Free Republic

Computer errors prompted California prison officials to mistakenly release an estimated 450 inmates with "a high risk for violence" as unsupervised parolees in a program meant to ease overcrowding, according to the state's inspector general. More than 1,000 additional prisoners presenting a high risk of committing drug crimes, property crimes and other offenses were also let out, officials said. No attempt was made to return any of the offenders to state lockups or place them on supervised parole, said inspector general spokeswoman Renee Hansen. All of the prisoners were placed on "non-revocable parole," whose participants are not required to report...

California will have to release over 30,000 inmates from its prison system to comply with a Supreme Court ruling earlier today. The court cited chronic violations of inmates’ rights in its 5-4 decision. The reductions will improve the delivery of health care services to the remaining inmates, claims the majority: The Supreme Court on Monday endorsed a court order requiring California to cut its prison population by tens of thousands of inmates to improve health care for those who remain behind bars.The court said in a 5-4 decision that the reduction is “required by the Constitution” to correct longstanding violations...

History should record the late 1970s as an era of pivotal socioeconomic change in California – a new wave of inter- national migration, a shift from an industrial to a post-industrial economy, and a new baby boom. Political events also abounded, topped by passage of Proposition 13 but including collective bargaining for public employees, expansion of mail voting, a decline in major-party registration, and the eruption of crime as a powerful issue. By happenstance, Jerry Brown was governor as this socioeconomic tsunami crashed into California and played a central role in its political aspects. The crime issue was especially vexing...

Runner-up headline: How’s that ‘Sanctuary City’ thingamabob working out? The California residents who elected Jerry Brown should be overjoyed at tomorrow’s news story in the Wall Street Journal: 40,000 state convicts were ordered released so that they can roam the streets. A three-judge panel in a California federal district court ruled in January that overcrowding in the state’s prison system, the nation’s largest, is the main cause of substandard medical and mental health care that violates prisoners’ Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment… The state houses 164,000 inmates in a system designed to hold about...

Frustrated Orange County authorities, unable to stop Wednesday’s release of a man who raped 7- and 8-year-old girls in the early 1980s, warned Tustin and Santa Ana residents today and vowed to push for laws to make it harder for sexually violent predators to get paroled. Lawrence Joseph Brown, 52, who was convicted in 1985 of sexually assaulting two young girls, is scheduled to be released from Chino State Prison Wednesday. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas held a news conference with Santa Ana police Chief Paul Walters, Tustin police Chief Scott Jordan and Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, to...

Over the objections of immigrant rights activists, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday voted to extend a program where sheriff’s officials screen the immigration status of jail inmates. Immigrant rights activists argued the program allows racial profiling and hurts community policing. Gladys Limon of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said allowing sheriff's officials to check inmates' immigration status "blurs the line between immigration and local police." She said it "has a chilling effect on immigrants’ willingness to come forward to report crimes and to cooperate with police investigations." L.A. County sheriffs’ officials denied they engage...

Politics: The prison guards' union has endorsed California's former governor as he tries for a comeback. In the old days, that might have put him over the top. Now it reminds voters who really runs the state. It comes as no surprise that the California Correctional Peace Officers Association this week formally gave its stamp of approval to Jerry Brown, the Democratic nominee for governor. After all, the union is in Brown's debt. In 1978, during his gubernatorial stint, he signed the legislation that gave state employee unions the collective bargaining power they have parlayed into political hegemony. And if...