For those interested in how California is complying (or
attempting to) with federal court orders to reduce their incarceration levels, the Prison Law Blog
had a good basic roundup recently of a policy that's being dubbed "realignment" (shifting state inmates to county jails) including summaries of what various CA counties are doing in preparation. Adds blogger Sara Mayeux, " If you’re looking for a more comprehensive resource, the ACLU of Northern California has produced
a helpful guide (PDF) to the law and how counties can plan for the changes."
From the beginning it was a matter of moving numbers from one column to another. The trick will be keeping the county jails under population limit. I could see the state pay a county jail to house inmate X and that county leasing inmate X to another county that has vacancy space. Could counties compete for inmates, some counties with space charging lower costs to receive inmates from the state? I hope they use parole to take care of most of the reduction and reform sentencing to keep the inflow at a reasonable rate.
ReplyDelete