Overcrowding in California prisons could be reduced without early release of criminals

SACRAMENTO -- -- A proposed legal settlement in a high-profile federal court case on California prison overcrowding would vastly reduce the number of state inmates without releasing criminals early, by diverting low-risk offenders to community-based rehabilitation programs and county jails.

The draft agreement emerged after six months of negotiations among state officials, advocates for inmates, local law enforcement leaders and two mediators appointed by a panel of three federal judges. The judges are scheduled to meet in 10 days, and are expected to proceed to trial if a settlement has not been reached by then.

Many constituencies must sign off on the proposal, including Republican legislators and some local law enforcement officials, who have been wary of removing even low-level criminals from prison.

Instead of releasing prisoners early -- a controversial step that many state and local officials feared the judges would take -- the agreement would cut tens of thousands of inmates from the prison population by reducing the number who enter for short stays and those who churn through frequently on parole violations.

They would be given treatment and confined locally, including in home detention and by electronic monitoring. Ultimately, that would improve public safety and save high incarceration costs, participants in the negotiations said.

"It became apparent that we had a dangerous revolving door to the state prison system," California Court of Appeal Justice Peter Siggins, a settlement consultant who was one of the mediators, told reporters Monday. "And what we were trying to do with the settlement was trade that revolving door for a magnifying glass and really put these folks under scrutiny."

Those diverted from state prison would otherwise be serving a year or less. The median time served by nearly 45,000 inmates paroled for the first time in 2005 was less than a year, according to a report last year by the Little Hoover Commission, a state watchdog agency.

Parolees, many of whom return on violations such as failing a drug test, would also avoid prison if judged as low-risk according to an assessment tool devised by corrections officials.

By removing that group, the state and its opponents would hope to pare the prison population, which now stands at 171,000. The precise target would be worked out later by the state and inmates' lawyers. California's 33 prisons were built for less than 100,000 inmates, although prison experts have said they can safely hold more.

The state would have until the end of 2011 to meet the population target.

Much of the proposal would require legal changes to be approved by state lawmakers. The agreement is subject to approval by the state, inmates' lawyers, Republican state lawmakers and local sheriffs, police chiefs, probation chiefs and district attorneys, all parties to the case.

The settlement would achieve for the state one of its main goals: maintaining control of the prison system by avoiding a possible takeover by the federal courts.

Lisa Page, a spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the state is reviewing the proposal "as a potential comprehensive framework for resolving the prison overcrowding crisis and as an effective solution to protect public safety."

Local law enforcement officials planned to meet today in Sacramento to discuss the deal. Under the proposal, they would be given additional state funding, in amounts to be determined, for probation and other services.

Participants in the negotiations appeared cautiously optimistic.

"We believe it is very close to the positions the parties can agree to," said Elwood Lui, a former state judge who is the settlement referee.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who is a party to the court case but was not directly involved in negotiations, said Monday that he liked the deal's apparent focus on coordination between state and local law enforcement, which he said has been lacking, and the idea of punishing, or treating, inmates based on their needs and track record.

"This is the first step of accountability," Baca said. "There has to be earned promise and earned behavior. . . . That's a very important element, because some people that go to prison, in spite of common belief, really want to change and get back on the right path."

The proposal would provide new incentives for prisoners to embrace rehabilitation, by giving them more time off their sentences for earning degrees, completing substance abuse programs or meeting other benchmarks.

Donald Specter, director of the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit agency representing inmates in the case, said he would have preferred that the state reduce overcrowding earlier than in the proposed settlement. But he also said that the focus on rehabilitation would be important.