
Just when you think there can’t possibly be a more jaw-dropping bureaucratic screw-up than the Los Angeles Unified School District’s year-long inability to pay its teachers their correct salaries …the State of California treats us to this.
Here’s the deal, the The Service Employees International Union—SEIU—specifically, SEIU’s Local 1000 filed a lawsuit on Wednesday suing Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for…..are you ready for this? failing to figure out the correct release dates for around 33,000 inmates serving time in California prisons.
Yes, you read right. The CDCR has has around 33,000 people that they’re letting out….whenever.
These are people whose sentences were affected by two court rulings that mandated “good-time” credits for certain inmates. In the case of non-violent offenders this might mean as much as 50 percent off their sentences, or with violent offenders, as little as 15 percent.
When I got SEIU spokesman, Danny Beagle, on the phone, I asked for a random example of what we’re talking about. “Okay,” he said, “I have a case right here. This guy was supposed to have been released in….let’s see…. February of 2007. But instead he was released on, I think it says, early October of 2007. Yeah, October.” In other words, EIGHT MONTHS LATER than the guy—whoever he is—was mandated by the courts to be let out of lock-up.
That is, to put it in the mildest terms, unlawful
The reasons SEIU is bringing the suit has to do with the fact that it represents the correctional case records analysts who are supposed to figure this stuff out, but who say they are so understaffed and overloaded that they simply can’t do their jobs—and they don’t want to get sued because of it.
Plus the SEIU feels it would be a good thing if the state abided by the U.S. Constitution.
“The whole process of setting release dates is melting down,” said Marc Bautista, the Local 1000 VP who actually filed the suit in Sacramento Superior Court. Bautista estimates another 99 analysts are needed to remedy the shortfall. “We have repeatedly warned CDCR of this problem and they have refused to act.”
Oh, and did I mention the cost of these 33,000 little mistakes? Well, allow me to do a little math for you. The State Legislative Analyst estimates that each prisoner costs around $43,287 a year to incarcerate, or a little less than $120 a day. Now, when we think about Prisoner X, above, the guy who spent eight extra months in the pinta, that’s $120 times 30 days times 8 months—-or $28,800. Not chump change, but not going to break the state. (Although Prisoner X’s righteous civil lawsuit seeking damages for his eight wrongful months behind bars might be a tad more costly, but we won’t go there.)
Now, if we have 33,000 prisoner X’s serving that much extra prison time, it adds up to…..just under a billion dollars. ($950,400,000 to be exact.) But I’m sure the state couldn’t be SO stupid as to keep 33,000 people locked up for 8 months over their time.
We really, really hope not. But the truth is, it could be worse. For instance, with a non-violent drug case, four years might be dropped to two. Surely we aren’t keeping some people two extra years…..are we?
“We really don’t know,” said the SEIU’s Danny Beagle.
It turns out that, among the inmates they do know about, according to Thursday’s Sacramento Bee, one had his release date miscalculated by 643 days (nearly two years). Another stayed 366 days longer than his mandated sentence.
This is not reassuring.
Now remember, this is all happening in a state where the prisons are so overcrowded that last year the governor declared a state of emergency. To remedy the problem, the state legislature passed AB900, which will add 53,000 new inmate beds at an estimated cost to the California taxpayers of…$7.8 BILLion.
Note to Governor Arnold and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez: Guys, before you go on your nice little $7.7 billion building spree to get us those new beds, do you think it might be a good idea to, like, first get rid of some of the 33,000 bed-using people who may or may not be legally mandated to be there?
Just curious.
By the way, bigtime kudos to SEIU Local 1000 for slapping these fools in Sacramento upside the head with this lawsuit.
I gotta go. This whole thing’s giving me a headache.
(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP)