, and we're going to keep on doing the best that we can to provide the resources for you to do that work and to expand to everyone. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Appreciate you. And go Dodgers, by the way.

Go Lakers.

I'm from Los Angeles area. I'm in Southern California.

We're going to end today with Issue Five: promoting equity in the parole hearing process. Ms. O'Neil and Ms. Shaffer from the Board of Parole Hearings.

Caitlin O'Neill with the Legislative Analyst Office.

Thank you. I've been asked to provide an overview of our recent report called promoting equity in the parole hearing process. I'll be speaking from a handout of the same name, which is available along with copies of the report, in hard copy here in the room, as well as them linked on the committee's website and our website. Moving to page one, I'll start by providing some background on the parole hearing process.

The board of Parole Hearings is within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and composed of 21 commissioners who are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the senate. Hearings are conducted by typically one of these appointed commissioners working alongside what's called a deputy commissioner, which is not appointed staff person. They're an administrative law judge. For the purposes of my comments, I will be referring to them both as commissioners.

For simplicity, there are a few different groups of people in prison who are eligible to receive parole hearings. The first and largest group are all individuals with indeterminate life sentences. So that means a specific number of years to life, like 25 years to life. Those are typically given for particularly severe crimes such as murder, and these individuals cannot be released unless found suitable through a parole hearing.

Then there's a small group of people who are also eligible for parole hearings that are people who were convicted of life without the possibility of parole for crimes committed as minors. And that's because there's been two US Supreme Court rulings that require these individuals to have a meaningful chance at release. And in California, that's done through a parole hearing after 25 years of incarceration. And the final group is certain people with determinate sentences.

Determinate sentences are a specific number, a fixed number of years, that after serving less any credits they earn, they're released by operation of law. However, in cases where certain cases where people have particularly long determinate sentences, specifically people under the age of 20 who were under the age of 26 when they committed their crime and generally have served 15 years in prison or are currently over the age of 50 and have served 20 years, can get a chance to be released earlier than otherwise through a parole hearing. Moving to page two, there are two key decisions made in parole hearings.

The first is, would the candidate pose an unreasonable risk of danger to the public if released? And that's because the California Supreme Court has ruled that that is the central question that commissioners are tasked with answering in the hearing. And also the court has ruled that in denying parole, commissioners must be able to point to some evidence that the individual poses that risk.

If the person is not granted parole in a hearing, then the second question becomes, how many years should the candidate be required to wait until they have their next parole hearing? And that number of years is often referred to as the denial period. Next, I'm going to talk about some of the key steps in the process. The first occurs five years prior to a candidate's first parole hearing, and that's when they get an opportunity to meet with a commissioner who talks through the process.

Factors relevant to the board's decision making, as well as provides recommendations to the candidate on ways they can increase their chances of being found suitable. About six months prior to when a candidate is expected to have a hearing, BPH staff will schedule that hearing for a particular week, and statute gives candidates the right to be represented by an attorney at parole hearings. So about four to five months before their hearing, BPH will appoint attorneys for people who do not retain a private attorney.

These attorneys, state appointed attorneys, are required to provide certain basic legal services to candidates. Based on anecdotal information, which is the only information available about this, it does seem that private attorneys tend to spend, provide additional services, a wider range of services, and work with their candidates potentially over a longer period of time relative to the state appointed attorneys.

About four months prior to the hearing, candidates are typically assessed for the risk of violence by a BPH psychologist and then no later than 45 days before their parole hearing, candidates have the right to waive their hearing for one to five years or to stipulate to unsuitability, which essentially someone might take one of those actions as a strategic means of avoiding going to a hearing and receiving potentially a longer denial period.

That's the risk they take if they lose?

If somebody chooses to go to a parole hearing and they're denied parole, they could receive up to a 15 year denial period. And so some people might choose to either waive their hearing, meaning, I'm just not going to do it right now, we're going to delay it, essentially, or to stipulate to unsuitability, saying, I am not suitable at this time, I'll request to be denied for five years, and then that's sort of a way to essentially avoid the risk of a potentially longer denial period. Does that make sense? And if you wanted to clarify.

Does someone have an absolute right to a hearing?

Hearing to receive the hearing? Yes, that is my understanding.

You can probably answer that when you want to wait until whenever.

Yeah. The waiver is just basically their choice to, to delay the hearing, to waive their right to a parole hearing, to basically say, have it occur one to five years in the future. Is that right? I have it written down here.

That's correct.

And I think there's a limit on the amount of time that. The amount of times that that can be done.

They can waive their hearing three consecutive times, and then they have to go to hearing.

You could think of it maybe a little bit analogous in some ways to plea bargaining. I don't know if that's a reasonable comparison, but no, not for a waiver for stipulation, is what I mean. Yeah. Sorry.

Basically, the person is saying the waiver is sort of a delay, and then the stipulation is saying, where there's no decision made on whether they're suitable at that time, it's just delaying the hearing. The stipulation is more of they're saying they're not suitable at this time. Please deny me for five years or what have you, rather than potentially risk a 15 year or a seven year. Does that make sense?

Okay, thank you.

And then, of course, there's the parole hearing itself, where commissioners ask candidates questions about their social history, mental state, attitude toward their crime, and plans if released. And in the last few years, BPH has adopted a structured decision making framework, which commissioners use to guide them through these questions and their decision making process. And it's intended to focus their time on factors that research has found to be most associated with risk of violence.