Supervisors Support Bill to Prevent Jail Overcrowding

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted today to support a bill aimed at preserving local jail space by requiring that inmates sentenced to more than three years behind bars go to prison—not county jail, which current law allows.

Senate Bill 1441, introduced by Sen. Bill Emmerson, R-Riverside, would amend Assembly Bill 109, the Public Safety Realignment Act, which critics say is overloading local correctional facilities with inmates serving high multi- year sentences.

Emmerson's bill would mandate that all convicted felons sentenced to more than 36 months for any one or series of offenses be sent to prison.

"We're united behind (SB 1441)," Undersheriff Colleen Walker told the board. "Every single sheriff in California is behind this."

According to Executive Office documents, as of this month, 138 inmates—or about 4 percent of the total inmate population in the county's five jails—are serving three or more years. Another 781 inmates are locked up locally due to AB 109, informally known as the "realignment" bill.

"Senator Emmerson's bill shouldn't be necessary," said Supervisor John Benoit. "The intent was when realignment occurred, longer-sentenced inmates would be put in state prisons. SB 1441 is an effort to clean that up."

AB 109, , mandated that individuals convicted of crimes that fall into the non-violent, non-serious, non-sexually oriented category are to be incarcerated in county jails. So-called "non's" or "N3s" -- including DUI offenders, drug users, child abusers and identity thieves -- are also to be supervised by county probation officers, instead of state parole agents, as was traditionally the case.

According to a state Senate report attached to SB 1441, realignment never spelled out a "term-based threshold" beyond which inmates, even in the "non" category, would have to be incarcerated in one of California's 33 prisons. The result is that some convicts in local correctional facilities are serving terms in excess of 10 years.

According to Walker, a woman convicted of beating a child is serving a 14-year sentence in one of the county's detention facilities.

A noted that jails were never designed to house inmates for extended periods comparable to prison life, lacking diversionary programs, recreational space and other accommodations. Also, because the county is under a federal court order to provide a bed to each inmate, whenever the jail system reaches maximum capacity, sheriff's officials resort to releasing low-level offenders from custody early.

The state is also under pressure to slash its prisoner population. Two inmate lawsuits against the state alleging "cruel and unusual punishment" led to a federal court decree in 2010 that, because of overcrowding, required the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to reduce the state correctional population to 137.5 percent of design capacity.

By June 2013, the state is supposed to have 23,000 fewer prisoners, according to the court order. The CDCR reports that between last June and December, 11,000 inmates left state custody -- a reduction largely attributed to realignment.