Letter: A.B. 109 poses threats

Regarding the Jan. 27 front-page story, "Realignment had no role in early release of rape suspect":

Last year, Gov. Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 109, the prison realignment program designed to reduce the state's budget deficit by relieving overcrowding in state prisons and reducing the burden on our state's parole system. A.B. 109 was a partisan bill passed with Democratic legislators voting for it and Republicans voting against it. The law transfers supervision of "lower-level" convicts from state parole officers to county probation officers. The claim of A.B. 109's supporters that the bill would only apply to "non-violent," "non-serious," and "non-sexual" offenders was specious at best, as many crimes listed as such are actually quite serious and violent.

This was made evident by the article in the A-D which detailed multiple alleged rapes committed by an Olivehurst man released from state prison in December and transferred to the county's probation department under A.B. 109's community supervision program. While the corrected version of this article confirmed AB 109 did not dictate his early release from prison (he served only seven months of a two-year sentence for possession of illegal weapons), the article still highlights a major threat this new law poses to public safety: the transfer of violent criminals' supervision from the state parole system to resource-starved county probation departments.

Implementation of A.B. 109 requires judges and prosecutors with a sensitivity to victim's rights and the nuances of California's criminal statutes.

Courtney McAlister

Yuba City