The centerpiece of the state’s prison reduction effort is Assembly Bill 109, also known as “Realignment,” which shifts some inmates from prisons to county jails. Proponents of the law insist the goal of realignment is to reduce recidivism among the state’s prison population. Opponents worry that realignment might actually prove counterproductive in this regard. Critics question whether the legislation is a “shell game,” that threatens public safety.
In an April, report for the Federal Sentencing Reporter, Aaron J. Rappoport surveyed the research of a wide variety of criminal justice experts to assess how California’s realignment program is working after three years. His sources included: sentencing experts Judge J. Richard Couzens and Prosecutor Lisa Rodriguez, San Francisco Chief Probation Officer Wendy Still, Los Angeles Sheriff Leroy D. Baca and Commander Gerald K. Cooper, and policy experts Kathryn Jett and Joan Hancock.
One concern cited by the report is that sheriffs with packed local jails may be compelled to order the early release of some inmates. Another concern is that the early release of prisoners may increase the risk of recidivism.
Some detractors worried that county probation departments lack the ability to meet their added supervisory obligations under realignment. The law requires the department to supervise not only offenders released from jail under mandatory supervision, but also offenders released from prison on Post Release Community Supervision (PRCS).
Rappoport said one way to understand realignment is to view the criminal justice system as a balance between two competing values. One is the public interest in promoting public safety and fiscal prudence. The other involves the interest of criminal offenders themselves. Some observers have argued California’s sentencing and correctional system has shown too little concern for the well-being or rehabilitation of offenders.
Realignment was designed in part to help achieve a balance between the two goals, and to reduce the state’s prison population in order to comply with a federal court’s inmate population reduction order.
The realignment legislation implemented three core changes. The first changes the location of incarceration; the second, the sentencing rules applicable to certain low-risk offenders; and the third, the structure of post-release supervision.
California sentenced most felons to state prison. However, under realignment, the responsibility for supervising and incarceration changes location. Thousands of additional felony offenders are now serving sentences in county jails with the responsibility for supervising them post-release in the hands of the state’s 58 counties.
Rappoport said some critics question whether the legislation will actually produce fewer inmates. The policy did not release inmates. Instead it reduced the prison population by transferring inmates to county jails. In that sense, critics contend, realignment is simply a shell game.
The report pointed out that many local facilities are already severely overcrowded. They are not equipped to handle long-term prisoners or provide the educational and drug treatment programs that prisons are currently re-fitting to do. County jails have few outdoor areas and less visiting space and they often lack medical facilities capable of managing serious or long-term medical conditions.
Realignment does not guarantee the conditions of incarceration will improve—or that the total number incarcerated will decrease. Its success depends on how it is implemented.
Counties are due to receive nearly $2 billion dollars over the first two years of realignment to carry out their new responsibilities. They have three potential options for using their new resources: building additional jails to alleviate some overcrowding (an option that continues the emphasis on incarceration).
A second option is to improve existing jails to provide services for long-term inmates. Some of Rappoport’s sources conclude this option is shortsighted if it is the only response to realignment, since it will also maintain the state’s reliance on incarceration as the answer to California’s crime problems.
The final option is making use of “the split sentence” for non-violent offenders. This effectively shortens the sentences of these offenders, and thus reduces the jail population. According to Rappoport, “the non-violent offender will serve only a portion of his sentence in county jail. The remaining portion will then be served in the community under what is called mandatory supervision, under the authority of the county probation department.
Prior to realignment, when judges gave out long sentences, the state paid the cost of imprisonment. That’s no longer the case with non-violent offenders. With jail overcrowding at the local level and county finances pressed, county judges may feel pressured to shorten expensive custodial sentences. The split sentence offers one way to do that. But according to Rappaport, that is a viable option only if county officials take steps to develop appropriate community services, treatment centers, halfway houses and other alternative sanctions to deal with these kinds of offenders.
Since realignment legislation went into effect appropriately 23 percent of those sentenced to county jails are split sentences, according to a mid-2012 study done by the Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC). These early results highlight another concern cited by Rappoport—that realignment policy may ultimately result in significant sentencing disparities.
The report concludes for realignment to be more than a shell game, judges will need to make use of the split sentence option for a significant number of non-violent offenders. Jails will have to renew efforts to handle the more serious offenders and make treatment available to address the underlying needs of jail inmates. And efforts must be made to ensure that realignment does not generate new and troubling disparities in the way low-level offenders are sentenced and treated.
“Ultimately,” Rappoport wrote, “time may be the critical factor determining Realignment’s success. In many jurisdictions, time will be needed for programs to come on line and become effective, and for successful strategies to propagate. But patience is not a common trait in the criminal justice field. If crime rates start to rise, it will be easy to demagogue on the issue and claim that Realignment is to blame.”
