Software glitch allows release of 656 high-risk prisoners
April 28, 2010
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Software is being blamed as the culprit in the accidental release of 656 prisoners in a group of more than 6,600 that could be violent or are considered at “high risk” and now must be tracked down.
Under a new law the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation was allowed to release more than 6,000 inmates who were considered low-risk - and not convicted of crimes violent in nature - on non-revocable parole and no supervision. In that batch of early releases were the 656 - about 10 percent of the total - considered high-risk who require supervision that were let out of prison reportedly due to a glitch in CDC computer software.
A CDC software program that helps the department assess the risk of prisoners committing another crime has now been upgraded, taking into consideration an inmate’s previous convictions.
Santa Paula Police Chief Steve MacKinnon said the releases were inevitable: “We know that some of those types of mistakes are going to be made. The typical line you hear is garbage in, garbage out... you put in the wrong information, it’s going to give you the wrong information back.”
Law enforcement throughout the state has been bracing itself for the early release of thousands of inmates, and Ventura County initiated a task force of law enforcement, probation, social and other services to come up with a plan to deal with the influx of early released prisoners.
The program on the state level - county jails are also doing early releases - will let off up to 40,000 inmates, the result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision centered on prison conditions including overcrowding. The law reduces time off sentences for non-violent inmates who earn credits, while incarcerated, for good behavior.
The state is experiencing two separate waves of releases: those from county jails who are sentenced to a year or less of incarceration, and prisoners from the state prison system whose crimes are more serious, the latter the focus of wider concern now proven with the accidental release of the 656 high-risk prisoners.
MacKinnon has stated in past interviews that the releases are of particular concern to Santa Paula and Oxnard because of lower housing prices. “Computers,” said MacKinnon, “are only as good as you use them; if you put so much trust into the computer so the computer is going to make the decision,” such accidental releases of at risk inmates will happen.
The Department of Corrections is now trying to locate the 656 prisoners considered high-risk to place them under active supervision.
