RivCo's Sheriff, DA's Office Criticize CDCR Recidivism Report

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — Days after Riverside County's top law officials blasted the state's "soft on crime" policies, on Friday the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation released reports claiming that a voter-approved measure aimed at reducing recidivism is having a modest impact.

The state announcement did not sit well with Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. The office of District Attorney Mike Hestrin didn't praise it either.

"They go into their own 'audits' with a mission to prove themselves correct," Bianco said of the state reports. "Real statisticians are having heydays with the state's charts and numbers from various areas of the criminal justice system because of the faulty collection and reporting of data; garbage in, garbage out.

"Go walk around downtown, go ride along with officers/deputies, go sit with prosecutors, go to the park, go speak with business owners, then you tell me CDCR’s cute little pamphlet singing their own praises is worth the paper it's printed on," Bianco's emailed statement continued.

On Friday, the CDCR announced the publication of two reports examining the state's recidivism rates. Recidivism refers to a formerly incarcerated person's relapse into criminal activity and conviction.

The state reports provide outcomes of formerly incarcerated people who were released in fiscal years 2016-2017 and again in 2017-2018. The 2017-2018 report is the first CDCR data available examining recidivism among those impacted by Proposition 57.

Approved by California voters in 2016, Prop. 57 increased parole and good behavior opportunities for felons convicted of nonviolent crimes. It also allowed judges to decide whether to try certain juveniles as adults.

“[The 2017-2018 report reflects] the first cohort of released people after the passage of Proposition 57, and it is encouraging to see that credit-earning opportunities, particularly in education-led programs, is having a positive impact to improve public safety,” CDCR Secretary Jeff Macomber said in a released statement. “Our focus has been and continues to be on creating an environment in prison that provides vital resources to the incarcerated population so that they can become better citizens upon release.”

CDCR said it studies recidivism by examining arrests, convictions and returns to prison in the three years following the date of a person’s release from custody.

"This is the nationally recognized primary measure of recidivism," according to the state.

The newly published reports show that of the 31,792 people released from CDCR custody in FY 2016-17, 47.6 percent of them were convicted of additional crimes after three years. This compares to the three-year conviction rate of 44.6 percent for the 35,447 people released in FY 2017-18. Even though the figure was down by three percentage points in 2017-18, it amounted to 676 more people reoffending compared to the 2016-17 data.

What the reports don't account for is who didn’t get arrested, according to Bianco.

"We will never know if they committed more crimes and just didn’t get caught. We are not even taking into account that businesses don’t even report crimes anymore because of the expense of prosecution. It’s the cost of doing business in California," the sheriff said.

In the 2017-18 report, the state admits that interruptions in arrests and convictions during the COVID-19 pandemic likely pushed the recidivism rate downward. Court closures, electronic/remote proceedings, and temporary suspension of intakes and transfers to CDCR "are only a few factors that likely influenced all three measures of recidivism (arrests, convictions, and returns to prison)," according to the state.

The state reporting paints an inaccurate picture, according to Hestrin's office and Bianco. Instead of incarcerating low-level offenders in state prison, California laws now push these criminals into county jails — meaning the CDCR is no longer on the hook for their subsequent crimes.

Additionally, once these inmates are released from county jail and discharged from parole, they will likely be a local problem due to Proposition 47 and Assembly Bill 109, according to Bianco and Hestrin.

Jerry Brown was governor when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that California state prisons were overcrowded in violation of constitutional protections. That year, Brown signed AB 109 into law to reduce the state prison population. The law required that many people convicted of felonies, and whose crimes did not involve violence or sex offenses, would serve their sentences in county jails instead of state prison. Again, CDCR does not track recidivism rates for these individuals.

Then in 2014, California voters approved Prop. 47, which reclassified many lower-level drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. For those convicted and sentenced for these crimes, time gets spent in county jails, not state prisons, so CDCR has no responsibility to track recidivism.

"Local offenders get released so quickly for their low-level crimes there is no incentive for them to not re-offend, because there are no real consequences for them," according to Hestrin's office.

Bianco and Hestrin say the California justice system has created a revolving door for criminals.

"Nothing is a crime anymore," Bianco said during an April 12 press conference. "

"We need to put an end to this," Hestrin added. "We are doing everything we can to protect property in this county. But we can't do it. The state won't protect it. We need help."

All three pieces of legislation — AB 109, and Props. 47 and 57 — work together, for the worse, according to Bianco and Hestrin.

"Collectively, AB 109 and Prop. 57 have reduced the prison population to the extent that the state is now closing prison facilities," and Prop. 47 "reduces many crimes from felonies to misdemeanors," according to Hestrin's office.

California prisons house around 95,000 people today. In September 2021, the state closed Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy. The California Correctional Center in Susanville is scheduled to close in June, along with yards at six other state prisons. Prisons in Blythe and in California City are scheduled to close by March 2025.

While Bianco and Hestrin blast the state and Gov. Gavin Newsom for "soft on crime" policies, criminal activity, when it hits home, is not really a partisan issue.

On Tuesday, Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) joined the League of California Cities, the California Retailers Association, California Police Chiefs Association, and the California District Attorneys Association for a press conference urging the Assembly Public Safety Committee to pass legislation to combat retail theft with the passage of Assembly Bill 1708.

If enacted, the bill would roll back Prop. 47 by allowing either a felony or misdemeanor charge for any person who has two or more convictions for theft-related offenses and who is subsequently convicted of petty theft or shoplifting. The bill does allow those charged with petty theft with prior convictions to participate in a diversion program for substance abuse and mental health treatment.

The bill is jointly authored by eight bipartisan state assemblymembers.

"AB 1708 is a common-sense fix to Proposition 47 to combat retail theft," Muratsuchi said in a released statement. "This bill proposes a balanced approach to fight retail theft, holding repeat offenders more accountable while seeking to address the root causes of the crimes through diversion programs that would provide substance abuse and mental health treatment as needed."

For Bianco, it seems it will take more than just a Prop. 47 rollback. Exasperated by California's current criminal justice system, he said the dangerous convergence of AB 109, and Props. 47 and 57 are "reality across the entire state. We are dealing with it every single day."