Inmate release plan imperils state budget pace (SF Chron)

[pinto]

Inmate release plan imperils state budget pace
Matthew Yi, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Less than 24 hours after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state's top lawmakers announced a tentative budget compromise, the hard-fought deal was in jeopardy over spending cuts that would result in the early release of thousands of prison inmates.


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The deal reached Monday night included $1.2 billion in prison spending cuts - but did not specify how those cuts would be accomplished.

On Tuesday, the governor's top prison official unveiled the specifics - infuriating Republicans who called the proposal a nonstarter that could kill the budget deal.

The plan, according to Matt Cate, Schwarzenegger's top prison official, would reduce the prison population this year by 27,000 inmates, some of whom would be released early. There are 167,700 inmates.

The plan includes:

-- Sending thousands of old and sick inmates to non-prison hospitals.

-- Allowing some nonviolent, inmates, but no sex offenders, to serve the last year of their sentence under house arrest.

-- Allowing some nonviolent inmates to earn time served by receiving a GED certificate or vocational training.

-- Creating a sentencing commission to overhaul the state's sentencing laws.

The governor would also begin considering the fate of thousands of illegal immigrant inmates who could be turned over to federal authorities for deportation.

GOP lawmakers accused the administration of double-crossing them in budget talks.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/21/MN8118SVPJ.DTL&type=politics