Unintended Consequences Of The State Prison System

Inadvertent Consequences According to Krisberg and Taylor-Nicholson, state budget cuts, lowering prison over-crowding, and improving corrections are the underlying reasons for the policy shift. Although â€Å"county custody costs (county jail) may be somewhat lower than state prison costs, shifting the custody and supervision costs of selected offender groups to the county will only cut spending in state prisons,† and may fail to lower the overall costs of corrections in California (Owen Mobley, 2012, p. 47). Whereas the state prison system seems to be progressing toward its population-reduction goal, â€Å"this measure is shortsighted and somewhat deceiving† because a â€Å"corresponding rise in county jail populations will continue California’s†¦show more content†¦That bodes ill for keeping ex-inmates from returning to crime,† as Joan Petersilia stated (as cited in Owen Mobley, 2012, p. 47). County jails are not equipped to â€Å"manage the influx of more prisoners, and for longer periods of time, as well as provide ‘evidence-based’ rehabilitative programs,† which has serious implications for confinement conditions and for the overall success or failure of Realignment (Owen Mobley, 2012, p. 47). Even before the Realignment Act, California jails were struggling with â€Å"crowding, court-ordered ordered caps on their populations, antiquated facilities and few programs† (Owen Mobley, 2012, p. 48). Counties are limited in their ability to address these concerns because of county-level budget cuts. AB 109 has other inadvertent consequences for parole and probation. Both probation and parole violators will serve their sentence in a county jail if their probation or parole is revoked. Although the state parole population is declining, county probation caseloads are increasing. The CDCR seriously underestimated how many â€Å"non-non-nons† would go to each county after six months (Owen Mobley, 2012, p. 48). County probation officers are currently supervising AB 109 inmates in significant numbers despite that rehabilitative programs and services are lacking. Incarceration Alternatives Counties will have to utilize alternative strategies to stabilize the increasing jail