Changes to California’s Parole System

Starting on Monday, authorities from the California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency changed the diversion policy of offering parole violators drug treatment or home detention instead of sending them back to prison. Governor Schwarzenegger’s administration, victims’ rights groups, the prison guard union, and others, had pushed for this reform, saying that such diversion programs had little effect on rates of recidivism. JP Tremblay, Assistant Secretary for the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, and Don Specter, Director of the Prison Law Office, a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to enforcing the Constitution and other laws inside the walls of California’s prisons, join Larry to discuss this change to California’s parole system. Is this tougher stand on parole violators necessary? Will it help rehabilitate prisoners?