Lawmakers squabble over prison reform proposal

By Neil Nisperos

Staff Writer

CHINO -- As state lawmakers continue to debate the solution to overcrowding in California's prisons, the recent riot in Chino has served as a rallying cry.

Officials have said overcrowding was a major factor in conditions that allowed the Aug. 8 riot to get out of control at the California Institution for Men.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited the facility the following week, he said the riot was a symptom of the larger problem of state prisons overcrowding, which officials have been dealing with for years.

Corrections officials said that while the cause of the riot was racial tensions between rival gang inmates, overcrowding certainly hampered efforts to restore order.

It took corrections officers four hours to quell the riot, which injured more than 200 inmates. Nearly 1,300 were displaced and moved to other state prisons, further complicating already crowded conditions there, officials said.

In the past week, state lawmakers have debated the Schwarzenegger administration's proposal to release 27,000 inmates to reduce overcrowding and cut state spending.

During his tour, the governor noted that CIM holds about 6,000 inmates in facilities designed in the late 1930s for about 3,000.

"The reality is that California's entire prison system is in a state of crisis," he said. "It's collapsing under its own weight. Spending in prisons has nearly doubled in the last four years. Spending in our state is nearly $49,000 per inmate per year. The national average is $32,000, and it's hard to argue the money is spent wisely."

Schwarzenegger also said California has one of the highest inmate return rates in the country, which endangers both staff and inmates.

"The politicians swept the problems under the rug for so long," he said. "We are literally losing control of our prisons."

In Sacramento, the Assembly is expected to vote Monday on prison reform proposals to deal with overcrowding in California facilities.

Schwarzenegger's proposals, approved by the Senate shortly after his Chino visit, included increasing home confinement with electronic monitoring, reducing some crimes to misdemeanors, deporting undocumented inmates, scaling down sentences for inmates who complete rehabilitation programs and decreasing the number of parolees sent back to prison for parole violations.

Many of the governor's provisions were reduced by the Assembly after six in the majority Democratic caucus refused to vote for it. Among the changes were the elimination of a sentencing commission, the reduction of some felony crimes to misdemeanors, and the removal of alternative home-custody provisions for nonviolent inmates.

Republicans in the Legislature have criticized the reform plan, claiming it amounts to little more than the early release of prisoners who likely will return to prison anyway because of the state's high recidivism rate.

Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills, said better alternatives to solving high recidivism rates include more public-private partnerships between businesses and prisons that would provide inmates with jobs and experience.

Assemblywoman Norma Torres, D-Ontario, a former dispatcher for the Los Angeles Police Department, was among Assembly Democrats who opposed the Senate-approved package.

Torres said she feared the creation of a sentencing commission as part of a prisoner reduction package could lead to halfway houses and sober-living houses in the Inland Empire becoming inundated. She also was concerned about the impact that reducing some felonies to misdemeanors would have on the ability of prosecutors to go after serious criminals.

State Sen. Gloria Negrete-McLeod, D-Montclair, on Friday expressed her disappointment over the pulling of the sentencing reform portion of the bill.

"I know that the sentencing reform scared a whole bunch of people; I don't know why, but it did," she said. "It seems the Assembly changed a whole bunch of things, but I think we as the Legislature should not be the ones crying. That's not our jobs. Our job is to pass good legislation. The human cry on the bill (from Republicans) was deplorable."

Still, the business of prison reform must move forward, officials said.

"If the prisons were less crowded, there would be less people to watch over, and that would make it a whole lot safer for the prisons," McLeod said.

neil.nisperos@inlandnewspapers.com