RIVERSIDE, Calif.—In a passionate plea for enhanced public safety measures, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin called for changes to one of California’s criminal justice reform laws—known as the Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011—during a press conference in downtown Riverside April 12 alongside other California officials.
“We’ve had enough,” Hestrin told reporters. “We cannot protect our public, we’re getting no help from Sacramento, the laws don’t back us up.”
Over a decade ago, then-Governor Jerry Brown signed then-AB 109 into law, in an attempt to de-crowd state prisons as required by a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that determined California’s prison overcrowding was unconstitutional and that the state must decrease its prison population by 46,000 inmates….