Dueling proposals to fix the state’s overcrowded prisons could have reverberations in Monterey County, which also faces a packed jail. The county sheriff worries proposed prison legislation may end up cutting funds he says are sorely needed to expand the jail.
California legislators are locked in a battle over how to address a federal order to uncrowd the state’s packed prisons by 10,000 inmates by the end of the year.
On Tuesday Gov. Jerry Brown proposed a bill that would move about 8,000 prisoners to private and out-of-state prisons, according to the Sacramento Bee. The next day Senate leader Darrell Steinberg revealed an opposing plan that would allow the state three more years to reduce its prison population to court-mandated levels while counties would get $200 million a year for drug treatment and mental health programs, the Bee says.
Monterey County is already feeling pressure from the state’s prison unloading plans, because following a 2011 law known as realignment, some non-violent criminals are sentenced to the county jail instead of state prison. Though the county has tried numerous ways to keep its already overflowing jail population down, like putting some people into drug rehab programs, the inflow of inmates is steadily increasing, says Sheriff Scott Miller.
Now the county is awaiting the final $43 million of an $80 million plan to build an extra 600 beds for the jail. But, Miller says, the state level debate on prisons could stymie jail plans.
“We’re cautiously optimistic that the additional funding will be available, but there’s a potential that these dualing plans may hang up the legislative process that we need to receive the funding,” Miller says.
Last November the Weekly reported that realignment hadn’t caused a surge in the county’s jail population, as many had worried. But now, nearly a year later, the situation is different.
“The numbers are creeping up steadily, as we expected,” Miller says. Yesterday there were 1191 inmates in the local jail, though the official capacity is somewhere around 800. And over the past couple of months the jail has sent some of its inmates to the Alameda County Jail, which currently holds about 40 Monterey County offenders.
“We’re sensitive to the fact that we can’t build ourselves out of our inmate population in the long term,” Miller says. “But we do believe that the 600 beds are the minimum that Monterey County needs.”