Gov. Brown signs bill to transfer thousands of nonviolent felons to county jails

The measure is designed to reduce the number of inmates in California's chronically overcrowded state lockups and keep relatively low-level offenders closer to their homes. Brown says the program won't go into effect until funds are available.

By Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times
April 5, 2011
Reporting from Sacramento—

Tens of thousands of felons convicted of nonviolent crimes would serve their time in local county jails instead of state prisons under a law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday.

The measure is designed to reduce the number of inmates in California's chronically overcrowded state prisons and keep low-level offenders closer to home, where drug treatment and mental health services are believed to be more effective.

"For too long, the state's prison system has been a revolving door for lower-level offenders and parole violators who are released within months," Brown said in a press release late Monday. "Cycling these offenders through state prisons wastes money, aggravates crowded conditions, thwarts rehabilitation and impedes local law enforcement supervision."

But Brown's statement said the program won't begin until the state has money to fund it.

State officials have promised to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to local counties to help defray the costs.

Much of that was expected to come from Brown's proposed extension of sales and vehicle taxes. The governor's attempts to get those tax extensions on a ballot for voter approval have so far been unsuccessful.

Opponents, mostly Republican legislators, have referred to the plan as the "get a dog, buy a gun and install an alarm system" bill, arguing some inmates will have to be freed from local jails early in order to make room for those who would otherwise have been shipped off to prison.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Matt Cate supports the measure, noting that the prison system took in 47,000 inmates last year who were parole violators sentenced to 90 days or less.

Despite those short terms, the prison system is required to perform a detailed physical examination, mental health screening and an investigation of potential gang affiliation on each inmate to determine where in the department's sprawling, 33 prison complex, they should be housed.

Cate said it makes no sense to go through the elaborate reception process, which takes and average of three months, for inmates who are only going to spend a few months behind bars. "It's a terrible waste of public safety resources that doesn't have any public safety benefit," Cate said.

Much of the reception process is mandated by federal courts following inmate lawsuits concerning the poor quality of prison healthcare. County jails are not subject to the same court orders. As a result, Cate said, "The state system is the most expensive in the free world…you can't do worse."

But county jails are also crowded, said L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, and were never designed to offer the same rehabilitation programs as state prisons. "Public safety requires appropriate incarceration and deterrence…and both of those will suffer under the proposal," Cooley said.

Jack.dolan@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 5953.story