Building on reforms enacted in recent years that aim to reduce numbers in California’s overcrowded and overwhelmed prison system, bills awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature mark a shift away from the state’s tough-on-crime policies of the past, reports USA Today. One measure enables parents and primary caregivers for a child under 18 who are charged with nonviolent felonies and misdemeanors to opt into non-prison programs. Other bills end automatic sentence enhancements for people convicted of recommitting a felony for which they had already served time, increase research and improve record-keeping in the criminal justice system and end reliance on private prisons.
About 80 percent of prisoners have had their sentences enhanced, and for more than a quarter of those, it has happened multiple times. The corrections department says that more than 11,000 inmates have had a year added to their sentences because of the enhancement laws. The practice comes at a high cost. The state spends $80,000 a year to lock up a prisoner. The state is expected to save $20.5 million in the first year of implementation. State Assembly member Jim Cooper, a former sheriff’s captain who opposed the bill, says judges are in a much better position to make sentencing decisions than are state legislators.