State officials scramble to craft new inmate reduction plan

Oct. 22, 2009 | By Julie Small | KPCC
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The clock is ticking, again, for state prison officials.

They have less than a month to put together a plan to reduce California’s prison population. A panel of federal judges Wednesday rejected the state’s first plan. And they say California had better not fall short again.

California prisons hold nearly 170,000 inmates. They’re designed to hold about half that many. Earlier this year, three federal judges ruled that overcrowding was the main reason inmates fail to get basic mental and medical care.

They ordered prison officials to draft a plan to reduce the inmate population by 44,000 in two years. The plan the Schwarzenegger Administration submitted cut it only by about half that, and over three years, not two.

Gordon Hinkel with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation stands by the plan.

“The state is going to continue to work to implement reforms that we’ve enacted by the state budget that will reduce overcrowding without compromising public safety,” Hinkle said.

But Hinkel said the Schwarzenegger Administration will respond to the order for a new prisoner reduction plan by Nov. 12.

The judges say that plan must reduce the prison population more, provide more details on how California will achieve those reductions, and include a timetable that specifies when it will happen.

If the state’s next prison population reduction plan falls short, the federal judges will consider alternate proposals from attorneys for inmates and other involved in the case.

Donald Spector with the Prison Law Office is drafting a prisoner reduction plan right now.

“We are pretty close,” Spector said, “because we will submit something that’s similar to what the governor proposed to the legislature a few months ago.”

That proposal would have cut the prisoner population by 37,000. That’s close to what the judges wanted. The State Senate adopted it, but the Assembly, under pressure from law enforcement, watered it down.

“What happened is the governor proposed to the courts what had gotten through the legislature,” explained Spector. “They decided to appease the law enforcement community and defy the federal courts.”

The three federal judges have made it clear that California has one more chance to decide how to cut the prison population by 44,000 inmates.

In their written order, the judges warned the state that if it fails again to provide a plan that achieves that goal, the court will dictate a solution and it will force California to make it happen.

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