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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS ROOM | |
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Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared an emergency Wednesday over prison crowding, a step that lets him use his executive powers to free space by shipping inmates to other states.
The move comes five weeks after state lawmakers failed to act on a $6 billion prison building plan Schwarzenegger sought after calling a special session of the state Legislature. That proposal also included involuntarily sending inmates to prisons in other states.
"Our prisons are now beyond maximum capacity, and we must act immediately and aggressively to resolve this issue," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
California has the nation's largest state prison system with 172,000 inmates, a number that is about 70 percent over capacity. Without swift action, the prisons will run out of room as early as next August, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Privately run prisons in Arizona, Indiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee are willing to take 2,200 inmates, Corrections Secretary James Tilton said. The transfers could start in 30 days.
Other prisons, public and private, are interested in providing as many as 10,000 beds for three to five years, he said.
A preliminary survey found that nearly 20,000 inmates are willing to be shipped out of California voluntarily, more than enough to meet an initial goal of 5,000 transfers.
"If I was living in a gym with 240 other individuals and had no programs, then I'd probably raise my hand, also," Tilton said.
Schwarzenegger's order permits Tilton to move convicts involuntarily if needed, starting with foreign nationals who would be deported after their release.
The involuntary transfers were opposed by Democratic lawmakers, who adjourned last month without acting on Schwarzenegger's special-session prison proposals, and by the union that represents state prison guards.
"If a guy doesn't want to leave, are you going to hogtie them and put them on the bus?" said Robert Dean, an official with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
Schwarzenegger's order allows the corrections department to bypasses competitive bidding, but Tilton said the transfers would save money for California taxpayers.
The pending out-of-state contracts include a daily rate averaging just more than $60, compared to the $71 a day the state pays county jails to house felons or the roughly $96 a day it costs for each inmate in a state prison.
Schwarzenegger's Democratic gubernatorial opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, criticized Schwarzenegger for waiting this long to declare an emergency.
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