SAN DIEGO ---- Hoping to slash the number of freed prisoners who commit new crimes, county supervisors unanimously approved spending $1.66 million on an experimental plan that would go further than ever before to wean nonviolent prisoners off drugs and alcohol, teach them to read and give them job skills.
"We're the first county to be selected for this," Sheriff Bill Kolender said, adding that officials hope the program will eventually slash the 60 percent of prisoners who are freed in San Diego County only to commit new crimes.
"We hope so," Kolender said. "I mean, look, if they're a killer or a pervert, they aren't getting out. But if they're getting out, I think we have a legal and moral obligation to give them the opportunities to succeed. What can we do to help make them productive citizens ... and not have more victims? That's the whole thing in a nutshell."
Law enforcement and other officials said the 300 nonviolent felony prisoners released back into the California communities every day already have opportunities to take part in optional drug rehabilitation, vocational and educational programs.
But they said Tuesday that the new program, created out of a new law passed in 2005, would be a huge improvement. They said that was particularly because courts, prosecutors, defenders, prison, probation, and even community groups would work together, rather than separately, to offer rehabilitation help to prisoners.
Officials said in the current system, prisoners move from one law enforcement agency to another, and that agencies have no comprehensive plan to reform prisoners who could be rehabilitated.
While the new program would also be optional, it would include new, thorough evaluations of what prisoners need to reform and become productive citizens.
The program would follow up with a full-court press of county, state, community and religious groups working together to help prisoners ---- first in while they are in prison, and, once they're released on parole, with case management.
"These things aren't done (now)," Vaughn Jeffery, chief of administrative services for the San Diego County district attorney's office, said. "There is no comprehensive assessment. There is no treatment."
Officials said currently, nonviolent criminals are given assessments. But they take place in prisons, rather than upon conviction. The assessments focus on medical and academic testing. And they don't include testing for drug or alcohol abuse ---- despite the fact that a large percentage of prisoners have one or more addiction problems.
Studies conducted by the California Policy Research Center reported that 42 percent of the state's inmates had a "high need" for alcohol-abuse treatment, and 56 percent had a high need for drug treatment. At the same time, the studies reported that fewer than 9 percent got any treatment.
Jeffery said the result has been that only 21 percent of California's parolees ---- half the national average ---- successfully complete parole.
Law enforcement and prison statistics also reported that 95 percent of all state prisoners are eventually released back into their communities; and that 60 percent of San Diego County's freed prisoners end up committing additional crimes and back in prison within three years.
"These are people who do property crimes to support a habit," Jeffery said. "Not everybody will take (help). But a lot of people are tired of their old lifestyle and they want to get into the mainstream. They want in, and this is a way to get them in."
Supervisor Greg Cox said the program is part of Senate Bill 618, which was sponsored by Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, and signed into law in 2005.
The new law noted that state prisons were "encouraged" to offer rehabilitation. But it also authorized counties ---- San Diego County alone for now ---- to create collaborative, multi-agency plans to work with the state's prisons to improve rehabilitation
Speier initially hoped the plan would be approved for all counties. But, as a compromise, the new law allows three counties to create plans that would be evaluated later to see how effective they are.
If they prove successful, the plans could become models to be spread to all counties statewide.
Jeffery said the county would submit its plan to the state quickly, and hopes to begin putting small numbers of prisoners through the program starting in October. He said the county plans to have all nonviolent prisoners moving through its program within three years.
Cox, meanwhile, said the new program would not mean shorter sentences, or more lax parole conditions for any prisoners.
"It certainly cannot be classified as being 'soft on criminals,' " Cox said. "This is a tough-love, pragmatic, serious way of making our communities safer from repeat nonviolent offenders.
"Something has to change," he said. "Repeat criminals often have lifelong addictions to drugs or alcohol. And most of them lack basic education skills, marketable skills, job-training skills. It's no wonder that so many of them end up back in our prisons in a very short period of time."