LOS ANGELES — California's state auditor both praised and criticized the state's prison realignment process.
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The 2011 realignment shifted responsibility of low-level offenders from the state prison system to county jails, where offenders could get rehabilitative programming and remain closer to families and support systems. In 2013 the auditor warned that realignment had the potential to place the state budget at risk because of a lack of meaningful data to evaluate its impact.
The BSCC has made "significant efforts to gather information on realignment programs and practices that counties can use to inform their decisions related to criminal justice," according to the report.
While the state has reduced overcrowding in its prisons, inmate healthcare is still under federal receivership.
The auditor cited the board's recent work in publishing a definition of "recidivism," of identifying and making available criminal justice performance metrics that can help counties measure outcomes of local public safety policy decisions, and in improving the gathering of data from counties for the annual report on statewide realignment implementation plans.
Kathleen Howard, executive director of the three-year-old board, said that the removal of the "high-risk" designation is "a reflection of the progress the BSCC has made in carrying out its responsibilities."
