It's Your Right to Know:
A Research Guide on Juvenile Justice in California

April 2003

Prison Expansion

During the 1990's California embarked on the largest prison build-up in the country. Not only were more prison facilities built during this time, but also other systems of incarceration and control outside of prison grew. For example, California has seen a continual expansion of juvenile halls, the presence of police on public school campuses, and the use of electric monitoring and home supervision to control people on probation. Government agencies are required to document most of these programs along with conventional prison expansion efforts. Below you'll find some useful government sources for getting information on prison expansion issues. The sources are organized by jurisdiction with the relevant public records listed in a checklist format.

National Sources

Bureau of Justice Statistics: Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
Provides the best yearly analysis of federal, state and local criminal justice data. Includes information on criminal justice programs, projects, trends, and funding.
www.albany.edu/sourcebook

Federal Bureau of Prisons, Office of Research and Evaluation: Quick Facts
Has useful data about who's locked up in federal prison (race, age, gender) what they're there for, how many facilities there are, the security system, etc…
www.bop.gov/fact0598.html

State Sources

California Department of Corrections
The California Department of Corrections has annual budget information for new and on going prison construction, CDC master plan information, inmate population figures and proposed new prison construction at the state level. The Department also maintains records on prison maintenance, extension plans, and related information.
www.cdc.state.ca.us

California Legislative Analyst's Office
Includes budget analysis of criminal justice agencies in state government and forecasts the "need" for new prison construction projects. Makes recommendations about prison closures as well.
www.lao.ca.gov

California Youth Authority
This Office issues population management and facilities master plan reports that project youth inmate populations and institutional capacities. This is where you'll find early plans for new youth prisons or shifts in facility priorities.
www.cya.ca.gov

California Department of Financial Institutions
The Department of Financial Institutions has a breakdown of all public safety related funding in the state budget including overviews of internal department and agency budgets.
www.dfi.ca.gov

County Sources

Office of the Board of Supervisors
Clerk Offices for County Boards of Supervisors will have copies of county budgets that include outlays for all public safety related items. This usually includes spending on county jails, and juvenile justice detention centers, camps, probation programs and other expenditures.

County Probation Offices
These offices will have breakdowns of caseload data, supervision and intake statistics. They also should have copies of they own budgets, along with any electric monitoring, home supervision and juvenile related tracking systems.

County Sheriff Departments
Usually will have information on county jails (locations, visiting procedures, wardens) Some county sheriff web- sites will also have one sided information about any plans to build new jails or convert old buildings into jails.

Municipal Sources

City Clerk/ City Manager Office
Not all cities have their own jail systems. But if a city does, maintenance, closure and expansion plans will be in the city budget which you can sometimes get at the City Clerks office.

A joint project of the DataCenter's Criminal Justice Program & Youth Strategy Project and Books not Bars