Legal News

Two choices to relieve overcrowding: redistribute or release

By Richard Binder

Local officials have vowed to fight a proposal by the governor to shift 23,000 state prisoners to overcrowded local jails during the next three years, in order to cut $1 billion from the state budget.

The governor wants to slow the stream of offenders being sent to prison by changing state sentencing guidelines so those who commit low-level felonies such as fraud or grand theft, known as "wobblers," would be prosecuted for misdemeanors and sentenced to jail instead.

Facing a possible $24-billion state budget deficit, the governor's office estimates that changing the sentencing laws could save $99.9 million in the next fiscal year, $360 million the following year and $566 million the third year, according to a spokesman for the Department of Finance.

The state's 33 prisons house about 155,000 inmates and are under a federal court order to relieve overcrowding. If state officials do not address the problem soon, a panel of three federal judges could set a cap on new prisoners and order thousands released.

Full story at LATimes.com.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on May 26, 2009 (boomark / email).