- _Mark Martin, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau_ (mailto:markmartin at sfchronicle.com) Saturday, September 2, 2006 (09-02) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- The inability of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers to agree on any proposal on prison expansion leaves the administration exactly where it was nearly a year ago, when a corrections official wrote an ominous memo declaring that overcrowding in state prisons had reached dangerous levels. Lawmakers returned to their districts Friday after a package of prison proposals died when the state Assembly did not vote on them and adjourned the legislative session for a year. Despite furious negotiations during the last few weeks, neither Schwarzenegger's proposal to spend $6 billion on new prison facilities nor a scaled-back Democratic counterproposal gained consensus. Now, with more than 172,000 inmates crammed into a system designed to hold about 100,000, Schwarzenegger and aides said Friday the administration was looking at various options to free up space during the next few months. A prison-by-prison audit has already been conducted to determine where there is space to put up temporary housing units, and officials are also examining mothballed facilities, such as women's and youth facilities, that could be reopened.
Some lawmakers suggested Friday that the governor would likely declare a
state of emergency in the prison system -- "I'm positive he will declare an emergency,'' said Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange -- which could give the governor power to take many actions without legislative approval. "All options are open,'' said Adam Mendelsohn, Schwarzenegger's communications director. He would not comment on the possibility of an emergency declaration. The death of Schwarzenegger's plan marked the second time this year the governor has proposed major prison building, only to be shot down by the Legislature. Lawmakers are clearly divided on what to do. While a small faction of liberals has called for reforming criminal sentences, which are longer in California than most other states, and keeping parole violators out of prison as ways to deal with overcrowding, a majority of the Legislature seems opposed to those changes. On the other hand, with public polling showing voters opposed to spending more tax dollars on more prisons, many lawmakers have not been attracted to Schwarzenegger's expansion proposals.
The result is a growing inmate population. More than 16,000 inmates sleep in gyms and classrooms, and corrections officials say they will be out of even those spaces by next summer unless something changes. Jim Tilton, Schwarzenegger's acting corrections secretary, said earlier this week that the corrections system would simply stop accepting inmates next June, which would lead to even more crowding in county jails, but state laws clearly say the state must accept all inmates and the administration has backed off that position. Schwarzenegger in January included prison and jail projects with his proposals to spend billions on roads, schools and levees, but the corrections part of his plan was excised by the Legislature. In June, Schwarzenegger called for a special legislative session on prisons and unveiled a plan to build two new prisons, expand existing prisons, move some male and female inmates into community-based facilities and create re-entry centers for inmates about to leave the system. Democrats, prison reform advocates and the state's prison guards union all
attacked the proposals, saying the administration was proposing spending huge amounts of money without doing the proper planning. Corrections officials wanted authorization to spend $1.2 billion on two new prisons but could not say where they would be built, for example. Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata on Friday called the special session "nothing more than political theater" designed to look like the administration was taking action. Democrats developed a counterproposal this week that was approved in the Senate. But it ran into obstacles in the Assembly. The union has substantial clout there, and union lobbyists were omnipresent in the Capitol all week, urging lawmakers to vote "no." In addition, lawmakers from the Central Valley were upset at one proposal to convert some women's prisons into spaces for male inmates. That issue led almost the entire Republican delegation to unite against the governor. In the end, head counts in the 80-member Assembly suggested the bills would have received one Republican vote and about a dozen Democratic votes. Neither the governor nor Democrats came up with many ideas on how to deal with overcrowding in the short term, despite awareness of the problem for nearly a year. Last October, a corrections administrator noted in a memo that "an imminent and substantial threat to the public safety exists requiring immediate action." While Schwarzenegger and lawmakers both said Friday they planned to work on long-term prison reforms next year, it was unclear how the logjam would be broken. Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who has argued for major changes to sentencing and parole policies, said Friday that policymakers should heed the consensus among corrections experts that lowering the prison population can be done without jeopardizing public safety. Spitzer, the Republican from Orange County, noted that Republican lawmakers were committed to "keeping people locked up and making sure they serve their time.'' Spitzer did say that the GOP might be amenable to a discussion about re-entry centers, which Schwarzenegger has suggested would provide inmates about to leave prison with job training and other services that might help them stay out of trouble -- and prison -- when they return to their home neighborhoods. E-mail the writer at _markmartin at sfchronicle.com_ (mailto:markmartin at sfchronicle.com) . Page B - 2 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/02/BAGA0KU8JV1.DTL
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