Report recommends building prisons, altering sentencing
By BRAD HAYWARD
ScrippsMcClatchy News Service

SACRAMENTO The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, adressing a
looming gap between California's prison capacity and the number of
inmates enterihg the system, proposed a long term plan Thesday to both
build prisons and divert more offenders to communitybased
alternatives.

The proposals include putting offenders with short sentences on parole
instead of sending them to prison, and moving nonviolent offenders over
age 60 into lessexpenive detention programs.

Prison construction and reforms have been thorny issues at the Capital
in recent years. Gov. Pete Wilson's proposals for new prison bonds have
been rejected as Democrats particularly Senate President Pro Tern Bill
Lockyer have demanded reforms in sentencing and prison spending
first.

Tuesday's report outlines a cornpromise.

"It's weighted evenly between those who only want to solve the problem
by expanding the system and those that don't want to expand the system by
building prisons," said Chuck Nicol, a senior analyst who wrote the
report.

State corections officials estimate California's inmate population will
grow from its current 150,000 to 242,000 by 2006. The state is slated to
reach current prison capacity by late 1999.

By 2006, Tuesday's report said, e inmate population would exceed prison
capacity by 70,000 without state action. Solving the problem though
construction alone would require 14 new prisons, it said, costing $3.5
billion to build and doubling the stem's ongoing operating costs.

Instead, the analyst's plan would art by reducing the 2006 inmate
population by nearly 35,000 through series of reforms. For instance,
those convicted of petty theft with a prior grand theft, marijuana
offenses or other drug possession would do their time in a jail rather
than state prison. Also, some nonviolent offenders facing sentences of
less than six months would be diverted to parole rather than being
incarcerated.

In some cases, nonserious, nonviolent offenders completing their
sentences would be released to county supervision rather than state
parole. And nonviolent inmates over 60 would be sent to home detention or
some other form of community supervision.

The plan also includes reforms intended to reduce repeat offenses, such
as expanding substance abuse treatment programs and reforming the prison
System's work programs for inmates.

The report acknowledged that criininal justice resources are already
stretched and said the state would have to reimburse counties for their
costs under the program.

In addition to the reforms, the analyst's report calls for immediate
authorization of two new prisons, followed by a state review of how best
to boost the system's capacity. Expanding existing prisons and
contracting with the private sector should be considered, the report
said.

Wilson's current proposal is to build six prisons, housing 30,000
inmates, at a cost of about $1.6 billion.

J.P Tremblay, spokesman for Wilson's Youth and Adult Correctional Agency,
had not seen the report Tuesday and could not comment on it. In general,
he said, the Wilson administration is most receptive to proposals that
will afford the highest level of public safety.

"The main thrust we've had has been to make sure we have adequate
housing for felons that are sent to us," he said. "We're not going to do
anything that will threaten public safety"