Among the changes that were made was an increase to the number of offenses that would still require inmates serve their sentences in state prisons. The Governor’s office has also decided to maintain its juvenile detention facilities. Lastly, local fire agencies would only be asked to cover a fraction of the wilderness areas that was originally proposed.
Even with the reforms, the Governor’s Finance office still anticipates that the plan will save the state nearly $2 billion per year by reducing the prison population by 38,000 inmates.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Responding to concerns that it would lead to a public safety nightmare, Gov. Jerry Brown has scaled back a key part of his budget proposal that calls for more criminal justice services to be shifted to the local level.
Under the revised proposal presented to lawmakers Monday – the most detailed to date – fewer prison inmates could be moved from state lockups to local jails, the state Division of Juvenile Justice would not be entirely eliminated, and local fire agencies would take over responsibility for only a fraction of the wildland areas originally contemplated.
“The revisions to our proposal are really based on discussions with local officials, and particularly on public safety concerns,” Diane Cummins, an adviser to Brown, told the Legislature’s budget conference committee Monday.
Read the full article here.