User:KDS4444/Realignment initiative

California's Public Safety Realignment initiative represents an attempt by the state of California to reduce its state prison population by shifting much of that population to county jails.

On 23 May 2011 the US Supreme Court upheld an order by a three-judge federal court requiring the state of California to reduce its state prison population to no more than 137.5% of its design capacity within two years. Prior to the initiative the state's prison population had risen to roughly 180% of its design capacity, and prisoners had become unable to receive routine medical or mental health care. In response, the governor and the state legislature passed two bills, Assembly Bill 109 and Assembly Bill 117, which became law and went into effect on 1 October 2011. Under these laws, new non-violent, non-serious, and non-sexual offenders with sentences of longer than one year would be housed in county jail facilities rather that state prisons (existing prisoners falling in those categories would not be relocated). Also, inmates released from such facilities would be placed on county-directed supervision rather than state parole. The laws also provided new funding for county facilities for the management of this increased in population.

By 2014 the state had offloaded approximately 25,000 prisoners to county facilities. However, this was still 9,600 prisoners short of the requirements set by the Supreme Court. The three-judge court then gave the state two more years to meet its target population. However, the overall inmate po