County gets state funds for offenders

Two inmates added since realignment

A plan to drastically reduce California’s prison population by 2013 has hit home, though not dramatically.

This year Del Norte County received $245,000 from the state to implement a Public Safety Realignment plan, which places a new population of would-be state parolees in the county probation system and sentences non-violent, non-serious, non-sexual offenders to terms in county jail rather than state prison.

Today the County Board of Supervisors will vote to authorize a budget transfer of $201,500 to implement aspects of Assembly Bill 109 in the probation department. The rest of the state’s allotment goes to the Sheriff’s Office to support training and equipment that provides alternatives to incarceration.

While the plan created concerns that counties could be overburdened by an influx of probationers and offenders serving lengthy sentences in county jails, it’s so far so good in Del Norte.

Since AB 109 took effect Oct. 1, two offenders who might otherwise have gone to prison are serving time in county jail. Meanwhile the probation office has taken on the supervision of 13 people fresh out of state prison, according to Chief Probation Officer Thomas Crowell.

“It’s not beyond our capacity to deal with,” Crowell said.

“So far people have had places to live, access to services and they’ve been compliant,” he added, knocking on a wooden desk covered in 6-inch-high stacks of realignment-related paperwork.

State analysts projected the county would see 20 probation-bound offenders from the prison system over a two-year period. And while Del Norte is currently absorbing the uptick without any hiccups, some counties have already been charged with double the estimates, Crowell said.

“The state does not have any centralized automated case management system to accurately project how many folks are coming out,” he said.

There’s no way to know if the funding will be adequate for the year, what services will be required and which tactics will work to reduce a staggering 70 percent recidivism rate statewide.

“It’s a very small pot of money,” Crowell said of the budget, which is only secure for one year. Funding will be an issue this election season as various groups, including the California State Association of Counties and the Governor’s Office, work toward drafting a ballot measure to guarantee county coffers are covered in the future.

“One needy offender could spend all of our budget; $200,000 is a drop in the bucket to address a chronic offender with severe mental health needs. We are definitely going to have to look at programming options,” Crowell said.

The probation department has not hired any new personnel and is focusing on creating an infrastructure to handle offenders without hiring new officers.

Of the $201,500 budgeted to handle probationers from state prisons, 38 percent goes to case management, which includes vehicles, equipment, training and office supplies; basically business as usual. Thirty percent is set aside for electronic monitoring, which allows officers to keep tabs on offenders remotely. Flash incarceration, (the sentencing of people to 10-day stints in county jail for probation violations), constitutes another 20 percent, while cognitive behavioral interventions and contingency funds round out the other 12 percent.

“Incarcerating folks is the most expensive option for anybody. That’s what happened at the state level. The focus is on community supervision,” Crowell said. “Truly the only way to address this population is to provide community-based services. If that fails then we are looking at some daunting fiscal challenges.”

Ideologically, realignment is not just about criminals. Under the new law, counties have the ability to address crime before it happens through increased social services.

As of now, Del Norte has yet to develop any new services for offenders, though there are existing options in place, like support groups and tele-psychiatry.

“Every jurisdiction is handling realignment differently. We are trying to use the same approaches, but based on the culture of the community,” Crowell said.

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