[420 Girl]

As many as 22,000 state prisoners may be released early as part of a proposal made last week by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The plan would allow nonviolent, non-serious and nonsexual offenders to be released 20 months before their sentence is scheduled to end. The plan is part of a series of proposals the governor has made to ease California's projected $14.5 billion budget deficit.

Of the inmates that could be released as part of the proposal, about half are serving time for drug-related offenses such as possession and sale of marijuana and hashish, said Seth Unger, press secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The other half includes offenders convicted of petty theft, forgery, fraud and other similar crimes, he said.

"The proposal ... would authorize the release of prisoners who do not have any serious or violent offenses and would also take into account their prison behavior," Unger said.

The released offenders would be put on "summary parole" and would not be under the supervision of a parole officer. Law enforcement would retain the right to search the offenders and prosecute them for any other crimes but they would not return to prison for standard parole violations.

Unger said 70 percent of the corrections budget goes to salary and benefits for employees, so the only way to reduce costs is to reduce the number of inmates so staff can be cut.

State Representative Lois Wolk, representing Davis, said she has not yet taken a position on the proposal but believes it will be a struggle to get it through the legislature.

"Getting tough on crime is a statewide priority," she said. "I don't believe the public would support [releasing prisoners] at all. There may be other ways to save money that don't endanger the public's safety."

Wolk said that between now and May legislators will spend time reviewing the governor's proposals, hold hearings and work on creating a budget that can pass in the legislature.

"As you can see with this budget, there are no good choices," she said. "We're going to have to choose between bad and really bad."

A number of legislators and special interest groups have already announced their opposition to the plan, said Floyd Feeney, a professor at the UC Davis School of Law.

"The District Attorneys Association has a lot of legislative influence and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has quite a bit of political clout," he said. "One would think they would fight hard against this because the savings that would come out of this would come out of corrections staff."

Feeney said that California's prison problems stem from a buildup in the system in the past few decades.

"Beginning in the 1980s we went on a prison building binge," he said. "Among legislators it's been popular to increase sentences and build prisons and now the fun is over and we have to pay for all that stuff."

Although many citizens and prominent figures have expressed fear that this proposal will result in more crime, Feeney said by providing programs to help parolees get jobs and housing, the risks are relatively minor.

"These are people that are going to go back out into the community anyway, at some point in time," he said. "[By] keeping them in prison longer people argue whether that does anything to change their behavior. I think the claims that this is going to create huge waves of new crime are not very informed."

There are no state prisons in Yolo County. The nearest institutions are in Sacramento and Solano counties.

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