




"The good news for Californians is that I think that means you have to build fewer high-security prisons, probably," Cate told the AP. "If the science says that we can have more inmates in lower-level settings safely, then that helps us with realignment because we're able to more fully utilize our lower-level prisons. I know that's what the study says. How much of that we believe we can safely adopt is what we're still working on."


Cate said he expects the department to propose "modest" changes to its policies as a result, and there are no estimates yet on how many inmates it might effect. The department also is still evaluating the extent and effect of the five-month old realignment law.

"I believe we still need to have construction in California," though he said it is unclear if that will mean building new maximum-security facilities or converting more existing lower-security prisons so they can house higher-risk inmates.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, in a report last month, predicted that the state will face a "mismatch" between its prisons and its population once the realignment of inmates is complete. Unless there are changes, maximum-security prisons might remain dangerously overcrowded while lower-level prisons have extra space.

The department would be short of space for 12,900 high-security inmates in four years, the legislative analyst said, using the department's own population projections. Meanwhile, there would be enough excess capacity at lower-level men's prisons to house 13,200 inmates.


The current policies "appear to 'trap' many well-behaving inmates into higher housing levels," according to the report. Inmates' ages and other underlying factors are a better indicator of risk than whether their crime received a lot of public attention or they are ineligible for parole, the experts said. Older inmates in particular can be safely moved to lower-security prisons, they recommended.


They also found a behavioral benefit to moving more inmates to lower-security prisons: "People who are in Level 4 prisons act out more than people who are in Level 3 prisons, because they're in a Level 4 prison," Cate said, summarizing the experts' findings. "I think there's just a different expectation at the institution among the inmates about where they are."
