Drummond: More transparency needed with county realignment funds

In 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 109 into law. Realignment allowed people convicted of 500 "non-serious, non-violent and non-sex related" felonies to serve their sentences in county jail or in a supervised community release program. 

The idea was to help reduce the state's prison population and the soaring costs of incarceration. Supporters of this major corrections policy shift saw it as an opportunity to break the cycle of re-incarceration by sending more low-level offenders to evidenced-based community programs that offer drug rehab, education, job training, anger management, housing and other services to help them to re-enter society.

Yet in fact, AB 109 was set up to maintain the status quo.

The state gives each county a certain amount of money -- based on a formula -- to help absorb the costs associated with this new group of people still serving sentences and parolees that they are now responsible for.

The Community Corrections Partnership Executive Committee makes funding recommendations to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Six of its seven members come from law enforcement and the courts. They include LaDonna Harris, chief probation officer, Fremont Police Chief Richard Lucero, Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern, District Attorney Nancy O'Malley, Public Defender Brendon Woods and court executive officer Leah Wilson. There are no community members on the powerful committee.

The Alameda County Sheriff's Department, which runs the jails, has gotten the lion's share of the money. The department has been allocated more than half of the $34.6 million AB 109 funds -- the same percentage as last year. Yet the number of inmates at Santa Rita and Glenn Dyer dropped from 10,000 to 7,000, according to a presentation by sheriff's officials before the county Public Protection Committee. The department has closed three housing units at Santa Rita and two floors at Glenn Dyer.

So with fewer inmates under its supervision, why is the department still set to get $18 million -- close to the same amount as when there were more inmates?

"The number of bed days have gone down and the number of inmates have gone down but our costs continue to rise with the cost of living," Ahern said.

Ahern said there were fixed programming costs that don't go down just because of fewer inmates. He also characterized many of the prisoners coming from state prison as having been "in and out of jail with a high level of sophistication."

Yet how could they be any more difficult for deputies to manage than the gang members and killers who are routinely housed in Santa Rita while they're on trial?

"The Alameda County jail population is the same as its always been and the people who are coming from state prison are nonviolent," says Ella Baker Center for Human Rights organizer Darris Young.

According to an Ella Baker Center analysis, the county spent just under $6 million of the $9.5 million allocated to community-based organizations in 2013-2014. Young said that the county's failure to disburse the funds to community-based organizations meant that ex-offenders with pressing housing and other needs didn't get help, which makes no sense. Activists complain that the sheriff has not given a detailed accounting of expenditures.

The Ella Baker Center "Jobs not Jails" campaign has been waging a battle to get Alameda County to reduce the sheriff's share of realignment dollars and dedicate at least 50 percent to community-based organizations that provide re-entry series. They are currently set to receive 29 percent of the $34.6 million pie under the proposed 2014-2015 budget.

"This fight is going on in almost every county in California," says Barry Krisberg, a criminologist at UC Berkeley. "Unfortunately, in a lot of places the traditional voices are winning."

The highly organized "Jobs not Jails" campaign is beginning to gain traction.

Ella Baker activists took over a board of supervisors meeting earlier this month. They sang and chanted, demanding that the supervisors dedicate nearly 50 percent of funds from the proposed realignment budget to community re-entry programs. Supervisor Keith Carson introduced a compromise proposal to up those programs to 50 percent -- starting July 1.

The activists say that's a step in the right direction but they won't concede on the current AB 109 budget vote set for Tuesday. It's going to be a wild ride.

Women Overlooked in California Prisoner Realignment Program

California is in the midst of reducing its state prison inmate population to no more than 137.5 percent of capacity, the first step to address what was deemed inhumane overcrowded conditions. Much of the overcrowding in state prisons has been due to offenders violating conditions of their parole and automatically being sent back to prison. One of the programs undertaken has been transferring parole supervision of low level, non-violent, non-sex offenders to county probation departments. While still more than 5,400 inmates away from the desired benchmark, the population has been reduced and overcrowding has been eased somewhat in many of the state’s prisons.

However, the efforts seem to be more of an accounting trick.

A little discussed loophole in the mandate concerns how the reduction occurs. The court order requires that the overcrowding has to be reduced overall, but there seems to be some leeway regarding the percentage as to individual facilities. So while some of the more notable facilities have seen a reduction, many are still well above the desired capacity.

The most overcrowded are women’s facilities.

At the beginning of the realignment in 2011, women overwhelmingly benefited from the realignment. In the first year, more than 5,200 female prisoners were released. The majority of these releases were first time, non serious offenders.

As a result, the three women’s prisons were quickly below the court ordered benchmark. One facility, Valley State Prison for Women, saw a 36 percent reduction in inmates in 2011. The California Department of Corrections decided to convert the facility to a men’s prison to reduce overcrowding elsewhere. The remaining inmates at Valley State Prison were then transferred to the state’s two remaining women’s prisons.

The two women’s facilities are now operating higher than the court mandated level, one of which is currently at 175 percent capacity.

Nearly two-thirds of female prisoners are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, such as drugs or property crimes. Under the realignment, they are put under county jurisdiction as parolees. This gives them access to diversion programs which provide alternatives to jail should they violate their probation. Furthermore, all newly convicted offenders of non-violent, non-sex crimes are also eligible to serve their sentences under county jurisdiction instead of state.

A program that has become popular with several counties is called split sentencing. Under this program, offenders serve a portion of their term in the jail, and the remainder under strict supervision of the probation department. Often this means serving the remainder of their term under house arrest with electronic monitoring. They are subject to regular and surprise inspections and searches, with any violations subject to a number of penalties, including returning to jail.

Not all counties are created equal, however.

Nearly 30 percent of the realignment prisoners released fell under the supervision of Los Angeles County. Only 5 percent of the inmates in LA County jails are involved in a split sentencing program, with officials claiming that they don’t have the resources for the time intensive program. This means that most offenders that would normally serve in prison are serving longer sentences in jails that are not equipped for extended stays.

State prisons and county jails differ due to their populations. Prisons facilities and services are built and designed to house offenders with longer sentences. Jails are temporary facilities, housing those recently arrested, on parole violations, or serving a sentence of a year or less. The influx of prisoners has lead to overcrowding at the jails, which have seen stretched resources, including having to house the overflow in makeshift dorms such as basements.

This has become especially hard on women.

The majority of incarcerated women have children. In jail, visitations must occur through a window, if they happen at all. There are no family rooms, or outside yards for exercising as there are in state prisons. Personal items, such as feminine hygiene products, aren’t easily available or in the same quantities. The standard issued sandals are the only option for footwear. Bad medical conditions and several inmates in a cell are also becoming more common.

The conditions are much like those that were occurring in state prisons, leading to the need for the prisoner realignment.

These issues also exist in the men’s jails, where many are seeing a marked increase in violence. There are plans for a new women’s jail in LA County, though it is still in the planning stages. The sheriff’s department is also looking to developing their jail diversion programs for both men and women.

In the meantime, the state prison population continues to decline because none of the prisoners in the county jail system count towards the state prison population, which makes them closer to meeting their reduction goal.

Crystal Shepeard

via: http://ow.ly/tWzXp 

Declaring an impasse, judges to order solution on prisons

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown and lawyers for state prison inmates have failed to agree on a plan to handle crowding in the state's prisons, and the judges who ordered the two sides into talks said they would now order a solution themselves.

The judges gave Brown and the prisoners' attorneys until Jan. 23 to file proposals for achieving "durable compliance" with population limits that are scheduled to go into effect April 18.


The federal jurists — U.S. District Judges Thelton Henderson in San Francisco and Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento, and 9th Circuit Appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt in Los Angeles — had set last Friday as a deadline for a negotiated solution to overcrowding that they say endangers inmates' health and safety.

But after three months of talks, "it now appears that no such agreement will be reached," the judges said in an order released Monday.

The jurists said they would make their decision within a month, possibly extending the April deadline.

Brown said Tuesday that any deal permitting the early release of offenders would have been untenable.

"We've talked a lot to the prison lawyers, and I understand their job is to get people out of prison, regardless of what the law may say," he told reporters in Bakersfield, where he stopped during a brief state tour to discuss policy issues. "My job is to protect public safety."

The governor said he would handle any order to further lower inmate numbers by moving more prisoners to privately owned lockups and county facilities.

"We're prepared to respond, and certainly over the next couple years to purchase more prison capacity," Brown said.

Brown had asked the judges to delay the population caps by three years. The state budget he proposed last week assumes at least a two-year delay.

The judges' latest order means a short delay before Brown and state lawmakers learn whether they will need to increase spending to send more prisoners to alternate facilities.

If the judges push the April deadline back to 2016, as Brown seeks, the governor proposes in his budget to direct $81 million in savings to prisoner rehabilitation programs.

Meanwhile, as the governor revealed in his budget plan, he is immediately extending eligibility for parole to more frail and elderly inmates, as well as expanding the number of some repeat offenders eligible for early release.

Those steps would make about 2,200 inmates newly eligible to be removed from the prisons, but state officials have told the court they expect only about 440 to be freed in the first six months of such changes.

California's prison population has dropped by more than 27,000 since Brown took office. But state reports show it has been growing since June and will continue to expand in the coming years.


"We are hopeful the court will recognize that the state has made significant reforms to our criminal justice system and will allow us an extension so we can build upon these landmark reforms," corrections spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman said.

via: http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ff-prisons-20140115,0,1442683.story#axzz2qVgzIeX5

PUBLIC SAFETY: Inland counties denied millions for jail construction

Riverside and San Bernardino counties each were denied requests this month for $80 million in state grants for jail construction, even though their applications ranked among the highest-scoring based on criteria used to evaluate grant proposals.

The denial hampers efforts to add and improve jail space in this region. In order to comply with federal court orders, each county has released thousands of inmates early since 2011 because there’s no room for them.

Riverside’s 3,906 jail beds in five jails are all filled. And the chronic lack of beds was exacerbated in 2011 with the enactment of public safety realignment. Under realignment, offenders convicted of low-level offenses serve their time in county jails instead of state prisons, a move made to satisfy a court mandate to reduce California’s prison population.

Almost 7,000 Riverside inmates were turned loose early in 2012 to relieve crowding. More than 9,000 have been let go so far this year.

Early release could cause a rise in low-level crimes, such as petty theft and drug possession, said Riverside County Assistant Sheriff Steve Thetford.

“There’s no deterrent effect when you can’t keep people in custody,” he said. “It’s not healthy for public safety.”

San Bernardino’s four jails hold about 6,000 inmates. Since January 2012, more than 6,900 inmates have been released early. An expansion of the Adelanto jail will add another 1,392 beds.

Both counties competed for a slice of $500 million set aside by the state Legislature for jail construction with an emphasis on programs intended to stop inmates from re-offending. In all, Sacramento received $1.3 billion in requests from 36 counties.

Riverside wanted the money to add 582 beds to the 1,520-bed Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning. Grant dollars also would have paid for more space for vocational, substance abuse and education programs already taking place at Larry Smith.

San Bernardino wanted $80 million to reconfigure and add buildings to the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center, said Cindy Bachman, a sheriff’s spokeswoman. Money also would have gone to improving a road to the jail that is subject to flooding, she said.

A state steering committee graded each request. Among large counties, San Bernardino scored the highest and Riverside ranked third. However, the recommended grant awards went to Orange, San Mateo, Fresno and Sacramento counties.

Robert Oates, a project manager with the state corrections board, said Riverside and San Bernardino did not do enough to show that their respective county supervisors were committed to funding the jail projects that were the focus of their grant requests. Preference goes to shovel-ready projects, he said.

Riverside County officials disagree. In an email, spokesman Ray Smith said the county plans to appeal the grant decision. He contends that the county demonstrated its commitment by expanding the Indio jail and building a new secure youth treatment facility.

A $100 million state grant is paying for the estimated $267 million cost of adding more than 1,200 beds to the 353-bed Indio jail, which will be known as the East County Detention Center. The expansion is supposed to be ready by 2017, but Riverside officials earlier this year were worried that delays in getting state approvals might push back the timeline.

Smith and Thetford said the county will try to find other funding to expand the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility.

Besides seeking funds elsewhere, Riverside also is considering non-jail alternatives for offenders. These include sending more inmates to state-run fire camps and increased use of electronic monitoring.

Adding onto Smith remains a priority, Thetford said.

“It’s a competitive process. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t,” he said. “We’re just going to keep plugging away at it.”

Staff Writer Brian Rokos contributed to this story.

Follow Jeff Horseman on Twitter: @JeffHorseman

Grants rejected

Riverside and San Bernardino counties each were turned down for $80 million in state grants for jail construction.

What’s at stake? The denial hampers efforts to add and improve jail space in this region.

What it means: Lower-level criminals will continue to be released early.

Why does that matter? Early release could cause a rise in low-level crimes, such as petty theft and drug possession.

What’s next? Officials from both counties say they’ll seek funding elsewhere.

via: http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/politics-headlines-index/20131224-public-safety-inland-counties-denied-millions-for-jail-construction.ece