California’s prisons and jails have emptied thousands during coronavirus pandemic
LOS ANGELES — In short order, the coronavirus pandemic has ushered in a sweeping and historic emptying of California’s overcrowded prisons and jails, as officials have dramatically lowered the number of people held in custody to avert deadly outbreaks.
State data show California’s prisons have released about 3,500 inmates while the daily jail population across 58 counties is down by 20,000 from late February.
The exodus is having a profound and still-evolving effect: Those leaving custody enter a vastly different world in which a collapsed economy, scant job opportunities and the closure of many government offices have compounded the challenges of getting lives back on track.
Reentry programs are struggling to meet the deluge of incoming inmates as the disease has forced them to close shelters and serve fewer people.
"People are continuously getting out . ... Where are those folks going?” said Jay Jordan, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, a nonprofit criminal justice reform group. “Seventy-five percent of people getting out of prison right now have no plan. Nowhere to go.”
Some of those released from jails unknowingly carry the novel coronavirus, potentially infecting family, friends and the community. Advocates say many run the risk of ending up homeless when jailers don’t connect them to services.
Others have taken advantage of the pandemic to commit more offenses, in some cases within hours of leaving jail. Law enforcement leaders and many district attorneys see an intensifying public safety threat posed by the mass release as well as a trampling of the rights of crime victims.
“There was a one-size-fits-all approach which was really difficult to understand,” said Sheriff Ian Parkinson of San Luis Obispo County, where no jail staff or inmates have contracted the virus. “Now I’m putting people out on the street that a judge might not put out.”
On a typical day, there are still just over 50,000 people in California’s constellation of jails and 116,000 in state prisons.
The releases have been accomplished through a patchwork of measures, nearly all of which have generated controversy, including reduced bail for some and early release for those due to be out within 60 days. Others awaiting trial gained freedom through approvals from prosecutors, public defenders and judges, a process that resulted in about 700 people in L.A. County getting out. Such measures have pushed L.A. County’s jails — the largest system in the nation — from a pre-pandemic population of 17,000 down to less than 12,000.
“It would be very difficult if we did nothing, and left all 17,000 inmates in, to contain the spread of this disease,” said District Attorney Jackie Lacey.
Perhaps most controversially, the state Judicial Council ordered zero bail last month for misdemeanor and low-level felonies.
The high risk of infections in institutional settings such as nursing homes has informed decisions to reduce jail and prison populations.
Fears of widespread outbreaks have been borne out: At the federal prison at Terminal Island, about 700 inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus, and eight have died. More than 900 inmates in a federal prison in Lompoc contracted the virus, the worst outbreak in the federal prison system. Five died at the men’s prison in Chino, where 443 inmates have tested positive for the virus.