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In California, the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership discussed with members of the community the effect they are seeing with public safety since the Assembly Bill 109 was implemented. Police Chief of Pasadena, Phillip Sanchez, and Police Chief of Covina, Kim Raney and Police Chief of Glendale, Ronald De Pompa held this discussion and expressed their concerns of the A.B. 109 bill. There are concerns that people who have been let go from jail are being arrested again too early and too often. De Pompa is concerned that this is a dangerous policy, and that without accountability within the state prison, it is hard to control crime. For example, take the case of the Northridge quadruple murder suspect Ka Pasasouk. De Pompa mentions that due to the publicity and recognition this case received, this is one that benefited from the A.B. 109 bill and went on to commit serious crimes. He believes that changes will not happen overnight, however, and unfortunately, it will take some time and possibly many other tragedies before changes are implemented. In October 2011, due to realignment in the prison and through the A.B. 109 bill, it moved thousands of convicts to county jails that previously would have gone to state prisons instead. The state had a federal mandate in which it reduced the prison overcrowding and in hopes of saving the state money. However, in Los Angeles County the county jails are full which results in releasing inmates early. The inmate population has been reduced to 132,618, which is the lowest it’s been in 17 years, since the A.B. 109 bill was implemented. Even though those are great numbers, it is still at 155 percent of capacity in the prisons, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The Post-Release Community Supervision program made changes due to the A.B. 109 bill. It was responsible for moving supervision tasks for state prisoners who have been released from state parole officials to counties. Furthermore, it cut in half the maximum time spent in jail for parolees from one year in jail to 180 days. These were for parolees who were found in violation of their parole. It also made it eligible for those parolees to be released after they completed only 50 percent of their sentence. Even though the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations state that there has been a decrease in prison population, and all due to the A.B. 109 bills success, the San Gabriel Valley police department begs to differ. They say it is harming public safety, not helping. By the end of 2013, out of 35,000 inmates who are going to be returned to their neighborhoods, due to the A.B. 109 bill, a third of those will be going to Los Angeles County. There will be approximately 8,000 inmates who will be serving their sentence in the county jail, as opposed to being sent to state prison, and others who have been released will go into county supervision instead of state parole. Approximately 40 percent of inmates released in Glendale due to the A.B. 109 bill are typically arrested for new crimes committed. De Pompa is concerned that this is going to alter crime rate and the safety of the community that people have enjoyed in recent decades. Raney stated that the jails are just not equipped to handle this type of influx. The designed purpose of county jails are not equipped or built for that. They were designed to keep an inmate for less than a year. In addition, the Los Angeles County Probation Department is not ready for it either. De Pompa’s concern is how efficient and effective will those inmates be supervised when there is already a county system that is overwhelmed. Therefore, local law enforcement agencies are tapping into other department resources in order to fill the gap. There has been a task force assigned to check on probationers in Pasadena for the last two months and they have confiscated nine guns and made appropriate arrests. In Glendora, there have been 75 arrested who were originally released after sentencing under the A.B. 109 guidelines. Glendora is seeing a hike in property crimes as well as the possibility of approximately 50 inmates who have been released from county jail after serving time with the new realignment. Those convicts who have been eligible for the A.B. 109 sentencing are those convicted of non-violent, non-serious and non-sexual crimes. However, those crimes can be things like vehicular manslaughter or assault with a deadly weapon, and even sex offenders who have not been classified as a high risk are also eligible. Raney states that this is a huge shift in California policy. To complicate things further, he says that the legislation does not have any measures to study the results of the realignment implementation. Due to that, Raney has decided to join the Stanford University’s Criminal Justice Center committee to study those findings. The chiefs say that resources and funding to handle the results of the A.B. 109 bill are desperately needed. Even though the state has set aside $24 million to help local law enforcement, $6.8 million of that will go to Los Angeles County. Raney mentions that it will not cover 10 percent of costs. The chiefs also mention another vital program and service is to assist ex-cons to migrate back into the community and their way of life successfully upon their jail release. Unfortunately, the communities of California are starting to see the negative impact of the A.B. 109 bill, which will grow in the years to come. Raney says that it will probably be five to ten years before we see the realignment impact.
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