California has met the first bench mark for solving its overcrowed prisons by shifting low-level offenders to county jails instead of state prison facilities. This is what Gov. Jerry Brown calls “realignment.”
However, one CDCR psychologist believes that the influx of felons shuffled to county jails is two to three times the number state officials estimated.
Added to the problem is that many of these realigned offenders are producing or aggravating security flaws in older jails that are not constructed to hold them for extended periods, according to a Contra Costa County sheriff’s official. Among the deficiencies: cells that have wooden rather than metal doors, walls made of sheet rock, not cinder block; and no sinks or toilets, requiring guards to constantly supervise prisoners who need to use restroom facilities.
Two significant factors increase the risk of offenders – mental illness and substance abuse issues, and 75 percent of the state’s prison population has substance abuse or mental illness problems, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News.
Treating mental health and substance abuse after release is an essential factor in keeping offenders from being re-arrested and imprisoned, a 2011 California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation study found.
Requiring counties to take care of offenders with mental health and substance abuse issues is “an unexpected repercussion of the court-ordered reorganization of the state’s prisons to reduce overcrowding,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
