Caleb Roberts . Pols 602. Final Paper. Ab109 Prison Realignment:

One of the most recent significant changes to California corrections is the passing of Assembly Bill 109 (AB 109) by Governor Jerry Brown in April of 2011. The realignment is a program that was created as a result of overcrowding in state prisons, and it served to redirect non-violent offenders to county jails and put them under the supervision of county probation officers instead of sending them to state prisons. It “…shifted responsibility for people convicted of certain non-serious, nonviolent or non-sex felony offenses from state prisons and parole, to county jails and probation…” as an alternative (CalRealignment.ORG). AB 109 was primarily the result of a U.S. Supreme Court upholding a lower court’s ruling in Brown V. Plata. The court mandated California to reduce state prison overcrowding because the conditions in these prisons were so bad. The conditions were so terrible, especially when it came to certain

As of 2015, 2.7% of adults in the United States were under correctional control, the lowest rate since 1994, however that is still roughly 6.7 million adults (Kaeble & Glaze, 2016). While the correctional population has declined, correctional facilities in the United States are still grossly overcrowded, with many facilities at or surpassing capacity. A report in 2010 by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation showed that on average, facilities were at 175% capacity (Brown, 2010). However, as of midnight on October 31st, 2017 the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported that their facilities, on average, were 132% occupied (Brown, 2017). Not only is prison overcrowding a burden on the facilities themselves, but also on the inmates. Prison overcrowding, that is, housing more inmates than the facility can humanely facilitate (Haney, 2006), places a strain on all resources throughout the correctional facility, including on the healthcare that’s offered, educational programs, and most dramatically on the physical space available to house inmates (Ekland-Olson, 1983).

With regard to solutions, considerable attention has been paid to the federal prison system. Between 1980 and 2013, the federal prison population increased by 790% from 24,640 to 219,298. Since peaking, the number of federal prisoners has lowered to 190,452 today. The decline is the result of criminal justice reform efforts in the past few years, such as former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s modification of the Department of Justice’s charging policies in 2010 and the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s passage of Amendment 782 (“drugs minus two”) in 2014. In spite of their moderate success, such responses have failed to

County jails are not equipped to “manage the influx of more prisoners, and for longer periods of time, as well as provide ‘evidence-based’ rehabilitative programs,” which has serious implications for confinement conditions and for the overall success or failure of Realignment (Owen & Mobley, 2012, p. 47). Even before the Realignment Act, California jails were struggling with “crowding, court-ordered ordered caps on their populations, antiquated facilities and few programs” (Owen & Mobley, 2012, p. 48). Counties are limited in their ability to address these concerns because of county-level budget cuts.

The U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged the growing distress, deeming California’s state prisons unconstitutionally crowded. In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled out that California’s 33 state prisons have become too overcrowded to the point where there are no sufficient medical and mental health care available (Realignment AB 109, 2013). The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the 33 state prisons are violating constitutional exclusions, under the Eighth Amendment, against unfamiliar punishment and brutality, says the American Legislative Exchange Council, an American organization producing model policies for state legislators (ALEC, 2010).

AB 109 and AB 117 were introduced to ease the pressure of the federal and state budget through saving costs on the penitentiary system. In this regard, the reduction of the prison population and the transfer of a part of the prison population to county jails was one of the main provisions of AB 109 but AB 117 actually discharges provisions of AB 109. Such a paradoxical situation is the result of scarce financial resources to fund the penitentiary system at both the federal and local level. In order to reduce the pressure on the penitentiary system at the federal level, the decision to transfer the prison population to county jails or to release the

The United States Department of Corrections is currently suffering from a problem of overcrowding of inmates within its prison system resulting in a racial, ethical and administrative challenges. In an effort to address and diminish overcrowding, the Department of Corrections has enacted major policy changes relating to inmate early release credit programs. Therefore, the Department of Corrections through policy changes and the reinstatement of early release credit programs has provided both positive and negative public reception and renewed calls for further analysis on other alternatives to reduce prison overcrowding.

Since 1984, the California Penal System has been forced to undergo drastic changes resulting from increased legislation aimed at increasing the severity of retribution to offenders leading to an exponentially increasing prison population. In the 132 years between 1852 and 1984, the state of California built twelve prisons, but has since supplemented the prison system with 21 new facilities. In 1977, the California Department of Corrections was responsible for 19,600 inmates. California’s inmate population now stands at 160,655, an increase of close to 800%.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a massive amount of inmates began fillin up the United States prison systems. This huge rate of growth in this short amount of time, has greatly contributed to the prison overcrowding that the United States faces today. In fact, the prisons are still filled to the seams. This enormous flood of inmates has made it practically impossible for prison officials to keep up with their facilities and supervise their inmates. One of the main reasons why many prisons have become overcrowded is because of states’ harsh criminal laws and parole practices (Cohen). “One in every 100 American adults is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world” (Cohen). The amount of inmates in corrections systems, throughout the

The United States Supreme Court ruled that prison overcrowding in California was equivalent to cruel and unusual punishment. This decision recharged a long-standing disagreement among scholars and politicians as to whether or not courts should intervene to protect make changes. Some believe this is a matter or the well-being of those unable to make decisions for themselves. Others believe this is not a top priority and by forcing states to improve state institutions, the already costly industry will have cost increase. The journal also discusses the economic effects reform has had. Concluding that they have made positive changes at a slightly higher expense. The changes made by the state made the facilities closer to “humane” by court standards. (7)

One public policy issue that is attracting a great deal of attention is the matter of prison reform. While a great many members of the public support improvements in the safety, security and quality of life in prisons, few will endorse this at the expense of the same for law-abiding citizens. However, according to Koh (2013), Texas is currently facing one such dilemma. According to Koh, "prison reforms may result in better conditions for inmates, but those improvements come at the expense of welfare cash assistance and other government relief for the needy, according to a study released this month by Rice University and Louisiana State University." (Koh, p. 1)

With the population of the United States prisons growing every day we need to evaluate if they are doing any good. Personally, I believe that we need to keep our prison system, but we need to take steps in reforming them rather than abolish them altogether. The United States has the highest number of incarcerated people than any other country in the world. We must sit down and look at other countries and see what they are doing different than the United States. In this paper, we will first look at what the prison system in America is like and what we can do to improve upon our prison system. Then, we will also look at the Finland prison systems and see if we can learn anything from them, since they have one of the lowest incarceration and crime rate in the world. We will then look at reforming our prison system or abolishing it. Finally, we will investigate other punishment alternatives other than the prison system that we could use.

Due to budget crises in states across the United States of America, state governments must cut funding to their punishment facilities causing overcrowding in prisons to increase every day. Overcrowded prisons pose a potential breeding ground for crime as hundreds of inmates are squeezed into small accommodations. Thousands of low-level offenders receive jail sentences each day, these criminals make up about a third of the inmates in the United States. In the words of Republican Governor Mitch Daniels of India, in the conservative National Review magazine, “We are imprisoning, in our most expensive spaces, more people for relatively minor, nonviolent offenses, like low-level property and drug violations. Some of our guests are not with the state corrections system long enough for any rehabilitation, substance-abuse counseling or job training to take place” (Katel). Evidently attention and change to this neglected criminal punishment system need to be addressed. This issue remains a troubling problem in our country, state governments offer the best possible solutions to prison overcrowding such as directing local officials to perform and improve prison construction, rethinking criminal law and responding to budgetary concerns.

Prison reform is a significant issue that the United States government should enforce. It would aid in creating a more organized system of incarceration. Prison reform is an attempt to improve, change, or eliminate certain conditions in prisons. It is believed that it should be enforced due to the cases of overcrowding, lack of proper education, and the lack of rehabilitation that could inform prisoners of societal values. Prison reform would increase the self-esteem that was diminished in the prisoner’s personal history. Prison reform is significantly important as it will heighten the amount of self-worth in the prisoner and cause a decrease in the population of prisoners who return to a life of crime. Recidivism, or chance of recommitting a crime, will therefore be reduced. Prisoner who are released will not have all the negative ideals or influence from the prison that is usually spread until their release. Prison reform will help society if the increase in education and decrease in overcrowding is ensued upon the prison system with this policy.

These measures were taken to ensure public safety but are now posing a problem for our correctional facilities. Overcrowding and budgets are among the problems brought about by these measures. Both the state and federal correctional population throughout the United States have steadily seen significant increases in their population, every year for the past decades. Based on the census found on the Bureau of Justice website, the data collected between June 30th 2000 to December 30th 2005 showed that prisoners held in custody between federal and state prisons increased by 10%. (“Bureau of Justice Statistics”, p.1 -2)