As we mark the two year anniversary of Assembly Bill 109’s implementation, realignment is still not an issue that lends itself easily to sound bites. It’s complex, it’s a long slog without immediate results and the collaboration required to get it right is unprecedented.
What AB 109 offers counties is money to explore alternatives to locking criminals up, throwing away the key and expecting them to be different human beings a year (or many years) later.
Good things are happening and with a little discipline and some smart tweaks to the law, they will continue to. There is certainly a need for additional reform as well as improved communication and collaboration among stakeholders to maintain this trajectory.
The most notable casualty in the recent SB 105 compromise package was the sentencing commission. Killing proposals for sentencing commissions is a long-standing tradition for California leadership, which is again choosing to overlook data on the impact of current sentencing policies and practice. And what we have have now as a sentencing model is a main front-end driver of overcrowding.
Although Senator Steinberg’s press secretary says that the commission is a priority for the next legislative session, history suggests that this will not go anywhere soon. At times sentencing commissions are merely a way to ration prison beds and control fear-mongering lawmakers, but with proper research and ample time they can be truly effective tools for reform. They alone, however, cannot solve the problem of crime and victimization.
California Forward’s Partnership for Community Excellence (PCE) has whittled its focus down to two main areas when looking forward on how to best continue the implementation of AB 109.
First, promoting a data-based community system that prioritizes prevention, intervention and rehabilitation as viable alternatives to incarceration. We know that evidence-based treatment and supervision work as alternatives to incarceration. One needs to look no further than the great work of research professionals such as Joan Petersilia of Stanford and Lois M. Davis of the Rand Corp. to understand the effectiveness of evidence-based community corrections and education for those behind bars.
Second, ensuring counties are equipped to take advantage of all the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has to offer. October 1 also marks the day that enrollment begins for the federally reimbursed health coverage that low-income offenders are eligible for beginning January 1. A full 100 percent of medically necessary treatment costs will be reimbursed by Uncle SAM through 2016, gradually declining to 90 percent by 2020.
In other words, this is not pocket change. It represents one of the single largest saving opportunities to county correctional spending in decades. But that is only if the vast universe of county corrections and all of its stakeholders can work with the equally vast expanse of those in county health care to figure out the quickest and most efficient way to enroll offenders and to get them the services they need.
Inmates with substance use disorders and/or mental illness need targeted treatment to stay out of jail. Without treatment and supervision, offenders will not succeed in the community. Offenders will make up one of the largest expansion groups under ACA. By taking advantage of the ACA’s expanded benefits, we improve community corrections and eliminate jail beds used to house offenders who would otherwise fail in the community.
The PCE is holding convenings on Increasing Safety and Reducing Costs under Realignment and the Affordable Care Act, gathering CAOs, criminal justice and health & human services county leaders from one or more counties. Discussions on leveraging the ACA focus on building capacity and delivering much-needed services that lower the risk of re-offending. Counties simply cannot afford to leave federal cash on the table come January 1.
We have come this far. The media is now doing its part to enlighten the broader public as to the opportunities at hand. Let’s begin the third year of AB 109 with a renewed purpose to reduce recidivism, save money, and foster collaboration.
The best way to keep jail populations down is by addressing the risks and needs of each individual rather than putting them in cold storage hoping for some magical, hands-off transformation that will never come with zero investment in offenders as people who can change.
