Inmate Shift To Cost Riverside County $968,000

Riverside County District Attorney Paul Zellerbach will ask the Board of Supervisors tomorrow to earmark $968,000 to cover D.A. office expenses incurred from “realignment,” which shifted responsibility for a number of criminal justice activities from the state to counties.

The allotment would come from roughly $24 million in state funding to Riverside County agencies and courts in the current fiscal year to mitigate realignment-related costs.

The county’s general fund would not be impacted.

According to the District Attorney’s Office, the $968,000 will fund three senior prosecutors, one investigator, an investigative technician, a paralegal and three “legal support assistants” devoted full-time to cases stemming from realignment.

The funding amount was determined by the Community Corrections Partnership executive committee, comprised of Zellerbach, Chief Probation Officer Alan Crogan, Sheriff Stan Sniff, Public Defender Gary Windom, Department of Mental Health Director Jerry Wengerd, Presiding Judge Sherrill Ellsworth and Desert Hot Springs police Chief Pat Williams.

Zellerbach has said previously that the additional burdens placed on the county’s resources because of realignment “scare” him. The consensus among committee members is that any future state funding will be inadequate.

Realignment was implemented under Assembly Bill 109, passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor in April. Under the measure, so- called “non’s” — individuals convicted of crimes that fall into the non- violent, non-serious, non-sexually oriented category and whose principal offense results in a sentence of three years or less — are to be incarcerated in county jail to serve their time.

However, according to sheriff’s officials, AB 109’s amendments to the penal code did not differentiate between a principal offense and enhancement or special circumstance allegations that add to the defendant’s sentence. The result: felons can be sentenced to 5, 10, 20 or more years in county jail, as long as their punishment is for the same “underlying offense.”

The law, which went into effect Oct. 1, also requires counties to take over parole supervision of all “non’s” — a responsibility previously held by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation — and prosecute them for parole violations.