Article 3.5. County Boards Of Parole Commissioners of California Penal Code >> Title 1. >> Part 3. >> Chapter 8. >> Article 3.5.

The Legislature finds and declares that the period immediately following incarceration is critical to successful reintegration of the offender into society and to positive citizenship. It is in the interest of public safety for a county to provide for the supervision of parolees, and to provide educational, vocational, family and personal counseling necessary to assist parolees in the transition between imprisonment and discharge.

(a) There is in each county a board of parole commissioners, consisting of each of the following:
  (1) The sheriff, or his or her designee, or, in a county with a department of corrections, the director of that department.
  (2) The probation officer, or his or her designee.
  (3) A member, not a public official, to be selected from the public by the presiding judge of the superior court.
  (b) The public member of the county board of parole commissioners or his or her alternate shall be entitled to his or her actual traveling and other necessary expenses incurred in the discharge of his or her duties. In addition, the public member or his or her alternate shall be entitled to per diem at any rate that may be provided by the board of supervisors. The public member or his or her alternate shall hold office for a term of one year and in no event for a period exceeding three consecutive years. The term shall commence on the date of appointment.

(a) The board may make, establish and enforce rules and regulations adopted under this article.
  (b) The board shall act at regularly called meetings at which two-thirds of the members are present, and shall make and establish rules and regulations in writing stating the reasons therefor under which any prisoner who is confined in or committed to any county jail, work furlough facility, industrial farm, or industrial road camp, or in any city jail, work furlough facility, industrial farm, or industrial road camp under a judgment of imprisonment or as a condition of probation for any criminal offense, unless the court at the time of committing has ordered that such prisoner confined as a condition of probation upon conviction of a felony not be granted parole, may be allowed to go upon parole outside of such jail, work furlough facility, industrial farm, or industrial road camp, but to remain, while on parole, in the legal custody and under the control of the board establishing the rules and regulations for the prisoner' s parole, and subject at any time to be taken back within the enclosure of any such jail, work furlough facility, industrial farm, or industrial road camp.
  (c) The board shall provide a complete copy of its written rules and regulations and reasons therefor and any amendments thereto to each of the judges of the superior court of the county. The board shall provide to the persons in charge of the county's correctional facilities a copy of the sections of its written rules and regulations and any amendments thereto which govern eligibility for parole, and the name and telephone number of the person or agency to contact for additional information. Such rules and regulations governing eligibility either shall be conspicuously posted and maintained within each county correctional facility so that all prisoners have access to a copy, or shall be given to each prisoner.

Whenever a prisoner is sentenced in one county and incarcerated in another county, only the county in which he was sentenced shall have jurisdiction to grant parole.

(a) The board shall notify the sentencing judge of an inmate' s application for parole.
  (b) The sentencing judge may make a recommendation regarding such application, and the board shall give careful consideration to such recommendation.

(a) No application for parole shall be granted or denied except by a vote of the board at a meeting at which a quorum of its members are present. This paragraph shall not be applied to the denial of applicants who are ineligible by order of the superior court, or to the granting of parole in emergency situations.
  (b) An applicant shall be permitted to appear and speak on his behalf at the meeting at which his application is considered by the board.

If any paroled prisoner leaves the county in which he is imprisoned without permission from the board granting his parole, he shall be arrested as an escaped prisoner and held as such.

(a) Each county board may retake and imprison any prisoner upon parole granted under the provisions of this article.
  (b) Each county board may release any prisoner on parole for a term not to exceed three years upon those conditions and under those rules and regulations as may seem fit and proper for his or her rehabilitation, and should the prisoner so paroled violate any of the conditions of his or her parole or any of the rules and regulations governing his or her parole, he or she shall, upon order of the parole commission, be returned to the jail from which he or she was paroled and be confined therein for the unserved portion of his or her sentence.
  (c) The written order of each county board shall be a sufficient warrant for all officers named therein to authorize them, or any of them, to return to actual custody any conditionally released or paroled prisoner. All chiefs of police, marshals of cities, sheriffs, and all other police and peace officers of this state shall execute any such order in like manner as ordinary criminal process.
  (d) In computing the unserved sentence of a person returned to jail because of the revocation of his or her parole no credit shall be granted for the time between his or her release from jail on parole and his or her return to jail because of the revocation of his or her parole.

Each county board may make and establish written rules and regulations for the unconditional release of and may unconditionally release any prisoner who is an alien and who voluntarily consents to return or to be returned to his native land and who actually returns or is returned thereto. The necessary expenses of the transportation of such alien prisoner and officers or attendants in charge of such prisoner, may be paid by the county, upon order of the board of supervisors authorizing or ratifying the return of the prisoner at the expense of the county.

Whenever the board designates deputies to serve as temporary commissioners in considering applications for parole of prisoners, such temporary commissioners or deputies may also exercise all the powers granted by this article relative to the unconditional release of alien prisoners.

Each county board may release to the State Department of Corrections for return to a state prison or correctional institution any county or city jail inmate who is a state parole violator, when notified by the Board of Prison Terms.

The members of the board may for the purpose of considering applications for parole of prisoners from city or county jails, or industrial farms, or work furlough facilities, or industrial road camps, designate deputies of their respective offices to serve for them as temporary commissioners when they are unable to serve.

Each county board shall not require, when setting terms or discharge dates, an admission of guilt to any crime for which an inmate was committed.

No prisoner shall be paroled without supervision.

A prisoner who is released on parole pursuant to this article shall be supervised by a county parole officer of the county board of parole commissioners.

(a) A county parole officer who is not a peace officer, as defined in Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 830) of Title 3 of Part 2, is a public officer who works at the direction of the County Board of Parole Commissioners, as provided for in Section 3075, and is responsible for supervising prisoners released on parole by the board.
  (b) A county parole officer who is a public officer, as defined in subdivision (a), shall have no right to carry or possess firearms in the performance of his or her prescribed duties.
  (c) A county parole officer, as defined in subdivision (a), shall comply with the standards for selection and training established by the Board of Corrections pursuant to Section 6035.