By Don Thompson
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to trim California’s prison population by nearly 30,000 inmates in a cost-saving move gets its first hearing before the state Legislature on Thursday, as it faces mounting opposition from Republican lawmakers and law enforcement groups.
The debate is a holdover from state budget negotiations earlier this summer. At the time they closed a massive deficit, lawmakers agreed to cut $1.2 billion from the prison system without saying how to do it.
Schwarzenegger’s plan has long-range implications for how criminals are sentenced in California, drawing criticism from Republicans who say it will lead to more dangerous felons on the street.
If approved by the Senate and Assembly, the governor’s proposal would release or divert from state prisons 27,000 inmates in the current fiscal year and another 10,000 in the fiscal year that begins next July.
It would do so through a wide range of measures:
_ Inmates with less than 12 months to serve, who are over age 60 or who are medically incapacitated could be released from prison and given home detention with electronic monitoring.
_ Sentences for certain property crimes will be lowered to misdemeanors, meaning convicts won’t have to spend time in prison. Those include vehicle theft, petty theft with a prior conviction, receiving stolen property and check-kiting, a scam that primarily targets banks with fraudulent deposits.
_ Allow more inmates to gain early release by completing educational, vocational or substance abuse rehabilitation programs.
_ Ease supervision for thousands of parolees, making it more difficult to send them back to prison for violations.
“These are going to have very long-lasting, negative effects on our communities,” said Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully, a past-president of the California District Attorneys Association, which voted Wednesday to oppose Schwarzenegger’s plan.
Sam Blakeslee, the Republican leader of the state Assembly, called the legislation a step backward.
“This bill will result in the largest jailbreak in California history,” he said in a statement.
All the changes are contained in one bill, raising concerns that the legislation contains too many controversial parts to gain majority support in either house.
In the Assembly, for example, three Democratic lawmakers are planning to run for state attorney general next year and are reluctant to vote for any bill that will reduce criminal sentences out of fear that they will appear soft on crime.
Adding to the uncertainty is a provision announced Wednesday that establishes a commission to review California’s sentencing guidelines. Its primary mission will be to determine whether some sentences could be lessened as a way to take pressure off an overcrowded prison system.
The new guidelines would be due by July 2012.
Any recommendations the commission makes would further alter California’s criminal justice landscape. The changes would take effect automatically unless they were rejected by the governor and a majority vote in the Legislature.
Details about the commission were made public less than 24 hours before the legislative debate was to begin. The last-minute timing alone was a deal-killer for the California Police Chiefs Association, which had been prepared to support other portions of the package, said Pasadena Police Chief Bernard Melekian, the group’s president.
“We think it’s an abrogation of legislative authority, the idea that this commission would operate independently of the Legislature,” he said.
He added that the association also could not accept the makeup of the proposed panel because it would include an ex-felon as a nonvoting member.
Schwarzenegger’s office said failure of the bill will leave a $1.2 billion hole in the state’s budget and would force the state to find other ways to release inmates to comply with a federal court order. A panel of federal judges earlier this summer ordered the state to reduce its inmate population by 40,000 over two years.
At least two other states, Kentucky and Michigan, already are releasing inmates early while others are considering similar moves to save money in a tight economy, an Associated Press review found last month.
“These are reforms that will make our communities safer, our prisons safer and give taxpayers a greater return on their investments,” Schwarzenegger said Wednesday after touring the devastation left by an Aug. 8 riot at a Southern California prison.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said he believes there will be enough Democratic support in the 40-member chamber to pass the bill on a simple majority vote. The 80-member Assembly also plans to take up the bill on Thursday.
“The governor, who has built a reputation as being tough on crime, supports these measures and we do as well because the current system is simply unsustainable,” said Steinberg, a Democrat from Sacramento. “We can’t afford it, and it is not achieving greater public safety for the people of California.”