But reality is settling in as local law enforcement agencies struggle to contain criminals with a history of violence, substance abuse and mental illness who previously would have been tucked away in state prisons. Report by Mercury News.

Los Angeles County had said its more than 22,000 jail beds could be full by Christmas, although officials now have pushed the projection back by several months. Officials in the state’s most populous county are eying early release of less serious offenders and considering alternatives to jail, such as tracking criminals with GPS-linked ankle bracelets.

In Orange County, more than 60 detainees recently had to sleep on the jail floor until beds could be made available. That evokes recent images from state prisons, which were so overcrowded that inmates were housed in three-tier bunk beds in gymnasiums and day rooms.

Fresno County no longer will incarcerate parole violators to keep from crowding its 2,427-bed jail. Parolees could still go to jail if they commit new crimes, but not for violating parole conditions.

The changes are the result of a law that took effect Oct. 1 that shifts responsibility for thousands of lower-level criminals from the state to local jurisdictions. Only defendants convicted after that date are affected.Judges no longer can send offenders to state prison for crimes such as auto theft, burglary, grand theft and drug possession for sale. Conrad Murray, convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of singer Michael Jackson, will serve his four-year sentence in Los Angeles County jail, where his sentence will automatically be cut in half due to state law.

Inmates currently in state prison will complete their full sentences there, but parole violators who previously would have been returned to state prison now can only be incarcerated in county jails.

The law was driven by the state’s budget deficit and a federal court order, recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, requiring California to reduce its prison population by 33,000 inmates as a way to improve medical care.

“We anticipated some bumps in the road, and there have been,” said Merced County Sheriff Mark Pazin, president of the California State Sheriffs’ Association.

He said the unexpected increase in the number of convicts coming to county jails has been the biggest problem to date.

The surge in some counties appears to be “a bubble” created because defense attorneys delayed sentencings until after the new law took effect so their clients would do their time in county jails instead of state prisons, said Dana Toyama, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The department projects the rate will level off in the coming months, she said.

If the trend continues, however, local law enforcement officials may have to lobby state legislators not only for more money but to shift some crimes back under state jurisdiction so offenders would again go to state prison, Fresno County Chief Probation Officer Linda Penner said.

“It was a massive overhaul of a very large system,” said Penner, who is president of the Chief Probation Officers Association of California. “I think we have to watch it for a while before we can go in and ask for legislative change.”

The early trends and responses are as varied as California’s 58 counties, each of which is taking a different approach under a law designed to give local jurisdictions more flexibility and responsibility for their own wrongdoers.

Counties have been given a total of $400 million to help pay their increased costs, and the state has set aside $603 million to help them build more jails. It also is giving cities and counties $490 million in other assorted law enforcement grants.

In Los Angeles County, Assistant Sheriff Cecil Rhambo Jr. said in late October that the county’s more than 22,000 jail beds might be full by Christmas. But department spokesman Steve Whitmore said the jails now are expected to reach capacity next spring or summer. The county is using some of the money it received from the state to hire more deputies, which will let the county accommodate more inmates, Whitmore said.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, a Republican, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the law, which was sought by Gov. Jerry Brown and approved by the Democrats who control the Legislature. He predicts an increase in crime as a result.

Cooley said his attorneys have been trained to comb offenders’ criminal histories, searching for factors that would enhance the charges against them and thus, if convicted, send them to state prison instead of county jail.

“We will look for every way around this that is ethical, honest, legitimate and lawful,” Cooley said. “We are going to give the courts the option to send them to ‘the joint’ if it’s appropriate.”

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon is taking a far different approach in a county that has seen no great influx of inmates. He has proposed that the county Board of Supervisors create a local sentencing commission that would help determine punishment based on criminals’ risk to public safety.

About 70 percent of the jail population in San Francisco and Los Angeles County is awaiting trial, and many of the detainees could be safety released using alternatives such as GPS tracking, he said. That would free jail space for those who have been convicted of more serious offenses.
“We are going to be doing business differently, but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing,” Gascon said. “The reality is that if you look at the way we have incarcerated people and the recidivism rate, we haven’t been doing a very good job.”

Currently, about seven of every 10 inmates paroled statewide quickly commit a new crime, a recidivism rate far above the national average.

The shift is creating other challenges for local authorities.

“The common denominator to all these folks is an addiction to methamphetamine,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said of the inmates in his county who previously would have gone to state prisons. “That creates the challenges in getting them the services they need.”

Local officials also are dealing with dangerous criminals despite promises from state lawmakers that they would only face those convicted of non-serious, nonviolent and non-sex offenders.

“They are a large number, maybe even a majority, that have serious and violent offenses in their rap sheets,” even if their current offense is relatively minor, said Sacramento County Chief Probation Officer Don Meyer.

Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims announced last week that her jail will no longer accept parole violators because of the surge in inmates there, forcing state parole agents to find other punishments for those who don’t follow the rules.

So far, her jail is less crowded than it was before the state’s realignment because Mims used state funding to open 432 minimum security jail beds. Her office also is working with county probation officers and local police departments to create teams that will do frequent checks on criminals placed on community supervision.

Orange County Assistant Sheriff Mike James said the jail still has 900 empty beds but doesn’t have the staff to manage the unexpected influx. Nearly 70 detainees were forced to sleep on the floor until beds could be made available.

“Long-term, if the numbers hold out to be true, you’ll be full and then difficult decisions will have to be made about who stays in and who gets released,” James said.

An attempt to reduce prison overpopulation and rates of repeat offense, Gov. Jerry Brown’s realignment plan — which went into effect Oct.1 under Assembly Bill 109 — pushes responsibility for certain offenders and parolees from the state to county institutions. Report by The Daily Californian.

Under AB 109, nonviolent, nonsexual and nonserious offenders will serve their sentences in county jails rather than in state prisons.

Alameda County can eventually expect a 267-inmate increase to its average population because of the change in policy, according to statistics from the state Department of Finance.

The bill came about after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in May determined that California’s current prison overpopulation had led to a violation of the inmates’ Constitutional rights and therefore mandated that California decrease its prison population to 137.5 percent of what the facilities were designed to hold within two years.

The realignment has raised contention from officials at various county organizations who worry that their institutions will not have the space nor receive the funding necessary to adequately take on the additional inmates and parolees the bill will funnel into county facilities.

The legislation does not entail the transfer or release of any current inmates from state institutions to the county ones. Also, in addition to the “three nons,” the bill lists 59 crimes — previously voted upon to receive longer and tougher sentences — that will not be transferred over to county facilities.

Agencies across the state have raised concern over potential public safety issues that might arise with the localization of incarceration.

Barry Krisberg, director of research and policy and lecturer in residence at the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the UC Berkeley School of Law — who testified at the U.S. Supreme Court trial — said these fears lack evidence.

“The notion that harsher, longer penalties reduce crime has been discredited over and over again,” he said.

The increase will not be as much a challenge for Alameda County as for other counties in the state. According to Alameda County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. J.D. Nelson, the 1989 construction of the Santa Rita Jail allowed for extra space, leaving them with “wiggle room.”

Marin and Contra Costa counties will see increases of 66 and 104 to their average prison population, according to the state’s Department of Finance.

Contra Costa County Undersheriff Mike Casten also said space would not be an issue for his county, but said the roughly $4.5 million realignment budget the state has outlined for the county will not be enough to orchestrate more than a “bare-bones” attempt at decreasing rates of repeat offenses.

According to Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle, the approximately $3.4 million in funding allocated to his county is adequate, and because of Marin County’s historically low levels of incarceration, space should not be a problem for their facilities either.

Under the bill, counties will also have responsibility for parole supervision of prison inmates freed on or after Oct. 1 for nonserious and nonviolent crimes and for some sex offenders. Though the state Board of Parole will remain responsible for those already on parole, those who break the terms of their parole and who have not been paroled from life terms will serve their sentences at county facilities if their crimes fall under the bill’s provisions.

The effort began at the Secure Housing Unit at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison on September 26, and inmates from a dozen facilities throughout the state are now participating. According to the federal receiver’s office, 12,000 prisoners are now participating in the hunger strike, including 3,000 inmates housed in out-of-state facilities in Arizona, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Report by Colorlines News for Action.

As Julianne Hing reported last week, conditions in the prison’s Secure Housing Unit (SHU) have not improved according to prisoners’ original demands. In July, 6,000 inmates went on strike to protest inhumane prison policies, including one that allowed nearly half of Pelican Bay’s 1,111 prisoners to be held in solitary confinement for more than ten years.

The strike has now become the largest such action in recent history, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has addressed it as such. CDCR classifies the strike as an organized disturbance, thereby institutionalizing disciplinary actions against prisoners. Some strike leaders have been transferred to solitary confinement units.

Families of inmates have also been denied visits to Pelican Bay, according to Jay Donohue of the Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition (PHSS). “Their visits for the weekend were not allowed, and they’ve been told that they won’t be at all until the strike ends.”

“Denying visits only heightens the isolation that the prisoners and family members experience, especially at this critical time,” said Dolores Canales, the mother of an inmate being held in the Pelican Bay SHU.

Inmates reportedly fear that the initial concessions made by CDCR will get buried in the administrative process. The advocacy group California Correctional Crisis posted two memos that were released by the CDCR on September 27, the first day of the renewed strike. One states that while the department has authorized items such as exercise equipment and wall calendars in SHU, “the policy review and change will take several more months to implement.”

The second memo details the crackdown on participating inmates since the summer. Since the suspension of the hunger strike in July, prison guards have reportedly employed intimidation and retaliation tactics such as raiding inmates’ cells and issuing excessively harsh write-ups.

The CDCR has also expelled two attorneys chosen by inmates to represent them on the mediation team. That team has been representing prisoners in negotiations with the CDCR since July.

“This is very worrisome to say the least, ” said Carol Strickman, one of the mediation team lawyers who have been banned from CDCR facilities, according to Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity. “We obviously don’t want to imagine the worst, but we are legitimately concerned about violence on the part of the prison administration.”

On Friday, the two attorneys appealed to Gov. Jerry Brown requesting a meeting to ensure completion of proposed reforms. They are still waiting for a response.

Meanwhile, the strike continues to spread.

“We’re hearing from groups internationally, and the support only continues to grow,” said Donohue. “This is just an indication—the fact that there’s international support as well—that something is seriously wrong in California throughout the prison system, not just in the SHUs and ASUs, and that prisoners actually recognize and understand that, and they have no recourse except to strike.”

The “Corrections Reporter“, Syscon Justice Systems and Securus Technologies are privileged to add our support and thanks to the men and women who strive mightily each and every day in the corrections field.  Thank you!

The plan is more than twice as costly as an earlier-announced plan to beef up security at Texas’ 112 state prisons and is larger than several past programs to build prisons.  Smuggled cell phones have been an issue since October, when death row convict Richard Lee Tabler was busted for possessing a phone on which more than 2,800 calls had been made in one month — including calls to a state senator.

“We have a responsibility to Texans to stop this … right now and right here,” Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, told the nine-member Board of Criminal Justice, which was meeting Wednesday at an Austin hotel. Board Chairman Oliver Bell said, “The games are over. We’ve just given everyone 66 million reasons about why we’re very serious about this.”  In August, prison officials had included in their budget request to the Legislature about $30 million for additional cameras and security equipment. That request would have been considered by legislative leaders beginning in January, but the new proposal seeks immediate funding through the Legislative Budget Board that handles emergency issues while the Legislature is not in session.

Under the new proposal, intensive high-tech screening equipment — much like the machines used at airports — would be installed at Texas’ 20 largest maximum-security prisons, along with networks of surveillance cameras to allow round-the-clock monitoring of cellblocks.  Two mobile contraband screening units would be purchased to allow for surprise sweeps.  Livingston said the 2,900-inmate Polunsky Unit, where death row is located, and 18 other maximum-security prisons would get “complete video surveillance.”  In addition, the remaining 92 prisons, parole-violator lockups, and prerelease and treatment prisons would be equipped with walk-through metal detectors and parcel screening devices — similar to those at courthouses — along with additional surveillance cameras …

“The Legislature has no choice but to approve this if we want a safe and secure prison system,” said Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, who is a member of the budget board. “It’s shocking, though, that only now do they ask for this much money and only because of life-taking threats by a death row inmate who got a cell phone.”  House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, said he supports the proposal despite its cost. “They’ve got a lot of security to beef up,” he said.

There is a lot more on this at the Austin American-Statesman.

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Each sick or dying prisoner costs the state $60,000 to $65,000 in medical costs, and about 125 state inmates will be eligible for the furloughs that start on Sept. 1 said Prison Commissioner Richard Allen. There are about 25,000 inmates in Alabama prisons, and prisoners eligible for the program are 55 or older and have life-threatening illnesses — none convicted of capital crimes and most sex crimes will be eligible, Allen said.

But victims rights advocates say the program is so broad it will lead to dangerous criminals getting back on the streets and doesn’t save any money because it only transfers the costs from one government agency to another.

But there is a definite trend in this direction.

A [recent] review found 37 states have some program allowing for the early release of dying or infirm prisoners, according to state Department of Corrections policies … North Carolina, Wyoming and Alabama have implemented similar programs since March, and Michigan and Montana added programs in 2007 …

Gov. Bob Riley remains committed to making sure victims are included in the furlough process, said press secretary Tara Hutchison. The bill required that victims and the local district attorneys be notified, and it guarantees victims a right to file a protest. “This is a very limited program that has broad bipartisan support and includes important safeguards and conditions,” Riley said. “The prison system can set further conditions and can bring inmates back into the system if their conditions change.”

Citizens don’t like medical furloughs because they don’t understand the humanitarian benefits, said McCuan of the National Institute of Corrections. There’s little danger that sick or terminally ill inmates will continue a criminal lifestyle, he said.

There is a lot more information at the Montgomery Advertiser.

Buss, 42, has been superintendent of the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City since 2005. He was the superintendent at the Westville Correctional Facility from 2002-2005, where he improved the operations of the state’s largest prison.

“There are greater expectations today in the Department of Correction than I’ve experienced in my 21 years. It gives you a sense of pride when you meet those expectations,” said Buss, who said he will continue efforts to improve recidivism rates in the department and expand community collaborations.

Buss began his career as a correctional officer at the Indiana State Prison in 1987 and by 1994 at the Lakeside Correctional Facility in Michigan City had been promoted to the highest rank for a uniformed officer. He joined the administrative ranks in 1997 when he was named a correctional unit team manager, responsible for three housing units and 1,850 inmates at the Indiana State Prison, then served as assistant superintendent of operations/programs from 1998 to 2001.

Between 1997 and 2006, about 50,000 corrections agency inmates were seen by doctors via telemedicine. In the year ending June 2008, the patients numbered more than 16,000.

Doctors who treat inmates say telemedicine is a win-win because it’s easier on them and the patient, more cost-efficient for the prison system and provides a patient base for medical institutions. Transporting prisoners for outpatient visits costs taxpayers a lot of money and is logistically difficult, said Dr. Thomas Nesbitt, head of the UC Davis telemedicine program. Community providers near prisons can be backlogged, but with telemedicine, “patients don’t have to wait,” said Annie Brennan, who schedules telemedicine appointments for the prison system.

Telemedicine works this way:

Patients are brought into a room with a TV monitor and video camera. They see the doctor on-screen. The doctor, often hundreds of miles away, sees them the same way. The audio is clear and picks up sound well. The video is not incredibly sharp, but sufficient. When doctors require a clear and close image – to inspect a lesion on a patient’s skin, for example – they use special cameras that can magnify about 80 times. Alongside the patient is a “presenter,” usually a nurse, who serves as the hands of the doctor, using stethoscopes and other instruments that relay information directly to the physician. The presenter also provides the doctor with medical profiles and progress notes.

Doctors in the prison system said patient feedback has been positive.

“I’m pleasantly surprised with their lack of concern about not seeing a live doc,” said Dr. Dwight Winslow, prisons medical director. “Maybe they’re getting attention they previously weren’t given. Maybe they grew up with TVs and they accept it as the way business is done.”

More details from Sacramento Bee.