Minor Crimes Likely to Increase with Order to Reduce State Prison Population, Officials Say

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling ordering California's state prisons to release 33,000 prisoners could result in more than 10,000 being transferred to Los Angeles County facilities.

Capt. David Halm of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Walnut/Diamond Bar station said he did not have a sense of how the ruling would affect his station's coverage area of Walnut, Diamond Bar, and Rowland Heights, and deferred to Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca's media comments on the issue.

Baca has said the transfer may be problematic.

Baca said to KPCC that county Sheriff's would be "very, very busy trying to figure out a way to manage this population" and he later said on KCRW's "To the Point" radio show that Los Angeles County "may be the one county that can't take that kind of influx."

In anticipation of the ruling, which found that overcrowded state prisons constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill in April that would move certain low-level prisoners to county jails and other facilities.

The bill, AB 109, would keep prisoners convicted of serious, violent, or sex crimes in state prisons while moving others to county facilities.

Glendora Police Chief Rob Castro said the the release of nonviolent, low-level crimes would lead to increases in those crimes, especially for communities where non-violent property crimes are the most prevalent.

"Releasing people who already have a propensity for committing crimes and have been convicted and sentenced into jail, and in this economy where there aren’t any jobs available, is just a recipe for increased crime," Castro said. “And I suspect we could be seeing that in other cities, not just in Glendora."

While local officials said the decision could lead to increased crime, ACLU representatives lauded the decision as a landmark in calls for prison reform.

"(The U.S. Supreme Court) decision crystallizes the urgent need for California to invest in meaningful parole and sentencing reforms and alternatives to incarceration, especially for low-level, nonviolent offenders," David Fathi, director of the ACLU's National Prison Project, said in a release issued May 23.

According to a report in the Christian Science Monitor, budget cuts at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which started in 2004, led to the release of over 300 low-level, nonviolent criminals per day.

Sheriff Baca said at that time that the release of these prisoners undercut the effectiveness of addressing misdemeanor violations at the county level.

According to L.A. Sheriff Baca's interview with KCRW, compliance with the May 23 ruling will now hinge mostly on cost.

Each county prisoner comes at an annual cost of $27,000, Baca told KCRW, which is money he said the Los Angeles county is still working with the Governor and Department of Corrections to acquire.

Gov. Brown's current plan for funding the shifts to county facilities depends on voter approval of a constitutional amendment to raise income, sales, and vehicle taxes.