STATE WILL RUN OUT OF PRISON SPACE IN 2001

TRACY, Calif. (AP) -- They sleep nearly head-to-toe, sit
elbow-to-elbow to use the toilet and wait in lines even for water.
They swelter in summer and freeze in winter.

They are prisoners, sullen young men who mill about in the dim light
of a converted gym, wandering along narrow aisles between rows of
bunk-beds stacked two and three high.

``It's unconstitutional,'' said Rafael Harper, a 38-year-old drug
offender built like a heavyweight boxer. ``It's very crowded. You
can't hardly move around. In the bathrooms, your buttocks are bumping
each other.''

This is the prison at the Deuel Vocational Institute, a ``temporary''
conversion of a dingy, half-century-old gym that has housed prisoners
for more than a decade.

It is close to bursting, a symbol of a state prison system that is the
nation's largest with 160,000 inmates.

Robert Presley, Gov. Gray Davis' new cabinet secretary for prisons,
knows exactly when the state's rising inmate population will outstrip
available space.

``April 2001,'' he said. ``By then, we will have exhausted every
cranny and nook.''

Although a slowing crime rate has eased inmate growth, Presley has
warned lawmakers that state prisons are approaching ``critical mass.''

``This is a time to take a critical look at all facets of the
correctional system. This is a good time to consider alternatives,''
he said.

Presley says he will try to reduce recidivism among the 110,000
supervised parolees by expanding drug treatment programs and boosting
educational opportunities for inmates.

The inmate population in California increased sixfold in the 1980s and
early 1990s thanks to stricter sentencing laws. At the same time, the
prison system nearly tripled, from 12 to 33 facilities.

California spent more than $5 billion in an unprecedented attempt to
build its way out of the overcrowding problem. Voters approved about
half the money and the rest was covered by bonds.

When voters stopped approving prison bonds in 1990, Republican Gov.
Pete Wilson deadlocked with Democratic leaders over expensive new
construction.

Now the burden falls on Davis, a Democrat who is still forming his
policies, and the Democratic-controlled Legislature. The dilemma is
whether to build more prisons or possibly be forced in two years to
release felons.

Advocates of social change see an opportunity at hand.

``Prison should not be the catchall solution to all of the social
problems that we have -- to mental illness, to homelessness, to lack
of health care, to the lack of education,'' says Angela Davis, a
former '60s militant turned prison reformer.

Still, Assemblyman Bill Leonard, a Republican, has introduced a $4
billion prison construction bond measure that would go before
California voters in March 2000.

``I'm very concerned,'' Leonard said. ``We will have court orders when
we reach full capacity that would entail release of violent felons.''

Construction to relieve crowding, even if approved, would take three
to four years and must be combined with social reforms to reduce the
number of inmates, legislative analysts warn.

In the meantime, prison officials are using every cranny they can find
for inmates, creating a volatile atmosphere in a system already
plagued by violence.

In the converted gym near Tracy, 60 miles east of San Francisco, TV
cameras and razor-wire haven't prevented fistfights among the inmates,
who swell to more than 600 by the evening count.

``When it's crowded like this, the potential for anything to happen is
that much worse,'' said Glenn Schmidt, 37, a convicted burglar.

Added Rene Gallegos, a slight 24-year-old drug offender wearing prison
blues: ``We're human beings. We can't be living like savages. That's
what it's coming to.''