Democrats: Let My People Go!

Coming to a neighborhood near you:

Over objections from Republican lawmakers, the Legislature plans to take up a majority-vote prison package Thursday that is designed to reduce the state's inmate population by 27,300 and is backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The overall package would save $1.2 billion in part by reducing certain property crimes to misdemeanors, placing low-level parolees on global positioning system monitoring and sending older, infirm prisoners to house arrest or medical facilities to serve the final 12 months of their sentences.

Republican lawmakers particularly oppose the transfer of prisoners during the final year of their sentences, which they consider "early release" and believe would threaten public safety. Schwarzenegger officials dispute that characterization and have said those prisoners would be monitored by GPS or other means.

State lawmakers last month approved a $1.2 billion corrections cut in a budget revision that tackled the state's $24 billion deficit. But those lawmakers, including some Republicans, did so without specifying exactly how the state would save that money in its prison system.

Of course, whenever there's a budget shortage the first things that go in California are education and prisons. Funny how they can never find any savings in the myriad of social programs or various boards and commissions.