By Sam Stanton
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — While state prison officials plan to move tens of thousands of inmates to county jails in a highly publicized budget move, they began another money-saving effort last month: removing GPS tracking devices from hundreds of paroled gang members.
Corrections officials had been monitoring about 950 gang members statewide through GPS, but budget cuts are forcing them to cut the number to 400 by July 1, said Oscar Hidalgo, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“We have to make some difficult choices,” Hidalgo said. “Obviously, during better fiscal times, we would work to increase those numbers once again.”
Full Story: California budget cuts slash monitoring of gang parolees