By Matthew Artz
Contra Costa Times
OAKLAND — One year after state voters passed a landmark law reclassifying several low-level offenses to misdemeanors, a debate is underway on how to spend the millions of dollars being saved by imprisoning fewer people.
Tasked with divvying up more than half the funds to help current and former inmates successfully return to their communities, the Board of State and Community Corrections began a statewide listening tour Wednesday in Oakland where dozens of residents pushed it to spend the money outside the correctional system.
“There are good programs (in prison) to pass the time, but none of them are helpful to people if you don’t have someone at the gate ready to help that person,” said Sholanda Jackson-Jasper, a formerly incarcerated Hayward resident.
The Safe Schools and Neighborhood Act, also known as Proposition 47, reduced criminal penalties for low-level drug crimes and petty theft under $950. Inmates incarcerated for those crimes were given the opportunity to petition for resentencing.
A report released Thursday by Stanford University’s Justice Advocacy Project found that the law had reduced the ranks of the incarcerated by 13,000 and is estimated to save the state about $150 million this year.
The law sets aside one-quarter of the savings for schools and 10 percent for victims of violent crime. The 13-member state corrections board, which includes both law enforcement officials and nonprofit leaders, has purview over the remaining 65 percent, which must go toward programs that reduce recidivism including mental health and substance abuse treatment, job training and housing assistance.
With the board also overseeing a separate grant program that provides funding for increased programming space in jails, many of the 40 speakers urged board members to devote Proposition 47 funds for community-based programs.
“There is no amount of money that you can put into jails to make them capable of giving effective and humane mental health treatment,” said Amanda Irwin, an Oakland resident, whose brother is imprisoned and suffers from schizophrenia.
Oakland resident Lauren Valdez cited her father’s struggle with drug abuse to urge funds to help offenders get mental health treatment in their communities. “I recognize that men like him need spaces to heal,” she said. “They need to explore their trauma.”
Sheriff Greg Ahern was out of town and did not attend Wednesday’s hearing. Reached by phone, he said he expected to support the board’s recommendation for spending the funds and defended his application for the separate grant program to build an administrative center and refurbish living quarters for mentally ill inmates.
“Our request is to have better care while in our custody so they have better care upon their release.
The corrections board is scheduled to appoint a committee early next year to draft a Proposition 47 grant program as it continues holding hearings across the state.
At the end of Wednesday’s two-hour session, the board’s chairwoman, Fresno County Chief Probation Officer Linda Penner, assured residents that board members had an open mind and were serious about carrying out the will of the voters in reforming the state’s criminal justice system.
“It’s an enormous challenge, an enormous charge and an enormous obligation,” she said.
Copyright 2015 the Contra Costa Times