by Jack Lee
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, now California is being forced to release 43,000 inmates due to prison overcrowding. Within the next 24 months these convicted felons will be returned to the society that deemed them too dangerous to live among us, so says a panel of 3 federal judges.
The ruling that came last Tuesday is part of a state plan to close a 26 billion dollar budget gap and remove $1.2 billion from the prison budget. The state now has 45 days to decide which 43,000 inmates will get an early release. If they don’t, the feds will make that decision for them.
Prison overcrowding appears to be a culmination of several missteps over the past decade. The state’s population has been growing at about 2% per year, but this was not reflected in new prison construction. Illegal aliens represent a much higher percentage of the prison population than ever anticipated, nearly 17%, (federal percentage is much higher) and tougher sentencing laws has kept predatory criminals incarcerated for longer periods.
In 2005 the estimated cost of housing illegal aliens in California was $1.4 billion per year and $7.7 billion for educating the children of all illegal aliens. The total taxes received from illegals paying into the system is about $1.6 billion. The total costs of illegal immigration to this state would be considerably higher if the cost of special English instruction, school feeding programs and welfare benefits were factored into the equation.