Tuesday, June 26, 2012

County Sherrifs Allowed to Release Terminally Ill Inmates

SB 1462, proposed by Mark Leno, passed today in the Senate. It authorizes sheriffs to release inmates from county jail for transfer to a hospital or a hospice, upon the advice of a physician, if the inmate is deemed to have a life expectancy of six months or less and is not a danger to public safety. The bill states that, for inmates eligible for Medi-Cal, the county will continue to pay the nonfederal share of the costs after release.

This is one more block in the general trend of paying close attention to elderly and infirm patients, such as geriatric parole. One of the major features of doing selective incapacitation on a budget is that we still classify people into groups, but now the groups are arranged based on cost, not just risk.

1 comment:

Jesse said...

senate passed 1562 on 5/30 by 23-15, today was the assembly public safety committee vote (4-2), waiting on assembly health committee and assembly floor