Brown: Early prison release for some

May 3, 2013

Low-risk and elderly inmates in California state prisons would be released early in an effort to reduce institutional crowding, Gov. Jerry Brown announced Wednesday. (Los Angeles Times)

Brown was responding to a federal court order requiring a plan to accomplish the objective of a smaller prison population.

Thousands of other prisoners will be transferred to state fire camps or private lockups, the governor said. He will seek additional funding to lease 1,600 private prison beds.

A federal judge had threatened Brown with contempt of court if he failed to come up with a plan to meet the so-called population cap in state prisons.

“The governor’s latest filing proposes some good ideas” for the short term, said Allen Hopper, director of criminal justice policy for the ACLU of California, in a statement. “But it’s simply not enough.”