Female Inmates Granted Get-Out-of-Jail Card, Though It's Not Free
Before the Governator left office, he signed into law a statewide plan that could permit over 4,000 females inmates to finish their sentences in the comforts of their own homes. Obviously a controversial incentive, the Alternative Custody Program may or may not benefit the children.
Under the new law, low-level, non-violent, non-sex-offender female inmates with less than two years left on their sentences are eligible to serve the remainder of their time at home. "Mothers can go back into their own home and care for their children while also obtaining rehabilitative services outside in their own community of their last legal residence," said Dana Toyama, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, reports KABC.
The "freed" women must wear a GPS ankle bracelet, be enrolled in classes or rehabilitation and report to parole officers. They have the option of getting a job. If they slip up and commit another crime, they will return to jail.
The reasoning behind Arnie's law is to meet a court order to reduce California's prison population. Of the state's 9,5000 female inmates, about half are eligible for the program.
This "early release" greatly concerns Crime Victims United. "If they really have loved their children and were good mothers, they would have never gone to prison in the first place," said Harriet Salarno, president of Crime Victims United. Toyama said, "It's not an early release program. It's alternative custody."
The Corrections Department may choose to extend the program to men who are primary caregivers of their children and who meet the same said criteria.
