Category: Criminal Justice

Proposition 57’s Impact on Prisons

Proposition 57 creates opportunities for the release of thousands of state prisoners through the expansion of parole eligibility and good conduct and programming credits. When 64% of voters approved the measure in November 2016, there were few details about how it would be implemented. During the 2017–18 budget process, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) outlined implementation plans and population estimates, and now we have a better sense of the potential impact of this measure on the prison population.

Proposition 57 will significantly reduce the number of prison inmates—and, in combination with other statewide criminal justice reforms over the past six years, it will enable the system to keep its inmate population below the court-ordered cap of 137.5% of design capacity. Overall, Proposition 57 is expected to reduce the population by more than 2,600 inmates in 2017‒18, with a net cost savings of nearly $40 million. Long-term estimates put the population impact at 11,500 by 2020–21, for an annual savings of more than $180 million.

CDCR’s new parole regulations exclude prisoners who are serving a term for a violent felony (as defined by Penal Code 667.5), required to register as sex offenders under Penal Code 290, serving life sentences, or on death row. Eligible offenders receive parole consideration after serving full sentences for their primary offenses (their longest sentences). These offenders are no longer required to serve sentence enhancements for gang activity or prior prison terms. The state estimates that this new process—which went into effect on July 1—will reduce the prison population by almost 500 offenders in fiscal year 2017–18.

CDCR has also created additional educational and rehabilitative programming and increased the amount of credits inmates can earn for both good behavior and program completion. For example, in 2015 there were 95 career technical education programs (including training in auto repair, home construction and maintenance, and office technology); now there are 197 programs, with new classes in almost every career tech area.

Good behavior credits were expanded for almost all eligible inmates on May 1, 2017. The expanded programming credits will take effect August 1, 2017. The state estimates that these additional credit earning opportunities will reduce the prison population by more than 2,100 in the 2017–18 fiscal year.

State officials believe that Proposition 57 will allow them to keep the prison population below the cap while maintaining public safety. In addition to monitoring Proposition 57’s effect on public safety, recidivism, and costs, corrections officials and policymakers should pay close attention to the supply, demand, and—most importantly—effectiveness of the education and rehabilitation programs offered to inmates to ensure that the measure’s goals are realized.

Grants Awarded to Combat Recidivism

Proposition 47, passed by voters in November 2014, reclassified a number of drug and property offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. Backers of Proposition 47 argued that spending on prisons should be reserved for only the most violent and serious offenders, with more resources directed toward prevention and support programs.

Sentences were immediately reduced after the measure passed, and both the state prison and county jail populations declined. Between October 2014 and December 2016, the overall prison population dropped by 6,664 inmates (4.9%) and the jail population by 8,545 (10.4%). Although all of that decline cannot be attributed to the initiative, both populations have decreased as intended.

Proposition 47 requires any net state savings from the measure—coming from a decrease in the prison population—to go toward grants and programs for K‒12 schools (25% of savings), victim services (10%), and mental health and substance use disorder treatment (65%). It should be noted that the measure did not require counties to report or redirect any local savings that may come from the change in sentencing.

The measure required that the first transfer of savings occur by August 2016. This first transfer totaled more than $67 million and went to the three agencies tasked with distributing the grants (Table 1). The first grants were awarded this month. It’s estimated that nearly $46 million in savings will be transferred for fiscal year 2017–18. By 2019–20, long-term savings will be $75 million annually.

Administration of grants for those with mental health and substance use disorders is the responsibility of the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC). This independent state agency already oversees statewide regulations, inspections, and new construction funding for local jails and juvenile facilities. I focus on the BSCC grant program below because it is the largest category of Proposition 47 savings and is the only grant program that will help current offenders in the criminal justice system. However, it’s important to note that the California Department of Education has recently awarded its first year of grant funding.

All projects funded through the BSCC are required to include some combination of mental health services, substance use disorder treatment, and efforts to work with individuals before arrest or booking into jail. Priority is given to projects that also provide housing-related support and/or other community-based supportive services. At least half of the funds have to go to non-governmental community based organizations.

The BSCC is using the Proposition 47 funds to provide three-year grants, with an estimated $104 million available in funding from June 2017 to August 2020. Fifty-eight public agencies—including superior courts; school districts; district and city attorneys; health and human services; and police, probation, sheriff, and county education offices—submitted proposals. In the end, the BSCC is funding 23 projects across 17 counties, totaling $103.7 million in funding.

Projects are considered small or large depending on their funding level. Fifteen large scale projects (more than $1 million) received funding, including $6 million for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office to implement a health-focused drug intervention and pre-booking diversion program in five South Los Angeles locations. Eight small scale projects ($1 million) received funding, including $960,667 for Merced County Probation Department to provide mental health and substance treatment for men up to 24 years old in the Los Banos region.

The goals of these programs are twofold: showing successful outcomes for participants, and giving criminal justice practitioners and policymakers more information on effective tools for evidence-based programming. PPIC will continue to describe and follow these projects in the months and years to come.

Next Steps for Proposition 57

The passage of Proposition 57 brings significant changes to California’s criminal justice system. At the same time, the initiative lacks specificity and there is great uncertainty about what its impact might be.

The measure increases the chances for parole of felons in state prison who are convicted of nonviolent crimes and expand inmates’ opportunities to earn credits for good behavior. This loosening of parole rules will ease prison overcrowding through the early release of thousands of inmates. Less controversially, it will also allow judges, rather than prosecutors, to decide if juvenile defendants over age 14 can be tried in adult court.

Proposition 57’s impact will depend on which inmates will be eligible for parole, how early they are released, and the effectiveness of the new credits—which will depend, in part, on whether the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has the capacity to immediately provide effective rehabilitative programs.

The initiative is the latest of a number of reforms adopted since 2009, when a federal court issued a mandate to reduce overcrowding in the state’s prison system to improve inmate health care. Over the past several years, the total prison population has declined by about 41,000. At 113,700, the institutional population is now almost 2,200 below the court-mandated target of 137.5% of design capacity. Early in 2016, however, the prison population began to increase, and is now about 1,900 higher than it was at the end of January. If this average monthly increase of more than 200 inmates continues, the prison population could be above the mandated target within a year.

Proposition 57 gives CDCR two tools to address this population pressure. First, it makes prison inmates serving time for “non-violent” felonies eligible for parole consideration after serving the full sentence for their primary offenses, without having to serve time for additional crimes or enhancements, such as gang affiliation or prior felonies. But it is not clear which specific crimes will make inmates ineligible for early parole. The list of 23 violent felonies in the state penal code does not include crimes such as assault with a deadly weapon, certain rapes, and some gang crimes.

If eligibility is extended to those who have not been convicted of these 23 violent offenses, the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) estimates that about 30,000 inmates currently in state prison would be eligible for early parole, as would an additional 7,500 inmates admitted in each year thereafter. However, the number of inmates who will be granted early release will almost certainly be lower than 30,000. The CDCR has the discretion to determine eligibility, and eligible inmates will be granted parole based on their assessed risk to public safety by the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH). There were 5,300 parole suitability hearings in 2015, and BPH granted parole to only 906 inmates, a rate of about 17%.

Second, and importantly, the initiative gives CDCR authority to award credits for good behavior and rehabilitative or educational achievements. In addition to reducing the prison population, the incentive of early release based on completion of programs aimed at reducing the likelihood of reoffending is also likely to increase inmate demand for approved rehabilitative or educational programming.

The proposition’s advocates hope that more effective programming combined with incentives to participate will better prepare inmates for reentry into the community. They also hope it will lower the state’s high recidivism rates—we recently reported that about two-thirds of inmates released from prison are rearrested within two years and about two-fifths are re-convicted of a new crime.

It will be up to the CDCR secretary to determine which programs are credit-eligible and the size of the credit inmates would receive for participating. It is unclear whether CDCR will have the capacity to meet new demand for these programs—this will be crucial to implementing Proposition 57.

A key question to be answered in the years to come is whether Proposition 57 will affect crime rates. To answer it, we need to know how many inmates are released early, who they are, and to what extent they complete effective programming.

For all of the unknowns, one aspect of Proposition 57 is clear: it does push the state to focus on evaluating, implementing, and meeting the demand for evidence-based programs that help inmates prepare for successful reentry into the community.

Women in Jail

Women are the fastest growing segment of America’s jail population, yet the characteristics of female inmates are not well documented. Nationally, their numbers have increased 14-fold from 1970 to 2014. In California, the women’s jail population has risen 6-fold—from 1,725 in 1970 to 12,054 in 2014—twice as much as the male jail population over the same period.

PPIC’s work on jail populations shows that female jail inmates differ in lots of ways from their male counterparts, most notably in the types of offenses they are held on. This work is based on detailed records provided by 11 counties—which contain two-thirds of the state’s jail population—as part of a long term project PPIC has undertaken in collaboration with the California Board of State and Community Corrections to improve outcomes for correctional populations in California.

In the participating counties, women are more likely than men to be booked into jail for misdemeanors (54% of women to 48% of men). They are also more likely than men to be booked for property and drug offenses (46% to 36%). Women also serve less time for drug, property and all other crimes at both misdemeanor and felony levels.

Because of the different offending patterns between men and women, California’s recent corrections reforms have affected them differently. Public safety realignment, which took effect in 2011, transferred authority for thousands of lower-level felons from the state prison system to county correctional systems. Today, many lower-level felons now serve their sentences in jail rather than prison. These offenders have committed crimes considered non-serious, non-violent, and non-sexual—the type women are more likely to commit.

Both male and female offenders charged with these crimes increased in the first three years after realignment. However, a higher proportion of women who would have been sent to state prison before realignment were held in jails after realignment. By September 2014, three years after realignment began, 37% of the female jail population and 30% of the male jail population were charged with lower-level felony offenses.

In 2014, Proposition 47 reclassified several property and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. These offenses are also committed by a greater share of women than men. As with realignment, Proposition 47 had a greater impact on women than men, and women appear to have more greatly benefited. One year after the proposition passed, the percentage of women in custody for Proposition 47 offenses dropped from 32% to 16%. The percentage of men in custody for Proposition 47 offenses dropped from 22% to 12%. In other words, a greater proportion of Proposition 47 offenders were women, and the share of women in jail dropped by a greater percentage after the proposition. The racial and ethnic composition of female offenders did not change across the reforms.

More broadly, research suggests that the reasons for and consequences of female offending are different. Treatment and intervention that will be most effective for women—called “gender responsive” strategies—need to be at the forefront of policy discussions about how to manage female offenders. Moreover, because of the short time most women actually spend in custody, those strategies should not focus solely on jail, but must extend to women’s reentry into the community.

Video: Assessing Corrections Reforms

California leads the nation in correctional reforms. It has dramatically reduced incarceration and done so without a major increase in crime rates, a new PPIC report concludes. But the state and counties still faces major challenges. A panel of state and local experts discussed them in Sacramento last week. Among some of the challenges:

  • Preventing the prison population from increasing. Under federal court order to reduce prison overcrowding, California enacted public safety realignment and quickly reduced the prison population to about 200,000 inmates. But Scott Kernan, secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said it may be a challenge to keep the number of inmates below the court-mandated target. Based on population projections, the prisons will run out of available beds soon, he said.

  • Continuing to improve prison health care. California continues to operate under a court-ordered federal receivership. Although the state has invested significantly to improve inmate health services, the receiver has turned over management of health care to the state at only 7 of the state’s 34 prisons. Kernan said the state is on a path toward full control.

  • Adapting to changing jail populations. The counties—sheriffs, probation departments, and the courts—have had to quickly adjust, first to an increase in their populations under realignment, then to an decrease under Proposition 47, which reduced penalties on some drug and property crimes. Today, jails built for short stays now house more serious offenders for longer periods. Probation departments had to quickly build relationships with community organizations to develop reentry services, said Wendy Still, Alameda County’s chief probation officer. “What I think is amazing,” she said, “Is just how fast the counties were able to make this shift and to be able to create the partnerships, to break down the barriers and begin to create these systems of care—and also to retrain their staffs.”

  • Understanding the impact of Proposition 47 on crime rates. The PPIC report says the impact of Proposition 47 on crime is not yet clear. Geoff Dean, Ventura County sheriff, argued that it has been significant and that it has clogged courts. He and Still both said that by reducing some felony drug offenses to misdemeanors, Proposition 47 removed incentives for offenders with substance abuse problems to get treatment. Before Proposition 47, certain offenders convicted of felonies went to drug court as an alternative to traditional prosecution, and they were required to get treatment. Misdemeanor offenders don’t face the same sanctions. “There’s a whole segment of that population that’s not getting treatment,” he said. “And the cycle continues.”

Panelists echoed the conclusions of PPIC report coauthor Magnus Lofstrom. The state and counties need to identify and implement cost-effective strategies to reduce re-offending—to reduce pressures on prisons and jails, improve public safety, reduce spending, and improve the lives of those in the corrections system and their families.

Spending on Corrections and Higher Education

California has long been criticized for its growing corrections expenditures, especially as General Fund spending on higher education has declined. The beginning of a new budget year is a good time to examine where the state now stands on spending in these two key areas.

California’s legislature recently adopted a budget for 2016–2017 that devotes $14.5 billion of General Fund revenue to higher education institutions, including the University of California, California State University, and California’s community college system. It allocates $10.6 billion for operations of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), which is responsible for adults in state custody and parolees under state jurisdiction.

These budget allocations reflect a striking shift from California’s budget of forty years ago, when the state spent a larger share on higher education and a much smaller share on corrections. But by the 2008–2009 budget year, allocations to higher education (11.1%) and corrections (10.7%) were almost identical. In the years since, higher education spending has outpaced corrections in relative terms, largely because recent criminal justice reforms have drawn down the number of adults in state custody and on parole. Nonetheless, California spends more on corrections and less on higher education today, in relative terms, than at nearly any point in the past thirty years.

Despite these dramatic trends, spending in each area has actually increased alongside of growth in the populations served. Enrollment in higher education institutions has increased roughly 50% since the 1977–78 academic year; the budget has increased 65% (according to CPEC Fiscal Profiles). Until 2011’s realignment of California’s corrections responsibilities, the number of adults in CDCR custody had increased 555% and the budget increased 526% (CDCR Monthly Population Reports).

Clearly the costs of serving these two populations are different. On average, the cost of the CDCR population is much higher than the cost of students in higher education. Within each area, costs per person vary as well. The cost of educating a student at UC far exceeds the cost of doing so at a community college. Similarly, the cost of incarceration far exceeds the cost of supervising a parolee in the community. Although the per person cost of delivering services has risen over time, the dramatic increase in the prison population has been the key driver of the dramatic shift.

To reverse these trends, the state must identify and disseminate cost-effective strategies to reduce recidivism, further diminish California’s crime rates, and ultimately reduce the prison population enough to allow for the closure of state facilities or the elimination of in-state and out-of-state contract prison beds used to relieve overcrowding. Corrections realignment reduced state prison and parolee populations, but the anticipated savings from this policy shift have yet to materialize. Moreover, the most recent reports show a small uptick in the corrections population (CDCR Monthly Population Reports). ​

In the meantime, California needs to find ways to accommodate more students in its higher education systems—which it could do at relatively low cost by reducing time to degree, or at higher cost by increasing financial aid or expanding the number of slots for students. At the end of the day, ensuring that more of California’s youth attend and complete college will reap positive long-term benefits for the state, helping to meet the needs of the state’s future economy and create a brighter future for all Californians.

Chart source: California Department of Finance Chart C-1 Program Expenditures by Fund.

Learn more

Will California Run Out of College Graduates?
“California’s State Budget”
California’s Future: Corrections

California’s Arrest Rate Reaches a 50-Year Low

Recently released arrest and crime data from the California Attorney General’s Office reveal some noticeable recent changes. Until last year, California’s felony arrest rate trend had closely mirrored the state’s crime rate trend for 20 years. We would expect the two trends to move in similar ways, since most of the crimes reported and used to calculate the crime rate are felonies. But the trends diverged in 2015 after passage of Proposition 47, which reclassified a number of drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The felony arrest rate dropped dramatically in 2015, by 30%, while crime rates went up—the violent crime rate rose by 8.4% and the property crime rate by 6.6%. The drop in felony arrests was partly offset by a very noticeable increase in misdemeanor arrests. Still, the total number of arrests dropped by almost 52,000.

California’s total arrest rate—which has been declining over the past two decades—is now at a historic low of 2,944 per 100,000 residents; this is less than half the peak rate of 6,765 reached in 1989. What is arguably more noteworthy is the even greater drop in the felony arrest rate, which, at 806 per 100,000 residents, is about a third of the 1989 peak rate of 2,052. The 30% drop in the felony arrest rate in just one year, 2014 to 2015, accounts for more than a quarter of the peak-to-bottom decline. Misdemeanor arrests, by contrast, increased from 1,979 to 2,138, or 8%.

The data strongly indicate that Proposition 47 is a major factor in these changes. First, monthly arrest data show abrupt changes in drug and property arrests in November 2014, the month Proposition 47 went into effect. Second, the drop in felony arrests was almost exclusively for drug and property offenses, while the increase in misdemeanor arrests was almost entirely for drug and property offenses. Arrests for motor vehicle theft, which continues to be a felony after Proposition 47, is the only area of increase. Possibly in response to the 13% increase in auto thefts in 2015, motor vehicle theft arrests went up by 26%.

Although the total number of property crime arrests dropped, the decrease in arrests for drug offenses was more significant. Felony drug arrests declined by about 92,000, while misdemeanor drug arrests went up by more than 70,000. The net drop of about 22,000 drug arrests accounts for more than 40% of the total decline.

The new data raise many questions, including whether the recent changes to our criminal justice system are affecting public safety. Also, does the decline in drug arrests mean that drug use has declined or that fewer offenders with substance abuse problems are receiving necessary and effective treatment? Future research needs to address the role of reforms like Proposition 47 on crime, offenders, law enforcement, and counties’ ability to provide necessary treatment and programming.

Video: County Jails and the ACA

A majority of inmates in California’s jail system are likely to be eligible for Medi-Cal, and providing health care coverage for them could have multiple benefits. These are the key findings of a new PPIC report, Expanding Health Coverage in California: County Jails as Enrollment Sites.

Coauthor Shannon McConville presented the report to a Sacramento audience last week. She noted that the 4 million state residents who are still uninsured will probably be the toughest to reach. The legislature has allocated money to target these Californians and increase enrollment in health coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

At the same time, counties—which have gained new responsibilities for low-level criminal offenders—have new incentives to help inmates successfully transition back into the community and avoid further contact with the criminal justice system.

“Health coverage, newly available under the ACA, could be part of a more comprehensive reentry strategy,” McConville said.

Managed care plans are also increasingly focused on better integrating physical health and behavioral health, providing more mental health and substance abuse treatment—services needed by the jail population.

These policy changes add up to an opportunity to leverage federal and state Medi-Cal resources to improve both public health and safety. Enrolling inmates could improve health care in the jail system, lower county corrections costs, and reduce recidivism.

McConville said the work to achieve these goals is just beginning. Counties are still adjusting to their new responsibilities. As a first step, they will need to identify effective enrollment strategies that improve reentry and reduce recidivism.

Closing California’s Health Insurance Gap

California has made great strides toward closing the health insurance coverage gap under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In 2014, the state reduced the share of the population that was uninsured by 5 percentage points, or about 2 million people. Early evidence suggests the state made additional gains in 2015, but more than 3 million California residents continue to lack health insurance and many are eligible for free or subsidized coverage. Reaching them may have benefits beyond meeting the state’s health coverage goals, including the potential to improve public safety and public health.

The characteristics of the remaining uninsured are striking. Younger men (those under age 45) make up less than one-fifth of California’s adult population but represent more than one-third of the uninsured. When we examine other characteristics of Californians who continue to lack coverage, we find the highest uninsured rates among those facing high levels of disadvantage. Uninsured rates among adults with low levels of income, education, or employment are above 30 percent. And when we focus more closely on young men with high levels of disadvantage, uninsured rates are well above 50 percent.

Because highly disadvantaged young men are detached from educational and labor market institutions, they are likely to be among the hardest to reach through traditional sites of enrollment. They are also disproportionately represented among people who are arrested and incarcerated in county jails and state prisons.

In our study of a subset of California counties, we find that more than three-fourths of individuals booked into jail are men under age 45. Within the counties under study, nearly half a million individuals flowed through the jail system in 2014. Given the substantial overlap in the characteristics of the uninsured and the characteristics of individuals who have contact with the criminal justice system, county jails may provide an opportunity to target a share of the remaining uninsured.

Enrolling county correctional populations in health coverage may also support efforts to improve reentry outcomes under Public Safety Realignment by reducing the likelihood of recidivism. Specifically, chemical dependency treatment and outpatient mental health programs have been associated with reductions in repeat arrests and fewer total arrests.

Many county jail systems are engaged in some form of enrollment assistance. However, approaches and resources vary across the state. Counties may take a “front door” approach, offering enrollment screening to the large group of individuals being booked into jail. Or they may take a “back door” approach, offering enrollment assistance to a much smaller group of individuals nearing the end of their sentences, as part of reentry planning. When resources are limited—and they almost certainly are—counties face trade-offs between providing some form of assistance to a large population and providing in-depth assistance to a smaller group.

This variation across counties creates an opportunity to identify best practices in providing enrollment assistance. Further, we can help counties that successfully enroll a substantial share of their correctional populations to evaluate the effects of enrollment on recidivism. This kind of research can inform efforts to make the most cost-effective use of criminal justice resources.

 

Chart Source: American Community Survey, Public Use Microdata Sample, 2014.
Chart Note: Insurance coverage is measured at the time of the survey. Results shown are for all California adults ages 18–64. Income levels are presented as poverty rates based on federal poverty level (FPL) thresholds related to income eligibility cutoffs for health insurance coverage programs including Medi-Cal (under 138% FPL), premium and copayment subsidies available for coverage purchased through Covered California (138%–250% FPL), and premium subsidies only for coverage purchased through Covered California (250%–400% FPL).

 

Testimony: Bail and Pretrial Detention

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors Public Protection Committee, along with Assemblymember Bill Quirk, chair of the assembly Public Safety Committee, held a special hearing on the bail system on Friday, February 19, 2016, in Hayward. They invited Sonya Tafoya, PPIC research associate, to testify about the impact of bail on the jail system in California. Here are her prepared remarks:

Bail Overview

The purpose of California’s bail system is to ensure that defendants appear in court and to protect public safety (Cal Const. art I § 28(f)(3)). With the exception of capital crimes and certain felony offenses, bail is a right for most offenders (Cal Const. art I § 12, PC § 1271). If the court finds that defendants do not pose a risk of flight or a risk to public safety, it has the discretion to release them on their own recognizance.

The most comprehensive data source available, the State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS), indicates that for felony offenses, California’s large urban counties have had high rates of pretrial detention (59%) relative to the rest of the United States (32%). Some of this difference can be attributed to California’s high bail amounts. California’s median bail amount was $50,000, five times higher than the rest of the United States. Yet, even with relatively high rates of detention, California has had higher failure-to-appear rates (6.6% versus 2.9%), and higher rates of non-violent felony rearrests (12.4% versus 10.1%) than the rest of the United States. Re-arrests for violent felonies are only half a percentage point lower in California (1.4%) than the rest of the United States (1.9%) (Tafoya, 2015).

It should be noted that data collection for the SCPS was discontinued in 2009, and in the absence of more recent SCPS or other statewide data, we cannot determine whether these rates of detention, failure to appear, and re-arrest have persisted. The effect of Proposition 47 on median bail amounts is also unknown. But, as a practical matter, these results suggest that California has not gotten a very good return on its investment in high pretrial detention rates.

Jail Capacity Overview

A brief overview of jail capacity in California helps quantify the scope of this issue.

  • The average daily population of California jails was about 73,000 (2nd quarter, 2015, Board of State and Community Corrections). Most jail inmates (46,000) are unsentenced; the remaining 27,000 are sentenced.
  • California’s jails hold mostly those charged with or convicted of felony offenses (84%).
  • California’s jail system as a whole is operating near its rated capacity of about 80,000 (Board of State and Community Corrections, April 2015). Overall, the system is operating at about 91 percent of rated capacity.
  • The extent of jail overcrowding varies across counties; 37 facilities in 19 counties are operating under court-ordered population caps.
  • Facilities with population caps are required to release inmates when their populations reach a specified threshold (often 90% of rated capacity). In the 12 months following realignment, these facilities averaged about 12,000 capacity releases a month. In the wake of Proposition 47, the average has declined to about 10,000 per month.

Moving Forward

Demands for lower bail amounts are generally based on assertions that low-risk defendants are being held in jail solely because they lack the financial means to post bail. Lowering bail across the board would increase California’s rate of pretrial release (Tafoya, 2013). From a public safety perspective, however, this may not be the most prudent approach. A county jail population assessment would be a straightforward first step toward understanding the resources that are being devoted to detaining low-risk defendants. The assessment takes a snapshot of the jail population at a point in time and describes who is being held in jail, for how long and and why. It examines such factors as demographics, current offense, criminal history, status as a sentenced or unsentenced inmate, immigration or other agency holds, bail amounts, and length of incarceration.