Since October, when prison realignment took effect in California 38-thousand convicted criminals who would have gone to prison have been sent to county jails or community supervision.
The Central Valley got more inmates than expected – eight percent more.
Both the City of Fresno and Fresno County have seen an increase in crime.
“After October when realignment took effect property crimes started going up pretty significantly,” said Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims.
“I believe that realignment has contributed to crime increases in the city of Fresno. Just as early jail releases has lead to increases in crime,” Dyer said.
Fresno police Chief Jerry Dyer says murders in the city are up 45 percent this year. Shootings are up 27 percent.
“People were lead to believe that these individuals were non violent non serious. The truth of the matter is they are very violent and they are very serious as evidenced by some of the violent crime we've seen in Fresno,” said Dyer.
Take for instance 25 year old Arthur Howlin, accused of killing his estranged wife and shooting four others. In the past he would have been in prison. Under realignment, he was on community supervision.
Right now, realignment inmates make up a quarter of the inmates at the jail.
And in the past, the longest sentence served at the jail was one year.
“Just within the past two weeks we've had two people sentenced, one for 18 years and one for 13 years. And local jails just aren't built to handle those long term inmates,” Mims said.
