May 13, 2008 10:28 am US/Pacific
Gov's Budget Scraps Early Prison Release Program
SACRAMENTO (CBS 5 / KCBS) ―
A controversial plan to save more than $1 billion by offering early release to 22,000 prison inmates will not be part of Governor Schwarzenegger's revised budget proposal.
The Sacramento Bee reports a drop in the state's inmate population has prompted the governor to abandon a plan few lawmakers had supported.
"We're in a crisis and how do we resolve the crisis right now? I don't know whether releasing inmates is the best way to do that," said new Assembly Speaker Karen Bass.
The plan would have allowed prisoners convicted of drug possession, car theft and other lesser offenses who had less than 20 months left on their sentences to be paroled.
"We might need," she said, "a better thought-out solution that could come if we have a sentencing commission."
Bass, who officially took over for termed out Los Angeles Democrat Fabian Nunez on Tuesday, supports Governor Schwarzenegger's proposal to expand the sales tax. "California's tax structure was put in place in the 1930s. The economy has completely changed."
Schwarzenegger's revised proposal, which seeks to close a deficit projected to be anywhere from $14 to $20 billion without raising taxes, will be released Wednesday.
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