"Unloading" the State Burden on the Counties -- A Very Bad Idea

Here is an October 7, 2011 article from Tonya Page of the Family Bail Blog:

California Inmates Transferred to County Jails

The LAPD and the LA Sheriff’s Department are suddenly finding themselves a bit more stretched. Mandated under the Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011, each of California’s 58 counties, including Los Angeles, will need to take responsibility of certain current and future state prisoners within their jurisdiction. The Act, also known as AB109, went into effect on Oct. 1.

Under the direction of the Act, non-serious, non-violent and non-sex offenders (known as “non-non-non”) will now serve out their sentences in county jails instead of in state prisons.

Los Angeles Impact

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck, and other city officials point to increased expenses to the city, including the need to hire additional officers. Additional gang intervention and prevention personnel will also need to be trained, points out Los Angeles gang expert Connie Rice.

Response times for 911 services may also increase, Beck said.

For the average citizen, the question may be “why?”.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) suggests that approximately 7,000 inmates currently sentenced to serve time in state prisons will now be housed within the Los Angels County Jail System.

According to an Aug. 2011 report prepared by the County of Los Angeles Community Corrections Partnership (CCP), the CRCR also projects that “approximately 9,000 offenders will be released to the Los Angeles Postrelease Community Supervision (PCS) in FY2011-12. By the end of year two, between 14,000 and 15,000 individuals are expected to be under PCS in Los Angeles County”. It’s further projected that 44 percent of the PCS population will be comprised of drug offenders, 41 percent will have been convicted of property offenses, 14 percent convicted of “other”.

LA County Chief Probation Officer Donald. H. Blevins has emphasized that “the Act is limited to serving non-violent, non-serious non-sex offenders after they are released from state prison to be supervised at the county level,” Blevins said in an earlier statement. ”This is the offender that my operation will be supervising.”