Governor to Seek Funds to Add Space for Convicts

Gov. George Deukmejian on Friday said he would seek emergency funds from the Legislature to make room for 5,000 additional prisoners as a way of relieving critical overcrowding in the state’s penal institutions.

The number is 3,000 more prison beds than Administration officials earlier said would be needed until the state can complete an overall prison construction program that will add space for 19,000 new prisoners by 1989.

“The net increase of the prison population is even greater than we had anticipated,” Deukmejian told reporters during a tour of a firefighting academy in the Sierra foothills. “Until these larger prisons are constructed, we do have a more immediate and urgent problem that confronts us during the next two years.”

Deukmejian, who was on a two-day campaign-style swing through rural Northern California, declined to say how much the emergency construction program would cost until he officially unveils his plan Monday in a special message to the Legislature.

Bond Issues

The $1.2-billion plan to add 19,000 prison beds will be financed through bond issues approved by voters in 1982 and 1984. The cost of the emergency construction program is to be paid from the state’s $1-billion budget surplus.

So that the emergency prison construction can be completed within the next year, Deukmejian also is expected to ask the Legislature to waive requirements that prison officials make time-consuming environmental impact reports.

Administration sources said space for the 5,000 new prisoners will come from a combination of expanding existing prisons, converting prison facilities such as gymnasiums to cell blocks and creating temporary facilities on the grounds of several California Conservation Corps camps in Northern California.

Throughout California, an estimated 47,000 inmates are housed in 12 prisons that were designed to hold fewer than 30,000. Corrections officials say the situation has led to a dramatic increase in prison violence, particularly at maximum-security institutions such as Folsom and San Quentin.

Criminologists say prison populations have been growing beyond expectations because of a combination of stiffer sentences and a general law-and-order attitude among lawmakers.

In a service club speech this week, Deukmejian took credit for boosting the number of state law enforcement officers by 30% and for sending an additional 13,000 lawbreakers to prison.

“I’m convinced this is a major reason why the crime rate in California has not only stopped going up, it has actually dropped for four straight years,” Deukmejian said.