Public Safety Realignment - ACLU of Northern California

PROTECTING COMMUNITIES: INVESTING IN INDIVIDUALOUTCOMESIn addition to expanding county discretion in how to address the pretrial population, realignmentalso gives counties new options for holding individuals accountable once they have beenconvicted of committing a misdemeanor or low-level felony offense. AB 109 encouragescounties not to repeat the state’s failed policy of relying upon incarceration. Instead counties areurged to implement community sanctions and programs that both conserve limited resources(including jail space) and improve the outcomes of individuals within the criminal justice system—which means less crime and fewer future victims.The new law explicitly provides that, “Consistent with local needs and resources, the [realignmentimplementation] plan may include recommendations to maximize the effective investment ofcriminal justice resources in evidence-based correctional sanctions and programs, including, but notlimited to, day reporting centers, drug courts, residential multiservice centers, mental healthtreatment programs, electronic and GPS monitoring programs, victim restitution programs,counseling programs, community service programs, educational programs, and work trainingprograms.” 114Realignment also creates important new opportunities for counties to expand alternative-toincarcerationpolicies. County sheriffs now have broadened discretion to manage those in theircustody with alternatives to jail incarceration such as home detention or work release programs.Courts may continue to sentence individuals tojail or to probation in lieu of incarceration;alternatively, they may now sentence anindividual convicted of a non-non-non offense toa “split sentence,” under which the individual iscommitted to county jail for the first part of theterm and then placed under the mandatorysupervision of the local probation department forthe concluding portion of the term.AB 109 encourages counties to expand the use of“community-based punishment,” and providesspecific examples such as intensive communitysupervision; home detention with non-GPSelectronic monitoring (such as telephone checkins)or GPS monitoring; community service;restorative justice programs such as mandatory victim restitution and victim-offender reconciliation;work, training, or education in a furlough program, or work in lieu of confinement; day reporting;30