Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones said this week he has sufficient jail space in the short term to accommodate inmates transferred from the state to counties under Governor Jerry Brown's prison realignment plan, but that more beds will be needed in the long term.
The specific impact of the realignment plan on counties is not yet known, and Jones said much of his understanding at this point is based on "largely anecdotal" information. Nevertheless, Jones said his department estimates it will take custody of 1,200 to 1,800 of the state's inmates over the next few years, beginning in October.
Jones said his department is trying to plan for the influx by discussing alternate sentencing options to keep low-level inmates out of jail; the best use of the county's current facilities and possibly even construction in the future.
"There are very few firm answers," Jones said. However, "We are not burying our head in the sand and hoping it goes away."
Jones made his comments to reporters invited to visit the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center, a facility primarily designed to hold inmates sentenced to county jail.
The facility, located off Bruceville Road in south Sacramento County, was built in 1960 and, after later expansions, has the capacity to hold about 2,400 inmates. On Thursday, about 1,900 inmates were housed there, 1,000 of them inmates sentenced to county jail. Four hundred were awaiting trial, overflow inmates from downtown's Main Jail, and another 400 were parolees back in custody because they violated their terms of parole. The last 100 inmates had been sentenced to state prison and were awaiting transfer.
Though the Main Jail is at its capacity of 2,432 inmates, RCCC will have room for the first waves of state inmates, Jones said. Eventually, though, RCCC will have to be expanded, or a new facility built, he said.
Jones said his department is "working very diligently" to pursue state funding authorized by legislation four years ago for jail construction projects. That money is available to counties willing to foot 10 percent of the overall bill, an opportunity Jones said he is "quite confident will never happen again in my career."
However, Jones acknowledged the challenges in securing county funds for such projects, given the county's dire financial situation.
Brown's realignment plan is part of his effort to transfer some services from the state government to counties. Under the plan, more than 40,000 lower-level offenders and parole violators statewide will be housed in county jails rather than state prisons. Among the significant questions that law enforcement agencies have raised about the plan is how cash-strapped counties will pay to house their new inmates and where they will put them.
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