Supervisors Discuss Plans to Accommodate 4,000 Criminals

At its Tuesday meeting, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors discussed a report released by the the San Diego Association of Governments () outlining the current capacity and future needs of San Diego County's detention facilities, based on an upcoming transfer of state offenders to county hands. 

The board voted unanimously to accept the plan to implement changes prompted by AB 109, the Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011.

SANDAG’s Criminal Justice Division released the report analyzing the region’s capacity to absorb offenders when the State of California shifts the responsibility for housing and supervising thousands of convicts to county governments starting in October.

The report comes at a time when crime is at a 30-year recorded low. But the advancing age of many of the county's detention facilities, as well as the "expected need for additional jail bed space in the coming years, has resulted in the planned construction and expansion of the facilities," according to the report.

The report says that about 4,000 offenders annually who would have been in the state system will now be cared for at seven detention sites across the county. The Sheriff's Department estimates that its local jails will reach capacity within eight months—1,000 to 2,000 more jail beds will be needed by 2013, according to the report.

The state prison inmates who would be transferred are behind bars for non-violent, non-sexual and non-serious offenses.

Total costs to the county for the transfers and expansions have yet to be determined, but the county expects to receive $25.1 million from the state to fund the shift the first year, and upwards of $65 million the next year, officials have said.

"We know we can provide better public safety services than the state, but we cannot allow them to pass the buck without also passing along the dollars,'' Board Chairman said.

A five-point plan to accommodate the shift was put forward by Chief Probation Officer Mack Jenkins. Ideas include reducing the number of low-risk offenders sitting in jail awaiting trial by dropping bail amounts or using more home detention techniques, more use of and training with alternative sentencing, and other tactics to free up space in detention facilities.

These different treatments could be applied to inmates while in custody instead of "simply warehousing them as now occurs in state prison,'' Jenkins said.

City News Service contributed to this report.