Life looking up for ex-inmate; 22-year-old's experiences show highs, lows of system

RECORD SEARCHLIGHT FILE PHOTO  -  Aaron Betancourt, 22, right, shown with Randy Cates, 39, fill out job applications earlier this year at the Mt. Shasta Mall in Redding. Both men were among the first prison inmates to return to Shasta County under the state's public safety realignment plan

By Jim Schultz - December 29, 2012

Twenty-two-year-old Aaron Betancourt couldn't wait to get out of Shasta County and California.

Betancourt, who left in October, was among the first of those prison inmates returned to Shasta County last year under California's Assembly Bill 109 after being sentenced to a year in prison for the unlawful taking of a vehicle.

As one who has gone through the system, Betancourt doesn't think much of California's new public safety realignment law.

He has an equally low regard for this state's judicial process.

"It's retarded," he said.

Betancourt was one of the more than 300 former prison inmates released to Shasta County under realignment since October 2011. The realignment plan shifted responsibility of those convicted of non-serious, nonsex and nonviolent crimes from state prison and parole to county jails and probation.

The plan was in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling ordering the state to reduce the number of inmates in the state's 33 prisons to 137.5 percent of design capacity by June 27, 2013.

Frustrated with program

Born and raised in Las Vegas, Betancourt was visiting his Shasta County brother when he was arrested on criminal charges in Shasta and Tehama counties in spring 2011.

He took a plea bargain he now regrets and served his time at High Desert State Prison in Susanville.

Most of the time, he said, he stayed in his prison cell trying to avoid getting into fights.

"All prison does is breed better criminals," he said.

Released from prison late last year, he spent the first two months at the Good News Rescue Mission in Redding before deciding to get a tent to "stay in the hills" by himself.

Although he wanted to leave the state immediately and return home, he said he could not leave because that would have been a violation of his post-release community supervision probation.

"I had to become homeless so not to violate probation," he said. "I couldn't leave California."

He also bemoaned the fact that there was no day-reporting center where he and others like him released from prison could obtain the assistance they needed to help ensure they would not re-offend.

That much-heralded center is targeted to open on Court Street at the end of January.

But Betancourt, who finally left California two months ago for Oneida, N.Y., after being cleared to do so, said his life is looking up.

He works as a chef in a restaurant and will soon be in a five-year vocational training program through the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers as he pursues an engineering career.

But, he says, he does not believe his time in prison, nor his time on probation, left him rehabilitated.

"I don't feel rehabilitated," he said. "I feel like that part of my life (in prison and on probation) was taken away from me."

Forging ahead

Although the state's public safety realignment plan has generated a lot of heated debate, it's clear the new law isn't going away.

And California's chief probation officers say they are committed to making it work.

But they also agree it still needs a lot of cooperation and work to make it make it a success.

According to a report released this month by the state's chief probation officers, nearly 17,000 people were sentenced statewide to jail under realignment from October 2011 through this past June.

Of those, 67 were from Shasta County.

And of those Shasta County offenders, the report says, 28 received a split sentence, which divides a person's sentence between time in jail and time under mandatory supervision.

It's that split-sentence element that chief probation officers believe is crucial to making realignment a success.

But, they say, it's underused throughout the state.

Split sentencing

Statewide, 5,031 people were given split sentences since realignment started through June. That represents about 23 percent of those sentenced to jail.

That inconsistent use of split sentences in California's counties can limit the ability of those counties to reduce crowding in their jails, says Karen Pank, executive director of the Sacramento-based Chief Probation Officers of California.

"The use of split sentencing is varied across the state, with some counties using it for nearly all local prison offenders and some using it very rarely," according to the CPOC.

According to its report, the most up-to-date data show, of course, there's been a significant increase in the number of case loads for county probation departments as a result of realignment.

But it also shows the need for split sentencing by local judges to manage new offenders.

According to CPOC data, county probation departments have taken on a lot of new responsibility for supervising more offenders since realignment began.

This includes 29,000 so-called post-release community supervision offenders — those people who have finished their term in state prison and now report to county probation — and 2,000 offenders under mandatory supervision through probation as part of a split sentence.

This is in addition to the existing population of 320,000 felony probationers, they say.

Here in Shasta County, more than 300 former prison inmates have been released to Shasta County under realignment since October 2011.

Shasta County Chief Probation Officer Wes Forman said this week that Shasta County's plan implementing the provisions of realignment has been working well.

But it's been a challenge, he said, noting that realignment is an unprecedented change in how the state's judicial system operates.

"The toughest thing has been reinventing the wheel," he said.

Although Forman has come under fire by Redding City Councilwoman Missy McArthur for his performance, he says his department is working "extremely effectively well," citing statistics showing fewer than 5 percent of those under supervision have been arrested for new crimes and fewer than 4 percent of the entire realignment population have been convicted of new crimes.

"That's (a) huge" success, he said.

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