Violent Inmates Released

(Sacramento, California) Right on the heels of a Supreme Court decision to order the release of inmates from California prisons, comes this report.

Computer errors prompted California prison officials to mistakenly release an estimated 450 inmates with "a high risk for violence" as unsupervised parolees in a program meant to ease overcrowding, according to the state's inspector general.

More than 1,000 additional prisoners presenting a high risk of committing drug crimes, property crimes and other offenses were also let out, officials said.

No attempt was made to return any of the offenders to state lockups or place them on supervised parole, said inspector general spokeswoman Renee Hansen.

All of the prisoners were placed on "non-revocable parole," whose participants are not required to report to parole officers and can be sent back to prison only if caught committing a crime.

Problems with the computer systems include the failure to adequately document and cross-reference inmate convictions and disciplinary records. Only arrests are recorded.

Consequently, decision-makers are presented with lists of candidates for release which do not display convictions nor disciplinary history of each inmate.

I'd suggest that tracking inmates and their offenses could probably be accomplished more accurately and reliably with Twitter.

Tip: Phil