BILL ANALYSIS
SB 175
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Date of Hearing: June 22, 1999
Consultant: Ignacio Hernandez
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Mike Honda, Chair
SB 175 (Rainey) - As Amended: May 17, 1999
SUMMARY : Permits a local correctional facility, or county jail,
to house a non-violent felon who would otherwise be committed to
a state prison. Creates a medical detention facility system.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Authorizes the confinement of a non-violent felon in a county
jail or an approved alternative program instead of state
prison if all of the following conditions apply:
a) The total sentence, including terms to be served
consecutively, is not more than 35 months.
b) The current felony is not a "strike", serious, or
violent felony.
c) The offender does not have a history of escape or
attempted escape.
d) The county in which the offender is incarcerated has an
approved community-based punishment plan.
e) The county in which the offender is incarcerated has a
contract with the California Department of Corrections
(CDC) for the detention of this class of offenders.
2)Excludes from participation those offenders convicted of the
following crimes: manslaughter, gross vehicular manslaughter,
assault with a deadly weapon, assault and battery, rape,
kidnapping lewd and lascivious acts with a child, oral
copulation, sodomy, penetration with a foreign object, other
sex offenses, burglary, participation in a criminal street
gang, arson, a violation of the Gun Free School Zone Act,
escape or failure to return, any offense where the defendant
personally possessed or used a firearm, or any other specified
firearm offense.
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3)Permits participating counties to contract with other counties
for the incarceration of these offenders.
4)Mandates that any offender incarcerated in a local jail
facility pursuant to the provisions of this bill be enrolled
in the county community-based punishment program.
5)Requires the contract between the CDC and a participating
county, under the provisions of this bill, to specify which
one of three categories of prisoners will be accepted for
incarceration in the county jail. The three categories are
based on the length of their sentences: (a) not more than 18
months, (b) not more than 24 months, and (c) not more than 35
months. The county would have to accept every prisoner from
the chosen category.
6)Provides that a sentence pursuant to the provisions of this
bill shall be deemed a "prison prior" for purposes of
subsequent offenses and in consideration of sentence
enhancements.
7)Requires a contingency to be created for those prisoners who
are placed in a local detention facility, pursuant to the
provisions of this bill, and are subsequently deemed
inappropriate for placement at the local level.
8)Allows offenders incarcerated in a county jail facility under
the provisions of this bill to earn one day of credit for
every five days of incarceration.
9)Defines "incarceration" for purposes of this bill to include
"incarceration, supervision, treatment, or any combination
thereof."
10)Increases from 60 to 90 days, the term defined as short-term
"shock" incarceration. (Penal Code Section 8052(e)(1).)
11)Adds work and road camps to punishments available as
intermediate punishments. (Penal Code Section 8052(e)(2).)
12)Creates the Medical Detention Program with the following
requirements:
a) Requires the use of licensed health care facilities for
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the provision of medical, developmental, and mental health
services necessary for the treatment of severely ill,
incapacitated, and disabled inmates.
b) Requires the CDC to establish a Medical Detention
Evaluation Panel, comprised of 5 members, to make
recommendations to the Director of CDC on inmate
eligibility for the program.
13)Requires the members of the newly created Medical Detention
Evaluation Panel to have either a medical or correctional
background. Each member shall serve a four-year term.
14)Vests in the Governor the authority to appoint the members of
the Medical Detention Evaluation Panel.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Vests the CDC with the supervision, management, and control of
the state prisons and is responsible for the care, custody,
treatment, training, discipline and employment of persons
confined in those prisons. The Director may prescribe rules
and regulations for the administration of the prisons. (Penal
Code Sections 5054 and 5058.)
2)Authorizes the Director of the CDC to contract with a city,
county, or city and county, to permit the transfer of
prisoners in the custody of the Director of the CDC to a jail
or other adult correctional facility of the city, county, or
city and county, if the sheriff or corresponding official
having jurisdiction over the facility has consented. No
agreement may be entered into under this section unless the
cost per inmate in the facility is no greater than the average
costs of keep an inmate in a comparable facility of the CDC,
as determined by the Director. (Penal Code Sections
2910-2913.)
3)Authorizes the CDC to establish pilot projects using contracts
with private sector health care facilities for the provision
of medical, developmental, and mental health services. Those
services may include comprehensive health services for
individuals with medical or rehabilitation needs, chronic
diseases or conditions, mental disorders, controlled substance
addiction, or developmental disabilities. Specified
restrictions apply, including requiring custody by peace
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officers, no transfers for inmates with background of escapes
or committed for violent offenses, and locked facilities. The
authority for these pilots expires January 1, 2000. (Penal
Code Sections 6130-6134.)
4)Creates the Community-Based Punishment Act of 1994, in which a
county is authorized to implement alternative punishment
schemes for nonviolent offenders. (Penal Code Section 8050 et
seq.)
5)Requires a county that wants to implement a program pursuant
to the Community-Based Punishment Act to submit a grant
application to the Board of Corrections (BOC) which is vested
with the responsibility to approve and fund programs. (Penal
Code Sections 8050 et seq.)
6)Defines "community-based punishment" as a partnership between
the state and a county or a collaboration of counties to
manage and provide correctional services, especially those
services considered to be intermediate punishments at the
local level of government for targeted, select offender
populations." (Penal Code Section 8052(d).)
7)Permits intermediate punishment strategies to be employed with
nonviolent offenders. This may include short-term "shock"
incarceration of not more than 60 days, intensive supervision,
incarceration in a "boot camp" facility, home detention with
electronic monitoring, mandatory community service,
restorative justice programs, and day reporting. (Penal Code
Sections 8052.)
8)Allows the county to contract with "community-based public or
private correctional service providers" to administer
intermediate punishment strategies. (Penal Code Sections 8050
et seq.)
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)Author's Statement . According to the author, "SB 175 would
provide a reasonable, cost-effective solution to prison
overcrowding by enabling counties to accept custody of certain
low-risk, nonviolent felons with sentences of 35 months or
less. These inmates could be dealt with at the county level
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for less than the cost of prison incarceration, without any
undue risk to public safety?.
"The CDC's Master Plan predicts that 'the growing inmate
population will exceed maximum prison operating capacity of
178,432 sometime in the year 2000.' The latest projections
show that California's prison inmate population will near
191,700 by June of 2004. The most significant increase in
population is expected to be among Level I offenders, and
currently, Level I housing is insufficient to meet this
demand. SB 175 aims to bridge this gap by allowing low-level,
prison-bound felons with no history of violent or serious
offenses to serve their time at the county level, either in
county jails, or through community based punishment programs
such as work camps, boot camps, electronic home detention,
vocational training programs, drug treatment programs and
therapy.
"Under SB 175, the decision to accept custody of low-level
felons is left entirely up to the counties. Nowhere in this
bill does it mandate counties to participate in
community-based punishment. Instead, SB 175 would allow
sheriffs of participating counties to contract with the Board
of Corrections to accept custody of inmates which meet the
above criteria, with the counties being reimbursed for reach
felony offender in county custody."
2)State Prison Overcrowding . The intent of this bill is to
reroute non-violent felons from state prison to county jails.
Currently, the CDC houses over 159,000 inmates. According to
the CDC Population Projection Unit, the projected inmate
population for 2000 is approximately 173,000 and 181,000 for
2001. Many of California's state prisons are operating over
capacity. This population growth may create safety hazards as
well as cause financial and personnel strains on the CDC.
3)Community-Based Punishment . Currently, if a county wants to
develop a community-based punishment program it must submit a
proposal to the BOC. The BOC then reviews the grants and
decides whether or not to approve the plans. In its first
year of accepting proposals (1995-1996), the BOC approved
community-based punishment programs for over 20 counties,
costing $1.7 million. (Counties receiving grants: Alameda,
Amador/Calaveras/Tuolumne, Contra Costa, Humboldt, Kings, Los
Angeles, Merced, Napa, Nevada, Napa, Placer, Plumas,
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Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis
Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Shasta,
Stanislaus, and Tulare.)
These plans offered a wide array of punishment schemes: some
included incarceration, while others detailed non-residential
programs, such as Day Treatment Centers, electronic
monitoring, and therapeutic community substance abuse
treatment. As a result, the types of punishments likely to
result from this bill are unclear. In addition, because of
the proposal and approval process, it is possible that each
participating county will institute programs that are
completely distinct from one another. Therefore, committing
a crime in one county may result in incarceration in a county
jail detention facility, while commission of the same crime in
another county may result in a term of home detention.
Complete discretion is vested in the county developing the
program and the BOC which is responsible for approving or
disproving the plan.
4)County Detention Facility Overcrowding . Under this bill, some
non-violent offenders may be incarcerated for some amount of
time in county jail facilities. Although this may reduce the
flow of offenders to the state prison system, it does not
remedy the overcrowding experienced by many local detention
facilities.
The potential for overburdening local detention facilities is
enhanced by the provision of this bill that does not provide
counties with discretion to accept or deny an offender.
Instead, this bill requires a county that enters into an
agreement with the BOC to accept the entire class of specified
offenders. A county will not be able to restrict the flow of
offenders if its jails become overcrowded. A county may
transfer the inmates to another county for incarceration or
prescribe non-incarceration alternatives.
Therefore, it seems clear that for this bill to be effective the
bill must encourage the adoption of non-incarceration
alternatives for non-violent felon offenders, instead of
increasing the population at the local detention facilities.
While this bill makes these alternatives possible, it does not
guarantee that these offenders will not be placed in already
over-crowded local detention facilities.
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This bill does not make it clear whether these non-violent
felony offenders will be placed into a local detention
facility or an alternative program per the community-based
punishment program.
5)Mental Detention Program . According to the author, this bill
will maximize federal financial participation in the health
care costs of severely ill and incapacitated inmates by
establishing a medical detention category that allows severely
ill inmates to be placed into private nursing homes while
remaining in the custody of the CDC. The Legislative Analyst
has previously estimated that by 2024, there will be almost
50,000 inmates in state prison over the age of 60.
6)Medical Detention Evaluation Panel . This bill only requires
the appointed member of the Panel to have "either a medical or
correctional background". There are two potential problems.
First, this bill is quite vague as to what constitutes a
sufficient medical or correction background. While this bill
grants the Governor extensive flexibility in making
appointments to the panel, it will likely allow opponents of a
proposed appointment to challenge the background of candidate.
Second, this bill does not require the appointed member to have
experience in the medical or correctional field. The
California Psychiatric Association supports the principle of
this bill, but urges an amendment to require at least one of
the members to be a physician.
7)Arguments in Support . The California Probation, Parole and
Correctional Association states, in part, that "the provisions
of SB 175 have significant potential benefit to state and
local correctional systems. The state benefits by ensuring
that prison beds are being used for only the most serious
offenders, sheriffs may gain by being able to fully utilize
all their available beds and by creating an ongoing revenue
stream and probation stands to benefit by being able to expand
and implement their community based punishment plans."
The Friends Committee on Legislation states, in part, "Under
existing law, individuals who are sentenced to more than a
year in custody are generally transferred from local jails to
the state prison system, even though they may have only a few
months left to serve their sentences at the time the sentence
is imposed. This costly practice?causes several thousand
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people to be processed into the state prison system even
though there is no realistic possibility that they will be
able to benefit from the training and job-skills development
programs available in the prison system.
"We know that the successful re-integration of prisoners who
will soon return to the community often depends on maintaining
connections with family, and with employers. This contact is
most easily maintained when inmates are kept at local
facilities."
8)Arguments in Opposition . The California Correctional Peace
Officers Association (CCPOA) states, in part, "Presently
courts send 22.2% of all convicted felons. These constitute
the most habitual and or dangerous felons in the state. How
can the legislature in good conscience take from an already
strapped General Fund, additional revenues to handle 'lighter
weight' felons, triple the number presently handled locally?"
9)Private Jails . In addition, CCPOA expresses concern that this
bill will spurn the construction of private correctional
facilities: "We note that the use of 'community based
punishment' which means a partnership between the state and
county or collaboration of counties to manage intermediate
punishments may be provided by 'private correctional service
providers'. Our association has a long history defending our
still emerging peace officer profession from privateers who
introduce 'for profit' incarceration. "
CCPOA's contention is derived from the provision of this bill
that defines county jail incarceration to include intermediate
punishment that existing law permits to be managed by private
correctional service providers. Therefore, if this law is
passed it is conceivable that an approved community-based
punishment plan may include "shock" incarceration of 90 days
in a detention facility operated by a private corporation.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Attorneys for Criminal Justice
California Peace Officers Association, Government Relations
Oversight Committee
California Probation and Parole Correctional Association
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California Psychiatric Association
California State Association of Counties (CSAC)
California State Sheriffs' Association
Friends Committee on Legislation of California
Little Hoover Commission
Sacramento County Sheriff's Department
San Diego County
Opposition
Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs
California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA)
Deputy Sheriffs' Association of San Francisco, Inc.
Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs' Association
San Bernardino County Safety Employees' Union
State Coalition of Probation Organizations
Analysis Prepared by : Ignacio Hernandez/ PUB.S. / (916)
319-3744