A much-needed infusion of funding from the state Legislature will allow the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s and Probation departments to hire more staff members and revert the Santa Maria Jail back into an overnight holding facility.
The almost $4 million in Public Safety Realignment Act funds will help county law enforcement expand services to accommodate the influx of inmates who would normally be incarcerated and then paroled by the state corrections department.
“[The Public Safety Realignment Act] will have a major impact on the state and the county,” Sheriff’s Department spokesman Drew Sugars told
the Sun.
Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court declared that the overcrowding in the state’s prisons was unconstitutional and ordered the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to release inmates or find them alternative places to serve their sentences.
Two state bills recently signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown—AB109 and AB117—dictate how the dislocated prison populations will be transferred into county jurisdiction. The county will now be responsible for jailing people who commit non-violent, non-serious, and non-sex offender crimes after Oct. 1 of this year. Additionally, county officials will have to supervise and treat released inmates who served prison terms for non-violent, non-serious, and non-sex offender crimes.
PIO Sugars said there are exclusions to the “non-non-non” rule, but the majority of these criminals will now be serving their time in jail.
He offered this scenario as an example: “The other day we sent a bus to Wasco [State Prison] with six people on it. Based on the Public Safety Realignment Act, only two of those people would have gone to Wasco.’”
County officials estimate approximately 20 to 25 inmates and parolees will be transferred to the Santa Barbara County Jail and Probation Department each month, totaling about 640 additional offenders at full implementation of the law by 2013.
To prepare for these offenders, the Sheriff’s Department is planning to hire more custody deputies and administrative employees. The money will also be used to revert the Santa Maria Jail back into an overnight holding facility. This comes on the heels of the county Deputy Sheriff’s Association’s decision to forgo salary increases, which allowed the Sheriff’s Department to open the Santa Maria booking facility seven days a week.
“It’s good news for everyone in North County,” Sugars said. “It’s something we wouldn’t have been able to do without the realignment funds.”
The Sheriff’s Department will also channel funds toward its electronic monitoring program and re-entry programs “to give inmates the skills they need to go back into society and not reoffend,” he said.
Deputy Chief Probation Officer Beverly Taylor said her department will use the funds to hire
officers and administrative personnel to increase the supervision of, and case management services for, offenders out on probation.
There will now be an added response team, composed of a sheriff’s deputy and probation officer, to serve the probationary population in the community. Additionally, the department’s caseload will go from a ratio of roughly one officer for every 80 ex-offenders to one officer for every 50. County mental health and drug and alcohol abatement services will also be expanded.
“The population will receive the case management and supervision they need to decrease the chances of recidivism,” Taylor said.
However, law enforcement officials have expressed concerns over sustainable funding sources. The Public Safety Realignment Act money is only guaranteed through 2013.
“We go year by year wondering what our budget will be,” Sugars said. “It makes it very difficult to plan, especially for a department of our size.”
Sugars and Taylor both said their departments are involved in statewide efforts geared toward securing long-term funding.
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 6, 2011.