TO SAVE MONEY, CUT CALIFORNIA'S PRISON POPULATION

There are good reasons to be upset with the state budget that the
Legislature will vote on today. The proposal to reduce the number of
inmates in state prisons to save $1.2 billion is not one of them.

But that's what's bothering Republican lawmakers. Assembly Republican
leader Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo threatened to kill the budget
if it included what he and others mischaracterized as the early
release of 27,000 prisoners. The crisis was averted Wednesday when
legislative leaders agreed to keep the savings in the budget, then
vote separately next month on how to achieve them. But Blakeslee's
threat was added evidence why voters must get rid of the requirement
for a two-thirds majority to pass the state budget. It empowers a
tyrannical minority.

The Department of Corrections consumes 10 percent of the general fund,
nearly as much as higher education. That in itself is criminal. Many
of Schwarzenegger's and Democrats' ideas to reduce prison crowding are
what reformers have advocated for years:

# Transferring sick and aged prisoners to nursing homes, where
Medicare would pick up part of the cost.

# Crediting time for inmates who earn a high school diploma or
vocational certificate, or complete drug treatment.

# Ordering home detention of some nonviolent inmates in lieu of final
months in prison.

# Deporting undocumented felons or transferring them to federal
prisons.

# Revising parole Advertisement laws to stop sending nonviolent
parolees back to prison on technical violations.

# Redefining a handful of crimes, including receiving stolen property
and writing bad checks, as misdemeanors, with time served in county
jails.

# Creating a commission to recommend changes in the state's tangled
sentencing laws, including mandatory minimums and enhanced penalties,
that have piled on costs and filled up prisons.

Instead of packing more kindergartners into classrooms, the state
should be unpacking its prisons. If not now, with the state facing
financial ruin, then when? And if Republicans have other ideas on how
to save $1.2 billion, then how?

Our bet is there's no way without cutting the number of inmates. Even
ending all counseling and vocational programs for inmates "" a
crazy idea Schwarzenegger had favored "" would save only $439 million.

Blakeslee, a member of the "big five" who cut the deal on the budget,
claimed he was surprised and "double-crossed" by the
Democrat-Schwarzenegger plan for the prisons. We suspect he got
spooked when a lobbyist for the police chiefs association threatened
to campaign against any legislator who voted for it.

Schwarzenegger and the Democrats have a valid plan to reduce the
prison population from 167,000 to 140,000. If legislators don't do it,
federal courts overseeing the prisons will order prisoners released in
ways nobody will like. The governor and lawmakers will have themselves
to blame.

Enough grandstanding. Defy the prison-industrial lobby by cutting the
prison budget and passing sentencing and parole reforms now.