Pubdate: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA) Copyright: 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. Contact: http://www.uniontrib.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386 Author: Don Thompson, Associated Press Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prop36.htm (Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act) LAW SEEN RESULTING IN FEWER INMATES Proposition 36's Impact Forecast SACRAMENTO -- California's prison population will drop by more than 5,000 inmates in the first year after voters opted to send drug offenders to treatment programs instead of prison, according to new projections. The nation's largest prison population -- 160,655 inmates at the end of 2000 -- will keep shrinking until 2004. Then, tough-on-crime laws will cause the population to grow again, although much more slowly than prison officials had projected before. By 2006, the population is projected to be nearly 18,000 smaller than the state Department of Corrections had predicted six months ago, before voters approved Proposition 36 in November. Despite the drop, prison officials say they need to keep building maximum-security prisons for hard-core offenders. And officials in California's 58 counties could see their budgets stretched considerably as they take on the burden of treating and supervising drug offenders. Proposition 36, which takes effect July 1, requires that those convicted of using or possessing drugs for the first or second time be sent to community treatment programs instead of prison or jail. After the first year, the department predicts, the population will be 9,216 fewer than it had estimated in October. Of that, the voter initiative is projected to be responsible for 5,388 fewer inmates. The decrease due to Proposition 21 is expected to continue in successive years, but Corrections spokesman Russ Heimerich warned that the department is entering uncharted waters. "Especially with Proposition 36, we just don't know what kind of effect that's going to have," he said. The projections depend in large part on guessing how many drug offenders will qualify, and whether county prosecutors refuse to negotiate plea bargains with drug dealers, knowing that a drug use or possession conviction will bring no prison time. "To me it sounds like the estimates might be a little aggressive," said K. Jack Riley, director of Rand Corp.'s community justice department. "I think we'll see uneven implementation of it across the state." Steve Green, assistant secretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, predicted Proposition 36 eventually will result in longer terms for hard-core drug offenders. "In the long run, we think our population will go up as persons who escape prison (sentences) the first time around come into the system as they commit more serious crimes," Green said. Fewer drug offenders also won't mean a dramatic cut in prison costs, Green said, because most drug offenders are housed in minimum-security conservation camps and community correctional facilities. An economic downturn also could drive up crime rates again, as is beginning to happen in the latest urban crime reports, Green warned. The prison population dropped last year for the first time in 22 years. Prison officials credited a lower crime rate and a drop in parole violations. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D