Officials Prepare to Transfer Inmates to Out-of-State Prisons - LA Times

Officials Prepare to Transfer Inmates to Out-of-State Prisons - Los Angeles
Times

Officials Prepare to Transfer Inmates to Out-of-State Prisons
Authorities hope to free up 5,000 beds, starting with 200 convicts who have
volunteered to go.
By Jenifer Warren, Times Staff Writer
October 6, 2006

SACRAMENTO - Corrections officials prepared to sign the first contract
allowing prisoners to be shipped to other states Thursday as legislators
debated the plan's merits and one expert said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
should forget short-term fixes and instead convene a bipartisan summit on
punishment in California.

One day after the governor proclaimed an emergency in the state's severely
overcrowded prisons, Republicans praised Schwarzenegger for decisive action
while Democrats raised legal questions about the move and accused the
governor of sitting by while the crisis escalated.

For his part, Schwarzenegger's Democratic foe, Phil Angelides, said: "For
nearly three years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ignored California's
prison crisis. Three months ago, I proposed declaring a state of emergency
to fix Gov. Schwarzenegger's prison mess."

Although the first round of relocations - starting with 200 inmates next
month - will be voluntary, prison officials said the governor's emergency
order gives them authority to move convicts against their will as needed to
free up beds. Currently, the penal code requires an inmate's consent for
such an out-of-state move.

Corrections Secretary James Tilton said he hoped to quickly get volunteers
to vacate 5,000 beds, noting that more than 19,000 had expressed interest in
a recent survey. But if enough volunteers do not come forward, Tilton said,
the dire conditions will compel him to export inmates without their consent.

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange) said sending inmates to private prisons
in other states represented a last resort by a governor facing a crisis.
Prison officials say they will be out of bed space by next summer and would
have to close their doors to new felons, further burdening beleaguered
county jails.

"The governor's preference was to have the Legislature work with him on this
to solve the issue," Spitzer said, referring to a special session on prisons
that ended in August with the Democratic-controlled Assembly's rejection of
several measures to relieve crowding. "He gave us that opportunity and we
blew it."

But state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) said that by allowing mandatory
transfers, Schwarzenegger was "snubbing his nose at the law."

Barry Krisberg, president of the nonprofit National Council on Crime and
Delinquency, said Schwarzenegger had little choice.

"The Third World conditions inside the prisons have created such a dangerous
situation that, short of putting up tents in the desert, there wasn't much
he could do," Krisberg said.

"The Assembly clearly dropped the ball by refusing to adopt a sensible
package of proposals," Krisberg said.

One law professor who has written extensively on prisons urged
Schwarzenegger to think more broadly about the problem.

Franklin Zimring, a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall, said that
although the transfer plan might buy the state time, it ignores fundamental
problems with California's sentencing laws and penal policies - problems
that have helped foster the population crunch.

"What we need to do," Zimring said, "is sit down and put the entire
governance of punishment in California on the table for an extensive,
bipartisan analysis and fixing."

In Indiana, California's move to export its convicts was met with
enthusiasm. Gov. Mitch Daniels issued a statement gleefully announcing that
he would soon be housing 1,200 California felons.

In California, corrections officials confirmed that Indiana's New Castle
Correctional Facility would be among those lockups likely to soon receive
inmates. Others are in Tennessee, Oklahoma and Arizona. All facilities are
operated by private companies. Officials said the cost of housing
Californians in other states would run about $60 per day, compared with the
$90 daily cost here.