Yesterday, the California Senate Public Safety Committee voted 5 – 2 to pass Senate Bill 1180 (Hancock) for a floor vote. This bill is a significant piece of legislation that will have a significant impact on the high rates of un-sentenced individuals held in county jails. If the bill continues to proceed in the legislative arc and is signed by the Governor, California counties would have enhanced incentives to utilize best practice risk-assessment tools for determining whether an accused…
Data from the Corrections Standards Authority shows that 71% of jail space in California counties is filled by individuals who are unsentenced. For the simple reason of not being able to afford a bail amount that varies widely from county to county for the same sentence, these individuals are separated from their communities, families, receive no rehabilitative programming, taking up jail beds that should be used for offenders determined to be a risk to their community, all at the costs of…
I recently wrote a blog called School Discipline and the Prison Pipeline which was a follow-up to a more detailed commentary on my web site . Recently there was a survey called “California Statewide Survey on School Discipline Issues” (conducted by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates) which was based upon a telephone survey of a random sample of 803 California voters. About 80% of those polled supported reforms in the ways in which school discipline was practiced. For example,…
The Human Rights Commission hearing on the Human Rights Impact of the War on Drugs last week provided a broad spectrum of perspectives and information on how San Franciscans are affected by drug law enforcement. The hearing commenced with testimony from Alice Huffman, President of the California NAACP, who underlined the racially targeted history of the drug war, beginning in 1914 and including the 1920’s failed prohibition of alcohol. Following, Dorsey Nunn, Executive Director of Legal…
Blog Apr 12, 2012
Adult realignment and the county jail building boom
Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union released an insightful, comprehensive report on county plans for a massive jail expansion using funding allocated through Assembly Bill 109 and Assembly Bill 900. AB 109 is the adult realignment bill that shifted responsibility for supervising low-level offenders (non-non-non’s) from the state to the county level along with $367 million for first-year implementation. Adult realignment in California comes at time when public opinion is shifting…