BILL ANALYSIS ------------------------------------------------------------ |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 76| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ------------------------------------------------------------ UNFINISHED BUSINESS Bill No: SB 76 Author: Senate Public Safety Committee Amended: 8/20/10 Vote: 27 - Urgency PRIOR SENATE VOTES NOT RELEVANT ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 75-1, 8/23/10 - See last page for vote SUBJECT : Inmates: incentive credits SOURCE : Chief Probation Officers of California California State Sheriffs Association DIGEST : Assembly Amendments delete the prior version of the bill relating to the Budget Act of 2009. This bill now reduces good-time/work-time credits from one-half to one-third for persons convicted of misdemeanors while confined in a county jail. This bill is very similar to SB 1487 (Senate Public Safety Committee) which was held under submission this year in the Senate Appropriations Committee. ANALYSIS : Existing law provides time credit for work performance and good behavior to prisoners confined to a county jail, industrial farm, or road camp, or any city jail, industrial farm, or road camp. Specifically, except regarding certain prisoners who are limited to 15 percent credit against sentenced time, existing law provides that a CONTINUED SB 76 Page 2 term of four days will be deemed to have been served for every two days spent in actual custody in one of these facilities, except that a term of six days will be deemed to have been served for every four days in actual custody for prisoners required to register as sex offenders, prisoners committed for a serious felony, or prisoners with a prior conviction for a serious or violent felony. This bill instead provides that prisoners sentenced to state prison for whom the sentence is executed, except for those required to register as sex offenders, committed for a serious felony, or with a previous conviction for a serious or violent felony, who are confined in a city or county jail, industrial farm, or road camp, from the date of arrest until state prison credits are applicable, shall have one day deducted from his/her period of confinement for every day the prisoner served in a city or county jail, industrial farm, or road camp. This bill provides that a prisoner sentenced to state prison who is confined in a city or county jail, industrial farm, or road camp may not receive the day-for-day credit if it appears by the record that the prisoner refused to satisfactorily perform labor or failed to satisfactorily comply with rules and regulations, as specified. This bill provides that, for prisoners otherwise in a county jail, industrial farm, or road camp, or any city jail, industrial farm, or road camp for a crime committed on or after the effective date of this bill, except those subject to the 15 percent limitation on credits noted above, a term of six days will be deemed to have been served for every four days spent in actual custody. Because this bill changes the punishment for crimes, it imposes a state-mandated local program. Comments According to the author: "This bill restores the jail inmate credits that existed before the enactment of the prison reform bill passed last year. "Incidental to one of the prison reforms in SBx3 18 from last year - credits for prison inmates - were changes to credits for jail inmates. For many years, county jail CONTINUED SB 76 Page 3 inmates could earn enough credits to reduce their jail sentence by up to one-third. SB 18x increased these jail credits to make them consistent with the credit rules for state prison inmates. "After SBx3 18 went into effect, we learned that its jail credit changes would have the unintended effect of undercutting the community corrections effort launched by a bill I co-authored last year with our former colleague, Senator Benoit, SB 678. "Part of that community corrections model involves judges using county jail time as an intermediate sanction short of prison. By reducing available jail time, judges could be faced with an inadequate custodial alternative to state prison. The last thing we want to do is fast-track offenders out of community corrections into prison. "This bill addresses this concern by restoring the credits available for jail inmates under the law prior to the enactment of SBx3 18. This bill does not affect the prison inmate credit reforms enacted by SBx3 18." FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: Yes According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee analysis: 1. Moderate annual General Fund (GF) costs, potentially in excess of several hundred thousand dollars, to the extent: A. Increasing county jail overcrowding increases the need for new jail construction and the attendant costs of bond debt. For example, there is approximately $600 million remaining in the AB 900 (Solorio), Chapter 7, Statutes of 2007, authority for county jail construction. To the extent this authority is used, there will be state GF costs to pay off the bond. For example, at approximately $115,000 per bed, the cost of paying off 1,000 additional new jail bed would be approximately $230 million or $7.5 million per year. CONTINUED SB 76 Page 4 B. This bill reduces state/local options by adding to the existing county jail overcrowding, which makes it more difficult to divert lower security state offenders to the local level. For example, the Governor estimated his proposal to establish a local block grant to help offset the costs of transferring approximately 11,000 state inmates (average daily population) with less than three years to serve to local control would save approximately $244 million. Increasing the local jail population does not make such restructuring easier. 2. Moderate non-reimbursable local incarceration costs, potentially in the low millions of dollars to the extent county jail inmates serve additional time as a result of reduced credits. Every additional 100 months served costs approximately $240,000. Because of overcrowding, thousands of county inmates are released early so the impact of reducing credits is not as severe as it would be otherwise. SUPPORT : (Verified 8/25/10) Chief Probation Officers of California (co-source) California State Sheriffs' Association (co-source) California District Attorneys Association ASSEMBLY FLOOR : AYES: Adams, Anderson, Arambula, Bass, Beall, Bill Berryhill, Tom Berryhill, Block, Blumenfield, Bradford, Brownley, Buchanan, Caballero, Charles Calderon, Carter, Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon, DeVore, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Fuller, Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick, Gatto, Gilmore, Hagman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill, Huber, Huffman, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Lieu, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Miller, Monning, Nestande, Niello, Nielsen, Norby, V. Manuel Perez, Portantino, Ruskin, Salas, Saldana, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Audra Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres, Torrico, Tran, Villines, Yamada, John A. Perez NOES: Ammiano CONTINUED SB 76 Page 5 NO VOTE RECORDED: Furutani, Nava, Vacancy, Vacancy RJG:mw 8/25/10 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE **** END **** CONTINUED