Free Republic

-Statistics show prisons house thousands of inmates who are good candidates for parole- State corrections officials are recommending building new prisons to alleviate crowding, but new statistics show that thousands of bunks are occupied by the lowest-risk convicts who are eligible for parole — many of whom already work outside security fences as minimum-security trusties. Thousands more are classified as minimum-security, serving time for minor property and drug crimes, and could be good candidates for parole if funding were available for them to complete drug- and alcohol-abuse programs, according to figures by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which runs...

A judge refused Thursday to halt the state's impending plan to begin shipping inmates to out-of-state prisons to relieve an overcrowding crisis in the California corrections agency. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette said he saw no evidence that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to ship out the prisoners to private facilities in four other states would result in any immediate, irreparable harm to the plaintiffs in the case, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and the Service Employees International Union Local 1000. Marlette set a Nov. 22 court date to resolve the merits of the suit.

Two major public employee unions announced Monday they plan to file a lawsuit to block the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from transferring more than 2,000 inmates to private prisons in other states. Representatives of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and the Service Employees International Union Local 1000 said they planned to file the suit Monday afternoon in Sacramento Superior Court. They said they would seek to stop the transfers on grounds that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger overstepped his legal authority in seeking the moves based on prison overcrowding. Although California has used private prisons for years within its...