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Parole Reform LegislationWhat You Need to KnowFrom the office of Morro Bay Police Chief John DeRohanSB 18XXX, the Parole "Reform" legislation enacted last fall to reduce the CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) budget and inmate population, becomes effective January 25th, 2010. This measure results in earlier release for both prison and jail inmates through increased "credits for time served," and creates a new class of parolees; "Summary Parole." Summary Parole, also referred to as unsupervised parole, results in no active supervision or management of parolees by parole personnel, and while they will still be subject to search and seizure conditions, they will not be eligible for "technical" violations of their parole. They will only face new prosecution and increased time in county jail rather than a return to state prison custody. All of this will be without the benefit of the daily jail rate previously paid to counties by the state to hold parole violators. Taken together, these changes will put further strain on county jails and result in more parolees out on the streets without supervision or stringent conditions. Other areas of concern are: prison gangs are not eligible for non-supervised parole, but criminal street gangs are and so our local county street gang members will likely not be on managed parole. Additionally, stalking and domestic violence releases will not have stay away orders from victims as they cannot have their parole revoked. There is also no mechanism in place for domestic violence (DV) victims to be notified when these DV suspects are placed on non-supervised parole status and the stay away order is lifted. To add to these concerns are the new proposed budget cuts that the governor has proposed over the past week which will further impact public safety. The main issues that we'll be dealing with in regards to the new budget cuts proposed include changing wobblers (crimes that can be charged as a felony or misdemeanor) to misdemeanors, including drug possession for sale, and would only carry a penalty of imprisonment in the county jail for up to one year for a misdemeanor or not more than 366 days for a felony, unless the person has a prior conviction for a serious and/or violent felony, in which case the crimes become felonies only. This, combined with the lower-than-anticipated VLF (vehicle licensing fee) funding that agencies such as ours are receiving to replace COPS and booking fee subventions, and the cuts in staffing many departments including ours have been forced to make due to budget constraints, has resulted in a formula that will be disastrous to local communities and the public safety agencies charged with their protection. We will lucky to get 70% of the State COPS funding this year instead of the full $100,000. Clearly, our reduced resources, along with early release of prisoners and unsupervised parole will impact us.
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