MANY California county jails are experiencing a rise in drug smuggling cases, and officials say it is partly because parolees want to bring drugs into prisons.
Part of the the reason for these incidents may be traced back to the state’s 2011 Public Safety Realignment, according to officials, which reduced the number of inmates in state prisons by sending low-level offenders to county facilities. Additionally, parole violators are sentenced to a flash incarceration of up to 10 days at a local jail instead of spending months at state prisons.
“These folks have brought with them prison politics, prison contraband, prison culture,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson told Associated Press. “It’s very different than what the deputy sheriffs were previously used to dealing with.”
It is common for parolees to commit a minor crime so they can get arrested. Once behind bars again, these individuals may have swallowed drugs in plastic bags, which go undetected in strip searches.
To counter such smuggling, counties are investing in body scanners that will be able to uncover illicit substances that have been swallowed.
A survey conducted by Associated Press found that seven out of 10 of California’s most populated counties witnessed surges in drug smuggling cases since the safety realignment in 2011. The seven that reported increases were Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, Santa Clara, San Bernardino and San Diego.
Prison facilities in Los Angeles County, which are populated with more than 18,000 inmates, have had an estimated 10 percent growth in narcotics cases; in Orange County, these cases have from 91 to 378 since 2011; and in San Diego, the numbers increased from 145 to 335 in the past three years.
Los Angeles and San Diego counties have purchased full body scanners to prevent drugs from coming into prisons, which would allow officers to identify any ingested drug bags.
Such views, however, have caught the attention of inmates’ rights advocates.
“If you’re putting in scanners, are you going to apply them to everybody? I’d be shocked if they are,” Peter Eliasberg, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union Southern California branch told Associated Press.
These advocates also say corrupt deputies could also be supplying narcotics in jails, but that using scanners does not give enough consideration to this alternative.
Associated Press reported that on a weekday morning in San Diego, inmates went through the department’s new scanners. However, officials, officers, and various employees at the department did not.
While reports show an increase in drug cases since the realignment, Franklin Zimring, a criminal justice expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said that he doubts that the change in 2011 is the sole reason for these instances.
He said the departments could be exaggerating the cases and problems to receive more money, or shifting focus away from themselves because they may be encountering challenges in carrying out the law.
(With reports from Associated Press)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Midweek December 3-5, 2014 Sec. A pg.5)
