This came over the transom a little while ago:
ASSEMBLYMAN SILVA SUPPORTS PRISON REFORM PACKAGE THAT PROTECTS CALIFORNIA FAMILIES
SACRAMENTO – Assemblyman Jim Silva, R-Huntington Beach, today voted in favor of Assembly Bill 900, a critical measure that will address California’s prison overcrowding problems and expand rehabilitation programs that reduce recidivism.
“Our overcrowded prisons are the result of long neglect, and taking strong action to address our prison crisis will ensure that serious and repeat criminals are not released into our neighborhoods,” Silva stated. “The commitment to increasing the number of correctional officers and other personnel along with the commitment toward rehabilitation programs should satisfy the concerns of the federal courts.”
The prison reform approved by the Assembly authorizes the construction of 40,000 state prison beds and 13,000 beds in local corrections facilities. It also provides ways to improve prisoner rehabilitation and parole, increases staffing levels, expands educational and vocational programs, and allows prisoners to be transferred to other states’ facilities until 2011. Republicans were successful in ensuring that no sentencing commission or early-release programs were included in the final version.
Silva continued by saying that “keeping dangerous criminals out of our neighborhoods should be the government’s top priority. By expanding prisons and excluding any type of early-release program, this measure furthers that goal.”
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