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Background Information on Resolution No. 2 <br /> <br />Source: Public Safety Policy Committee <br /> <br />Background: <br />In October 2011 the Governor proposed the realignment of public safety tasks from State Prisons to local <br />government as a way to address certain judicial orders dealing with State prison overcrowding and to reduce <br />State expenditures. This program shifts the prisoner burden from State prisons to local counties and cities. <br /> <br />When the Governor signed into law realignment he stated that realignment needed to be fully funded with <br />constitutionally protected source of funds to succeed. Nonetheless, the law was implemented without full <br />constitutional protected funding for counties and cities; insufficient liability protections to local agencies; <br />jail space; probation officers; housing and job placement programs; medical and mental health facilities; and <br />with an inappropriate definition of N3 (non-serious, non-sexual, non-violent) criminal convictions used to <br />screen inmates for participation in the program. <br /> <br />Two-thirds of California's 58 counties are already under some form of mandated early release. Currently, 20 <br />counties have to comply with maximum population capacity limits enforced by court order, while another 12 <br />counties have self-imposed population caps to avoid lawsuits. <br /> <br />At this time no one knows what the full impact of realignment will ultimately be on crime. We hope that <br />crime will continue to drop, but with the current experience of the 40,000 offenders realigned since October <br />2011, and an estimated additional 12,000 offenders being shifted from State prison to local jails and <br />community supervision by the end of fiscal year 2013-14, it will be very difficult to realize lower crime rates <br />in the future. <br /> <br />Beginning in October 2011, California State prisons began moving N3 offenders into county jails, the <br />county probation and court systems, and ultimately funneled them into community supervision or alternative <br />sentencing program in cities where they will live, work, and commit crime. <br /> <br />Note: There is currently no uniform definition of recidivism throughout the state and no database that can <br />deliver statistical information on the overall impact realignment has had on all cities in California. Because <br />of this problem we have used data from Los Angeles County. <br /> <br />The March 4, 2013 report to the Los Angeles County Criminal Justice Coordination Committee (CCJCC) <br />shows a strong effort and progress in addressing the realignment mandate. However, there is insufficient <br />funding. <br /> <br />The report also states the jail population continues to be heavily influenced by participants housed locally. <br />On September 30, 2012, the inmate count in the Los Angeles County Jail was 15,463; on January 31, 2013, <br />the count was 18,864. The realignment population accounted for 32% of the Jail population; 5,743 offenders <br />sentenced per Penal Code Section 1170 (h) and 408 parole violations. <br /> <br />By the end of January 2013, 13,535 offenders were released on Post Release Community Supervision <br />(PRCS) to Los Angeles County including prisoners with the highest maintenance costs because of medical <br />and drug problems and mental health issues costing counties and local cities millions of dollars in unfunded <br />mandates since the beginning of the program. Prisoners with prior histories of violent crimes are also being <br />released without proper supervision. That is why sections of AB 109 must be amended to change the <br />criteria used to justify the release of N3 inmates to include an offender’s total criminal and mental <br />history instead of only their last criminal conviction. Using the latter as the key criteria does not provide <br />13