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STOCKTON – The Department of Corrections is disputing projections it will need 9,000 to 11,000 fewer beds because of a voter initiative that bars many drug users from prison. 

Prison officials say those estimates are overblown by half, and that cost savings to taxpayers are overestimated as well. 

They say they must expand their drug treatment programs despite voters’ approval of Proposition 36 last month. Once the initiative takes effect July 1, it will require that those convicted of using or possessing drugs for the first or second time be sent to community treatment programs. 

“There won’t be a precipitous drop in the number of inmates as soon as this goes into effect, but there will be a decline as more inmates are released and more inmates are diverted to drug treatment,” said department spokesman Russ Heimerich. 

The department estimates the initiative will lead to a need for about 6,270 fewer beds in five years. That compares to projections by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office that the proposition will free up at least 9,000 beds — the equivalent of two to three prisons. 

The legislative analyst predicted that will save taxpayers $200 million to $250 million annually in operating costs, plus one-time savings of $450 million to $550 million because the state won’t have to build new prisons as rapidly. 

Department officials said the savings will be less, mainly because many drug users go to dormitory-style prison camps or community correctional centers, most run under contract with private firms. It costs an average $23,000 to house an inmate in prison for a year. However, a domitory-style prison costs $15,000 to $17,000 annually. 

The projections by both the department and the legislative analyst depend in large part on guessing whether California’s 58 county prosecutors will refuse to negotiate plea bargains with drug dealers, knowing that a drug use or possession conviction will bring no prison time. 

Convictions for more serious charges will bring longer sentences. In addition, some drug users who would have gone to prison will commit new crimes while they remain free and thus wind up incarcerated for longer periods. 

Dan Carson, who wrote the legislative analyst’s report, said prison officials underestimated the benefits of treatment in keeping drug users out of prison, as well as the number of repeat offenders who will avoid extended sentences under the initiative. 

“Basically, they assumed no affect at all from drug treatment programs, which is kind of an awkward argument for the administration when they’ve asked for hundreds of millions of dollars each year for treatment, on the presumption treatment works,” Carson said. 

Three years ago, the department had just 400 drug treatment beds. It now can provide drug treatment for 5,000 inmates at a time, and this year’s budget adds 3,000 more beds. 

That’s still far short of the need, said Ernest Jarman, the department’s assistant director for substance abuse programs. 

The crimes committed by at least 70 percent of inmates have some connection to drugs, such as a burglary to support a drug habit, Jarman estimated. He projected at least 80 percent of inmates have a current or past drug problem. 

The department faces a Dec. 31 deadline to present a plan to provide treatment to every inmate who needs it by 2005. But then it’s up to the governor and Legislature whether to go ahead with the expansion. 

California has recently become a national leader in inmate drug treatment with programs like that offered at the Northern California Women’s Facility at Stockton, said professor David Deitch. 

Studies in Delaware, New York, Texas and California show intensive prison treatment programs can be “startlingly effective,” said Deitch, who heads the federally funded Pacific Southwest Addiction Technology Transfer Center at the University of California, San Diego. 

They can cut the re-arrest rate for hard-core addicts up to 30 percent after three years — but only if they are combined with community-based treatment programs that support the inmates once they leave prison. 

Because of budget constraints, only half of California inmates go through those post-release programs. 

The 15-month-old Stockton program is too new to have valid recidivism statistics. But a study last year of three California programs found about 25 percent of those who completed post-release programs returned to prison within two years, compared to half of those who had treatment only in prison and two-thirds of those who had no treatment. 

“I didn’t want the program, but amazingly it’s paid off for me. I have grandchildren now — I don’t need to be in prison,” inmate Linda Jones, 49, of Stockton, said during and after group therapy that ranged in tone from gripe session to revival meeting. “I never had a grandmother, and I want them to have one. 

“I’m really out for change,” said Jones, who became addicted to heroin 14 years ago. “I’m hoping SAP (the substance abuse program) can give me the change that I need.” 

The prison system’s new emphasis on treatment hasn’t been an easy sell to some prison employees, said correctional counselor Velda Dobson, who helps run the Stockton program. 

“We’re used to working on the correctional side, not the treatment side,” she said. In the beginning, employees would disparage what they termed “the hug-a-thug program,” she said, though things are getting better. 

“I’ve got skid marks down the sidewalk” from dragging some corrections officials into supporting the program, Dobson said.