ALARMING CRIME PREDICTIONS

While California is experiencing a financial meltdown, other states are suffering from some serious budget shortfalls as well. In order to reduce expenditures, those states are resorting to the early release of state prison inmates, the same as California. While early releases will result in significant savings over the short term, they will put the public at great risk and eventually cost the states far more money than they saved.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, LAPD’s union, released some alarming crime predictions on the early release of felons. According to independent research organizations, for every 5,000 felons who receive an early release, 45,500 new crimes will be committed over a three-year period, and 9,000 of those crimes will be violent felonies. Those predictions apply to all states, not just the State of California.

LA POLICE PROTEST PROPOSED EARLY RELEASE OF PRISON INMATES

Los Angeles Daily News Wire Services
July 17, 209

The union that represents the Los Angeles Police Department rank-and-file issued a protest today against what it said was a plan by state lawmakers that would result in a "massive release of felons to achieve budget savings."

"The early release of felons from state prison is one of the `strategies' to score budget savings," the Los Angeles Police Protective League said in a statement.

"Our sources inform us that the proposed budget will result in a reduction of $1.2 billion in the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (budget). Although no one in the Legislature has made any of this public, we can safely guess that numbers like this translate into the early release of about 20,000 felons."

Citing "information from independent research organizations," the union continued:

"For every 5,000 felons who receive an early release, 45,500 new crimes will be committed over a three-year period, and 9,000 of those crimes will be violent felonies. Applied to the 20,000 felons set for release under the budget proposal, this would result in an estimated 182,000 new crimes being committed over the next three years -- 35,000 of them violent felonies!"

LAPPL President Paul M. Weber urged voters in a statement to contact legislators "and warn them of the dire public safety consequences of a mass early release of felons from state prisons..."