Explain the Public Safety Realignment (PSR) policy and how the Supreme Court reacted to the policy.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

More recently, the Supreme Court in 2011 upheld the ruling by a lower three-judge court that California must reduce its prison population to 137.5% of design capacity, which amounted to approximately 110,000 inmates being kept in a state system designed to hold about 80,000 inmates. As a result, the California State Legislature and governor enacted two laws--AB 109 and AB 117--to reduce the number of inmates housed in state prisons starting October 1, 2011. These two laws are often referred to as the Public Safety Realignment (PSR) policy, and they are designed to reduce the prison population, in part, by placing new nonviolent, nonserious, nonsex offenders under county jurisdiction for incarceration in local jail facilities. Inmates released from local jails are placed under a county-directed postrelease community supervision program instead of the state’s parole system. In addition, California has given additional funding to the 58 counties throughout the state to deal with the increased inmate population; amid this, each county is left to develop its own plan for custody and postcustody that best serves its needs. California had a low jail population between 2010 and 2011. However, as a result of the PSR, the California jail population increased by an estimated 7,600 inmates between year-end 2011 and midyear 2012 and by an estimated 3,500 inmates between midyear 2012 and midyear 2013.