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February 19, 1997 - The Backlog of Death Penalty Appeals: An Update
February 19, 1997 - Reforming California’s Juvenile Justice System
February 19, 1997 - Internal Affairs Investigations in the Department of Corrections
February 19, 1997 - California’s Jails and Juvenile Detention Facilities
February 1, 1997 - Reforming California's Juvenile Justice System
February 1, 1997 - Changes in California's population, increasing numbers of persons arrested for crimes, and changes in law have had significant impacts on local correctional facilities for adult and juvenile offenders. While the number of jail beds in California has more than doubled since 1980, many of those arrested for crimes are never booked into jail and thousands of offenders are released after serving only a fraction of their jail sentence because of a lack of space. The state's juvenile detention facilities have remained virtually unchanged over the past 30 years, even though the types of juvenile offenders have become more violent and the number of offenders has increased. In this report, we summarize the state of California's jails and juvenile facilities.
November 1, 1996 - The 1996-97 Budget Act includes $1.6 billion for support of superior and municipal courts (referred to as the state's "trial courts") in' 1996-97 and assumes enactment of the Governor's proposal to consolidate and restructure the Trial Court Funding Program. The changes necessary to implement the Governor's proposal were included in AB 2553 (Isenberg), which failed passage in the Legislature. As a result of the failure of AB 2553, the Legislature will be under pressure-especially from trial courts and counties-to enact legislation early in the new legislative session to make technical adjustments to the budget act appropriation for the Trial Court Funding program. We discuss the current situation in this issue of California Update.