The "Californians for Safety and Justice" recently completed a survey of 500 crime victims according to a June 13, 2013 Herald news item. According to this survey a majority of those contacted agreed "we" send too many to prison rather than providing some form of rehabilitation. The article did not indicate what type of crimes were covered in this survey; however, a Salinas mother, whose son's murder remains unsolved, was quoted as being in favor of drug rehab and mental health services instead of incarceration.
It is remarkable that anyone victimized by some sort of violent criminal act can achieve a sense of justice by anything less than incarceration. But then this fits in with California's realignment program which sent some 30,000 "low level" inmates to local jails to solve a Federal mandate requiring the state to relieve its over-crowded prison system. The logic presented to the public, at that time, was that local jail facilities would be better able to institute rehabilitation and cut down of the number who might re-offend.
The realignment bill, AB 109, was introduced January 10, 2011, by the 15 member assembly budget committee which included local legislators Luis Alejo and Bill Monning. This bill was approved April 4, 2011, by Governor Jerry Brown.
At that time California was facing a multi-billion dollar deficit and each prisoner cost the State approximately $50,000 per year. It is not known why California Legislators did not consider sending prisoners to Texas which houses almost as many felons as California, but spends less than a third as much on its system. A negotiated deal with Texas could have saved nearly $30,000 per inmate at a time when California needed the money.
Never-the-less, the realignment deal was pushed forward. A recent (Feb. 25, 2013) Associated Press article revealed that thousands of California parolees, many of them sex offenders, are removing court-ordered GPS monitors resulting in more than 3,400 arrest warrants. Because many counties are under court orders to reduce jail populations, parole violators are often freed within days, or even hours, of arrest; accordingly, there is little risk of serving time by removing GPS devices because state prisons and local jails are too full to hold them. To make matters worse, California is faced with another possible Federal mandate to reduce its prison population again.
Locally, Santa Cruz may have suffered a horrific consequence of prison over-crowding. On Feb. 22, 2013, Jeremy Goulet broke into a co-worker's home and allegedly groped her while she was in bed. He was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, and released without bail even though he was still on three years' probation from a plea deal made in Berkeley. Four days later he opened fire and killed two police detectives. He died 30 minutes later in a shoot-out. It could be argued that if he had been incarcerated, as he should have been, this would not have happened.
The fact that a mother may feel some compassion for an unknown perpetrator who has killed her son does not mean that person should not be held accountable for his act of deadly violence. The justice system came into existence because there was an imminent need to prosecute and imprison thugs, thieves, racketeers and murderers because taking them off the street just might prevent further harm to others. Rehabilitation was determined to occur when prison inmates came to realize there were consequences for their wrongful acts.
Accordingly, it appears this realignment program is poorly planned, under-funded and a hasty solution to a federal mandate at the expense and peril of local communities. It is time to consider other options.