Study: County Approaches Differ On Prison Reforms
SACRAMENTO (AP) — A university study released Friday of how counties are spending $4.4 billion to implement Gov. Jerry Brown's prison realignment law found that nearly 20 percent have fundamentally changed how they approach criminal justice.
The subsidies are guaranteed as part of the two-year-old law that is sending lower-level offenders to county jails instead of state prisons.
Lawmakers urged counties to increase rehabilitation programs to keep more criminals from re-offending once they are released from prison.
The study released Friday by the Stanford Criminal Justice Center identifies five counties as doing what lawmakers intended: Monterey, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara and Shasta.
It says five other counties are going in the opposite direction by increasing their emphasis on incarceration. They are Alpine, Calaveras, Contra Costa, Imperial and Marin counties.
(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
