Since taking effect in October 2011, prison realignment in California has been a success at reducing the prison population, but county correctional systems still face significant challenges in the transition, according to a study released Monday.
Prison realignment stemmed from a federal court order to reduce overcrowding in the state’s prison system, shifting the long-term incarceration, treatment and supervision of lower-level offenders to county jails instead of state prisons.
In its first year, realignment reduced the state prison population by 17 percent, from 160,800 prisoners to 133,400. But the reduction did not meet the court-ordered mandate until November 2014, when Proposition 47, which reduced penalties for certain property and drug offenses, was approved by voters, according to the report, “Public Safety Realignment: Impacts So Far,” released Monday by the Public Policy Institute of California, a San Francisco-based think tank.
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And while reducing the state prison population, realignment caused the jail population in California’s 58 counties to soar to historical highs for more than three years before dropping by 10,000 inmates following the passage of Proposition 47 in 2014. Still, the county jail populations did not increase as much as the prison population fell, according to the study.
Although 18,000 prisoners have been released from custody since realignment took effect, the study showed that violent crime and property crime rates in California fell below 2011 levels, with only a slight increase in auto theft at a rate of 70 vehicles per 100,000 residents.
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Realignment brought with it an expectation that individual counties would have better success at reducing the recidivism rates of probationers. And while no evidence to date suggests that is the case, it does not mean that some counties have not experienced success, according to the study.
“So far, we are limited to those offenders released during the first year of realignment. It didn’t give the counties a whole lot of time to prepare the best they could for this increase in responsibility,” said Magnus Lofstrum, senior fellow at the PPIC who co-authored the study.
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The state budgeted $10.07 billion this fiscal year, to be divvied up among California’s 58 counties, compared with $9.6 billion spent in the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Higher costs for medical and mental health services at county jails, a direct effect of realignment, have contributed to a rise in spending, according to the report.
Increased demand for medical and mental health services for inmates has been particularly challenging for San Bernardino County. In August, the Board of Supervisors approved a $10.8 million contract with the state to expand a treatment program for mentally ill inmates at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga to include inmates from other counties across California. Pennsylvania-based Liberty Healthcare Inc., which contracts with the California Department of State Hospitals, is providing the additional mental health care professionals.
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Still, millions of dollars in upgrades and additional staff are needed in the San Bernardino County jail system to accommodate the changes necessitated by realignment.
Sheriff John McMahon said that prior to realignment, the county was sending roughly 400 of its jail inmates a month to state prisons upon their convictions. Since realignment, the county sends no more than 100 inmates a month to prison. And the increased costs to provide inmates with the appropriate level of medical and mental health services remains a challenge, McMahon said.
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“The state sends realignment funding to the county to help offset the costs, but it’s not enough for us to do what we need to do,” McMahon said.
The state now doles out $1 billion a year to fund realignment across California, and that increased funding is attributed to increased medical and mental health care costs, said Brandon Martin, a co-author the study.
Unlike the state prison system, where medical and mental health services are more accessible for prisoners serving long stints, county jails were not equipped for it because inmates typically served no longer than a year in jail before either being released or remanded to state prison upon conviction.
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Now, under realignment, some inmates will be calling jail home for several years.
And if inmates are not getting the proper level of medical and mental health service they are entitled to by law, it could prove even more costly to California counties, Martin said.
“We’re worried that if they don’t provide the services, they’ll be sued just like the state was,” Martin said.