Release Date:  July 23, 2009
Contact:  Michael Rushford
(916) 446-0345

The California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation warns that the legislature's proposed prison reduction plan, which calls for the release of up to 27,000 inmates, “trades short term savings for the safety of innocent, law-abiding Californians.”  Although the plan was pulled from the table Wednesday, the legislature still intends to vote on it next month.

“At this time, it is clear that many of the same legislators who have spent our state into bankruptcy, either do not know or do not care what will happen when thousands of convicted felons are released into California communities,” said Foundation President Michael Rushford.  “Our own history, and examples from other states show, that the promised benefits of granting early release to prison inmates are false,” he added. 

The Foundation cites research showing that, based only in the cost of new crimes committed by released inmates, it is much less expensive to keep criminals in prison than to set them free.1

California’s own history provides an example of the human cost of relying on rehabilitation rather than confinement of all types of criminals.  “We’ve done this experiment in California.  In the late 1960s, our state adopted alternative sentencing, dramatically reducing the rate of convicted felons sent to prison.  The result was a three-fold increase in violent crime with tens of thousands of innocent people becoming victims,” said Rushford.2

The budget’s proposal to reduce supervision of newly released inmates considered to be “nonviolent” was also criticized.   The Foundation notes that the government is unable to predict which criminals may commit violent crimes and that mistakes can have disastrous results, citing the gruesome 2007 home invasion murders of a mother and her two daughters in Connecticut by parolees considered to be “nonviolent.”  The criminal records of both Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, who had multiple priors for burglary and larceny crimes, qualified them as “non-violent” offenders and appropriate candidates for parole under Connecticut law.3  Both men are now facing charges of capital murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, and arson.  Jennifer Hawke-Petit was sexually assaulted and strangled to death.  Her 11-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted before she and her 17-year-old sister were left bound in their beds as their house was doused with gasoline and set afire. Both died of smoke inhalation. The husband and father, Dr. William Petit, was beaten unconscious during the invasion, but survived. 

The Foundation notes that California is currently unable to keep track of its violent criminals, citing the case of Lovelle Mixon, a criminal with a long record, including a firearm-related conviction, who shot and killed four police officers in Oakland last March while on parole.  “Our parole system is already so underfunded that it was unable to keep track of this dangerous criminal,” said Rushford.  “What will happen when the state releases felons it thinks are nonviolent with even less supervision, as proposed in the current budget.”

While urging that the plan to release inmates be scrapped, the Foundation suggests that there is a real opportunity to reduce the cost of the state’s prison system. 

Do we need to spend between $70,000 to $120,000 to build a prison cell in California, while Tennessee builds them for $21,000? 

Should California taxpayers pay for a prison healthcare system that costs nearly $14,000 per inmate, while Blue Cross currently provides health care coverage for a Sacramento family of three for $12,400?   

“California’s prison system should be the focus of an independent, private-sector based cost/benefit analysis to determine how state corrections and rehabilitation dollars are being spent,” said Rushford.  “The notion that the only way to reduce prison costs is to release inmates presents a false choice which would result in more crime victims,” he said.