Rohnert Park Braces for Sonoma County, State Prison Realignment

State prison inmates will soon be turned over to the Sonoma County jail and probation programs when recent California legislation goes into effect this Saturday.

Under the new state law addressing overcrowding in state prisons, AB 109, which was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on April 4 and goes into effect on Oct. 1, state inmates convicted of nonviolent, non-serious offenses — as well as adult parolees and juvenile offenders — would return to local jurisdictions.

The goal is to reduce the state’s high recidivism rate — about 70 percent — by keeping non-violent offenders who’ve violated their probation out of state prisons, where they are more likely to become hardened criminals, and closer to home.

“The hope is that instead of staying in prison, people will be released sooner and put on an alternative program that will give them treatment options that will be better for them in the long run,” said Lt. Mike Toby, who is overseeing realignment for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. “If Sonoma County is committed to getting people rehabilitated, this is an excellent opportunity to do that.”

The changes applies to inmates who have already served their time and are eligible for parole. It also only applies to new offenders whose crimes are non-violent and non-sexual, such as vehicle theft, drug sales, battery and second-degree burglary. Violent offenders will continue to be supervised by state parole.

"This is a paradigm shift for state prisons, which has been necessitated by budget constraints and too many prisoners," said Brian Masterson, Rohnert Park's director of Public Safety. "I don't know if there will be any direct impact on Rohnert Park, but the sheriff's office and the probation chief have been in communication with us all along ... I think we're going to be OK."

One local nonprofit has already spearheaded a program to reduce recidivism rates.

The Rohnert Park-based , a service organization that provides counseling to kids, teens, and adults, as well as homeless outreach, job training and education — all located in a small trailer behind the shuttered Mountain Shadows Education Center — is leading anger management classes that seek to help formerly violent offenders.

May marked the first month that SCAYD partnered with the Sonoma County Jail and the probation department to absorb parolees who are required to take some sort of anger management program upon release from detention. The class is called Aggression Replacement Training, said Jim Gattis, the executive director of SCAYD.

“There were so many people calling us and asking for anger management classes,” Gattis said. “So we called the probation department and asked to work with them to create an anger management class. These are mostly men who have histories of domestic violence, severe aggression problems and have been very violent in society as a whole.”

Supporters said the Aggression Replacement Training program is as an example of counseling services that could be replicated throughout the state, in an effort to reduce recidivism rates, or repeat offenders who return to prison or jail, placing an even greater burden on the system.

The state currently houses nearly 144,000 inmates in 33 adult prisons that were built to hold 80,000. The state will need to release or transfer at least 34,000 prisoners to comply with the court’s order, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Matthew Cate said after the decision was made.

Gattis said SCAYD works with the men, who range from age 19-50, on basic communication skills that have in some way or the other been lost along the way. 

“So many of these guys have lost basic life skills and much of the time, they’re reacting out of violence because of their own history of abuse,” Gattis said. “Often times they themselves were beaten up as kids and they can’t identify the feelings associated with why they’re getting upset,” he said.

Gattis said in his experience, the participants' feelings of anger and rage stem from a range of emotions they're not used to dealing with, such as depression, self-conciousness, jealousy and even financial problems, to name a few.

The Aggression Replacement Training teaches former inmates things such as how to ask for help, apologizing, giving a compliment, identifying anger triggers, and listening to others before reacting.

The classes last for two hours a day, twice a week, for 10 weeks.

“So many repeat offenders lack problem-solving skills and management of their emotions,” said Sheralynn Freitas, the deputy chief probation officer for the County of Sonoma Probation Department. “Our recidivism rates are dismal — 70 percent — we need to try to do better.”

Freitas said the decision to release the prison inmates has left Sonoma County in a holding pattern.

“We’re going to have to develop lots of programming, similar to our partnership with SCAYD, for these parolees,” she said. “Our goal is, through realignment, to lower recidivism rates so that the community is better off, and public safety is enhanced. We have to invest in programs that change behavior in the long-term.”

Editor's note: A version of this story was published when the legislation was passed in May. . Bay City News and Karina Ioffee also contributed to this report.