PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID ENCINITAS, CA 92024 PERMIT NO. 94
THE COAST NEWS
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MAKING WAVES IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
VOL. 27, NO. 15
MAXIMUM
MAY 17, 2013
County jails strive to keep up
Solana Beach OKs sand project
CAPACITY
By Rachel Stine
SAN DIEGO — With the rise of San Diego’s adult inmate population resulting from new state prison legislation, county jails are on the verge of their full capacity, leaving facilities and staff straining to accommodate increased operational demands. More and more county authorities are utilizing inmate population management practices, including early releases and alternative custody options. Yet, the ACLU questions whether they should be doing more. California’s state prison realignment was instituted in 2011 when Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill (AB) 109 and AB 117. Referred to as Public Safety Realignment, the legislation shifted certain detention and correctional responsibilities from the state to counties beginning Oct. 1,
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2011. The state prison realignment was designed to reduce the number of inmates in California’s overcrowded adult prisons by June this year as ordered by the state’s Three-Judge Court and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Realignment requires felons who committed nonviolent, non-serious, and nonsex crimes to serve their sentences in county jails instead of state prisons. Offenders who violate the conditions of their parole now serve their violations in jail instead of prison as well. Offenders released from prison who committed nonviolent, non-serious, and nonsex crimes are now supervised by county probation departments instead of state parole. The new legislation furthermore allows county courts to split sentences,
By Bianca Kaplanek
enabling qualifying offenders to serve a portion of their sentence in jail and another portion in the community under mandatory probation supervision. As a result of realignment, more offenders are serving their sentences in
county jails. And unlike nonrealigned inmates, some realigned offenders are serving sentences that are several years long. Since realignment took effect, San Diego County’s jail population has gradually risen by hundreds of adult
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4500 Average daily dailyadult adultjail jailinmate inmate Average populationper permonth month population
Implementation of realignment > October 1, 2011
TURN TO SAND ON A25
with soaring numbers of inmates
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TURN TO JAILS ON A6
Clockwise from top left: George Bailey, Las Colinas, Central, and East Mesa Detention Facilities. Photos courtesy of the San Diego Sheriff’s Department
San Diego County Adult Jail Inmate Population
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inmates, filling the county’s seven detention facilities to the brink of full capacity. San Diego County had an average of 4,640 adult inmates in jail per day in September 2011, the month before realignment took effect, according to data from the Sheriff’s Department. A year-and-a-half later, in March 2013, the jail population reached an average of 5,396 inmates per day, the highest daily average since the start of realignment. The average daily population fell slightly in April 2013 to 5,387 adult inmates per day in jail custody. San Diego’s jail populations have fluctuated by hundreds of inmates for years due to influences, including changes to criminal laws and new law enforcement techniques, according to the Sheriff’s Department. But authorities believe that the most recent inmate population rise, which began in mid-2011 near the start of realignment’s implementation, can be almost entirely attributed to the new realignment legislation. The most recent adult inmate population increase “appears to be almost exclusively related to realignment,” said Cmdr. John Ingrassia, who oversees the county jails’ inmate popula-
SOLANA BEACH — City Council unanimously agreed at the May 8 meeting to send a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers supporting a proposed 50-year sand replenishment project that has been in the works for more than a decade. The goal of the Solana Beach-Encinitas Coastal Storm Damage Project, a joint effort between the two cities and the Army Corps of Engineers, is to reduce damage to more than eight miles of beach beginning at the mouth of Batiquitos Lagoon in Encinitas and stretching south to include the entire 1.7-mile Solana Beach coastline except an area north of Tide Park. Encinitas also approved the support letter at its council meeting the same night. A no vote by either city would have terminated the project. The plan is to use sand from offshore borrow sites to renourish the beaches on a regular cycle for 50 years starting in 2015. The Army Corps studied several alternatives that included submerged breakwaters, artificial reefs, sea walls, sand replacement, filling the notches at the base of the bluffs and a hybrid of the latter two. Ultimately, its preferred option is sand replenishment. Solana Beach is slated to initially receive 960,000 cubic yards of sand to create a 200-foot beach. Approximately every 13 years the city will receive an additional 420,000 cubic yards of sand. The recommended plan for Encinitas is to replace 100 feet of beach starting with 680,000 cubic yards of sand and then add 280,000 cubic yards every
Total beds bedsthat thatcan canbe beaccommoTotal accommodated in all jail dated in all jail facilities facilities Court Court and andSheriff SheriffDepartment 's Department inmate population inmate population cap for all jails cap for jail facilities State State recommended recommendedcapacity capacityfor for San Diego's jail facilities San Diego’s jail facilities
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