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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS ROOM | |
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| Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 54 Dore Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466 |
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has released a plan to ease overcrowding at California prisons that proposes to contract with other states to house 5,000 jailed illegal immigrants.
The Schwarzenegger administration also recommends that California add 51,000 prison beds over the next 15 years, according to a detailed outline of the $3.6 billion plan released Friday.
The draft plan expands upon ideas Schwarzenegger highlighted last week when he called for a special legislative session to deal with overcrowding at California's 33 prisons, which have reached 200 percent capacity. Lawmakers will meet for the special session on Aug. 7.
"The prisons are in crisis, so we're doing everything we can to address the situation as soon as possible, in the safest way possible," Schwarzenegger press secretary Margita Thompson said. "We need to look at how we deal with recidivism, and we need to look at overcrowding."
Schwarzenegger officials said Friday that California would seek contracts with states that have empty prison beds such as Louisiana, Texas, Michigan and Indiana. The Legislature would have to change state law, which currently requires an inmate's permission to be sent out of state.
Other recommendations include building two new prisons, expanding existing prisons and opening what the administration calls "mini-prisons" to house inmates who are about to be released. Prisoners nearing parole would be sent to "re-entry" facilities for job-training, mental health therapy and other services aimed at helping them return to society.
The plan also calls for the implementation of water-conservation measures such as limiting the number of times inmates can flush toilets and scaling back drinking water allotments.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides released his own prison plan Thursday. He promised to declare a state of emergency on his first day in office, expedite staff hiring, open two unused prisons in Stockton and pursue new construction.
Dan Macallair, a prison reform advocate with the San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, said the focus on building new prisons is misplaced.
"It's an artificial problem. We don't need to try to build more prisons," Macallair said. "We need to create a more balanced and rational system and have more people in community-based services. But no one's doing it because you the run the risk of being labeled soft on crime."
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