CA’s Goal to Reduce Prison Overcrowding Hinges on Counties

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California’s overcrowded prisons posed a human rights violation, and required the state to reduce its prison population. To address the problem, Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed into law AB 109 that shifts certain groups of non-violent, non-serious offenders from state prisons to county jails – a policy called “realignment.” It also shifts responsibility for parolees to counties. The state is expected to transfer about 40,000 inmates to the 58 counties over the next three years. Counties need to submit their plans to deal with the influx of prisoners and parolees from state lock-up by October 1.

What path we take at this pivotal moment will be based on how counties envision, strategize, and act over the next two months. AB 109 has created an opportunity in California to dramatically change the state’s criminal justice system. California counties are being given a rare and historic opportunity to re-imagine its public safety framework in a way that can dramatically strengthen communities, unite families, and rebuild the economy. Santa Clara County sends the most prisoners to state lock-up, and it will see the greatest number of prisoners and parolees returned to the county level, reports the Wall Street Journal.

We can use AB 109, not only to improve re-entry programs, but also take a hard look at our county criminal justice system and the number of people we are locking up. Or, we can just fill up our local jails with people who would have filled up our state prisons. And as much as I hate to use a Silicon Valley catch phrase, Santa Clara County, as well as every California county can shift the paradigm of our criminal justice system if we allow our more rationale thinking to prevail over the impulse to do more of the same in terms of incarceration. In Santa Clara County, roughly 3,000 inmates and parolees will be received from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, along with an estimated $13 million from the state in the first year to deal with the influx.

Each county, under the legislation, has a Community Corrections Committee -- consisting of the chief probation officer, the sheriff, the district attorney, the public defender, a judge, the director of mental health, and a police chief – who will construct the realignment plan. Fortunately, in Santa Clara County, the committee has shown a commitment to look at realignment as an opportunity for change, rather than a burden to bear. But given the time pressure, the risk counties face is equating realignment for re-entry, an inclination that may squander an opening for larger impact. The loudest question in the room is: What are we going to do with all these people returning to our county? And while counties do need to innovate, make difficult resource decisions, and coordinate services to answer this very real question – re-entry is only one stage of the incarceration machinery. Ultimately, if a county is going to reduce the number of people it sends to the state prison system, it needs to change the decision points that lead to incarceration in the first place.

For example, upon charging, how will the District Attorney’s office use its prosecutorial discretion? Upon sentencing, how will judges determine placement? When put on probation, how will probation officers actively assist probationers to find employment and housing, so they don’t end up violating their probation? And having just sat in on Santa Clara County’s Community Corrections Committee last week, two indisputable realities were apparent. First, there are more questions than answers. Second, important stakeholders who may hold the most informed ideas on how to move forward are not present. So far. And this is why a discussion as significant and open-ended as realignment needs all stakeholders at the table, including those on probation or parole, their families, the faith communities, victims’ rights groups, civil rights organizations, sitting alongside county officials to construct a plan that has collective buy in.

The challenge of this more inclusive process is that countywide criminal justice reform is rarely discussed in a popular, public sense, despite the fact that the criminal justice system affects everything about us – our economy, our schools, our neighborhoods, and how we elect our politicians. And in the case of AB109, it is undoubtedly where the rubber hits the road. Already, during the public comment periods of the county Community Corrections Committee, some ideas put forth by a few community stakeholders are garnering support. One idea around reducing recividism is for “peer mentors” to assist people returning to the county – residents who have walked down a similar road, have made their transformations, and can help returnees navigate the re-entry process, by connecting them with services and providing a measure of support from someone “who’s been there.”

Given the sheer numbers that Santa Clara County deals with in terms of the inmate population, other counties will be watching how we cope with the realignment shift. With enough participation and political will, our process stands to be more than a bureaucratic “shift” from prisons to jails, but can represent a new, smarter way for criminal justice to operate on the county level.

Raj Jayadev is the Director of Silicon Valley De-Bug, which runs the Albert Cobarrubias Justice Project, a community organizing model that assists families and organizations to impact their local criminal justice system. Jayadev is a Soros Justice fellow.