Finally a crack is showing in Fresno County's lock-'em-up approach to crime.
Six years after a report paid for by the National Institute of Corrections said the county should provide alternatives to incarceration, the Board of Supervisors has committed nearly $7 million over five years to offender mental-health and substance-abuse programs.
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The money comes from the state to provide for prisoners who would have gone to prison before Brown's realignment program shifted the burden to counties.
Critics of the county's plan would like millions more diverted from jail operations to the probation department and alternative programs. The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, recommends that up to 50% of realignment funds go to nonjail programs.
But with an average of 60 inmates released daily the past three years because of budget woes, plenty of people would prefer the county hire back correctional officers and return the jail to full capacity.
The county instead is embarking on what might be regarded as a trial to determine if alternatives reduce recividism.
Future funding will depend on results, and we'll need hard numbers, not just inspiring testimony of people turning their lives around and staying out of jail.
The pressure to perform falls on on Turning Point of Central California, Inc., which has the county contracts.