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Independent, objective, nonpartisan research
Report · June 2013

Impact of Realignment on County Jail Populations

Steven Raphael and Magnus Lofstrom

Has California’s historic public safety realignment shifted the problem of overcrowding from state prisons to county jails? This report finds that the shift of most lower-level offenders to the counties has increased the statewide county jail population but decreased the overall incarceration rate. The authors also examine county-level factors outside the direct impact of realignment that help explain variations in jail population growth.

This research was supported with funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation.


Topics

Criminal Justice