By Matthew Yi
The San Francisco Chronicle
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California will fail to meet federal demands to reduce its prison population by 40,000 inmates over two years despite plans by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute the sentences of illegal immigrant prisoners and build three new prison facilities to relieve overcrowding, sources said.
The state has a Friday deadline to submit a plan to a panel of three federal judges detailing how it will reduce the current prison population of about 170,000.
About 160,000 of the state’s inmates are being kept in 33 prisons that have a combined capacity of about 80,000. The federal judges have found that because of overcrowding, the state has failed to meet its constitutional obligation to provide prisoners with adequate medical and mental health treatment.
But the plan California officials will submit by midnight Friday will fall short of meeting the 40,000-inmate reduction ordered last month by the federal panel, state prison officials said in a briefing Wednesday to various parties, including legislative staffers who work on prison issues.
Revisions could come
The briefing was hosted by Ben Rice, chief counsel for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and Lee Seale, the department’s deputy chief of staff, according to sources familiar with the details of the call.
The state officials did not tell by how much their plan would fall short but said they may revise it before they submit it Friday, sources said.
The officials also said they expect the judges to find the state in contempt for failing to meet the demand, one source said.
Schwarzenegger’s spokesman, Aaron McLear, refused to comment on the specifics of the proposal, saying only: “We will release the plan on Friday.”
If the judges decide the state deliberately violated their order, they could hold the defendants - Schwarzenegger, Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate and state Controller John Chiang - in contempt.
The court would have the power to send any or all of them to jail until they complied with the order, but that’s unlikely in light of events earlier in the case.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, a member of the panel, started contempt proceedings against Schwarzenegger for refusing to turn over $250 million in legislatively appropriated funds to a court-appointed receiver to start work on revamping prison health facilities.
Proceedings on hold
Henderson raised the possibility of assessing monetary penalties that might eventually add up to $250 million. Lawyers for the receiver and the prisoners said then that they had no intention of asking Henderson to jail state officials. Later rulings and other developments in the case have put those contempt proceedings on hold.
This latest chapter in the state prison system saga unfolded last month when the same federal panel ordered the state to submit the prison-reduction plan by Friday.
As part of a budget compromise to erase a $24 billion deficit, Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders brokered a deal in July that would have reduced the prison population by about 37,000 over a two-year period. The plan had included controversial ideas such as allowing sick and elderly inmates to finish their sentences in home detention or community hospitals wearing Global Positioning System tracking devices.
The state Senate approved the plan, which would have saved the cash-strapped state about $1.2 billion this year, but it stalled in the Assembly. The lower house of the Legislature ultimately passed a significantly watered-down version stripped of the most controversial elements. The plan now would reduce the inmate population by about 27,000 over two years.
Parole system changes
According to sources, Rice and Seale talked about reducing the inmate population by implementing what the Legislature ultimately approved: changes to the state’s parole system so that some low- and moderate-risk offenders would not be subject to parole revocation; allowing certain felons who violate probation to serve time in county jails; and allowing the early release of inmates who complete certain rehabilitation programs such as earning GEDs.
The governor also plans to commute sentences of some nonviolent illegal immigrant inmates and transfer them to federal authorities for deportation; seek to transfer at least 2,500 inmates to out-of-state prisons; and attempt to place low-level offenders in private prisons in California, sources said.
Schwarzenegger is also considering building three prison facilities - one reception center and two housing units - likely within the grounds of existing prisons, as well as converting the corrections’ juvenile facilities into adult prisons, according to sources.
Copyright 2009 San Francisco Chronicle