Lungren to Probe Questions About Prison Work Credits

State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren is investigating allegations that prison officials have failed to comply with a 2 1/2-year-old law that denies “work time” release credits to repeat violent offenders.

Ordinarily, state prisoners can get their sentences halved if they work in prison. But legislation that went into effect in 1991 denies work time credits to inmates who have been convicted three or more times for violent offenses. Officials estimate that about 12 such inmates enter prison each year.

Lungren promised to investigate after Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) and Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), co-authors of the 1990 legislation, asked for the probe in a strongly worded letter sent July 8.

“Please help (us) correct this intolerable situation,” the letter said. “Who is responsible for this dangerous oversight?”

Katz said he recently learned from prison officials that three-time violent offenders have been improperly receiving the credits. He said the subject came up during a discussion of a new bill he has authored that would reduce work credits for second-time violent offenders.

“The Department (of Corrections) is saying that they have messed up or someone has messed up, and we have at least a dozen bad felons (a year) who are getting work time credit, which means that they will be on the street in half the time,” Katz said.

“It’s outrageous,” he continued. “It’s unconscionable and it’s a threat to public safety.”

Prison officials, in the meantime, are doing their own investigation.

“At this point,” said Tip Kindel, chief prisons’ spokesman, “we don’t know if what they are saying is accurate or not.”

Kindel said he did not know if a procedure had been set up to identify multiple violent offenders ineligible for work time credit.

He insisted, however, that even if the Katz-Presley law is not being followed, there is still time to correct the oversight.

“If our estimates are correct,” he said, “at most we’re talking about 24 or 36 individuals, whose sentences are probably quite lengthy. . . . If any of them have been given these credits, it’s not a difficult process to remove them.”