District Attorney: Send Repeat Offenders Back to Prison

It’s something that never would have happened six months ago.

A repeat offender, 64-year-old Stanley Kwawsky of Riverside, was sentenced to 14 years and 4 months in county jail. He is serving his time at the Larry D. Correctional Facility, a jail that was never meant to hold anyone for more than 12 months.

It’s a problem spread across five county jails, bursting at the seams with 138 inmates sentenced to three years or more.

“The jails in Riverside County have been full since January,” said District Attorney Paul Zellerbach, who said hundreds of offenders who’ve been sent to county jails need to go back to state prisons.

The non-violent inmates have been moved to county jails to ease prison overcrowding. It took just three months of the program dubbed “realignment” to have five Riverside County Jails at maximum capacity. Even repeat offenders like Kwawsky get sent to county jails as long as they are serving for non-serious, non-violent, or non-sex crimes.

To accommodate the new demand for county beds, more than 1,100 people have been released from jail early since the program started on Oct. 1 to make room.

Zellerbach said the county is dealing with a bursting jail population while its budget funds become depleted.

“If we don’t get more realignment funding, that’s going to mean layoffs for public safety,” Zellerbach said.

The county received a $100 million grant in March to add an additional 1,200 beds. However, Zellerbach said money alone won’t solve the problem.

“We need to send those state prisoners back to prison. The jails are not meant to house people for ten or fifteen years at a time.”

Zellerbach is currently drafting legislation that would cap jail sentences at three years, a local solution that would set state leaders back as they attempt to ease overcrowding in California prisons.