Realignment: How Not To Do It, the Construction Version

Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) are raising some serious concerns about rehabilitation implementation. They are circulating a petition against the Riverside County plan to charge inmates for their stay, and also spearheading an effort to stop a planned Los Angeles County jail expansion.

Under AB 900, counties have been invited to appeal for Phase II funding to increase their jail capacity. The list of counties is here; Los Angeles tops the large counties' list.

One of the arguments usually thrown around in support of realignment is that even if the counties do a bad job at imprisonment, they cannot possibly be worse than the state. I'm beginning to think that, in some cases, that may not be true. There is no reason to believe that the state administration has all the punitive foolishness and the counties, all the recidivism-reducing wisdom. It is time for the counties to wake up and seriously commit to the goal of reducing confined population (and the expenses involved in confining it). Otherwise, a precious opportunity will be lost.