Governor proposes a prisoner swap
Gov. Jerry Brown quietly rolled out tweaks to his prison realignment plan in Monday’s budget proposal.
In addition to offering counties $72 million more to handle local felons, the governor proposes a prisoner swap, trading long-term inmates that jails are ill-prepared to handle in return for short-term felons the state would just as soon not have to hold.
Given California’s prison crowding problems and federal orders to reduce those numbers further, the plan would be “inmate neutral,” state budget officials said.
Los Angeles County officials welcomed the proposal. The county currently has 31 jail inmates serving sentences of 10 years or more. One of them is to be incarcerated for 42 years on narcotics charges.
“County jails aren’t set up to handle these longer-term prisoners,” said Margarita Perez, former director of state parole and now assistant probation chief officer for Los Angeles County.
The governor’s proposal would allow county parole boards to determine which long-term inmates to send to state prison. Only those sentenced to five years or more would qualify, and even then they would serve their first three years in jail.
In return, the county would be required to accept the “equivalent” in state prisoners serving short sentences. An inmate with 30 years remaining on a sentence would be equal to 30 state prisoners with one year each to serve.
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