The panel one last chance to make any closing remarks. Realignment was a good sign public sentiment has changed. The polls out there, the public wants accountability but sensible accountability, and i think 1506 gives us that. And i think the comment was made in each of the economies but in fact what we found, when you have realignment, all 58 counties deciding what to do, if we just look at the incarceration rates across each of the counties, fresno, like county, population demographics to San Francisco. And its a law that impacts on a statewide basis is more sensible than leaving it up to each county because then youll end up with 58 different styles and methods of criminal justice. Tal . Im the public defender and its my job to push the envelope. Its one thing to talk about reducing possession charges from felonies to misdemeanors but im not sure thats going to change the color and demographics of the population in county jail. Theyre out there on the street sometimes selling small
California. I think los angeles, where im from, there was no supervision for misdemeanors by the probation department. Those individuals were on Court Summary probation which meant go home and sin no more. And if you do, youll be back here to see us. And so, i think that once again, i go back to the fact that under the current system, because we have so many of those individuals who were once incarcerated at the state level, being pushed down to the counties, theres no room at the end in terms of the county jails. So misdemeanors arent going to be sentenced to county jail but will be sentenced in Community Service or whatever. And for those individuals who do need some measure of control and supervision to deal about deal with their conviction problems, its not going to happen at the misdemeanor level. Let me go to a couple of the questions from the audience. Ive shared them with our District Attorney. George, two questions there, one related to whether or not drug possession should be
Amounts of drugs. Until we address that problem and expand exponentially. Jails will still be filled with poor people and people of color. Youre not ending the war on drugs. We need to think of at holistic play as a publichealth problem. Not as a rush also the people who are selling and people are selling a rock to a Police Officer pretending to be an addict. All those people need help. I think that have given my all for the cause. I will leave it to george to put the capper on it. What is the sanction for opposing he is one of your members. He is and he is a valued member of the association. As an elected official, he is entitled to his own opinion. Thank you. I have to say that, i want to think marty for coming here. He knew he was coming into this. I want to repeat. I am in the minority in the association. I think concerning this item, it is important for me and all of us to recognize there are ballot points of view. If were serious about developing solutions that work for all of us
Able to hybridize or civilianize parts of our staffing where opportunity presents itself, especially to help answer the question about being able to alleviate some of the stress in our custody staff, and put them in areas, reassign in areas where custody is, where the demands are most pronounced. And so, one area that were taking some proactive move is in our it department of a staggered roll out of us being able to bring in civilians where there are four sworn deputies and supplant for the civilians two sworn deputies and be able to help reassign those deputies in other areas. Technologically, the department has come a long way, but i believe through its Customer Service initiatives so that for the general public and those who have business with the Sheriffs Department, both on the incarceration custody side or the civil side and or programmatic side, that we have to significantly improve everything from our website to just general access to finding somebody who might be incarcerated
And she told me earlier that certain people are supervised by probation and is not the general rule throughout california. I think los angeles, where im from, there was no supervision for misdemeanors by the probation department. Those individuals were on Court Summary probation which meant go home and sin no more. And if you do, youll be back here to see us. And so, i think that once again, i go back to the fact that under the current system, because we have so many of those individuals who were once incarcerated at the state level, being pushed down to the counties, theres no room at the end in terms of the county jails. So misdemeanors arent going to be sentenced to county jail but will be sentenced in Community Service or whatever. And for those individuals who do need some measure of control and supervision to deal about deal with their conviction problems, its not going to happen at the misdemeanor level. Let me go to a couple of the questions from the audience. Ive shared them w