Big prisoner release plan

Arnold proposes massive prisoner release
Would free 22,159 to save cash-strapped state estimated $256 million

Big prisoner release plan
Schwarzenegger proposing to free 22,000 low-risk offenders early

In what may be the largest early release of inmates in U.S. history, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is proposing to open the prison gates next year for some 22,000 low-risk offenders.

According to details of a budget proposal made available to The Bee, the administration will ask the Legislature to authorize the release of certain non-serious, nonviolent, non-sex offenders who are in the final 20 months of their terms.

The proposal would cut the prison population by 22,159 inmates and save the cash-strapped state an estimated $256 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1 and more than $780 million through June 30, 2010. The proposal also calls for a reduction of more than 4,000 prison jobs, most of them involving correctional officers.

A gubernatorial spokesman said no final decisions had been made.

The administration, which is looking at across-the-board budget cuts to stem a budget deficit pegged as high as $14 billion, is looking for more savings by shifting lower-risk parolees into what officials describe as a "summary" parole system. Such a shift also would require legislative approval.

Under "summary" parole, offenders would remain on supervised release and would still be subject to searches by local law enforcement at any time, but they would not be returned to prison on technical violations. It would take a new crime prosecuted by local law enforcement officials to return an offender to prison.

A summary parole system t would save the state an estimated $98 million in the 2008-09 fiscal year and $329 million through 2009-10. The number of job cuts in the parole proposal would hit 1,660.

Gubernatorial spokesman Adam Mendelsohn declined to confirm the proposal outlined to The Bee but reaffirmed the administration's belief that all departments need to cut spending by 10 percent next year. The corrections budget is $9.9 billion.

Schwarzenegger "has not made any decisions" on where the cuts will take place, Mendelsohn said, including whether they will involve early release of inmates or staff layoffs.

"He has not made any final determination on what his January budget will look like, but there are many, many scenarios that have been presented to the governor, and he is working extremely hard to figure out how we manage this budget situation through cuts and reduced spending," Mendelsohn said.

In a system where spending is driven by population and labor costs, the proposal outlined Thursday would not cut any of the prison department's bond funding, including spending under Assembly Bill 900, the $7.9 billion prison package. Nor would it affect expenditures of the federal medical receiver, who is in charge of $1.5 billion of the corrections budget.

Spending for the Corrections Standards Authority and the Division of Juvenile Justice also would be excluded from the proposed cuts.

UC Berkeley law professor and corrections expert Franklin Zimring said that in raw numbers, "I don't know of any" other releases across the country that would match what Schwarzenegger's administration is proposing.

But he said the proposed 13 percent cut in the prison population – which stood at 172,079 as of Dec. 12 – would be on par with the results of changes in parole policy that Gov. Ronald Reagan imposed in the early 1970s.

"This could be an extraordinarily interesting experiment," Zimring said. "The nice thing about having a Republican governor do it is that I don't think there is going to be a firestorm."

"Let's see if it plays as a huge story," Zimring added.

Conservatives and victims-rights groups indicated Thursday that they will be stoking the fires of opposition to a plan they say poses a massive public safety threat.

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, accused Schwarzenegger of "running with his tails between his legs" from the federal three-judge court that is considering legal motions to cap the state prison population.

Spitzer said the administration is "hell bent" on cutting the prison population, as demonstrated by recent decisions to press parole agents to discharge low-risk offenders if they stay clean for a year.

"You can guarantee that we'll be out and yelling against this," said Nina Salarno Ashford, an executive board member of Crime Victims United of California.

Spokesmen for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which represents the lion's share of employees who would be faced with layoffs, said the number of proposed staffing cuts resembles the union's figures on the number of vacancies throughout the department.

The CCPOA has sided with inmates-rights' lawyers on the motions to cap the prison population. But its leaders expressed fear Thursday that the releases could lead to a crime wave.

"It's very tragic," union spokesman Lance Corcoran said. "It's the exact opposite direction that the state needs to go."

The proposal drew a positive reaction from Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

He presented a study in Sacramento earlier this year saying that early release programs combined with community-based programs can result in lower crime rates.

"This seems to me to be a prudent proposal," Krisberg said. "It would be better if it were done in the context of comprehensive sentencing reform rather than in just an ad-hoc form that will go forward for a while.

"But there's no question that reducing the prison population will improve things and help the management of the system."