realignment – Page 2 – Public Policy Institute of California

Putting the Governor’s Sentencing Proposal in Context

Governor Brown has proposed a ballot measure—the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act—that could significantly alter sentencing in California. If it qualifies for the ballot—which seems likely—and is approved by voters in November, the measure would allow non-violent felons who have earned enough credits for good behavior to spend less time in state prison. It would also shift the power to determine whether juveniles should be tried as adults from prosecutors to judges. The measure follows the path of decreased reliance on incarceration that California has been on since 2009.

Motivated primarily by a federal court’s 2009 mandate to improve health care and reduce overcrowding in the state’s prison system, California has implemented a number of measures that have considerably reduced the prison population. Since reaching a historic high in 2006, the prison population has dropped by 45,000, a decrease of about 26 percent, and the state’s overall incarceration rate is down to levels not seen since the early 1990s.

Although a number of policies have contributed to this decline, it is largely attributable to two recent major reforms: the 2011 Public Safety Realignment Act, or AB 109, which shifted responsibility for many non-serious, non-violent, and non-sexual offenders to county jail and probation systems; and Proposition 47, which reclassified some drug and property felonies as misdemeanors. Since January 2015, two months after voters approved Prop 47, the prison population has remained below the court-mandated target. That is good news for the state. However, the institutional population is only about 1.1 percent, or 900 inmates, below the target. Given this slim margin—and given the fact that the state still needs to show that it is providing adequate health care—the pressure is still on.

Californians appear to be supportive of lessening penalties for crime and downsizing state prisons. Recent criminal justice initiatives, such as Proposition 36 in 2012 (which revised California’s three-strikes law) and Proposition 47 in 2014, passed by rather wide margins—close to 70 percent and around 60 percent respectively.

Voters may well be inclined to see reductions in spending on prisons, and with good reason. California’s corrections budget continues to grow, with the governor requesting $10.6 billion from the General Fund for 2016–17—a historic high. This amount does not include more than $1 billion annually that the state transfers to counties to implement realignment. For 2016–17, the state is projecting the cost of the prison system to be almost $70,000 per prisoner. A significant reduction in the prison population could finally allow the state to stop the use of out-of-state contract beds and possibly close a state prison. These actions could potentially lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in annual savings. Without further reductions in the prison population, it will be difficult for the state to stop using contract beds and remain below the court-ordered population cap.

Finally, it should be noted that, unlike realignment and Propositions 36 and 47, which implemented changes based on the kind of offenses committed, this measure focuses mainly on the behavior of the offenders. After they earn enough credits for good behavior and achievements in education and rehabilitation, non-violent prison inmates can be paroled and released early. If this incentive is accompanied by effective educational and rehabilitative programs, it could reduce recidivism. More broadly, this measure, combined with the redirection of spending toward cost-effective crime preventive strategies, could help California use its corrections resources more wisely.

Chart source (TOP): California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) monthly population reports.

Chart source (BOTTOM): California Department of Finance.

Video: Governing in a Time of Change

At a time when economic, environmental, and demographic forces are changing California, Governor Jerry Brown’s chief aide, Nancy McFadden, was asked to describe three administration priorities requiring bold leadership.

The first priority is keeping the state on a fiscally stable road, she told PPIC president and CEO Mark Baldassare before a Sacramento audience last week. This requires tough choices, she said, as the governor demonstrated when he vetoed bills that were worthy ideas but had budget implications for the state General Fund.

“Sometimes bold leadership means saying no,” she said.

Second, the administration will continue to implement the far-reaching changes adopted in past years, such as corrections realignment and the Local Control Funding Formula for schools, which targets money to the state’s neediest students and shifts funding control to the local level.

McFadden said the third priority is the “whole panoply of climate change and environment issues facing not only our state but our world.” Extreme weather events—drought, wildfires, and flooding—pose immediate challenges that have to be managed.

McFadden’s conversation with Baldassare was followed by a panel discussion about leadership—what it takes and when elected officials have demonstrated it. The panelists were Jim Brulte, chair of the California Republican Party and former state senate Republican leader; state senators Loni Hancock and Carol Liu; and Darrell Steinberg, chair of the California Government Law and Policy Practice at Greenberg Traurig and former senate president pro tem. The moderator was John Myers, Sacramento bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times.

Proposition 47 and Crime

Last November, voters approved Proposition 47, which reclassified a number of drug and property offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. As a result, inmate populations have dropped in California’s capacity-challenged state prisons and county jails. Reports of increases in violent crime in some areas have raised concerns, and the significant drawdown in the jail and prison populations—by roughly 17,000 inmates so far—certainly carries the risk of increased crime. But it would be premature to blame Proposition 47 for the uptick.

Proposition 47 helped bring down the prison population by about 8,000 inmates, below the mandated target of 137.5 percent of design capacity (the number of inmates that facilities were designed to house). The target was set by a federal court in 2009 in the wake of lawsuits over prison conditions; at the time, it meant a reduction of almost 40,000 prisoners. The prison population has remained below the target since January 2015. This is a key requirement for the state to regain control of prison health care, which is currently overseen by a court-appointed receiver. The total prison population has dropped by slightly more than 45,000 inmates since it peaked in 2006.

Proposition 47 also helped bring the jail population below the statewide rated capacity (here again, the number of inmates facilities are designed to hold), after three years of increases that were driven by public safety realignment. In stark contrast to the increase of about 11,000 inmates between September 2011 and October 2014, the county jail population dropped by almost 9,000 inmates, or 10.7 percent, between October 2014 and March 2015 (the most recent month of available data).

As we noted above, reports of increased crime in a number of cities and counties in 2015 have fueled concerns about the impact of these population reductions. Between January and August, violent crime in Sacramento was up by 24 percent compared to the same months in 2014. In Riverside County, violent crime was up almost 11 percent in the first six months of 2015. In the City of Los Angeles, it was up almost 21 percent in the same time period.

There are good reasons to be cautious about attributing these upticks to Proposition 47. Crime trends fluctuate frequently and widely and it is challenging to pinpoint specific causes. The first year of realignment provides a good example of this. After a long decline, both violent and property crime in California increased in 2012, the year after realignment was implemented, and many blamed the reform. However, as our careful analysis has shown, there is no evidence that realignment led to more violent crime, and the only uptick that can be attributed to the reform is auto theft. Another reason to be cautious is that other states have seen increases in crime this year—the New York Times recently reported that violent crime, as represented by murder rates, has gone up noticeably in a number of US cities. With all this in mind, at this time we urge against drawing any firm conclusions about Proposition 47’s impact on crime.

Chart sources: (TOP) California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, monthly population reports. (BOTTOM) Board of State and Community Corrections, jail profile surveys.

Video: Rating Realignment

Local law enforcement and corrections officials have risen to the challenge of public safety realignment, a panel of local and state officials concluded last week. They also concurred that big challenges remain.

Four years ago, local officials had to adapt—and adapt quickly—to this historic policy shift in California. Prompted by a federal court order to reduce prison overcrowding, the state shifted responsibility for incarcerating and supervising low-level felons from the state to the counties, based on the idea that the locals could do a better job. The panelists at a PPIC event in Sacramento assessed the hurdles they’ve had to overcome and the challenges that remain.

“We’ve adapted and we are adapting,” said Lee Seale, Sacramento County’s chief probation officer. “We’re better as a result of it,” he said, noting that hundreds of offenders are enrolled in drug treatment or other rehabilitative programming who did not get these services before. Among the issues corrections officials are still coping with, according to Seale and the other panelists, is a jail population with many challenges, including mental health issues.

Linda Penner, chair of the Board of State and Community Corrections, serves as the governor’s liaison on realignment issues with county law enforcement officials statewide. When realignment began, she was the chief probation officer of Fresno County. She likened the magnitude and speed of realignment to “drinking from a fire hose.”

“Counties had to demonstrate their nimbleness and creativity,” she said. Initially, case files were transferred from the state to the county using manila envelopes because computer systems were incompatible. The incompatibility problem was resolved in about a year, she said.

Adam Christianson, now serving his third term as sheriff of Stanislaus County, was a realignment skeptic. The governor, he said, knew him as “the difficult sheriff from Stanislaus County.” His county’s jail was already at maximum capacity before realignment began. The jail, built in 1954, had no space for treatment or the programs that realignment’s proponents envisioned as key in reducing recidivism.

Things have changed, he said, and so has the department’s culture. The county is building new facilities with program and treatment areas, classroom space, and a mental health care unit. Partnerships with community-based organizations—which the sheriff says are essential—are helping the county provide program opportunities for offenders.

As a result, he said, “The difficult sheriff from Stanislaus County isn’t so difficult anymore.”

Before the discussion, PPIC senior fellow Magnus Lofstrom presented the findings of Public Safety Realignment: Impacts So Far, which he authored with PPIC research associate Brandon Martin.

Proposition 47 Brought Decreases to Both Prison and Jail Populations

Two major criminal justice reforms—realignment and Proposition 47—have brought California’s incarcerated population down to levels not seen since the mid-1990s. This drawdown in both the state prison and the county jail populations addresses some of the serious capacity challenges the systems have faced.

As of August 2015, the total prison population had dropped by almost 45,000 inmates from its 2006 peak. The majority (about 55%) of the decline was a result of realignment, which was implemented in October 2011 in response to a court order to improve prison conditions by reducing overcrowding. However, it took the passage of Proposition 47 last November—which reclassified a number of felony drug and property offenses as misdemeanors—and building and renting additional prison beds to reach the court-ordered population target of 137.5 percent of design capacity. The prison population has declined by almost 7,700 since November and has remained below the mandated target since January 2015. This is a key requirement for the state to regain control over prison health care—currently, a court-appointed receiver oversees health care in the system.

Proposition 47 appears to have relieved some of the pressure on county jail systems created by the shift of responsibility for lower-level offenders from the state to the counties during the first few years of realignment. The average daily jail population dropped by almost 10,000 inmates after the passage of Proposition 47 last November. As of December 2014, there were about 72,500 inmates in county jails, down from about 82,000 in October. This brought the jail population back under the statewide rated capacity of nearly 80,000 beds. Another sign that Proposition 47 has relieved some pressure is that the number of inmates released early due to housing constraints decreased noticeably (by almost 20% as of December 2014 compared to December 2013), to levels well below those observed in the months before realignment was implemented.

Although we can see that prison population numbers have dropped in each of the nine months since Proposition 47 passed, we need to be more cautious about the measure’s impact on jail population numbers because we only have jail data for the first two months. Also, counties have been working to implement and refine new jail policies and procedures, and these may be having an impact on jail populations. For instance, data through March 2015 for Los Angeles County show that the jail population dipped below 16,000 inmates in December (down from more than 18,000 in October), but rose above 17,000 in January and stayed above 17,000 through March. This increase is related to the sheriff requiring that inmates serve a larger percentage of their sentences before release. We may see similar developments in other counties. Nonetheless, even in Los Angeles there was a noticeable drop in the jail population compared to months before passage of Proposition 47.

Clearly, California is moving away from incarceration, in line with research that has shown that incarceration is not a cost-effective tool for crime prevention, at least not at the high levels in the state before realignment. The changes implemented so far may help improve prison and jail conditions and may also help the state and counties handle their corrections responsibilities more effectively. However, research also suggests that there may be a greater upward pressure on crime with incarceration reductions at lower levels of incarceration, which heightens the need to identify and implement effective crime preventive strategies. As we continue to monitor crime trends, it will be important to determine whether their long-term decline has been reversed.

Video: Realignment and Crime

Since 2011, when California shifted responsibility for tens of thousands of lower-level felons from the state to the local level, there is evidence that property crime remains higher than it would have been without the realignment policy. But there has been no observable impact on violent crime.

The findings of the report, Realignment, Incarceration and Crime Trends in California, were presented in Sacramento last week by the authors, Magnus Lofstrom, PPIC senior research fellow, and Steve Raphael, PPIC adjunct fellow. Among the issues that emerged in discussion with the audience, were the causes of the property crime increase and additional research that indicates higher staffing for police departments is an effective deterrent for crime.

Video: Alternatives to Incarceration

Under continuing pressure to reduce its prison and jail populations, California is expanding alternatives that hold offenders accountable, are cost-effective, and do not harm public safety. At a Sacramento event last week, PPIC researcher Brandon Martin summarized a new PPIC report about the potential impact of this expansion. His presentation was followed by panel discussion in which state and local corrections officials talked about their own experience and provided examples of success.

Jeremy Verinsky, undersheriff of Santa Cruz County, said his department has long had a work release program— having offenders clean up graffiti in county parks, for example. The county has increasingly paired work release with home detention and electronic monitoring since corrections realignment began in 2011. Offenders in Santa Cruz are required to be involved in programs based on their needs and risk factors, Verinksy said.

“We aren’t putting people out on a monitor so they can stay home and play Xbox all day,” he said.

Carol Paris of the Sacramento County Probation Department says her department has expanded its use of adult day reporting centers, which provide resources for offenders. Asked how her department handles probation violations, she said the strategy is to engage early. Intake officers visit prisons to meet with inmates before their release to talk about specific needs and housing issues. Offenders are also transported directly from custody to the probation office for assessment—an effort “to counteract those days of the person being released at one o’clock in the morning,” she said.

Robin Harrington, chief deputy warden of the Female Offenders Programs and Services/Special Housing Mission at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, described the department’s alternative custody programs. Eligible offenders can apply to serve their sentences—supervised and electronically monitored—at home, in a private alternative custody program, or in a training and employment program.

How California Reduced Its Prison Population

After years of struggling with a 2009 federal court order to reduce the population in the state’s overcrowded prisons, the inmate population has reached the target of 113,700 (based on current capacity), roughly a year ahead of schedule. A look at historic prison and jail data reveals that this milestone has been achieved to a significant extent by adding capacity and simply shifting inmates to institutions not subject to the court order. As a result, cost savings from the various efforts appear lacking so far. The state’s spending on corrections is now at a historic high.

Since reaching its peak in 2006 of about 163,000, the institutional prison population has dropped dramatically, by slightly more than 49,000. The court order mandated that inmate population be reduced to 137.5 percent of design capacity, or the number of inmates the facilities were intended to house.

Realignment, the state’s biggest correction reform, was a response to the court. It shifted incarceration of many lower-level felons and parole violators from state prison to county jails, beginning in 2011. However, a significant share of the prison population—about 18,000 inmates—declined before realignment. Most of this drop happened between 2009 and 2011 and was driven by policy changes such as SB 678, which created financial incentives for counties to lower the number of felony probationers they sent to state prison. Realignment then led to the largest decline, about 28,000, in the state’s institutional prison population. The post-realignment drop occurred in the first year of the reform.

The prison population did not start to decline further until November 2014, when voters passed Proposition 47, which classifies a number of drug and property offenses as misdemeanors instead of felonies. Since then, the institutional prison population has dropped an additional 3,000, which pushed the number of inmates below 137.5 percent of design capacity.

The state has met the crucial federally mandated target, but not—as reform proponents hoped—by a major reduction in costly prison incarceration. Here’s a rough breakdown of how this was achieved.

First, the decline of about 18,000 inmates in the institutional population prior to realignment was partly accomplished by housing about 9,000 offenders in private prison facilities out of state—a practice that continues on about the same order of magnitude. Second, since the implementation of realignment, the state has also incarcerated an additional 3,900 inmates in public and private facilities in the state. California has also opened up a new state prison health care facility in Stockton with a capacity of almost 3,000 inmates. Third, since realignment shifted responsibilities of many lower-level felons and parole violator to the counties, the county jail population has increased by about 11,500, as of June 2014 (the numbers may have come down some since then because of Proposition 47). In sum, roughly one half of the reduction of the institutional prison population since its 2006 peak was achieved by increasing capacity and simply shifting inmates to other facilities.

California has indeed seen a significant decrease in the reliance on incarceration over the last decade through policies like SB 678 and realignment, as well as initiatives like 2012 Proposition 36 (which revised California’s “Three Strikes” law) and Proposition 47. Our total incarceration rate has dropped from about 702 per 100,000 residents in 2006 to about 568. Unfortunately this is not reflected in the state’s expenditures. In fact, spending on corrections is now at a historic high. A look at corrections spending going back to the 1970s shows a long-term increase. In the current budget year, the state is spending more than $12 billion on corrections. In other words, meeting the federally mandated target does not mean that California has solved its incarceration problem.

Research shows that incarceration at current levels is not a cost-effective way to prevent crime. Clearly we need to refine our crime prevention strategy and look more closely for effective alternative approaches to manage public safety.

California–State of Change

As leaders from government, business, and philanthropy gathered last week to discuss California’s future, we were reminded once again that these are exciting times in our state. The discussions were part of PPIC’s full-day conference, California—State of Change, and they highlighted both the advantages our state enjoys and the major challenges ahead.

Speakers noted that the recovering state economy, newly elected state leaders, a richly diverse population, and a history of innovation provide much to build on—as well as a lot of building to do. For example, California has recently enacted sweeping changes in corrections and education finance. But, as the governor’s chief aide, Nancy McFadden, emphasized in her keynote address, most of the hard work of implementing these policies lies ahead.

Among other challenges noted in the subsequent panel discussions: a state tax structure that leads to extreme revenue volatility, a need for public employee pension reform, an uneven economic recovery that has left many Californians behind, government institutions that do not provide the tools for managing in the 21st century, and an electorate that is disengaged from the political process.

But, as other speakers reminded us, Californians are living in a time of reform. A change in term limits may lead to more stability in the legislature and result in more long-term policymaking. Recent initiatives to shift many school decisions from the state to the district level and to move state corrections responsibilities to the counties could make local governments labs for innovation—but only if we have the will and the data to evaluate the results.

Our final panel demonstrated that California still knows how to dream big. The discussion focused on three projects: a historic effort to combat climate change, the construction of high-speed rail, and the advancement of stem cell research. All have been controversial, but they show that California voters and elected officials embrace innovation, as they have throughout the state’s history.

We invite you to watch the videos of each session. We hope you find the conversations as thought-provoking as we did.

Will Proposition 47 Save Money?

Earlier this month California voters passed Proposition 47, which classifies a number of drug and property offenses as misdemeanors instead of felonies or “wobblers” (wobblers may be charged as misdemeanors or felonies at the discretion of the prosecutor). Moreover, the new law—which went into effect November 5—permits offenders to file for resentencing, meaning that those who are resentenced could be released from jail or prison.

Based on limited data, the Legislative Analyst Office estimates that roughly 40,000 offenders per year will be affected by Proposition 47 and that total county and state savings associated with the reform may be in the “high hundreds of millions of dollars annually.” The bulk of the state savings will be aimed at reducing re-offending by providing funding for mental health and substance abuse treatment.

A clear short-term benefit of this reform is that it is likely to help the state meet the federally mandated reductions in the prison population by February 2016. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation estimates that around 4,700 inmates are eligible to petition for release from prison under Proposition 47.

The greatest impact, however, might be at the county jails. Because of the 2011 corrections realignment reform, most of the lower-level offenders now covered under Proposition 47 are serving their sentences in county jail instead of state prison. Recent reports that focused on the proposition’s expected jail savings, using the LAO’s estimate of 40,000 affected offenders per year, put the local savings from the proposition somewhere between $400 and $700 million.

While substantial savings may very well occur from housing fewer inmates affected by Proposition 47 in county jails, a closer look suggests expectations may be too optimistic.

First, the data used to generate the LAO estimate of the number of affected offenders also show that about 30 percent of the convictions in 2012 did not result in jail time, but rather in a straight probation term. The largest share of convictions, about 41 percent, led to a jail term followed by probation. Only 11 percent of convictions resulted in a straight jail sentence. In other words, even though the data suggest that the estimated number of affected offenders is 40,000 annually, the potential number of convictions directly affecting the jail population would be roughly half that number.

Second, the estimated local savings from Proposition 47 are based on the assumption that newly freed jail beds will remain empty. Given that jail overcrowding in California compelled the early release of 71,000 sentenced offenders for the period between April 2013 and March 2014, this assumption may not hold. A likely response to the newly freed jail beds will be to refill them with inmates, who absent the proposition, would have been released early due to overcrowding. While using freed beds to reduce early releases may limit savings, it may also bring a new degree of integrity to sentencing and alleviate the public safety concerns associated with these early releases.

In the end, the Proposition 47 budget savings may fall short of projections—but the proposition may well bring other benefits, including fewer releases due to overcrowding. Furthermore, the passage of Proposition 47 means that offenders convicted of these lower-level offenses—who otherwise have a clean record—will be spared the stigma of a felony record. In this way, the proposition may ultimately lead to less re-offending because those charged under its new sentencing standards will have greater access to jobs and housing than they would if they had become convicted felons.