Schwarzenegger's Big Prisoner Release Plan

On Friday December 21 2007 California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger floated a plan to release 22,000 low-risk offenders to save the cash-strapped state about $250 million annually.

According to the The Sacramento Bee:

the administration will ask the Legislature to authorize the release of certain non-serious, nonviolent, non-sex offenders who are in the final 20 months of their terms.

The proposal would cut the prison population by 22,159 inmates and save the cash-strapped state an estimated $256 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1 and more than $780 million through June 30, 2010. The proposal also calls for a reduction of more than 4,000 prison jobs, most of them involving correctional officers.

And just who are these “non-serious”, “non-violent”, “low risk” offenders?

Well, according to former state Sen. Jim Nielsen ”who chaired the California Board of Prison Terms from 1991 to 2000 and later served as Deputy Commissioner until 2007, the law considers human trafficking, child abuse, domestic violence, pimping a child for prostitution, solicitation to commit murder, elder abuse, hate crimes, torturing and killing a domestic animal, manufacturing methamphetamines, armed burglary, firearms felonies, sending Internet porn to minors, creation of child pornography, solicitation of rape and child molestation as non-serious and non-violent crimes.”

Already this plan is hitting major speed bumps from both Republicans and Democrats with Jose Solorio, D-Santa Ana, chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee and Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange voicing opposition saying "Many of us are going to have some very strong concerns about whether it's the direction we want to begin taking," and “Early releases are "DOA" with Assembly Republicans” respectively.

Spitzer also said:

the proposal to release the so-called nonviolent, nonserious, non-sex offenders in the final 20 months of their terms would undermine Assembly Bill 900. The $7.9 billion measure was enacted this year to add 53,000 prison and jail beds and more fully establish rehabilitation as the philosophical underpinning of California's correctional system.

"By letting people out 20 months early, which is supposed to be when they get their re-entry skills, they're not going to get them at all, so recidivism is going to get worse," Spitzer said. "This budget plan is a forfeiture of AB 900 principles, which was supposed to change how we treat criminality in California."

Gubernatorial spokesman Adam Mendelsohn said:

the administration still has not made a final decision on the budget proposal that would save the state $1.112 billion over the next two fiscal years. The governor has called for 10 percent spending cuts in every agency, which in the $9.9 billion Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, almost certainly would require substantial reductions in the inmate population of about 172,000 and the parolee population of 127,000, and in a labor force of 64,000.

Mendelsohn said that, with the state facing a $14 billion deficit, the governor faces difficult decisions as he prepares to unveil his budget proposal Jan. 10.

"With raising taxes not being an option," Mendelsohn said, "you have to look at very severe cuts."

But this is where this administration needs to step up and do the hard thing! The fix here is simple yet would prove to be the most controversial.

It’s time to deport all illegal aliens currently behind bars to their country of origin!

Tony Dolz a Cuban-born Hispanic legal immigrant and State of California Legislative Liaison for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a man who’s running to replace Congressman Henry Waxman in California’s 30th Congressional District cites a report from the California Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations – saying:

California and its regional governments spend more than $500 million a year to arrest and imprison illegal aliens. The cost of incarcerating illegal aliens in California is twice the amount of money that the Governor would like to save by releasing 22,000 felons. The report estimates the total legal costs of crimes committed in California by people who are not legal U.S. residents is estimated to be between $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year. Think about the cost of property losses, lost wages due to injuries, insurance payments, medical payment; and emotional and psychological treatment to innocent victims and how that could swell the dollar amount that we are given. In addition to dollar amounts, how can we calculate the damage to our quality of life at the hands of illegal aliens harming us, our environment and our way of life?

What are our chances of getting harmed by the release of thousands of inmates?

CSUSD Professor Paul Sutton on a 2007 research paper documented a 70% recidivism rate for California inmates; a figured echoed by Governor Schwarzenegger in a June 2007 interview with the Washington Post. Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca, was quoted today as saying that releasing those 22, 000 inmates was going to seriously increase crime in the county.

The Governor and the legislature know full well that you and I have an excellent chance of being victimized by one of these 22,000 felons.

Another thing to consider is that illegal aliens loose in our streets cost us far more than citizens and legal permanent residents do, even criminal ones. Deported illegal aliens would result in permanent savings and a much better solution for a Governor that is rumored to aspire to the U.S. Senate. Illegal aliens cost the state taxpayers $10.5 billion annually in services according to CIS and other sources. Illegal aliens are less likely to have health insurance and Workman’s compensation than citizens holding a valid Social Security number, because their employers have hired them in order to exploit them and give them few if any benefits. To make up for that lack of care from the employers, illegal aliens turn to social services and us the taxpayers or in some cases us the crime victims. According to the U.S. Justice Department up to 40% of illegal aliens do not report income to the state or federal government because they fear apprehension and because they do not have a valid Social Security number. That is a lot of income not generating tax revenue.

I agree with Dolz and his solution, in fact, it was the very first thing I thought of upon hearing the story. Dolz outlines two simple yet practical and economical solutions to this problem that I fully agree with and stand behind:

"I ask that the Governor enroll the prison system in the federal government’s E-Verify program. The E-Verify program is a free and easy to use online system that will verify person’s immigration and legal resident status.

The second suggestion is for the Governor to call the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and have the illegal aliens in our prisons picked up and deported.

So Governor, here are the telephone numbers:

(1) E-Verify Program 888-464-4218

(2) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 866-347-2423"

Bottom line is illegal aliens cost California around $8.8 billion a year that’s $1,183 per native household according to FAIR with some estimating that number as high as 10B.

If this State is in economic crisis and has the Governor looking at creative ways to cut the budget this should be the first action on the list along with severely cutting the almost 45% of CA revenue going to the failed Education bureaucracy.

This state cannot continue to carry the burden of illegal aliens especially those of criminal illegal aliens!


Cross posted from The Minority Report