A jurisdictional decision involving a lawsuit against federal prison health care receiver J. Clark Kelso will have to wait eight more weeks.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton said Monday that he will rule March 22 on the motion by Stockton attorney Steve Herum, who wants his lawsuit over construction of an inmate medical center to be heard in San Joaquin County Superior Court.
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Herum wants to force the state to pay millions in concessions to ensure the facility does as little harm as possible to the community…

State prison officials will present plans and take input on a 500-bed inmate re-entry facility southeast of Stockton in two public meetings to be held today.

The Northern California Reentry Facility is one of three new prisons the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation plans to open southeast of Stockton.

The re-entry facility would occupy the former Northern California Women's Facility on Arch Road east of Highway 99. State officials plan to open the re-entry facility in late 2012…

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is about to take a dramatic step into San Joaquin County.

While the full impact remains unclear, numbers offer a glimpse into the community's future with three new state prison facilities proposed for land southeast of Stockton. Once the state's plans fully unfold:

» The California prison system will become the largest employer in the county with an estimated 8,200 workers. County government today employs the most people, with 6,500 workers…

A former inmate at San Joaquin County Jail has claimed in a lawsuit that jail officials denied him his rights as a Muslim to practice his religion, U.S. District Court records show.

Kifa Muhammad claimed in his case that Muslims were not allowed to keep a sack lunch in their cell during the holy Ramadan holiday. Muslims fast during daylight hours during Ramadan. He apparently wanted to keep the sack lunch to eat after sunset, in keeping with traditional practices.

Jail personnel gave them breakfast before dawn and dinner after sunset, according to Kristen Hegge, the county's chief deputy county counsel. The Board of Supervisors is expected today to settle the case for $500…

San Joaquin County Sheriff Steve Moore said Monday night that he worries that plans by state prison officials to build a medical center near Stockton for chronically ill inmates could further cripple his efforts to hire deputies.

Moore's comments came Monday as state prison officials kicked off a campaign in San Joaquin County, trying to sell local officials on plans to build at least one of seven such medical centers here. They also sought input from residents.

"If I had my druthers, I'd like to see it built in another county," Moore said, explaining that his office is chronically understaffed even without competition from the state prison system. "I can't hire them as it is now…"

Two new medical facilities for state prisoners could be built in San Joaquin County under plans announced Monday by the federal receiver tasked with fixing the state's broken inmate health care system.

If both are built in Stockton and Tracy, San Joaquin County's inmate population could rise by 3,000. Currently there are 3,833 adult inmates at Deuel Vocational Institution, a state prison near Tracy.

J. Clark Kelso wants to raze the vacant Karl Holton Youth Correctional Facility southeast of Stockton and build in its place a 1,500-bed medical center - one of seven statewide to treat inmates who are elderly or suffer from chronic mental or physical illness, Kelso said…

San Joaquin County got everything it sought for our County Jail expansion. Now it's up to us to build it and stanch the revolving-door jail operations.

The state Corrections Standards Authority said last week that the county will receive $80 million to help pay for a 1,280-bed expansion of the jail. That's everything the county asked for when state officials suggested - no, more than suggested, they said outright - state money would be forthcoming for a jail expansion if locals went along with a plan to open the shuttered women's prison as a re-entry facility for men.

Mind you, county officials were not happy about the possibility of another state prison facility here. We have more than our share. But they also were desperate for help expanding the jail, operating under a court-ordered population cap that means people who should be there are released because there is no room…

Eight registered sex offenders on parole were removed from their transitional rooms at a south Stockton motel in late February and left to roam the streets. Those who have not already been rearrested for parole violations are camping in fields and under bridges around San Joaquin County.

State correctional officials say the parolees, all men, are still being monitored and will be placed in rooms as soon as possible. The law does not require the state to house parolees, but it does so in the interest of public safety. It is difficult to track transient sex offenders, and homelessness contributes to recidivism.

Calaveras County, in conjunction with Amador and San Joaquin counties, is breaking new ground in how prisoners are released back to communities. But local officials are still hammering out details with the state and have just begun the first negotiations to nail down funding for local rehabilitation programs. A Tri-County Executive Re-entry Committee is in the initial stages of laying out a plan for the first re-entry facility in the state, located in Stockton…

Nonviolent offenders in the state juvenile justice system are on their way back into the arms of the county as part of a statewide shift that local officials said will bring in money to pay for social, vocational and other programs to help the young people make the transition back to mainstream society…