Los Angeles police officers support prison plan agreement

17

Sep 2013

By

LAPPL Board of Directors

Governor Brown recently came to an agreement with legislative leaders that allows the state to comply with a federal court order to limit the prison population to 137.5 percent of capacity while avoiding the early release of thousands of prisoners.

On behalf of all Los Angeles police officers, we applaud Governor Jerry Brown, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Assembly Speaker John Pérez, Senate Republican leader Bob Huff and Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway for reaching an agreement that helps keep California residents safe. These leaders recognize that we cannot release these dangerous convicted felons early. We are already seeing crime rates spike as the state continues to place prisoners into overcrowded county jails. Unless felons know that at the end of the day they will lose their freedom if they continue to commit crimes, there is no incentive for them to stop committing those crimes. We hope that the panel of three federal judges that ordered California to release felons will modify their order and support the plan adopted by the governor and legislative leaders that puts public safety first. The plan would:

Authorize up to $315 million in immediate in-state and out-of-state capacity.

Lay the foundation for longer-term changes to the criminal justice system, in collaboration with the Legislature and stakeholders.

Strengthen existing local efforts to manage offenders by increasing the amount of funding that county probation departments receive if they can serve felony probationers locally and keep them from coming to prison.

Require that if the court modifies the order in a way that reduces the cost of compliance, the first $75 million in savings will go to reducing recidivism.

We hope the three federal judges provide the state time to let the proposed compromise work rather than mandate that felons be released throughout the state. Los Angeles police officers share the goal of the governor and legislative leaders who want to provide the best prison and rehabilitation system in the country.

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