For years, California taxpayers have watched in dismay and then horror as prison costs spiraled out of control, as recidivism climbed higher and higher, and as those in real power and authority in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation seemed to be saying "… we're doing the best we can." Recidivism rates from our prisons now approach 70 percent.

This implies that the CDCR bureaucracy has been hamstrung, or unable to get funding, or can't find community partners to help it reform our prison system and rehabilitate inmates and parolees.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In 2005, the federal court system took charge of CDCR's inmate health care services. The federal receiver promptly set about hiring hundreds of new employees at astronomical salaries, all to correct perceived deficiencies. CDCR's annual budget is now close to $10 billion a year. Now, the same federal court system is about to order the release of thousands of inmates because of severe overcrowding. This could put the public in danger as untrained and unprepared inmates are released back onto our streets.

Along with overcrowding and poor medical care, inmates are still not truly rehabilitated and given the tools they need to become taxpayers and not tax users when they parole. Vocational training within prison walls is hit-and-miss, and little is done to help ensure that inmates, once they parole, will not come back.

Faced with opposition from area residents, CDCR still clings to the hope that its plan for mini-prisons (or "re-entry centers," as it likes to refer to them) will fly, permitting it to build many 500-inmate prisons all over California. CDCR has placed local elected officials, who are now facing severe budget deficits, in the awkward position of trying to accept millions of CDCR dollars to build these facilities (and balance their budgets), while at the same time trying to calm their constituents. All this is aimed at reducing overcrowding, but in reality will simply spread the inmates out and drastically increase expenditures.

Several important studies over the past 20 years have recognized that there are solid and successful programs which reduce recidivism. CDCR refuses to implement such programs, while continuing to fund outdated, poor and unsuccessful programs within its system. As far as we can determine, no continually funded CDCR program to date has been shown to reduce recidivism, a major contributor to prison overcrowding.

With this as a backdrop, several of us, all former law enforcement professionals, banded together to advance a proposal to CDCR. We asked them to help us build Parolee Centers where parolees and others can receive state-of-the-art vocational training coupled with life skills and behavioral modification programs, so these parolees become taxpayers instead of tax users.

We even offered to start the training "inside," while the parolee was still an inmate, to help guarantee that training and a livable wage job would be quick at hand once they were paroled. The best part about our proposal was that adult education programs within our existing school systems had agreed to teach the classes to keep the cost down. Our program would not only reduce the number of parolees returning to state prison, it would help relieve pressure on the county jails and keep our communities safer.

You would have thought that CDCR would have jumped at the chance to help regain its footing and the trust of California taxpayers. Not a chance. CDCR's bureaucracy simply blew us off. They had their high-paying, secure jobs, and they weren't about to let a group of upstarts like us intrude on their turf. Now CDCR will be forced to come back to the taxpayers for yet another bailout.

We say, "Enough!"

The entire top level of CDCR needs a thorough housecleaning. Matt Cate, the new CDCR secretary, is trying hard, but he's overwhelmed. Some of his management team have served him poorly, and they need to go.

Almost 12 years ago, we watched as the Sacramento City Unified School District's adult education campus started a truck driver training program aimed squarely at parolees. After 12 years, the documented recidivism rate from this award-winning program stands at 7 percent! Even though our Sacramento pilot program proved that parolees can be trained using our approach and can be made into taxpayers, CDCR will still have none of it.

Reducing recidivism is the quickest and cheapest way to reduce our overcrowded system and will also send a solid message to both the federal courts and California taxpayers that CDCR does have the ability to get its house in order.

But don't hold your breath.

Larry Bowler is a former member of the state Assembly and a former lieutenant in the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. Robert Presley is a former state senator and former undersheriff of Riverside County. D. O. "Spike" Helmick is a former commissioner of the California Highway Patrol.