BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1487
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Date of Hearing: August 12, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 1487 (Leno) - As Introduced: March 9, 2010
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote:4-1
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill reduces sentence credits from day-for-day to one day
for every two days for qualifying inmates serving county jail
time who are not ultimately sentenced to state prison. (The
day-for-day credit was adopted as part of the 2009 Budget Act
solution in SBX3 18 (Ducheny)).
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Moderate annual 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 about $600 million remaining in
AB 900 authority for county jail construction. To the
extent this authority is used, there will be state GF costs
to pay off the bonds. For example, at about $115,000 per
bed, the cost of paying off 1,000 additional new jail beds
would be about $230 million, or $7.5 million per year.
b) This bill reduces state/local restructuring options by
adding to 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 about 11,000 state inmates
(average daily population) with less than three years to
serve to local control would save about $244 million.
Increasing the local jail population does not make such
restructuring easier.
SB 1487
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2)Moderate nonreimbursable 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
about $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.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The author contends that reducing county jail time
could reduce community corrections efforts (such as his SB
678/Chapter 608 Statutes of 2009) by reducing the availability
of intermediate sanctions such as county jail time, leaving
judges with fewer options to state prison.
This bill is the result of confusion and consternation in the
wake of SBX3 18 (Ducheny), which increased sentence credits
for state and local inmates. Law enforcement insisted the bill
was meant to apply only to state-bound inmates. SBX3
proponents suggested providing fewer credit opportunities to
less serious local inmates was logically dubious and fiscally
troublesome.
This bill essentially maintains the SBX3 18 increase in
credits for time served in local jails by state inmates (from
one day for every two days served, to day-for-day) and reduces
the SBX3 18 increase in credits for time served in local jails
by non-state inmates (from day-for-day (50%) to one day for
every two days (33%).
2)Current law specifies that persons convicted of serious
felonies, as defined, registered sex offenders, or person with
a prior conviction for a serious felony, receive two days of
credit for every six days of custody if willing to perform
assigned labor and uphold facility rules. Inmates convicted of
violent felonies, as defined, may receive only 15% credit.
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081