Source: Oakland Tribune Contact: Mon, 11 May 1998 BATTLE RAGES OVER NEW PRISONS CALIFORNIA voters have demanded - by passing the three strikes and you're out measure, that more felons be locked up for longer terms. But when it comes to building the prisons to house those felons, voters have been much less enthusiastic. They rejected the last state prison bond issue in 1990. Since then, new jails have been constructed through a convoluted leasing arrangement in which a state agency issues "revenue bonds" to build prisons, then rents them to the Department of Corrections. But even that approach has run out of money, and as inmates continue to pour into the prison system -- there are about 150,000 now it's reaching the limits of physical capacity. State prison officials estimate dial by 2000, the system will hit 200 percent of design capacity with every non-maximum security cell housing two inmates and every gymnasium and other space filled with beds. Nevertheless, Republican Gov. Pete Wllson and the Democrat controlled Legislature have been locked in a years-long stalemate over whether to build more new prisons. While Wilson wants them, lawmakers -- including some Republicans -- have demanded that the administration make operational changes to reduce prison costs. It is a game of political chicken, each side accusing the other of running the risk of court-ordered inmate releases In a couple of years and each betting that the other will blink first. The confrontation entered another this year when Wilson proposed that in lieu of new state prisons, some low-risk inmates be housed in privately owned and operated facilities. One skirmish occurred this week in the Senate Governmental Organization Committee when anti-privatization forces pushed a constitutional amendment that would prohibit state or local governments from contracting out any correctional or law enforcement operations. Although the committee approved the measure, it was mostly an opportunity for its author, Sen. Bill Lockyer, D-Hayward, to stroke police and guard unions as he runs for state attorney general. "I want to erect the appropriate barrier to further privatization," said Lockyer, adding that he wants to stop the radical expansion of private prisons." The measure has no chance of making it through the full Senate because that approval would require a two-thirds vote and GOP senators could easily block it. The real battle will be part of the annual struggle to write a new state budget. The final budget will either authorize contracts with one or more private prison operators to start the privatization process or block the effort. The private prison conflict, meanwhile, is merely one front in the war over privatization of government functions. Wilson has been trying for years to contract-out such functions as state highway engineering and the affected unions have struck back with lawsuits and. most recently, a ballot measure that would effectively prohibit privatization. The measure, Proposition 224, will be placed before voters next month. THE private prison companies are assuming that as California's prison crunch grows worse and the state runs out of time to build its own new facilities. they will be the only relief valve to prevent large-scale inmate releases. One large company, Corrections Corporation of America, already is in the early phases of building three California prisons on speculation. The prison firms have deployed squads of lobbyists and public relations operatives to press their case. But the key is whether the companies can strike a unionization bargain with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the prison guards' union that is powerful enough to block privatization. Dan Walters is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee. His e-mail address - --- Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)