L.A. COUNTY SUPERVISOR: 93 PERCENT OF REALIGNMENT PRISON RELEASEES ARE HIGH-RISK OFFENDERS

Calls for repeal of Gov. Moonbeam’s prison realignment program

Moonbeam’s realignment program is a fraud in that the risk-classification of inmates is based only on the most recent arrest and ignores a prior history of more serious offenses.

ANTONOVICH BLASTS PRISON REALIGNMENT PROGRAM IN WAKE OF NORTHRIDGE KIDNAPPING

CBS Los Angeles
April 1, 2013

LOS ANGELES — Tobias Summers, the man wanted in the kidnapping of a 10-year-old Northridge girl, has a long rap sheet, which includes a kidnapping charge.

Summers was released from prison July as part of the realignment program that eased overcrowding by releasing nonviolent offenders, KNX1070′s Ed Mertz reports.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich says more than 93 percent of the 14,000 offenders who had been on active supervision by the county probation instead of the state parole supervision are high-risk and high offenders.

“The governor’s failed realignment program has proven to be a threat to public safety because it has overwhelmed local probation departments and local law enforcement agencies,” he told KNX1070.

Antonovich says Brown ignored other options that would have kept 375 sex offenders off the streets of California.

“To begin with, the governor did not have to do this. He had alternatives; he could have placed these state felons outside the state and house them at about half the cost that the state taxpayers in California are paying. He had those options and he refused to exercise those options. Instead, he dumped these individuals on the 58 counties backs and as a result of that, we’ve had a spike of crime in burglaries; we’ve had a spike of crime in grand theft autos; we’ve had a spike in crime in assaults,” he said.

Antonovich says Brown should repeal the prison realignment program.