Welcome to the CDCR’s realignment webpage. All of us at CDCR are committed to being the best partner as possible as we all work to implement public safety realignment. The following information and accompanying links detail much the information and resources that the CDCR has made available or will be making available. We ask that if there are any resources that have yet to be provided or that would be helpful to please let us know.
Contact External Affairs: Telephone: (916) 445-4950
State, county and community organizations have been meeting regularly, both internally and externally, to define and implement realignment. The work groups cover capacity issues, restitution, data sharing, court collaboration, complex cases, medical and mental health release protocols, PRCS, contracting with the CDCR as well as many others. Meetings will continue and be tailored to the needs of operationalizing realignment and will continue as needed once realignment is realized.
Additionally, CDCR has attended several meetings and provided information and support at meetings in a variety of local environments and as requested by any local organization. These presentations include but are not limited to: The California State Sheriffs’ Association, the California District Attorneys’ Association, the California Police Chief’s Association, the Chief Probation Officers of California, the California State Association of Counties, the League of California Cities, the Association of California Cities Allied with Prisons, the Mental Health Directors’ Association, and community forums hosted by legislators and local elected officials.
Staff from CDCR have also attended Community Correctional Partnership (CCP) meetings statewide as requested. We remain committed to assisting in any forum that would benefit local organizations.
CDCR has developed a variety of training courses, PowerPoint presentations, and webinars outlining realignment and agreed-upon collaborative processes between the State and county entities. CDCR remains available for future support as needed.
PowerPoint presentations have been scheduled regularly with our external Stakeholders to provide an overview of how the realignment legislation works, how it will impact both the counties and the State, and to field any questions or concerns that the counties may have.
PowerPoint presentations have also been provided to explain the projections and daily population numbers counties should expect to see upon implementation of realignment. Training on how to understand Average Daily Population or ADP was been included in this presentation as a resource for understanding the data.
CDCR’s Division of Adult Institutions has presented PowerPoint trainings via a webinar and various meetings that explain how post-release community supervision offenders will be released to county supervision. This presentation will be made available on our website in the coming weeks. Upon completion, the link will be sent to county associations to share with the various county entities involved in Realignment.
CDCR is finalizing a training booklet and PowerPoint to provide training to any county requesting training assistance on calculation of earned credit for offenders sentenced locally. This training will also be available on line in the form of a webinar and video.
CDCR’s Board of Parole Hearings has provided a historical report on revocation hearings from 2010. Those hearings were categorized according to offenders who would have been under PRCS supervision or parole supervision had the Public Safety Realignment Legislation been in effect in 2010. This PowerPoint and the accompanying projections were provided to assist the counties in determining potential revocations. However, these projections were based on State parole regulations and will not accurately demonstrate how county supervision will be addressed.
In addition to PowerPoint presentations, CDCR has been conducting Webinars as requested by county associations. CDCR is also recording videos that will be made available on the CDCR website in the coming weeks. The topics of the videos will include a general overview of realignment, county projections, the PRCS process, release date calculations, etc. CDCR will send information on availability of the information and will host conference calls at the request of associations to answer questions generated by the videos.
One type of information we knew early on may be helpful to the counties is our population projections. Over the past few months, CDCR has made available monthly and annual projection numbers based on historical data regarding county intake to state prison and release to parole supervision. Based on these historical trends, we were able to project the following:
Projections from the Department of Finance (DOF) of Realignment at full implementation were made available to the counties. These projections anticipated the post-release community supervision population, the local-sentenced population, and parole/probation-revoked offender projections.
CDCR is exploring the possibility of developing an interface that would allow the counties to have access to a variety of CDCR databases. One is sample is the Law Enforcement Automated Data System (LEADs), which is a database currently available at no cost to law enforcement agencies that provides information on all active parolees. The system will also identify offenders for a designated time who have been released to PRCS.
This web-based program provides parolee information, including parolee names, aliases, mug shots, commitment offenses, and special conditions of state parole, among other types of vital information. CDCR has provided the counties with information about how to sign up for LEADS if they do not have access, and there will be a presentation about LEADS during the regional trainings the week of September 6, 2011.
To date, only CDCR staff has the capability of inputting informational updates into the system, but there is some interest in expanding the editing capabilities to county officials to ensure the accurate and continuous input of parolee updates to the database. CDCR is currently developing reports and offender listings that the counties can download into their existing data systems. An exploratory work group will be established to investigate this possibility.
Further requests have been made for accessing medical records for offenders. There are discussions between the counties, the Receiver’s Office and CDCR about how best to share this data will protecting the inmates personal data. CDCR remains committed to exploring data sharing capabilities with the counties.
CDCR is in the process of developing a handbook to help county employees to contact the right people at CDCR to address any problems that may be encountered. The handbook will provide a listing of CDCR offices and contact people who have expertise in various correctional matters. We anticipate releasing the County Collaboration Handbook in September 2011.
The efforts described above could never truly capture how much work the counties have done nor how much support has been shared between our organizations. On behalf of CDCR, thank you for your extreme cooperation and assistance in ensuring that the implementation of Public Safety Realignment is as seamless and successful as possible. CDCR looks forward to a continuing relationship with each of you and to remaining available as a resource for you as realignment is deployed throughout the state.
We know there will continue to be questions and concerns that arise during the early stages of implementation after October 1, 2011, and we are committed to resolve issues as they arise and to assist in every way possible. If you require additional information regarding any of the resources listed above or would like to have other types of information and resources made available, please contact Erin Sasse, Chief, Office of External Affairs, by e-mail at erin.sasse@cdcr.ca.gov or by telephone at (916) 445-4950.