The good news is that the Yolo County Grand Jury did not find anything untoward about the operations of the Yolo County Jail, but they are concerned with issues of inmate overcrowding, recidivism rates and budget reductions.
“Only individuals arrested on felony offenses are detained,” they report. “Each detainee is interviewed to identify gang affiliation, history of sexual offenses, confidential informants, race, religious preferences, federal inmates, etc.”
Based on these interviews, “The Grand Jury determined that based on these interviews, many detainees must be housed separately for the safety of staff, the facility and other detainees. These detainees must be placed alone in cells that were designed to hold two detainees.”
They argue that these safety precautions are among the main causes of overcrowding at this facility.
The Grand Jury argued that AB 109 represents “the largest single change to the California prison system in state history” and that its impacts “cannot be determined so early in its implementation. It will take a minimum of two years to make any meaningful assessment of its desired outcomes on overcrowding and recidivism rates.”
The Grand Jury determined the major concern regarding this requirement is the detention of serious criminals in the Yolo County Jail.
They argue that the biggest problem is that for a violation of Post Release Community Supervision (PRCS) “the subject will now serve their 90 day revocation sentence in the county jail instead of going back to prison like parolees did. This happens whether or not a PRCS violator has violent, serious or sexual crimes in their background. As a result, the Yolo County Jail is now receiving more inmates with serious criminal histories.”
This, they argue, is problematic for Yolo County as it “dramatically increases the jail population but it also results in serious implications in the classification system which may mandate that this detainee be held in segregated custody.”
In the first six weeks of AB 109 implementation, Yolo County Jail received 30-40 parole violators who would have previously been taken to state facilities.
“A major challenge that has been felt immediately is the spiking medical and mental health costs with the increased numbers of parole violators being detained in Yolo County Jail,” they write. “The combined average number of hours per month spent by detainees in a local hospital prior to AB 109 implementation was 20 hours. During the month of October 2011, detainees spent 180 hours in the local hospital.”
Vanguard Analysis: Grand Jury Report Too Limited and Fails to Look at Alternative Solutions
The two recommendations that the Grand Jury makes are rather limited. First, they suggest: “The contracting practice of Yolo County Health Department with CFMG [California Forensic Medical Group] should be reviewed to determine if contracting requirements have been met.”
Second, they suggest, “Plans for remodeling/expansion of the laundry room, kitchen and medical beds should be implemented when funds become available.”
The Vanguard has heard a number of complaints about the treatment of inmates over the years, but the Grand Jury apparently never looked into this.
The most significant issues involving AB 109 have not addressed in this report.
Some of this may be outside of their purview, but certainly if they looked at the issue of overcrowding and its causes, as well as the impact of treating parole violations locally rather than in state custody, it would seem reasonable that they could have looked into three critical areas that have been cited for reform.
First, the issue of how pre-trial custody is handled. They argue that only felons are held in custody – but there is a large variety of people who are considered felons.
One of the key questions is whether the people we hold in custody prior to their trial need to be there. This issue is completely unexplored by the Grand Jury.
Last Fall the Sacramento Bee in an key editorial asked, “Who, really, needs to be detained before trial, and who should be allowed to remain in the community while his or her case proceeds? Counties need to take a hard look at the risks arrestees pose to public safety while they await trial.”
The Bee added, “In Sacramento County, 31 percent of the pretrial population has had no previous arrests, or only one arrest. Forty-three percent have had no prior convictions. Sixty-three percent were arrested for nonviolent property, drug or alcohol crimes. Most are local people and are not a flight risk.”
Why not identify these people early in the process and find a place other than the local jail for them to await trial? Not only are most of these people low safety and flight risk, but keeping them in custody is detrimental to their future ability to avoid recidivism.
The Bee analyzed one of the problems that is keeping low-risk pretrial detainees in jail, and that is an over-reliance on bail.
Looking at Sacramento, the Bee found, “In the pool of 1,294 local pretrial detainees in Sacramento County, the 437 arrested in violent, sex or weapons- related cases are rightly held in jail without bond. But that leaves 812 people who a judge has said could be released if they paid bail, but remain in custody because they can’t pay. Bail in Sacramento County is extraordinarily high – only 9 percent of the 812 have had bail set under $20,000.”
As the Bee put it: “The county needs to screen every person booked into county jail, and release low-risk individuals, with conditions such as home detention or regular phone checks to make sure they attend court hearings.”
Now how come the Bee editorial board can look into this, but not the Yolo County Grand Jury?
Second, the report mentioned the number of dangerous felons being held locally after violations of parole and probation.
One of the things that Matthew Cate, the head of CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitaion) argued last fall at a conference at UC Davis is that most people who are put back into custody on parole and probation violations are there for 90 days or less and have committed technical violations.
Now under AB 109 those people are sent to county jail rather than prison. It makes sense from the state’s perspective, but perhaps it makes sense from the perspective of the county not to put those people into custody when they are only creating technical violations, as opposed to actually committing new crimes.
There are certainly other ways to handle those kinds of violations: anything from extensions of their commitment to alternative sentencing.
Finally, much has been made of the lack of mental health resources that are really needed to drive down recidivism. Unfortunately, the Grand Jury looked at some of these issues but not whether we can better utilize jail space by getting those individuals into treatment programs and other such programs.
The Grand Jury mentions the spiking medical and mental health costs, but not the decisions that were made to put money into jail space rather than into those kinds of programs. Those were conscious decisions made by governing bodies that is never evaluated by the Grand Jury.
In sum, this is a very limited and thus a very disappointing report on an extremely important topic.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“In the pool of 1,294 local pretrial detainees in Sacramento County, the 437 arrested in violent, sex or weapons- related cases are rightly held in jail without bond. But that leaves 812 people who a judge has said could be released if they paid bail, but remain in custody because they can’t pay. Bail in Sacramento County is extraordinarily high – only 9 percent of the 812 have had bail set under $20,000”
Am I alone in seeing this as obvious economic discrimination. I am at a loss as to how it can stand legally to keep someone incarcerated simply because of the inability to pay $20,00 dollars. This seems to me to be one step removed from ” debtors prisons” ! I had no idea that bail like this was imposed on anyone not actually a danger to the community.
Elaine, or anyone with more knowledge than me, your thoughts ?
[quote]Am I alone in seeing this as obvious economic discrimination. I am at a loss as to how it can stand legally to keep someone incarcerated simply because of the inability to pay $20,00 dollars. This seems to me to be one step removed from ” debtors prisons” ! I had no idea that bail like this was imposed on anyone not actually a danger to the community. [/quote]
Here is a good discussion of the subject:
Link: [url]http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090507092549AA7nnQ9[/url]
[quote]Best Answer – Chosen by Voters
The posting of a bail bond is a contractual undertaking guaranteed by a bail agent and an individual posting bail. This bail agent provides a guarantee to the court that the defendant will appear in court each and every time he or she is summoned by the judge.
A relative or a family friend contacts the bail agent, before the defendant is released, to arrange for the posting of a bail. The bail agent gets a percentage of the amount decided by the judge for that particular defendant. By signing the agreement with the bail agent regarding posting the bail, the defendant or the co-signer, who might be a relative or a family friend, must provide a guarantee that the bail amount will definitely be paid in full if the defendant fails to appear at the summons. After an agreement is signed, the bail agent posts a bond for the amount of the bail, to guarantee the defendant’s return to court.
Some bail agents prefer to have the defendant or the co-signer arrange for a collateral. Even if the collateral is not requested by the agent, the minimum criteria is that the co-signer must have a steady income, and must either own or rent a home in the same area as the defendant for some period of time. If the bail agent or the co-signer is unable to locate the defendant, the cosigner is immediately responsible for the full amount of the bail. After the defendant is located and arrested by the bail agent the cosigner is responsible for all expenses the bail agent incurs while looking for the defendant.
If the defendant cannot raise the entire amount of the bail, then the court might allow a situation in which the defendant pays a percentage of the amount directly to the local jail or court. But this is not a common practice in most courts.
Defendants also have the option of arranging for their bail through a bail bondsman. However, this involves the defendant providing a collateral to the bail bondsman. The bail bondsman or bail bond company representative will then guarantee to pay the court if the defendant fails to appear for trial, by posting a surety bail bond power of attorney with the jail or court. After the defendant has completed all court appearances and the case is closed, the bail bond will be dissolved and any collateral given to the bail bondsman will be returned to the defendant shortly thereafter.
A co-signer always has the responsibility to ensure that the defendant appears in court as and when required. The co-signer must know the whereabouts of the defendant at all times and must immediately notify the bail bondsman if the defendant has moved. Since the co-signer’s collateral is at risk if the defendant fails to show up as summoned, it is advised to be cautious when it comes to keeping an eye on the defendant.
Source(s):
http://ezinearticles.com[/quote%5D
There is no question that the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to get all the perks of that wealth in the criminal justice system, e.g. you can better pay bail and be out of jail while awaiting trial, access to paid legal representation rather than taking pot luck w the local public defender…
“There is no question that the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to get all the perks of that wealth in the criminal justice system, e.g. you can better pay bail and be out of jail while awaiting trial, access to paid legal representation rather than taking pot luck w the local public defender…”
And we are all ok with this ? Sorry, but I find it utterly disgusting that we acknowledge all of this and yet seem incapable of doing anything about it. I will give the legal system something that I will not give to the medical community. And that is honesty about how much differential there is in the treatment of those who are wealthy from those who are not. In the medical field we will not even admit that we ration medical care by the patient’s ability to pay. It seems that at least some of our lawyers are willing to admit this about our legal system.
To medwoman: The fact of the matter is that life is not fair, pure and simple, and it probably never will be…
However, that should never stop us from trying like heck to make it fairer… 😉
[quote]And we are all ok with this ? Sorry, but I find it utterly disgusting that we acknowledge all of this and yet seem incapable of doing anything about it. I will give the legal system something that I will not give to the medical community. And that is honesty about how much differential there is in the treatment of those who are wealthy from those who are not. In the medical field we will not even admit that we ration medical care by the patient’s ability to pay. It seems that at least some of our lawyers are willing to admit this about our legal system.[/quote]
Ah, but just as some lawyers (like me) in the criminal justice system concede the wealthier get better “justice”, it looks like some doctors (like you) in the medical profession are willing to admit/concede that the medical profession and better medical care is geared toward the wealthier… 😉
True enough. I am curious. While I know who the major players are who have a vested interest in protecting their profits by keeping the system the way it is, the doctors themselves, the insurers, and the pharmaceutical and equipment companies, I do not know who benefits from keeping our judicial system the way it is. Who benefits except for prison personel. Surely they are not strong enough politically or socially to maintain such an egregiously biased system ?
To medwoman: I suspect the reason has more to do with law schools, and the way things are “done” according to tradition. The criminal justice system has evolved over the years to be what it is today (better than it was, but still has a long way to go), but it is a system borrowed from the English system and is culturally ingrained into our society. It is difficult to make changes – there seems to be a natural inertia to any kind of significant reform. But off the top of my head I can’t think of any financial gain that particularly drives the system to be what it is – unfair to the indigent.
ERM
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think this actually gives me some hope about the legal system moving into the future if its evolution in any way follows that which I have seen in medicine.
When I first entered medicine 30 years ago, it was largely a “precedent” based system. We relied very heavily on the experience and word of authorities in a given field and very little on what the data actually showed. Over the years, we have become more and more “evidence based” making changes in practice not because one personality or school of thought has gained more followers, but rather because well designed studies show that is the best solution for a given problem. True there are some “traditional” hold outs.
I had an interesting conversation with a colleague last night about a practitioner who states flatly, “well I just don’t go by that data” regardless of its overwhelming evidence. But these are becoming the minority over time.
I see hope for the legal system in areas where the data seems to be gaining more significance such as
in DNA testing, improvements in forensic science generally, and awareness of flaws in previously heavily relied upon factors such as eyewitness accounts and identifications.
I am hoping for something even more sweeping. Just as medicine is moving towards prevention rather than treatment as its major goal, I have hope that our society and legal system will also move towards crime prevention rather than incarceration as our primary approach to protecting our society.
Please bear with me in our conversations. I was trained as a surgeon, and we don’t tend to be very patient types ; )
To medwoman: Loved, loved, loved your reply, and I think it is spot on! It will be evidence and pressure from the media that will change the criminal justice system…