Realignment is a hot topic in California right now. Los Angeles County leaders want changes to California’s realignment law so violent criminals released from state prison are monitored by armed parole officers.
Monterey County – The Herald
LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles County leaders want changes to California’s realignment law so violent criminals released from state prison are monitored by armed parole officers.
The Pasadena Star-News (http://bit.ly/T8SsHf) says the Board of Supervisors was reacting Tuesday to the quadruple killings outside a San Fernando Valley boarding house earlier this month.
The board directed county staff to report next month on the wording of proposed changes to the realignment law, AB 109.
The realignment was Gov. Jerry Brown’s way of fulfilling a Supreme Court order to ease state prison overcrowding.
The law calls for releasing 30,000 inmates by June 2013 and it mandates that inmates released since October 2011 can be placed on probation if their last offense wasn’t serious, violent or sexual in nature.
Information from: Pasadena Star-News, http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/
Supervisors demand realignment changes after Northridge quadruple homicide
Saying it might have preempted the recent quadruple murders in Northridge, the Board of Supervisors demanded changes Tuesday to Gov. Jerry Brown’s public safety realignment law so violent criminals released from state prison are monitored by armed parole officers, instead of merely being placed on probation.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky noted the realignment law, AB 109, currently mandates that inmates released since Oct. 1, 2011, can be placed on probation if their last offense was nonviolent, nonserious and nonsexual (N3).
Realignment does not consider an inmate’s entire criminal record – only their last offense.
“Just because the person’s last crime is a nonviolent crime doesn’t mean he’s nonviolent, (especially) if he’s had one, two, or 10 previous violent convictions,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said.
“That’s just plain stupid and it’s got to be changed,” he added.
Realignment is Brown’s way of fulfilling a Supreme Court order to ease the overcrowding in state prisons by releasing 30,000 inmates by June 2013.
Aside from making the county Probation Department responsible for supervising former inmates whose last crime was an N3, it also forced the Sheriff’s Department to jail those sentenced with N3 crimes since Oct. 1, 2011.