Gov. Brown’s overcrowding plan alters parole for elderly, sick felons

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to at least partly comply with a federal court order to reduce prison overcrowding could make several thousand felons eligible for release, and free hundreds of them in the first six months.

The governor’s budget proposal, released Thursday, announces plans to immediately expand parole eligibility for inmates who are sick or mentally
impaired, and creates a new parole program for the elderly. The governor also is, on his own, increasing the time some repeat offenders can reduce their sentences with good behavior.

At the time he first offered those plans to the court, Brown also made it clear he thought they were dangerous and would threaten public safety.

“We’re working as collaboratively as we can, and I want to get the job done,” Brown said Thursday. “Where the court is absolutely insistent, then I respond.”

The federal three-judge panel that ordered to state to reduce unsafe, unconstitutional crowding in its prisons last spring gave Brown the ability to make such changes without seeking approval of the Legislature.

According to estimates the state produced for the court in May, about 1,300 prisoners would meet the conditions for special parole for the elderly: they are over 60, and have served more than 25 years in prison, but are not sentenced to life without parole. Those prisoners would still need to pass muster with state parole commissioners. Brown’s office estimated 250 could have their cases heard and be released within the first six months of that program.

The court-appointed agency that oversees prison medical care calculated that 900 prisoners meet new parole criteria the state drafted this summer for expanded medical parole. They include individuals dying of cancer. The health care office estimated 150 individuals could have their cases considered and be released within six months, and that those parole hearings would begin at the two state prisons that house women.

In addition, the state corrections department said it knew of 37 inmates who would be freed within months of allowing some prisoners to accrue additional time off for good behavior. Brown proposes allowing those inmates to collect up to one day off for every two served with good behavior. Currently they are limited to earning one day off for every four days served.

Even so, the reductions alone won’t bring the state into compliance with court orders to reduce crowding in the state’s 34 prisons by April, to 137.5% of what they were built to hold. Brown has asked judges for another delay in that cap. His budget plan presumes they will grant him a two-year delay. If not, he intends to increase state spending on private prison beds by $315 million.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

Twitter: @paigestjohn