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State corrections officials have crammed hundreds of inmates into two already overstuffed women's prisons in Chowchilla -- an influx that the state's prison medical czar says could cause health care services to "collapse entirely" in one of the prisons. By moving about 600 inmates from Southern California, prison officials have worsened crowding in the state's three all-female prisons. And with most of the attention on the state's jampacked male prisons, not much relief is in sight. "Because of the sheer numbers of men, women have just become what we call 'correctional afterthoughts,' " said Barbara Owen, a criminology professor at California State University, Fresno, and a national expert on women's prisons. Populations at the Valley State Prison for Women and the Central California Women's Facility have swelled by 8 percent, leaving both prisons housing more than twice as many inmates as they were designed to hold. About 400 women are sleeping in prison gymnasiums, squeezed side by side in bunk beds. At Valley State, the increasing demand for medical care forced officials to shut down a preventive care clinic to focus on urgent aid. The prison is providing the care required under legal guidelines, but only because medical staff members are working overtime, said Dr. Daun Martin, Valley State's acting health care manager. "We are struggling every day," she said. "We're constantly under the gun to make sure that our patients get good care." The transfers started in April when the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shut down the women's wing of the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco. The aging facility did not have the space needed to properly care for female inmates, officials say. The transfers, completed in late June, had been planned for a long time. But Robert Sillen, the court-appointed overseer of prison medical care, said he wasn't consulted enough on the decision and that the transfers would have a "severe" impact on medical care. Medical care at Valley State is "already at a crisis stage" and the influx of new prisoners "may well cause the medical delivery system at (the prison) to collapse entirely," Sillen said in a recent update to a federal judge. Wendy Still, associate director for female offender programs, said Corrections and Rehabilitation has responded to Sillen's concerns. A representative from his office now sits in on weekly population meetings, she said. "I think it's important that we work very closely together," she said. Martin said Valley State needs more medical staff members and more vehicles to take inmates to off-site hospitals and clinics. Sillen -- who has complete control of the prison medical system -- has ordered more than 100 vans for all of the state's prisons, and Valley State should get new vehicles later this summer, said Rachael Kagan, the medical overseer's spokeswoman. Also, Sillen is reviewing Valley State's request for 17 more nurses and one doctor at the prison, which now has five full-time doctors, six nurse practitioners and more than 30 nurses. "We have massive, massive health care needs," Martin said. Many inmates "haven't taken care of themselves. They haven't eaten right. They've been prostituting, living on the streets." Long-range plans call for moving thousands of inmates from the state's three women's prisons to several community-based facilities, where women would get better access to rehabilitation services, corrections officials say. But the Legislature has failed to pass the proposal, which is opposed by unions. This year's version -- contained in Assembly Bill 76 by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View -- would have added 2,900 beds at community-based facilities, with no more than 200 beds in each facility. But Lieber had to take the proposal out of the bill in the face of opposition from Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which feared the bill would result in "privately operated facilities that lack proper oversight." Lieber and other supporters - -- including the Corrections and Rehabilitation Department -- still hope a deal can be cut this year. The recently approved $7.9 billion prison construction plan mostly ignores women. Some 16,000 beds will be added at male prisons, but none at women's prisons. Owen blames the inattention on "the tyranny of the numbers." Of the state's 166,171 prisoners, just 11,136 are women. Yet female prisons are just as crowded as male prisons -- and getting worse. About 4,600 more women are imprisoned now than in 1990, leaving women's prisons stuffed to nearly double their capacity. Owen and other experts say the spike is due to stiffer penalties for drug crimes. Nearly 65 percent of female inmates are incarcerated for nonviolent drug or property crimes, compared with about 40 percent of male inmates, according to a 2004 study by the Little Hoover Commission. Historically, female prisoners have been treated like male prisoners. But research suggests women have different needs. A majority of female inmates have mental health problems, and four in 10 were physically or sexually abused before age 18, according to the Little Hoover report. Many are the primary caretaker of a child, yet the state isolates the women in "large, remotely located prisons" with limited access to counseling, the report found. The result: Half of those released from prison violate parole and end up back in prison. Owen, who consults with the state on prison issues, said Corrections and Rehabilitation has a good plan in place but that the "processes to implement the plan are very slow-moving." The community-based facilities are a key part of the strategy to free more space for counseling and drug treatment. But without significant new money for the facilities, the department has had to take a piecemeal approach. Today, about 10 percent of female inmates are housed in community-based centers, Still said. The goal is to move nearly 50 percent of inmates into the centers. Meanwhile, prisons like Valley State struggle to keep up with the growing population. Martin, the health manager, said she's been lobbying for modular buildings to provide more clinic space. "We have to have more space," she said. "We cannot continue doing what we're doing and do it well ... without more space." |
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