California: Inmate Release Not The Answer

[Greg]

Inmate release not the answer | Inland Valley Daily Bulletin | Ontario, CA

OUR VIEW: Federal judicial panel should give the state's steps time to work before imposing a cap.

Let's hope San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael A. Ramos and his fellow prosecutors from other counties are successful in arguing against a mass release of prison inmates.

Ramos and his peers are mounting arguments to present to a federal judicial panel in San Francisco considering imposition of a cap on state prison populations.

Such a cap could mean the release of 36,000 felons statewide, of whom more than 2,500 would return to San Bernardino County, according to the District Attorney's Office. That kind of influx clearly would endanger citizens. And county officials point to the millions of dollars it would cost to catch, jail and prosecute those who commit new crimes.

Now, we're not at all saying that the federal judges should not be addressing California's severely overcrowded prison system. State prisons hold about 173,000 felons, compared to an established maximum safe and reasonable population of 137,000. The California Institution for Men in Chino, for example, holds about double its designed capacity.

But we are saying the judges should take it slow.
Advertisement

Time is needed so that California's efforts to ease the crisis can take hold. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a reform plan in May that will eventually add 53,000 beds to the prison system and county jails, and change some rehabilitative processes.

Last week, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced new regulations to shorten the parole period for low-risk parolees. The parole district that includes several Inland Valley cities and unincorporated areas - Chino, Chino Hills, Montclair, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, Mt. Baldy Village and San Antonio Heights - will be among the first to use the new regulations.

If done right, the new shorter parole period for prisoners with low risk of reoffending should help ease the prison overcrowding problem without endangering law-abiding citizens.

Corrections Secretary James Tilton said that ineffective parole policies have contributed to the state's high recidivism rate and fed the prison overcrowding crisis.

The idea is to focus parole agents' efforts on the higher-risk parolees while giving low-risk parolees the incentive to keep their noses clean and get free of supervision sooner. No serious offender, violent offender, sex offender or gang member would be eligible for the six-month parole program. Only those with no parole violations, a stable residence, employment or a means of financial support and who had complied with any victim restitution order would be eligible to leave parole after six months.

That would put California's parole regulations in line with 33 other states and should keep nonviolent offenders from returning to prison for trivial offenses like missing an appointment with a parole officer in the third year of parole.

Between the expansion program for prison beds and the efforts to cut recidivism through parole reform, the prison overcrowding crisis should ease over time. (If the state ever manages to mount true rehabilitation efforts on a large scale, it will be even better.)

Time is the issue. We trust that the federal judicial panel wouldn't order anything as reckless as a sudden release of thousands of inmates.

Still, we're glad the state's district attorneys are voicing their objections.

[shakedownshorti]

Yeah, let's hope.......out here it is scary to even go to the grocery store there are so many thugs running a muck........I think this has to be one of the worst counties for thugs in the state of California!