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Baby Steps Away from Mass Imprisonment

By Jonathan Simor

As Matthew Yi reported in the SFChronicle over the weekend, California's mammoth correctional system has announced some first steps toward reducing its prison population. Faced with a mammoth federal lawsuit that may soon lead to court orders for population reductions, and the worst state fiscal situation in several decades, California's traditionally cautious correctional leadership has identified a series of steps it will take to reduce the prison population. These include:Matt Cate, Schwarzenegger's prison secretary, said his proposal centers around drastic changes to the state's parole system - including releasing a quarter of the lower-risk parolees.He also wants to cut the prison population by expanding good-behavior credits for inmates who take education and job-training classes, and shorter prison sentences by increasing the dollar-value threshold for grand theft...continue to full post

Full post as published by Governing Through Crime on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).