Panel makes deal on prisoner reporting center

The Calaveras County Community Corrections Partnership voted 4-3 Friday to recommend a plan for managing post-release supervision of former state prison inmates.

More than three hours of discussion, sometimes heated, highlighted the sharp differences that remain between the District Attorney’s Office, Sheriff’s Department and Police Department on one side and Chief Probation Officer Teri Hall on the other.

 The plan approved for submittal to the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors, who will likely take up the issue next month, centers on creation of a “day reporting center.” The facility will allow former inmates to report to probation officers and receive treatment and classes designed to help reintegrate them into society under a single roof.   

The Community Corrections Partnership was formed after lawmakers passed Assembly Bill 109 in April to address a federal court mandate to reduce prison overcrowding.   

It consists of Hall, Sheriff Gary Kuntz, Angels Camp Police Chief Todd Fordahl, District Attorney Barbara Yook, Superior Court Judge Douglas Mewhinney, Chief Public Defender Scott Gross and Behavioral Health Services Director Rita Downs.    

The panel is charged under the state mandate with developing a program to implement the legislation at the county level.    

Though the group has met on 20 occasions and conducted eight workshops, there appeared to be little movement toward a consensus on Friday.    

Kuntz, Fordahl and Yook said they could see a beneficial purpose for the day reporting center, but each said it received too much of the focus and funding in the plan at the expense of resources that should be dedicated to the offenders who will not respond to the evidence-based programs favored in the bill.    

Kuntz and Yook expressed skepticism at figures indicating just 10 percent of offenders are likely to wash out entirely and commit serious new crimes.    

“There are some folks out there you can save and it’s a larger majority you can’t save,” Kuntz said.   

“Somewhere along the way, the goal of public safety was lost and the goal became opening a day reporting center at all costs,” Yook said. “The day reporting center should be a method. It has become the goal.”    

“Teri, no offense,” Kuntz said to Hall. “This has not been a partnership. It’s been a dictatorship.”    

Hall denied local residents’ safety is being ignored and said the non-respondent convicts will still be addressed.    

“It is our intent to keep public safety in mind. That is always our goal first and foremost,” she said. “There is a 10 percent fallout. There are people that aren’t going to respond to it. That’s why you need that jail bed for them. I agree that’s where they need to go.”    

She said she does not think AB 109 funds earmarked by the state can go to increase deputy ranks and stand up to a state audit, an interpretation Kuntz and Yook did not share in.    

Kuntz is skeptical that the Probation Department can provide the same quality of supervision as parole officers.    

“It’s apples and oranges,” he said. “It’s a much bigger agency and they have more tools.”    

Sheriff’s Department officials questioned the probation office’s handling of one of the 11 post-release supervised who cut off an ankle monitor bracelet and left in a trash receptacle, along with missing information on eight of the 11 in a supervised release file.    

Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Macedo said a resident reported finding the bracelet Nov. 28 or 29 and a deputy probation officer called three to seven days later to report the bracelet missing but not the disappearance of its wearer. That report came 25 days after the convict became a fugitive, Macedo said.    

“It looked like it was done intentionally to withhold information from the sheriff’s office,” Macedo said.    

“I don’t have any information on that,” Hall replied. “I don’t permit that type of behavior, Jim.”    

She added that the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation pledged to complete the information on terms and conditions of release for the supervised release file but that her office can attend to it.    

Hall said many of the concerns presented by Kuntz, Yook and Fordahl were held by her own staff prior to introducing evidence-based programs in 2009 but that they have reduced recidivism.    

“We were sitting right where you are,” she said. “We have been able to change their behavior ... what AB 109 is telling us is we can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing. How are we going to do it?”    

She produced statistics that showed out of 438 probationers supervised from Aug. 11 through December, 65 violations occurred and 45 of them were technical violations such as a failed drug test rather than a new offense, 21 incarcerations occurred, seven were put on electronic monitoring and 15 given “in-house” sanctions.    

“Violators are being dealt with,” Hall said. “Just through in-house sanctions and not through the court.”    

Downs said she cast her vote to see if the plan can work in action as proposed.    

"It’s the only new proposal that’s on the table,” she said.    

Adding law enforcement officers and jail beds has been tried and found lacking, she said.    

“We’ve been inadequately funded for this (but) you sit down and make it work,” she said.