Calif. Seeks Prison Expansion To Reduce Crowding

[Purveyor]

(04-01) 19:52 PDT Sacramento, Calif. (AP) --

The head of California's prison system said Wednesday he will ask state legislators to approve expanding three prisons as a way to relieve overcrowding so severe federal judges may soon order the state to free inmates.

The construction projects would be the first to draw money from a nearly $8 billion bond measure approved two years ago. The money was stalled, though, until Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the state budget into law in February.

Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate said he plans to seek approval within weeks to build more cellblocks at two prisons near Delano and to convert a juvenile lockup near Paso Robles. Those moves combined would house 2,800 inmates.

The $810 million Cate will seek from legislative budget committees would pay for those three expansions, plus building a re-entry center in Stockton for 500 inmates who are nearing the end of their prison terms. It would be the first of several planned regional re-entry centers to help inmates adjust in the months before they are paroled.

Actual construction of the four facilities will still depend on when the bond markets thaw, Cate said, because bonds to pay for construction can't be sold until then. Building the facilities would take about two years, he said.

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AP: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/01/state/n171327D42.DTL

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. As a (pink-slipped) teacher in CA, I say: PLEASE! Spend money to expand the prisons!

and please use all the money you took from keeping teachers in the classrooms, thus forcing schools to expand student class size because of it.

Really! With less education, CA just may need bigger prisons :sarcasm:

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. I have a better idea

Release non-violent drug offenders, release the vagrants who got three striked and deport non-violent illegal immigrants, that should cut the prison population in half overnight.