LOS ANGELES – Attorney General Kamala Harris has announced the start of a new program on May 8 aimed at keeping people from returning to jail.
“Back on Track LA” is designed to deliver “critical education and comprehensive re-entry services” for prisoners both while they are in prison and after they get out, according to a statement from the Attorney General’s Office. The program will be built on the foundation of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Education Based Incarceration Program with help from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles Community College District.
Participants will be enrolled in the program between 24 and 30 months, with 12 to 18 months spent while in custody and another 12 outside of it. In the program, these prisoners will be provided education opportunities that will allow them to finish the prerequisites for completion of community college degrees, certificates and credentials. Employment and “life skill services” will also be provided to them once they are released from jail.
Each participant will be assigned a coach or case manager that will attempt to emphasize accountability to the participant’s families, their communities and their victims. The statement did note that these participants will be comprised of non-violent, non-serious, non-sexual crime offenders between 18 and 30-years-old who were incarcerated after the state implemented the Public Safety Realignment program under AB 109.
“We must reject the false choice of being ‘tough’ and ‘soft’ on crime,” said Attorney General Harris in a statement. “It is time for smart on crime policies that keep our communities safe, hold offenders accountable, and reduce our prison population.”
The pilot program is based on a similar initiative also started by Attorney General Harris while she was still serving as District Attorney in San Francisco in 2005. That program boasted that it had reduced recidivism among the graduates of the program to less than 10 percent.
The program received some backlash following the arrest of Alexander Izaguirre in San Fransisco in June 2009, according to The Los Angeles Times. Izaguirre, who was accused of attempting to run down a woman after snatching her purse, was found to have been a participant in San Francisco’s version of “Back on Track” despite being an illegal immigrant. Attorney General Harris later apologized, saying it was not her or her office’s intent to include participants who could not legally hold jobs after the program’s completion.
