California to Release 17,000 Prisoners
The State’s plan to release up to 17,000 prisoners jeopardizes community safety. Please know that your Sheriff’s Dept. also remains in the community and is ready to address this risk. Do not hesitate to report suspicious activity. Orange County’s 13th Sheriff Barnes warned.
Jails in California, New York, Ohio, Texas and at least a dozen other states are sending low-level offenders and elderly or sickly inmates home early due to coronavirus fears. At other jails and prisons around the country, officials are banning visitors, restricting inmates’ movement and screening staff, WSJ reported.
10 July SanfranciscoCBS local reported that The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said it estimates 8,000 currently incarcerated persons could be eligible for release by end of August under release authority granted to the CDCR Secretary allowing alternative confinement or release in any case in which an emergency endangering the lives of incarcerated persons has occurred or is imminent.
State senator Scott Weiner said “Our prisons are not sealed. If we have a large outbreak at our prisons, that will absolutely spread into our communities at large.” according to the SanfanciscoCBS local.
Some of the Senators policies may make sense for the future as jails flood with drug users: State Sen. Scott Wiener introduced SB 378 that addresses California’s high rate of prisoners arrested for drug rations drug charges.
Making room for new prisoners arrested for not wearing masks, as some suggest?