The real question, as we are now moving toward a month into realignment, is how California counties will decide to deal with realignment – do they change the way they handle a number of cases or do they simply try to add jail space?
As 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.”
The first population of state prisoners seems wholly unnecessary, as these are people who are there less than 90 days, which is an extremely inefficient use of jail space that Mr. Cate argued was the most expensive part of the system, besides death row.
“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.”
These are technical violations, not people going back to prison because they committed a new crime, but people going back to prison because they failed to adhere to terms of release.
Finding a better way to deal with this large group of people could conceivably save money and also prevent the need to build more jail space.
An editorial in the Sacramento Bee this morning argues that “adding jail space should be [the] last resort” but it is predicated on the ability of counties to re-examine how they handle two very different populations of inmates.
There first are those who have been arrested, accused of committing a crime, but have not gone to trial yet.
Writes the Bee, “The aim should be to make sure defendants show up for trial and don’t pose a threat of new crime during the period between arrest and trial. The U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion written by law-and-order conservative Justice William Rehnquist, has ruled that pretrial detention in jail should be a ‘carefully limited exception.’ “
The second group of incarcerated inmates at the local jail are those who have pled guilty or have been convicted of a crime. Writes the Bee, “The aim should be punishment and rehabilitation, so that when offenders return to the community after serving a sentence they do not commit new crimes.”
However, two-thirds of the current jail population are filled with those awaiting trial rather than those who are sentenced offenders.
The Bee is focusing their attention on the jail population, whereas CDCR has focused their attention on the prison population that would be shifted to jails.
Counties, rather than fixing these policies, which if done correctly could free up space without increasing risk to the local communities, have focused on the math problem – how to accommodate more bodies.
Writes the Bee: “To shift direction away from simply expanding jail space – costing $100 a day vs. about $2.50 a day for pretrial screening and supervision – it will be up to elected county supervisors to show leadership.”
They note that, while Santa Clara County is not proposing expending any of the new state money on more jail beds, Yolo County is proposing spending 30 percent of its money on jail beds and Sacramento County is “asking county supervisors to spend a whopping 49 percent of the state allotment to add 275 more jail beds.”
Writes the Bee, “Supervisors should send this back to the committee to determine if this is really necessary or could be avoided with better management of existing jail capacity. “
They add: “The upshot is that counties should not reflexively rush to expand jail space. Realignment should provide the impetus to try more promising strategies first – and add jail beds only as absolutely necessary in the future.”
Writes Kel Munger in the Sacramento News and Review this week, “Realignment is here. But instead of just transferring California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation offenders from one place – prison – to another – the county jail – some are saying realignment offers a real opportunity to lower recidivism and crime rates. And, this time, there’s actually a bit of state funding to pay for it.”
The opportunity exists even in Sacramento, which is putting a lot of money toward a relatively few number of beds.
The SNR article cites $5 million going to Sacramento County Chief Probation Officer Don L. Meyer.
He tells the weekly paper, “He hopes the funds will help prove that his agency’s low-level offenders, all convicted of nonviolent and nonsexual crimes, benefit more from things such as one-on-one behavioral counseling than just sitting around in a room.”
“Most people equate being locked up with a change in behavior,” Mr. Meyers said, “and it does change their behavior: It makes them worse. Low-level offenders get worse, and they associate with high-level offenders and get worse.”
Reports SNR: “Meyers instead argues that, with proper supervision while on probation and parole, as well as access to treatment and training programs, Sacramento’s share of nonviolent offenders might be able to step off the offend, go to jail, get released, reoffend carousel.”
The article goes on to detail some of the programs that might be put into place rather than building more beds to house people.
They report, “Meyer’s approximately $5 million will add two supervision units, an intake unit addition and an adult day reporting center that will include the cognitive-behavioral treatment programs, GED classes, job training, mental-health programs, and assessment for risk of re-offending.”
This is the best possibility for changing the system, putting money into programs that have a chance to work.
Reports the SNR: “Most people are concerned that realignment means hardened criminals are being returned to the community. That’s not the case, according to Meyer. And, he noted, ‘Jail and prison are exorbitantly expensive. If you can keep 10 people out of jail, you’ve saved substantial amounts of money.’ “
In the end, much is riding on how the money is allocated and what programs are implemented. Unfortunately, there is a lot of skepticism and demagoguing by top law enforcement officials and that will undermine the chances for success of this program.
If the program backfires, it could create a new wave of support for simply building more prisons.
That is something that people like Matthew Cate do not believe are the ultimate answer, but as former Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness put it, if we are not careful we will re-create the same “emotional environment in which the public was very very prone to support three strikes.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I do not necessarily disagree with the various premises of this article. However, the following statement does hit a nerve:
[quote]Counties, rather than fixing these policies, which if done correctly could free up space without increasing risk to the local communities, have focused on the math problem – how to accommodate more bodies.
Writes the Bee: “To shift direction away from simply expanding jail space – costing $100 a day vs. about $2.50 a day for pretrial screening and supervision – it will be up to elected county supervisors to show leadership.”[/quote]
The bottom line is the state had not really given the counties time to even think about what to do. Putting in place various drug rehab, GED, counseling programs takes time. IMO, you cannot blame counties if they don’t get this right immediately, when they have had the state’s problem thrust on them suddenly without the necessary funds to implement them…
[quote]”Most people equate being locked up with a change in behavior,” Mr. Meyers said[/quote]
It [b]does[/b] change behavior — said offender cannot commit new law violations, in the community, for that very season of time.
[quote]”Meyers instead argues that, with proper supervision while on probation and parole, as well as access to treatment and training programs, Sacramento’s share of nonviolent offenders might be able to step off the offend, go to jail, get released, reoffend carousel.”[/quote]
Consider from the above excerpt:
“proper supervision” – We have that now, don’t we?
“access to treatment and training programs” – Treatment & training programs currently exist, no?
“Sacramento’s share of nonviolent offenders might be able to step off the offend…” [u][b] “MIGHT?” [/u][/b]
And…[quote]This is the best possibility for changing the system, putting money into programs that have a chance to work.[/quote]
Best “Possibility?” & a “Chance” to work?
What were the arguments made in favor of Prop 36 by the proponents in advance of the vote? And what was the overall success rate of P36?
DMG why don’t you post stats re: the 90 dayers returning to prison – and the number (of them) who have committed a new on-view offense as compared to those who solely committed a ‘technical violation?”
In reality, DA’s don’t always file immediately and parolees are re-released to the community on parole after serving a short-term ‘sanction.’ Afterwhich the DA files &/or the offender is arrested on the associated warrant issued by the local court.
What am I saying? There are many parolees who commit both technical violations and new crimes who return to state custody for a short time only to get released to face new charges.
“The bottom line is the state had not really given the counties time to even think about what to do. “
They had several months and had lengthy meetings about how to approach it. I’m not saying they had time to figure out every answer, but to say they had no time to even think about it is belied by the fact that they had countless meetings over the summer about what to do. The problem is that the top law enforcement officials in a lot of areas simply did not agree with the approach and therefore are not necessarily attempting to figure out new ways to do things.
“What am I saying? There are many parolees who commit both technical violations and new crimes who return to state custody for a short time only to get released to face new charges. “
And what I’m suggesting is that we focus on the certain closes of violations first and then figure out what to do with the remainder.
For a long time there simply has not been programs either in the prison or in the communities that would provide parolees opportunities not to re-offend. Prop 36 failed because it depended on funding from the legislature that simply didn’t fund it after a while and chose the use the money elsewhere to plug holes in the budget. Drug courts, mental health courts all have proven effectiveness in keeping people who don’t belong in state prison in their communities. Treatment oriented approaches to supervision (day reporting, GPS monitoring) work better and are a lot cheaper than paying parole agents to spend time writing someone up testing dirty and transporting them back to CDCR. The caseloads in the parole division of CDCR made it impossible to adequately supervise parolees and thus it ended up being easier to to simple revoke them. Parolees have made up more than half of all admissions to CDCR in the last few years. and given that the BPH only gave most of them a few months, what kind of treatment would make changes in that short span. As much as hardliners might squawk, the system has not been working for about a decade. We send too many mentally ill individuals to prison because our services in the community have been cut back. Mandated substance use treatment is effective and keeps people from re-offending. There is simply no good reason other than fear-mongering to keep the system the way it is. It’s inhumane and simply breeds dysfunction. Mass incarceration has been a failure and we spent billions on it when we could, with a little forethought, have chosen a different path.
[quote]They had several months and had lengthy meetings about how to approach it.[/quote]
It takes far more than “several months” to put entire drug rehab/mental health programs in place, and has to have the commensurate funding from the state to go along with it, no?