Republican legislators have begun introducing more than a dozen bills that would counteract Governor Jerry Brown’s prison realignment plan. They argue that the plan to send inmates into county jails instead of state prison poses a threat to the safety of local residents.

The bills that are being proposed by the California GOP would send more convicted felons back to state prisons and improve the supervision of parolees. They say that the plan would be to use available resources more effectively, not construct more prisons.

The bills include measures such as sending criminals who remove their GPS monitors to prison instead of jail and putting all sex offenders who violate their parole in prison as well. It also includes plans to use state parole officers to supervise sex offenders rather than county probation officers.

Counties are having to house over 1,100 inmates that are serving sentences of five years or more in facilities that were designed to only house inmates for less than a year.

Source:  California GOP Lawmakers Introduce Bills To Counteract Prison Realignment

Published 3/31/2013