DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to overhaul California's probation system by greatly reducing the time a convict is under supervised release, but increasing rehabilitation programs at the outset of the probationary period, when they are considered the most effective.
He wants to put what he called "an unprecedented amount of money" into a new effort to provide intensive services to those on the lower end of the criminal justice food chain: those serving probation for misdemeanor crimes.
It's driven in part by a recent scourge in which car burglars have become so emboldened in California's urban areas that some San Francisco Bay Area gang members are traveling hundreds of miles to steal from tourists' vehicles in Los Angeles. They are th
