L.A. Now Live: California may be forced to release 1,000 prisoners

California officials are scrambling to relocate 9,600 inmates but may be forced to free about 1,000 of them before they have completed their sentences.

Courts have ordered California to ease prison crowding by the end of the year.

Times reporter Chris Megerian will join L.A. Now Live at 9 a.m. to discuss the overcrowding and how California hopes to solve the problem.

Officials say most offenders are likely to remain locked up in privately owned prisons, county jails and other facilities. But some low-level criminals, as well as seriously ill and elderly inmates, could be released, state plans show.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a three-judge ruling that the prisons remain too crowded and that inmate numbers must drop. Gov. Jerry Brown has appealed the judges’ order, saying the results could harm public safety, but in the meantime his administration must comply.

Putting inmates on the street would present thorny political problems for Brown, who is widely expected to run for reelection next year and insists that California has done enough to relieve overcrowding.

But “the closer we get to the end of the year, the more difficult it becomes” to avoid releases, Brown’s corrections secretary, Jeffrey Beard, said in an interview.

The state is working on a deal to move hundreds of prisoners to Alameda County jails in coming weeks, and officials are in talks to rent space at a private prison in Kern County. They are considering reopening two low-security detention centers, also in Kern County. Thousands of other inmates would be in firefighting camps or would be confined in other states.

Many of those steps would be costly -- and the state would still need to shed about 1,000 additional prisoners. So corrections officials and prison medical personnel are reviewing discharge rules and evaluating inmate cases to determine who could be released.

No releases have been scheduled. Officials have not yet detailed all of their plans with the court and are identifying more potential candidates than they may need.