“County jail forced to release inmates early.”
That was the headline on a statement sent out by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department on Jan. 25. That same day, the jail released 71 inmates as a result of a newly enacted section of California Penal Code.
Approved by the governor on Oct. 11, 2009, Senate Bill x318 is designed to improve the state’s jail and prison systems—and ultimately reduce overcrowding—by making changes to parole, rehabilitation, and imprisonment guidelines, among other things.
According to officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the legislation brings some much-needed reform to the state’s prison system.
However, some local-level law enforcement officials, like Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown, are saying the legislation is going to do more harm than good.
“I have some deep concerns about [the law],” Brown told the Sun in a recent interview. “I don’t see this being a solution to California’s overall economic and crime problems. I think it sends a bad message to the criminals and the public in general.”
Brown is especially troubled over a portion of the law that changes how much time inmates are given off their sentences for good behavior and participation in rehabilitative programs. Under the old guidelines, inmates were given one-third day credit off their sentences for each full day served with good behavior. Now that credit has been upped to one-half day.
But while the revision does affect almost all of California’s correctional facilities, it doesn’t apply to all inmates. Inmates who are registered sex offenders, have committed a violent crime, have a gang affiliation, or have committed a serious disciplinary offense can’t qualify.
These qualifications are reflected in a breakdown of the inmates released from county jail on Jan. 25: Of the 71 inmates freed from custody, 22 came from the actual jail. The other 49 inmates were released from electronic monitoring enforced through alternative sentencing programs.
And county jail officials expect that number to increase exponentially over time.
The state, however, appears to be interpreting the law a little differently.
“The difference seems to be that the counties are applying the law retroactively,” Corrections and Rehabilitation Department press secretary Gordon Hinkle said. “We can only dictate the law for ourselves, not for the counties.”
The text of the law, however, doesn’t clearly state whether or not the good behavior credits should be applied retroactively. As of press time, the governor’s office would only say that, like any law, the new regulations are open to interpretation.
The state prison system, Hinkle said, has enforced the new guidelines but has yet to release any inmates.
“So we haven’t seen too much of an impact yet,” he said. “But we do expect the overall population to go down over time.”
According to data from the corrections department, California’s prison population could be reduced by as many as 6,500 inmates over the next year.
Hinkle said this portion of the law affects people who—because of the nature of their sentences and their ability to participate in work and vocational programs—would be out of prison in a short amount of time anyway.
The increase of credits for good behavior, he said, creates a big incentive for inmates to “go and achieve something—serve in the fire house, get your GED—and get time off their sentence for that.”
In addition to addressing prison overcrowding, Hinkle said, the revised law will decrease “the unmanageable caseloads” placed on parole officers by creating a system of “non-revocable parole” for certain low-risk parolees. Under the new guidelines, qualified low-risk parolees won’t be required to participate in traditional parole supervision upon their release.
That alteration alone is expected to save the state $100 million and allow probation officers to focus more attention on higher-risk parolees. Consequently, the bill would authorize the state to allocate money each year into a State Corrections Performance Incentives Fund to be used for improvements to county probation departments.
But the process for how that money will get distributed to the counties is still in the developmental stages, which has officials like Brown worried.
“In theory, [the money] would be great,” Brown said. “Realistically, we’ll see if it’ll be there when the time comes to get it.”
Still, even if the county did get money, it wouldn’t go to the Sheriff’s Department or the jail—it would go to probation.
“We’re talking apples and oranges here,” Brown said.
The bottom line, he said, is the law has so far done nothing to help the county’s overcrowding problem.
“Here it is a little over a week later and [the jail is] already filled up again,” he said.
Contact News Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 11-18, 2010.