Free Republic

The 33-year-old man who police say went on a stabbing spree that left four dead and two wounded was identified Thursday, August 8 as a documented gang member with an extensive criminal history prior to Wednesday’s deadly rampage that spread from Garden Grove to Santa Ana. Investigators were still trying to determine what motivated Zachary Castaneda to attack the victims, who police say were random targets, Garden Grove police said. Castaneda was made eligible for release under the AB109 inmate-realignment legislation, police said. “This person should have been in prison and not allowed to be in our community,” Garden Grove...

Jail overcrowding here in California has been an ongoing problem for many years. However, it has been greatly exacerbated by AB109, the prison realignment initiative, which has pushed increasing numbers of convicted state prisoners down to our local jails. The influx of these individuals has overwhelmed community leaders, who are at a loss as to how to handle inmates that county jails were never intended to accommodate. County jails were originally designed to house persons awaiting trial (pretrial populations), as well as those serving sentences of one year or less. Those with longer sentences were sent to a state prison....