[PJ] Out here on the Left Coast, it is beginning to dawn on people that when you release criminals from custody in the name of "prison reform," it is only the prisons themselves that are reformed. The criminals, those who are ushered out the prison gates into an unwary society, remain as un-reformed as ever.For proof of this, I present as Exhibit A one Michael C. Mejia, age 26, who stands accused of murdering two people in Southern California, one of them a police officer. Police allege that on Monday morning Mejia killed his cousin, Roy Torres, in East Los Angeles and stole his car. Later, while driving the stolen car in Whittier, a suburb about 12 miles southeast of downtown L.A., Mejia rear-ended another car. When police responded to the report of a minor traffic accident, Mejia opened fire on them, killing Officer Keith Boyer and wounding Officer Patrick Hazell. Mejia was himself wounded in the gun battle but is expected to survive.
In recent years, California has enacted a series of reforms to its criminal justice system, the net effect of which has been the lowering of the state’s prison population. In 2011, the state legislature passed Assembly Bill 109, which brought about a so-called "realignment" in penal responsibilities, shifting some of them from the state to the counties. Since AB 109’s enactment, some felons who would have served time in state prisons are now housed in county jails. Also, some parolees who would have been under the supervision of state parole officers are now monitored by county probation departments. Mejia, about whom more later, was one such parolee.