Public Officials Explain Realignment, Why We Need It, and Express Concerns About How It Will Be Implemented –
The application of AB 109, commonly known as realignment, figures to change the nature of the criminal justice system, but no one knows for sure just how. On Wednesday, UC Davis School of Law had a program featuring policymakers, prosecutors, academics and other experts who discussed and debated just what AB 109 will mean and what will happen going forward.
Assemblymember Mariko Yamada was among several policymakers who participated in the seminar and panels. She delivered introductory remarks. She said that while she has served from time to time on the public safety committee, she does not have a standing seat.
The state, she said, is having to deal with the Plata Decision, handed down by the Supreme Court to reduce the state’s prison population. AB 109 is not a favorite of anyone in the system, she said. Rather, she sees it as “corrections based on court decisions and capacity rather than what is for the community.”
“Just like global warming,” she said, “I think the data on recidivism is all too real and it’s real incontrovertible. The evidence is there.”
“It’s incumbent upon those of us in policy positions to also rise to the occasions and address the issues with the political courage that’s going to be necessary to advance reform and to truly achieve some sense in the sentencing process,” the assemblymember added.
She concluded: “If we do not look deeper into the causes of prison overcrowding – talking about the intersections of poverty, of race, of unemployment, disparities in health coverage, inaccessibility to transportation – just what it takes to live in a just society. I think we’re really fooling ourselves and we will do a disservice to the future of our state… unless we address the core issues related to why we have prison overcrowding, then I don’t think we’ll actually solve the problems.”
The first panel was Terms of Realignment and California Sentencing since 2008. Ironically, the discussion began with Jerry Landau, who is the Government Relations Director of the Arizona Supreme Court, and was able to discuss efforts that occurred in Arizona where he worked for two years on a project to reorganize Arizona’s sentencing code.
This was a political process and one that resulted in no substantive changes to the Arizona criminal code – and that was by design, because of a great fear by many that there would be unintended consequences to substantive changes. Therefore, this was fundamentally a reorganization, not a realignment.
There was a fear in Arizona, even last year, as they looked into more substantive changes, that even discussion will beget change, and that change will not be good. In the view of many, the right people are in prison for the right reasons.
As Matthew Cate, who heads up the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation argued, realignment was born out of necessity. Not only is there the Plata Decision, but also there is the fact that California has a record number of inmates and is 
operating at 195% of capacity. The goal is to reduce the prison population to 137% of the designed capacity.
He argued, “Building your way out of the problem [is] very difficult, although I think that can be part of the solution, long term. That leaves looking at your population and asking if you have the right people in prison.”
Most realize, including Governor Brown, that 47,000 in the state prison system are there for less than 90 days. This is the most expensive part of the system, other than death row. This is the time when the new prisoner receives medical, mental and psychological reviews, examinations and evaluations.
He called this the most wasteful part of the process. We do not hear about treatment for these people because the CDCR does not have them long enough to make a difference. There’s no education. There is no drug treatment.
Based on that information, the Governor’s perception was that we needed to address that part of the population first.
“Most of those people serving 90 days or less are in on parole violations,” Mr. Cate said. This is why AB 109 now precludes going back to prison on a parole violation unless you actually commit a new crime. Parole violators go to jail.
There is another population, of drug offenders and other non-violent offenders, who spend a large amount of pre-sentence time in the county jail and have little time left to serve in prison once they are sentenced.
“The average time for those guys is about a year,” Mr. Cate said. “That’s the genesis for realignment.”
Mr. Cate said that he still doesn’t believe that this would have happened wihtout both the Plata ruling and the fiscal crisis, but he believes that this is a reform process long in the making.
“It’s well known that we spend nearly twice as much on prisons as higher education,” he said. “It’s an expensive proposition and we just can’t afford it.”
The package started, he said, as a way to end parole altogether. Parole costs about a billion dollars per year. California is one of the few states that places almost everyone on some sort of parole supervision.
Mr. Cate would conclude that the issue of prison crowding is not a joke. While he does not agree with the Supreme Court ruling that the system embodies cruel and unusual punishment, he does agree that it is broken.
He said while other people can decide on other issues here, however, “I can say that the situation as I found it when I arrived back in 2008 was untenable.”
Assemblymember Roger Dickinson spent 17 years as a supervisor in Sacramento County before moving on to the State Legislature, which deeply informs his perspective.
“I think we have the opportunity to make a major shift, a sea change in the way we address corrections in the State of California,” he said.
“While the opportunity for realignment represents an incredible opportunity to make a change for the better in the way in which we deal with corrections,” he said, “however from a local level it also presents an enormous concern with the way the State of California has treated local government as perceived from that vantage point over the years.”
The governor has made a big production out of the fact that he will offer constitutional guarantees that money will flow to fund this program to the local level in the years ahead. But the assemblymember was clearly concerned about whether the governor would follow through on his promise.
Realignment has been characterized by some who claim this is a way of putting criminals back on the street, to the great risk of the citizens across California.
“I think that criticism is really misplaced,” he argued. “When we have a recidivism rate of 70% and the determinate sentences for virtually all of our inmates have an end, people who have been confined, in one way or another, are coming back to our communities.”
“The question to me is not whether they are coming back, it’s in what condition – what way are they coming back to our communities. Are they coming back with the ability to get a job, to find housing, to reintegrate into the community without re-assuming the activities that put them in confinement in the first place or not?”
He sees this as the real opportunity of realignment, “The opportunity at the local level… the array of sources that can help someone change their lives, where those resources are much more likely to be available,” he said.
Assemblymember Dickinson called the current path a failure of corrections, and see this as an opportunity to invest in prevention to get better results than simply attempting to repair the damage.
Wendy Still, Chief of Probation for the City and County of San Francisco, talked about all of the reform efforts that San Francisco, which is in a lot of ways ahead of the curve on this, has undertaken in the last few years.
Despite the huge overcrowding problem, she sees that almost all previous efforts at reform have failed due to lack of rehabilitation funding, plus due to sentencing laws that have moved from indeterminate sentences to determinate sentences, including Three Strikes.
Politicians need to play the tough on crime card to get reelected. She argued that these were not bad politicians; they have had to take these positions as a matter of survival.
Ms. Still believes that Governor Brown has succeeded where others have failed, in part because of his credibility due to his experience both at the local level, and in state office as Attorney General and twice as governor.
He has the unique opportunity to be successful, but she also argues that crimes begin and end in local communities and reforms must shift resources to reward counties for making the kinds of changes that are necessary.
She argued that we have 58 counties and 58 different policies and therefore we need consistency.
The reform needs to be actual reform rather than simply shifting the overcrowding from the state to the local level.
We will have more on this conference in the coming days.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David
I really appreciated this article. Given the short term ( the state’s costly and inevitably losing fight to maintain an untenable system) and long term ( human and financial costs of incarceration without rehabilitation and serious reintegration efforts) costs, this issue dwarves out local water woes. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out over time.
[quote]There is another population, of drug offenders and other non-violent offenders, who spend a large amount of pre-sentence time in the county jail and have little time left to serve in prison once they are sentenced. Mr. Cate said. “That’s the genesis for realignment.”
Mr. Cate said that he still doesn’t believe that this would have happened wihtout…the fiscal crisis, but he believes that this is a reform process long in the making. “It’s well known that we spend nearly twice as much on prisons as higher education,” he said. “It’s an expensive proposition and we just can’t afford it.”[/quote]
In other words, we knew the state had a problem, but we didn’t bother doing anything about it until the fiscal crisis forced us to?
[quote]While [Mr. Cate] does not agree with the Supreme Court ruling that the system embodies cruel and unusual punishment…He said… “…the situation as I found it when I arrived back in 2008 was untenable.”[/quote]
The current state of the prison system does not embody cruel and unusual punishment; but it is untenable? Can’t have it both ways.
[quote]”It’s well known that we spend nearly twice as much on prisons as higher education,” he said.[/quote]
And who’s fault is that?
[quote]The package started, he said, as a way to end parole altogether. Parole costs about a billion dollars per year. California is one of the few states that places almost everyone on some sort of parole supervision.[/quote]
So why not enact reform, as opposed to dumping the problem on the local gov’ts?
[quote]Assemblymember Roger Dickinson spent 17 years as a supervisor in Sacramento County before moving on to the State Legislature…
“While the opportunity for realignment represents an incredible opportunity to make a change for the better in the way in which we deal with corrections,” he said, “however from a local level it also presents an enormous concern with the way the State of California has treated local government as perceived from that vantage point over the years.”
The governor has made a big production out of the fact that he will offer constitutional guarantees that money will flow to fund this program to the local level in the years ahead. But the assemblymember was clearly concerned about whether the governor would follow through on his promise.[/quote]
Bingo! I see this as nothing more than the state sloughing its problems onto the backs of local gov’t, and most likely without passing along the necessary funding to go with it. I will be very surprised if the state does the right thing here. My guess is much of the money saved will be retained by the state to deal with its own fiscal insolvency at the expense of local gov’t.
1) I don’t see “cruel and unusual” as synonymous, and thus “trying to have it both ways. A system could be untenable for many reasons other than being cruel and unusual. How about perfectly humane, but just too expensive of ineffective for example. I really don’t see anything inconsistent in his position.
2)”And whose fault is that?” Whose fault do you think it is ?
I can see plenty of responsibility to pass around on this one: 1) the voters who favor a knee jerk “lock them up and throw away the key” approach rather than any consideration of addressing root causes of crime, mitigating circumstances such as Rich has pointed out with regard to the role of mental illness and crime, and the potential for investing in rehabilitative services rather than extended incarceration 2) the law enforcement and corrections staff whose positions are dependent on maintaining a catch and incarcerate mind set 3) the lawyers who benefit from our adversarial form of criminal trial both for immediate income and career building 4) the politicians who build their careers by playing to this voting block. I’m sure I have missed some groups of varying degree of responsibility here and would be interested in your answer to your own question.
DAs, and politicians who build and protect their careers by playing to this voting block
Oops, apologies to all for my lack of proofing!
I look forward to reading the follow-up on this conference. It brought to light some key components of the realignment. For example 47,000 inmates only serve 90 days. This does seem like a huge waste of resources and time. However I think the quote below encompasses something we all must take into account and take as a responsibility of our society.
[quote]Realignment has been characterized by some who claim this is a way of putting criminals back on the street, to the great risk of the citizens across California.
“I think that criticism is really misplaced,” he argued. “When we have a recidivism rate of 70% and the determinate sentences for virtually all of our inmates have an end, people who have been confined, in one way or another, are coming back to our communities.”
“The question to me is not whether they are coming back, it’s in what condition – what way are they coming back to our communities. Are they coming back with the ability to get a job, to find housing, to reintegrate into the community without re-assuming the activities that put them in confinement in the first place or not?”
He sees this as the real opportunity of realignment, “The opportunity at the local level… the array of sources that can help someone change their lives, where those resources are much more likely to be available,” he said.[/quote]
“Bingo! I see this as nothing more than the state sloughing its problems onto the backs of local gov’t, and most likely without passing along the necessary funding to go with it. I will be very surprised if the state does the right thing here. My guess is much of the money saved will be retained by the state to deal with its own fiscal insolvency at the expense of local gov’t.”
Some of that is true but consider this. Each county elects its own DA and there is very little consistency on the level of prosecution across the State. Some counties are more conservative than others and DAs in those counties tend to prosecute more and push for for more prison time. The counties have not been held accountable for the actions of their DA’s since they have managed to make the state pay for most of the prison costs. Now the counties will see the costs for their DA’s actions – Yolo can continue to do what they have been doing and they can drown in red ink – simple as that!
[quote]Bingo! I see this as nothing more than the state sloughing its problems onto the backs of local gov’t, and most likely without passing along the necessary funding to go with it. I will be very surprised if the state does the right thing here. My guess is much of the money saved will be retained by the state to deal with its own fiscal insolvency at the expense of local gov’t. [/quote]
Exactly! CA has a history of doing so…
A recent example is PC 1210.1 (Proposition 36) with a 79% failure rate of which the lions share was attributable to “Parolees.”
P36 was underfunded from day one. The monies dried up and yet, the law remains on the books.
Again, CA is notorious for dumping on the local level…
Here, Californians were told that since it costs the counties one-half of what CDCR currently spends to house inmates we can save money by realigning — but lo and behold half of the aleady budgeted money isn’t being realinged…hhmmmmmm
[quote]Here, Californians were told that since it costs the counties one-half of what CDCR currently spends to house inmates we can save money by realigning — but lo and behold half of the aleady budgeted money isn’t being realinged…hhmmmmmm[/quote]
And therein lies the problem – if the state sloughs its responsibilities onto local gov’t without passing through the necessary funding to pay for drug rehab, etc., then what? We end up with a mess, e.g. the Dugard case as a prime example.
Elaine: What became clear is that the problems if the funding does not go through are not nearly as bad as critics make them out. Worst case scenario, is that we do not incarcerate people for technical parole violations – that’s 47,000 prisoners. The subset that you are concerned about – drug offenders is the next tier.
BTW, there was an interesting aside on the Duggard case that was mentioned by one of the panelists. Garrido was a previous offender who was released by the federal government well before he would have ever been released under state law. And he was monitored not by state parole agents, but by the feds. Had this occurred at the state level, he never would have been released to have offended in the first place, and he would not be released under this program.
[quote]Had this occurred at the state level, he never would have been released to have offended in the first place, and he would not be released under this program.[/quote]
Sounds like the state’s push to incarcerate wrongdoers has a positive side…
ERM
Yes, and the key word in your comment is “wrongdoers”. It seems to me that the key is to determine which wrongdoer poses a real threat to the community as in the case of sex offenders and violent offenders, and who is likely to steal a bag of cheese. Part of the problem is the tendency to group all “wrongdoers” together without consideration of the true consequences in the individual case.