DON'T LET POLITICIANS FOOL YOU WITH PRISON SPIN

The politicians and their special-interest pals in Sacramento have
tried to make California's prison crisis complicated. Don't fall for
the spin. It's really very simple.

The state is on the verge of being forced to release thousands of
inmates from overcrowded prisons because legislators and governors
have traded campaign contributions from the prison guards union for
taxpayer-funded goodies that have made our prisons too expensive to
operate. And as the overcrowding problem has escalated, the
legislators -- Democrats and Republicans -- have ducked every
solution put before them.

Incompetent management of the correctional system, as well as
individual prisons, has contributed to the problem careening out of
control. Prison authorities can't even hire the 4,000 correctional
officers that have been authorized because they can't get them trained.

Now the state's politicians are wringing their hands, blaming
everyone but themselves for the out-of-control prison system.

Same Old, Same Old

It's a tired old story in California. Major problems are ignored
until they become too big to contain. We see it in the state's health
care crisis, in our crumbling infrastructure and with the upside down
state budget. Now we have an emergency in the prison system, and the
politicians act as if they didn't see it coming.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried a short-term fix, proposing the
transfer of thousands of prisoners to private lockups in other
states. But the politically powerful guards union and the Service
Employees International Union, which represents other prison
employees, went to court to stop the transfer. They claimed
Schwarzenegger didn't have the authority to send prisoners out of
state, and they won.

Now the legislators are complaining about the court decision, saying
it threatens public safety by forcing the early release of some
prisoners. But don't believe that misdirection. It's our elected
officials who have made California a more dangerous state by not
fixing the system before it got into this shape.

If dangerous criminals are released to prey on Californians, those
crimes will be on the hands of the state's elected leadership. It
will happen because the legislators and a string of governors have
ignored the problem for years.

Don't forget that during the time that the prison crisis has been
brewing, the politicians have been dancing to the tune of the guards union.

Prison officials say there are about 173,000 inmates crowded into 33
prisons. Those prisons are designed to hold 100,000 inmates.

They're not working together

Schwarzenegger has proposed building more prisons and also wants a
sentencing commission to look at ways to reduce the prison
population. But he's not getting help from the Legislature.

Lawsuits have put the prison system under federal oversight for
several reasons, including overcrowding. If the governor doesn't
offer a viable plan to a federal judge, the release of prisoners
could be ordered by the court.

The Schwarzenegger administration says it will appeal last week's
state court decision on the out-of-state transfer of prisoners. The
governor wants the ability to transfer prisoners to ease the crowding
problem until a long-term solution can be found. Of course,
"long-term solution" is not a phrase that the state's politicians are
familiar with.

On Thursday, Schwarzenegger gave the predictable sound bite: "One
thing I can assure you, we will not release any inmates that are a
danger to society just because of overcrowding."

He may not have a choice if the federal judge doesn't think the
governor and Legislature is acting in good faith on the overcrowding issue.

With their backs to the wall, maybe our leaders will solve this
problem. But don't count on it. If their pattern holds, they'll do
just enough to avert the immediate crisis.

Then they'll move to the next crisis. They can't help themselves.