A new report slams a number of California counties for prioritizing jail expansion and construction projects over alternatives to incarceration.
Californians United for a Responsible Budget, a coalition against prison and jail expansion, released its annual “decarceration” report card Thursday that gave several counties a failing grade. Tuolumne County was listed as “in danger of failing” for seeking a costly project to build a new jail.
“Counties are signing up for decades of debt, and that just includes construction costs,” said Lizzie Buchen, state coordinator for CURB. “That doesn’t include operating costs.”
According to the group, 23 of the state’s 58 counties are building new jails, five are building two or more jails and 32 are applying for new state funds earmarked for jail construction.
Much of the construction has emerged since the state Legislature passed Assembly Bill 109 in response to a 2010 court ruling that overcrowding in California prisons had become unconstitutional.
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