Just a few months ago, California’s inmates were packed into double- and triple-stacked bunk beds in prison gymnasiums, classrooms and other areas never meant for housing.

Now those beds are empty.

The prison population is declining, but not because there are fewer criminals. Instead, a new state law shifted the responsibility for some lower-level offenders to the county jails, which are filling up.

State officials have “taken the monkey off their back and put it on ours,” said Sheriff Bill Gore, whose department runs seven county jails.

In the nearly eight months since the law took effect, Gore has used a number of strategies to ward off jail crowding, including early releases, but he insists the county is handling the load.

He and other county officials have said that with proper funding the local authorities can do better than the state at rehabilitating criminals so they’re less likely to end up back behind bars.

“We can’t warehouse these inmates,” Gore said.

Donovan beds empty

At the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, rows of graffiti-scarred bunks sit empty in one of the state prison’s gyms, where more than 150 men once slept in an area the size of a basketball court.

A couple of inmates likened the experience to “living in the crazy house.”

“It’s horrible. It’s violent. It’s crowded,” said David Dewrance, 50, who spent almost two years in a gym trying to rest and study for his correspondence courses.

When space became available this year, Dewrance was moved to a two-man cell in one of the housing units, which allowed him access to one of the preferred vocational programs. The Brooklyn, N.Y., native, imprisoned for second-degree murder, now works in the prison bakery.

Fellow inmate Jesus Yanez said he was housed in a gym at another prison before coming to Donovan five months ago to continue serving his sentence for assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury. In an interview this month at the prison, he recalled trying to sleep, shower and keep his bunk clean while keeping a watchful eye on dozens of his fellow inmates.

“I wouldn’t wish that on the worst person,” said Yanez, 40, whose head and arms are inked with tattoos, many of them evidence of his former gang life in Los Angeles.

The cells, he said, are “100 percent better.”

Shortly after the state’s prison population had reached an all-time high in the summer of 2007, more than 19,600 inmates were sleeping in so-called nontraditional beds.

All inmates were cleared out of Donovan’s gyms and day rooms at the beginning of this year. And in March, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced it had stopped bunking inmates in gyms and day rooms at all California prisons.

“It’s a lot safer,” said Daniel Paramo, a 20-year corrections department veteran who became Donovan’s warden in July. The extra bunks, he said, “made it very difficult to manage the institution.”

As of this month, 3,573 prisoners were being held at Donovan, about 1,000 fewer than the facility housed at the same time last year, but it remains overcrowded. The prison is designed to hold 2,200 inmates with one man to each cell.

Because of the smaller prison population, the state is reducing its number of “reception centers” — where offenders entering the prison system are sent to be evaluated before they’re transferred to other institutions.

By September, Donovan will no longer take reception inmates.

Law works for state

Paramo said the changes at the prison are linked directly to the law that, among other provisions, allowed many nonviolent and nonserious offenders to be sentenced to county jail instead of state prison. Most convictions for sex offenses would still require a prison term.

Public safety realignment, as the law is known, took effect Oct. 1.

Gov. Jerry Brown approved it last year to help fix a budget gap and help the state comply with a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court order to reduce the prison population by 33,000 inmates by June 2013.

And the law is working as designed.

In January, the corrections department announced that the population of inmates housed in its 33 institutions had dropped by more than 11,000 inmates over six months. This month, the population was pegged at 122,305 — 153.6 percent of capacity — according to the most recent figures available.

“The population is going down,” said Dana Simas, a department spokeswoman, who acknowledged county officials’ frustrations over rising jail populations.

“We never purported that it would be without a few bumps in the road,” Simas said.

Even with the recent inmate reductions, some doubt the state will meet the Supreme Court’s deadline.

Prison officials want the court to allow them to hold the inmate population at 144 percent of capacity — rather than the 137.5 percent as originally ordered — while maintaining constitutional standards for medical and dental care, Simas said.

“Our conditions have vastly improved,” she said.

Jails handling influx

Sheriff’s officials say that despite the increase in the number of inmates in San Diego County’s jails, the conditions have not suffered greatly. As of Friday, the county’s jail population was 4,996. Maximum capacity is 5,600.

“To my knowledge, all sick call requests are being answered,” said sheriff’s Cmdr. Will Brown, who added that the department is looking into providing enhanced dental care to inmates serving longer jail terms than the law previously allowed.

The county grand jury also recently reported that the jails were secure, well-managed and in good condition, Brown said.

Not all inmates agree.

Damon Westmoreland, 40, said conditions have deteriorated at the Vista jail and the George Bailey Detention Facility in Otay Mesa, where he served time before and after Oct. 1. He said the jails are crowded and understaffed, and as a result the inmates get less time out of their cells each day.

“Now that it’s more crowded, we just sit in a box for 22 hours,” said Westmoreland, who is awaiting trial on charges related to forging and depositing fraudulent checks.

Before the realignment law, he said, he was allowed to spend time in a day room for about five hours a day. After realignment, that time was cut to about 2½ hours.

In January, the male population in the jails had climbed to 96 percent of capacity, prompting Gore to shorten sentences for some nonviolent offenders by up to 10 percent. Last month, he notified local law enforcement agencies that the jails would no longer accept bookings on certain misdemeanor offenses.

Because the female jail population has not grown as rapidly, nearly all female inmates have been moved from Vista to the Las Colinas Detention Facility in Santee to make room for the men. An expansion is planned for the Las Colinas women’s jail.

The Sheriff’s Department is also working to develop custody alternatives, such as home detentions and GPS monitoring, to free up additional space.