By Linda Williams
The Willits News
MENDOCINO COUNTY — The sweeping change in the way California felons are incarcerated and monitored introduced by the state legislature in 2011 is called realignment. The Mendocino County Jail has seen nearly a 70 percent increase in maximum security prisoners and a 30 percent increase in total prisoners with realignment.
Realignment was the state’s main response to a federal lawsuit requiring the state to reduce California’s prison population. The change has been implemented in stages. The first stage effectively cut the prison terms of most prisoners in state and county prison by nearly half. Rather than reduce criminal penalties for crimes the legislature instead doubled the amount of credit given prisoners for each day they were incarcerated. A criminal sentenced to 10 years in prison will effectively serve 5 years, although the actual calculations are quite complicated. The legislature has tightened this formula for a few especially violent crimes and some sex crimes to ensure those criminals spend a higher percentage of their sentences in prison.
The second phase of the program was to severely reduce the number of criminals who could be sentenced to state prison. Today’s state prison population as of July 10 was 132,823, down about 32,000 inmates since 2010. A federal judge has ordered the state to reduce the total number by another 9,600 by year end. How the governor and legislature will accomplish this requirement is still being formulated.
Full story: Realignment increasing jail’s maximum security inmates