California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Tuesday announced a $315
million plan to expand the state prison system’s capacity by thousands
of beds, allowing the state to comply with a federal court order to
sharply reduce the population of its overcrowded facilities by the end
of the year.
Under the governor’s plan, the state would move some 12,000 inmates
from overcrowded state prisons into private prisons and county jails.
During a press conference in Sacramento on Tuesday, Brown portrayed the
plan as necessary to ensure “public safety,” noting that it would allow
California to meet the court requirements without releasing prisoners.
But critics say the cost of Brown's expansion is likely to sap
much-needed funds from schools and social service agencies. They insist
the state could release thousands of low-level prisoners without
endangering the public.
“The governor’s proposal is a plan with no promise and no hope,”
state Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D), the Senate president pro tem, said in a
statement. “As the population of California grows, it's only a short
matter of time until new prison cells overflow and the court demands
mass releases again."
California's prison system is one of the largest and most crowded in
the country. The governor’s plan, which still needs legislative
approval, would create enough space to comply with a 2009 order by a
panel of federal judges, who ruled that overcrowding was jeopardizing
the health and safety of inmates. The order, which the U.S. Supreme
Court this month
refused to review, gives the state until Dec. 31 to reduce the population of its facilities by about 10,000 inmates.
In an
unconventional move,
private prisons targeted for the expansion would be staffed with state
employees, an arrangement that would allow the governor and his allies
in the legislature to avoid a politically risky confrontation with the
state’s
powerful prison guard union.
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