BATTLE RAGES OVER NEW PRISONS

CALIFORNIA voters have demanded - by passing the three strikes and you're
out measure, that more felons be locked up for longer terms.

But when it comes to building the prisons to house those felons, voters
have been much less enthusiastic. They rejected the last state prison bond
issue in 1990. Since then, new jails have been constructed through a
convoluted leasing arrangement in which a state agency issues "revenue
bonds" to build prisons, then rents them to the Department of Corrections.

But even that approach has run out of money, and as inmates continue to
pour into the prison system -- there are about 150,000 now it's reaching
the limits of physical capacity.

State prison officials estimate dial by 2000, the system will hit 200
percent of design capacity with every non-maximum security cell housing two
inmates and every gymnasium and other space filled with beds.

Nevertheless, Republican Gov. Pete Wllson and the Democrat controlled
Legislature have been locked in a years-long stalemate over whether to
build more new prisons. While Wilson wants them, lawmakers -- including
some Republicans -- have demanded that the administration make operational
changes to reduce prison costs.

It is a game of political chicken, each side accusing the other of running
the risk of court-ordered inmate releases In a couple of years and each
betting that the other will blink first.

The confrontation entered another this year when Wilson proposed that in
lieu of new state prisons, some low-risk inmates be housed in privately
owned and operated facilities.

One skirmish occurred this week in the Senate Governmental Organization
Committee when anti-privatization forces pushed a constitutional amendment
that would prohibit state or local governments from contracting out any
correctional or law enforcement operations.

Although the committee approved the measure, it was mostly an opportunity
for its author, Sen. Bill Lockyer, D-Hayward, to stroke police and guard
unions as he runs for state attorney general. "I want to erect the
appropriate barrier to further privatization," said Lockyer, adding that he
wants to stop the radical expansion of private prisons."

The measure has no chance of making it through the full Senate because that
approval would require a two-thirds vote and GOP senators could easily
block it.

The real battle will be part of the annual struggle to write a new state
budget. The final budget will either authorize contracts with one or more
private prison operators to start the privatization process or block the
effort.

The private prison conflict, meanwhile, is merely one front in the war over
privatization of government functions. Wilson has been trying for years to
contract-out such functions as state highway engineering and the affected
unions have struck back with lawsuits and. most recently, a ballot measure
that would effectively prohibit privatization. The measure, Proposition
224, will be placed before voters next month.

THE private prison companies are assuming that as California's prison
crunch grows worse and the state runs out of time to build its own new
facilities. they will be the only relief valve to prevent large-scale
inmate releases. One large company, Corrections Corporation of America,
already is in the early phases of building three California prisons on
speculation.

The prison firms have deployed squads of lobbyists and public relations
operatives to press their case. But the key is whether the companies can
strike a unionization bargain with the California Correctional Peace
Officers Association, the prison guards' union that is powerful enough to
block privatization.

Dan Walters is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee. His e-mail address is
dwalters@sac-bee.com

Checked-by: jwjohnson@netmagic.net (Joel W. Johnson)