Riverside Press-Enterprise – Editorial: Moving treatment upfront

Ensuring public safety and running a coherent criminal justice system are some of the most significant, legitimate functions of government. In recent years, old ways of doing things have been discarded in favor of new approaches.

In 2011, California enacted Assembly Bill 109, also known as Realignment, which shifted responsibility for nonviolent offenders from the state to the counties. In 2014, voters approved Proposition 47, sending a message that they no longer believed incarceration is the answer to most low-level crime. It reduced many petty theft and drug crimes to misdemeanors.

Riverside County, like many counties, increasingly has seen the need to adapt to this new reality. Whereas the Board of Supervisors has been relatively slow to engage forcefully on such matters, county criminal justice departments have been hard at work figuring out ways to do more with tighter resources.

On Tuesday, the board received and filed the annual report of the Community Corrections Partnership documenting the implementation of Realignment and post-release community supervision.

The CCP Executive Committee is made of representatives of different departments and components of the county criminal justice system, including the Probation and Sheriff’s Departments, the district attorney and the public defender.

Among the many positive developments noted in the report, the county is expanding its use of Day Reporting Centers from two currently, to a third in the spring and a fourth being planned. The centers offer reentry programs to offenders.

At the meeting, Chief Probation Officer Mark Hake noted there is greater cooperation and dialogue between the departments. He also made a number of important points worth considering. “Typically in the criminal justice system, all the treatment and services come at the tail end of the system,” he said. “Maybe the solution is putting the treatment upfront. We’re going to have to turn our system upside down to address those types of challenges.”

One idea worth considering is looking more into innovations like Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, which refers low-level offenders to treatment and services in the community.

“We have to change, otherwise the system isn’t going to get better,” said Supervisor John Tavaglione. He added that, while more jail space is necessary, an emphasis on treatment also will be warranted.

Overall, we are pleased the board is more engaged and is holding necessary discussions about the role of rehabilitation in the criminal justice system.