Calif. Lawmakers Agree on $1B Prison Cuts

(AP)  The state Senate on Friday approved nearly $1 billion in cuts to California's prison system, resolving a key piece of the budget-balancing plan lawmakers struck earlier this summer.

The amount is less than lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had intended to cut but represented a compromise between a more ambitious bill passed previously by the Senate and a watered-down version approved by the Assembly.

The 21-15 vote sends the legislation to the governor. Rachel Cameron, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger, said the governor will sign it.

"While we are disappointed the legislation fell short on budgetary savings, the centerpiece of this legislation is the parole reform that protects public safety, avoids early release and saves the state nearly $1 billion," she said.

The spending cuts will reduce the prison population by about 16,000 inmates through a variety of steps. Among them is a change in parole supervision that will focus on only the most violent offenders, giving parole agents fewer cases but concentrating their efforts on the most dangerous ones. Nonviolent parolees who are considered a lower risk will no longer be subject to having their parole revoked and being sent back to prison.

It also expands the availability of credits for inmates participating in rehabilitation programs and changes some property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The version passed by the Senate would have reduced the inmate population by 27,000.

"At least it's a start in the right direction to get this reform ... (and) keep our budget under control," said Sen. Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego.

The vote was a holdover from the grueling negotiations earlier this summer to revise California's budget and close a $26 billion deficit. The deal struck in July relied on cutting $1.2 billion from the corrections department but did not say how those cuts would be made.

In August, the Senate passed spending cuts that paralleled a plan promoted by Schwarzenegger. It called for reducing the prison population by 27,000 inmates through early releases, lowering some property crimes to misdemeanors and easing parole conditions.

It then failed to get enough support in the Assembly, which instead passed the version that returned to the Senate on Friday. It will lead to the release or diversion from state prison of 16,000 inmates.

Because the amount of the prison cuts was less than lawmakers had agreed to in July, more than $200 million will have to taken from elsewhere in the state budget.

At the time, Schwarzenegger criticized the Assembly, saying its lawmakers lacked the guts to approve a comprehensive plan for reducing prison costs.

Republicans remain opposed to any plan that would allow inmates to get out of prison before they have served their full sentences. Part of the plan passed in the Senate drew particular criticism: It would have granted early release to certain inmates with less than 12 months to serve, who are over age 60 or who are medically incapacitated.

That provision was stripped from the final version, but GOP lawmakers and some Democrats said the bill sent to the governor would still endanger public safety.

Sen. George Runner, R-Antelope Valley, said the legislation changes the rules that allow inmates to get early release credits for completing educational or rehabilitation programs. He said they could now get those credits "simply for showing up" and said it would lead to sentences being reduced by half for about 40 percent of current inmates.

"We are just asking for trouble," said Sen. Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach.

Schwarzenegger has said the corrections department would not consider sex offenders or violent convicts for early release.

The final bill also omitted another provision sought by Democrats and agreed to by Schwarzenegger, one that would have created a commission to establish sentencing guidelines. Tough sentencing laws such as Three Strikes have been blamed for the overcrowding in California's prisons.

Such a commission has been sought for years by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles. She reluctantly voted for the bill but criticized the removal of the sentencing commission.

"What's not in the bill is a resolution and a solution to this urgent crisis," she said, referring to overcrowding in California's 33 adult prisons, which has led to a series of lawsuits on behalf of inmates.

Complicating the debate over whether to release inmates early to save on prison costs is a federal court ruling ordering California to reduce its prison population by 40,000 over the next two years. The courts have found that overcrowding is the main reason for substandard health and mental health care.

The plan proposed by Schwarzenegger - and approved by the Senate - would have reduced the inmate population by 37,000 inmates over two years. While Schwarzenegger has supported the plans to cut the corrections budget, his administration has filed a notice with the U.S. Supreme Court indicating it will appeal the federal courts' early release order.

[payasyougo]

"ail Population Will Fall by About 16,000; Deal Features Parole Reform, Rehabilitation, Decriminalization of Some Felonies"
----
And of significance in the bill, CA will not longer prosecute for illegal campaign contributions and kickbacks as a way to cut court and jail expenses.

[bubbadubba]

I have a friend that is an executive with a prison system.
He says prisons are a huge money making business (money spent on food, sheets, clothing, medical care, etc.) and the suppliers lobby and do everything possible to send more people to prison.
Having talked to correctional officers, prison officials, and attorneys, they all say that at least 30% of people in prison do not belong there.
All think non violent offenders should be rehabilitated or punished another way such as public work, road projects, etc. and earn their keep while being subjected to a military style boot camp with education and training.
To put someone in prison for having an addiction is barbaric when instead we should put them in a discipline environment with rehab.
70% of black inmates are in for drug use (FBI stats) while less than 10% of white inmates are in for the same thing. The reason? Poor people can't afford good attorneys to get them off. Just think about the movie stars who have been arrested 5 or more times with no jail time. If they were poor black men they would have been put away for life.
Prison reform would save tens of billions in the US but that won't happen because too many people are getting rich off prisons.

[legacyabq]

LET OUT THE LOW LEVEL DRUG OFFENDERS, POSSESION OF ESPECIALLY MARIJUANA

They shouldnt have been sent away in the first place

[Beatrice-Boltz]

ABSOLUTELY! Send the non-violent drug offenders to a treatment facility- 30 day inpatient and a 3-6 month halfway program. Here in Iowa we have "Drug Court" which closely monitors a drug offenders life and penalizes useing with inpatient treatment. Treatment is appropriate for the illness of addiction- incarceration is a waste of tax payer dollars. Wake up & understand addiction, understand appropriate allocation of hard earned tax payer monies.

[babooph]

What will happen for" three strikes your out" for all those dumb drug addicts ?

[legacyabq]

Oh, dont you just love the cute little sayings that MARKETING companies come up with??

It sounds like baseball, so therefore it MUST be patiotic and A-MARE-UH-CUN huh?!?

What a nation of gullible know-nothings, led around by the nose like good little sheeple

[carolhill814]

I know that crime is so bad in all parts of the United States no matter where you live but if you let these people out faster than normal they will do the same crime they were in there in the first place but quicker and that is a fact.

You know what really gets to me they never address why crime is on the rise everywhere and that is so many divorces. If you really look at the children and see everyone would know right away.

Like right in my own neighborhood we encircled with divorces and all of the children are in trouble in so many ways. Drugs, drinking, riding up and down the streets at break neck speeds because they hurt so deeply inside and they don't know how to express it so they hurt outher people who have nothing to do with them.

Thank God I knew that everyday I knew where I was going to sleep, eat and all other children do. We are creating a lot of nomads they have no connections to anyone because they don't stay long enough in their orginal home where they were taken after birth. Some of them don't even know who their father or mother are so who ever is the house that is mother or father but that doesn't necessarily mean the male or female will stay there for the rest of their lives. For the most part these children that don't have a real mother and father they will strike out in ways we don't really want.

We have a little boy of seven (7) and the language he uses is enough to curl anybodies hair and they hearing this from whom ever in the house and I am sure that is the tip of the iceberg he never knows where he will spending the weekend and God only knows how long that will go on God knows.

If we don't address this problem crime will always be the way it is today but much worse and that is a fact.

[hungry1968-16]

So instead of cutting programs that primarily benefit illegal aliens, they would rather have 16,000 convicted felons released on the streets?

I live in NY, and thought that WE had the most dysfunctional government in the country.

Boy, was I wrong.

[dronemonk]

This is what mining fear for political gains gets California. It's all well and good to scare the sheep-like voters into voting for spendthrift scoundrels by spouting a platform of "law and order" (if only for the lower classes), but it is something else altogether to attempt to actually pay for such a program based on vengeance and fear. You reap what you sow, cali. Enjoy the villains. You made them.

[dronemonk]

This is what mining fear for political gains gets California. It's all well and good to scare the sheep-like voters into voting for spendthrift scoundrels by spouting a platform of "law and order" (if only for the lower classes), but it is something else altogether to attempt to actually pay for such a program based on vengeance and fear. You reap what you sow, cali. Enjoy the villains. You made them.

[mav547166]

I see more mayhem in CA. Soon there will only be the rich in gated communities and the dirt poor. Oh wait CA is already the largest third world country.

[carolhill814]

You really made my day but in a sad way don't worry where I live is on that same list Hialeah, Fl.