Two years after the United States Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its severely overcrowded prisons by more than 30,000 inmates, the state is still trying to figure out how to comply. Governor Jerry Brown released a new plan in early May that called for the early release of elderly inmates and the relocation of …
June 1, 2013 Tags: CA, news
Category: News, Policy No Comments 
Frederick Recupido, 35, recently arrived in San Diego after spending much of the last decade serving two terms in Tahachapi State Prison, located near Bakersfield.
“I had no place to go,” he said. “My family’s support is there, it’s just not as it used to be because this is the second time.”
Recupido was one of the …
December 10, 2011 Tags: CA, news, stories
Category: Ex-offenders, Parole, Projects No Comments
… And that’s why many nonprofit community organizations around California have been lobbying hard to be included in the pot of money counties are receiving under the state’s criminal justice realignment plan, which includes keeping more felons at county lockups instead of shipping them to state prisons.
But how that funding is spent varies by county. …
“I wasn’t arrested. I was rescued.”
In February 2010, Diane Joiner began a sentence of 6 ½ months in county jail, split between San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. She had seen a jail cell many times before, for possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and parole violations.
Still, Joiner did not consider herself …
November 26, 2011 Tags: CA, news
Category: Addiction No Comments
California prison recidivism problem stirs debate
“Our anger,” explained Los Angeles County Assistant District Attorney Curtis Hazell, “is that they are saying the current system is broken because of recidivism.”
He’s talking about the fact that California sends 67 percent of criminals back to prison within three years of their release. It’s one of the worst recidivism rates in the nation, and …
November 27, 2011 Tags: CA, commentary
Category: Parole, Policy No Comments