AP Exclusive: Calif jail violence rises on reforms

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Source: AP

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — County jails that account for the vast majority of local inmates in California have seen a marked increase in violence since they began housing thousands of offenders who previously would have gone to state prisons.

Many of the 10 counties that account for 70 percent of California's total jail population have experienced a surge in the number of inmate fights and attacks on jail employees, according to assault records requested by The Associated Press.

The spike corresponds to a law championed by Gov. Jerry Brown in which lower-level offenders are sentenced to county jails instead of state prisons. Some jails have seen violence dip, but the trend is toward more assaults since the law took effect on Oct. 1, 2011.

Brown sought realignment of the state's penal system in response to federal court orders requiring the reduction of prison overcrowding as the main way of improving medical and mental health treatment for state inmates. But the change has shifted many of the same problems the state had experienced to local jails.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-calif-jail-violence-rises-reforms

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1. Yikes once again, it's about fucking money

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2. Jerry, I'm sorry to say, is far too much in the prison lobby's pocket.

We need fewer prisoners, much fewer, not just shuffling them around while we keep adding to the pile. Our justice system is a disfunctional mess. He's still collecting campaign money, if he plans to run again, he better change, or he will get changed.