In what the San Jose Mercury News is calling “the most sweeping criminal justice overhaul in state history,” Governor Jerry Brown is proposing the elimination of the youth prison system, along with an end to prison terms for thousands of convicts who are in prison for relatively minor crimes. Those individuals would be moved to county jails.
According to the Governor’s budget, such a move would save the state nearly half a million next year, $1.4 billion annually on an ongoing basis, while at the same time dealing with the critical prison overcrowding and prison reform issues.