California’s prisoner realignment plan is generating problems in many counties that will affect each of the 58 counties, says a new study by the Americans Civil Liberty Union analyzing California’s solution to its overcrowded prisons.
Realignment is Gov. Jerry Brown’s response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering the state to fix its unconstitutional medical care delivery system to prisoners by reducing its inmate population. The population is ordered to be at 137.5 percent of design capacity by June 2013.
The state’s blueprint to meet the court order says it can only get to 141 percent by 2013, and will ask the court to allow it to stay at 145 percent.`
Some counties are experiencing overcrowded jails, and a need for increased drug treatment and rehabilitation programs, according to a separate report by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. That report says, “The state must continue to reduce its prison population and provide adequate conditions of care to its reduced, older, and more medically demanding population.”
The ACLU report comments: “Counties that have chosen a path of jail expansion—as many of the Big 25 county realignment plans indicate they have—are trying to solve the wrong problem. They seek to absorb the realigned population without changing their local approaches to public safety. Left unchecked, these counties will build larger jail systems that will cost more tax dollars than they do now and hold more people than they do now.”
In yet another report, the Public Policy Institute of California points out that as of February, 17 counties were operating under court orders limiting the number of detainees in their jails.
“I fear that we are likely to see a great deal more transfer of incarceration from prison to jail, but I think that will only delay slightly the day of reckoning for our over-reliance on incarceration,” warns Jonathon Simon, UC Berkeley law professor.
The ACLU report says realignment encourages counties to use alternative to incarceration and to use evidence-based methods to achieve a safer community. However, the report comments that there is no way to determine if the realignment plan is meeting its goals because the law doesn’t tell the counties how to spend the money, nor does it ask to the counties how the money was spent.
“The criminal justice system selectively incarcerates to deal with mental health, drug abuse, and economic and social problems that can never be solved simply by locking more people behind bars,” says the ACLU report.
The reports note the state prison population is rapidly decreasing according to the blueprint; however, each report cautions policy makers about tracking and accounting for the effectiveness of county plans and how to fund the plans.
“Jail costs will expand rapidly as their mission moves closer to the prison and the surplus in space will be short-lived,” said Simon. “Health costs which threaten to overwhelm the system will not necessarily be lower in jails than in prison, especially if custody lasts years.”
The Public Policy Institute of California comments: “County officials might respond to the incentives introduced by realignment by altering their approach to prosecution and sentencing. In marginal cases, district attorneys may opt for more serious charges (known as ‘up-charging’) in hopes of sending offenders to prison instead of county jail. Similarly, prosecutors may decide to charge rearrested parolees with new crimes rather than just technical violations of parole. These tendencies would likely increase prison commitment rates over time. Alternatively, judges may opt for lighter sentences or split sentences that keep offenders in local custody for less time.”
On the same topic, The Economist magazine reports: “A new question is whether realignment is merely shifting a humanitarian disaster from the state to its 58 counties. The reform will work in the long run only if the overall number of people behind bars in California declines.”
