With the severe budget crisis California is facing and a prison system swelling with inmates, California Governor Jerry Brown has proposed that some "low level" inmates be shipped to local county jails, including here in Santa Clara. The proposal would send 37,000 inmates, who are low level offenders such as drug offenders and probation violations, to county jails. It is estimated that this would halve the cost of housing such inmates at the state level and would allow loved ones to have easier access to them.
Here in Santa Clara County, nearly a third of the jail beds are empty. With lower crimes rates, there are similar numbers in other counties.
Another part of the idea is to open up access to community groups, so that some inmates can receive support, programming etc. For instance, people with marijuana convictions can receive drug treatment while in custody or other outreach type of programs. Even job training is provided to some inmates
Brown's proposal is not original: it has been attempted before. However, since we are sending people to prison for trivial offenses and because of the budget crisis the idea is beginning to pick up some momentum.
The real lesson of course is: stop sending people to Pelican Bay for using marijuana or violating probation for possessing drug paraphernalia. It's pretty simple really.
