Correctional destabilization and jail violence: The consequences of prison depopulation legislation

Purpose: This study explored the effects of prison depopulation on local jail violence through a general systems perspective - where an abrupt shift in the processing of offenders had the potential to create ripple effects through other organizations - of the criminal justice system. Methods: In 2011, California passed the Criminal Justice Realignment legislation aimed to reduce prison population by making low-level felony offenders ineligible for state incarceration and diverting those already in state prison for the included offenses from state to county-level community supervision once paroled. This study incorporated bivariate and negative binomial regression analyses to model officially-recorded county jail panel data to estimate the effects of state prison depopulation on California county jails. Results: Findings demonstrated support for the general systems framework as there was a significant decrease in jail utility in the bivariate analysis and a significant increase in jail violence in the multivariate analysis associated with passage of California's prison depopulation legislation. Conclusions: The results supported the notion of an interconnected criminal justice system. Policy implications include the consequences of increased violence on jail operations, the potential for a cadre of habitual offenders, and generalizing these findings to the community. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.