Sheriff opposes allowing violent criminals to work in fire camps
California officials are considering allowing inmates with violent backgrounds to work outside prison walls fighting wildfires, and the idea is generating concerns about public safety, including from Riverside County Sheriff Stan Sniff.
The state has about 3,800 inmate firefighters with no history of violent crimes. But that’s down from about 4,400 in previous years, so prison officials are looking for ways to add inmates.
Starting next year, the corrections department is proposing adding inmates convicted of violent offenses if their security classification level has been reduced after years of good behavior.
Officials tell The Associated Press they also are seeking to allow inmates who have up to seven years left on their sentences instead of the current five.
Arsonists, kidnappers, sex offenders, gang affiliates and those serving life sentences for murder and other crimes would still be excluded.
In a statement released to CBS Local 2/KESQ Monday, Sheriff Sniff said he opposed the plan, specifically calling out the state of California for the “irony” that “the state prisons now eyeing the use of so-called ‘violent’ remaining inmates that were originally ‘not suitable’ to be able to even serve their time in county jails, but are now fully capable of being trusted to work in fire camps near communities across our state with little or no security, let alone prison bars.”
His entire statement is posted below.
“California imposed AB 109 Realignment in 2011 as a result of the combination of severe State of California budgetary issues and a state prison overcrowding case before the U.S. Supreme Court, caused largely by “get-tough on crime” laws passed repeatedly by the legislature without paying any attention to the prison inmate capacity increases that were required for well over a decade. AB 109 Realignment thereupon transferred the responsibility for newly sentenced so-called “non-violent” inmates after 2011 onto the backs of our already overcrowded local county jails, causing massive criminal justice system “early releases” in counties with undersized jails. Although the state has reduced state prison system overcrowding to somewhat more reasonable levels, it still remains legally overcrowded, with no real increased capacity plans on the horizon, and a legislature that continues to add new crimes and increased criminal sanctions each year, in our still growing state. State officials predicated AB 109 Realignment on the premise, and promise, that the most serious offenders would still remain behind bars in our state prisons, sentences based upon the well-considered decisions of our jurors, judges, the recommendations of our court sentencing professionals, and to be kept out of our communities. It was entirely predictable that those non-violent state prisoners that completed their sentences over time and were released would dwindle in numbers after 2011. That was the way, after all, that our state prisons were able to reach the federal court’s target – without adding any prison capacity. But it was also very predictable that there would be decreased numbers of “non-violent” prisoners in the state system capable of being “trusted” to work outside our prisons in those “unsecured” fire camps. Riverside County was the very first in the state – driven by our own severe jail overcrowding challenges – to place some non-violent inmates into the custody of our state prisons for use in these fire camps, in order to serve as badly needed inmate firefighting crews across California; but there is also irony in that these Riverside County inmates are charged to us by our State to “serve” in those fire camps, but would also formerly have been state prison inmates “suitable and trustworthy” for these fire camps in the years before 2011. So, here we are, with diminished numbers of non-violent state prison inmates suitable to work the fire lines, local county taxpayers charged by the state for their non-violent jail inmates provided to the state prisons to work in those much-needed fire camps, and the state prisons now eyeing the use of so-called “violent” remaining inmates that were originally “not suitable” to be able to even serve their time in county jails, but are now fully capable of being trusted to work in fire camps near communities across our state with little or no security, let alone prison bars. All too predictable, but the Sheriff’s Department does not support placing state prisoners with violent backgrounds into unsecured fire camps throughout our many California communities.” –Riverside County Sheriff Stan Sniff
