State officials are concerned about a flood of new inmates into California’s overcrowded prison and county jails systems, reports Rina Palta, crime and safety reporter for KPCC.
The Three Strikes Law, enacted in 1994, increased California’s prison population over time, according to Palta.
The law changed sentencing in two ways:
Anyone having two previous convictions for a serious or violent felony crime would be sentenced to 25 years to life upon their third felony conviction. Anyone having a felony conviction while previously convicted of a serious or violent crime – known as “second strikers” – would have their sentence automatically doubled.
State officials worry that the increase of “second strike” admissions would make it difficult for California to comply with a federal court order to reduce its prison population over the next two years, Palta reported.
According to prison officials’ population projections, “there were 5,492 second strike admissions in fiscal year 2012-2013, which is 32.6 percent higher than the previous fiscal year” – the highest number of second strikers sent to prison since 1998-1999.
California has approximately 35,000 second strikers; 24,000 are in prison on a non-violent second-strike conviction, prison numbers show. This is proving to be a major obstacle in reducing the prison population down to 137.5 percent of its capacity, according to Palta’s report.
“We’re certainly concerned that if this trend in increased admissions continues, it is going to make it harder for the state to comply. The state will have to figure out some kind of way to accommodate them,” said Aaron Edwards, senior analyst at the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Edwards said no one can quite explain the recent increase, but that it is likely the result of many factors, one guess being the consequence of the state’s shifting “low-level” offenders and parolees from serving time in state prisons to local county jail facilities.
“Prior to realignment, individuals who were on parole could be sent back to prison for a parole violation,” Edwards said. Now parole violations either get jail time or are prosecuted as new crimes — sometimes resulting in second-strike convictions.
According to Palta, another possibility is county prosecutors, dealing with overcrowded jails, could be deciding to charge more offenders with strikes to make sure they go to prison instead of jail or probation.
Palta reports that in granting the state a two-year extension for lowering its prison population, state officials have agreed to increase its good-time credits for second strikers currently in prison. The state has also agreed to create a parole process for second strikers convicted of non-violent offenses who have served at least half of their sentence.
