CA Democrats Plan Mass Release of Criminals from Prison in State Budget

Do you feel safe walking down the street at night in LA, San Francisco, San Diego or in your own neighborhood? If your answer is no, you're not alone — and it could get a lot worse as state politicians are proposing closing prisons and releasing a massive amount of criminals back onto the streets.

The proposal comes as the most recent attempt by the state government to address a projected budget deficit of over $25 billion. Democrats in the State Legislature rejected Governor Gavin Newsom’s most recent budget and countered with their own proposal, which aims to slash $1 billion from the state prison budget. This could lead to several prison closures and the mass release of thousands of inmates.

Governor Newsom has already announced plans to shut 4 of the state’s 32 prisons, and since taking office, the Newsom Administration has granted early release to over 90,000 criminals in state prisons. Newsom’s early releases of criminals have already resulted in California’s prison population declining from roughly 120,000 when he took office to 93,000 today – a net reduction of 27,000 criminals being released.

Carl DeMaio, a candidate for State Assembly and chairman of Reform California — which has a campaign dedicated to restoring public safety in California — says that releasing criminals has been a longtime goal of state Democrats and that their proposal would be unnecessary if they cut back wasteful spending elsewhere.

"At a time when crime is spiking in California, it is absolutely reckless for state politicians to propose giving early release to dangerous criminals to offset their wasteful spending in other areas of the state budget,” said DeMaio.

DeMaio points to recent decisions by California Democrats to fund new welfare programs for illegal immigrants, such as free healthcare — an expensive service American citizens living in California do not receive — as an example of recent wasteful spending that could be cut back.

“Unfortunately, it is clear that this proposal is not about balancing the budget – California Democrats are simply using the budget shortfall as an excuse to achieve their reckless goal of expanding early release of dangerous criminals onto our streets,” explained DeMaio.

“Cutting $1 billion from state prisons – and permanently shutting a significant portion of our state prison system – will lead to more victims of crime in our state,” he continued. “That’s why this budget proposal should be rejected in the name of public safety.”

And crime is already up in the state as it is — and could get much worse with the mass release of new inmates. 

According to the most recent report by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on crime rates in 2022, while nationwide crime has gone down, California's crime rate is consistently spiking and went up in 2022 by a staggering 13%.

And data from the California Attorney General’s office shows that the violent crime rate per 100,000 population increased 6.1 percent in 2022 (from 466.2 in 2021 to 494.6 in 2022), and the property crime rate increased 6.2 percent in 2022 (from 2,178.4 in 2021 to 2,313.6 in 2022).

DeMaio says that these rates will skyrocket if prisoners are released, because they will be given means and incentive to commit criminal acts again — knowing they’ll likely be released again.

"State politicians are doubling down on crazy policies that incentivize crime instead of trying to give tools to law enforcement to combat the crime wave we are facing,” he continued. 

Besides prison funding concerns, DeMaio points to the passage of Proposition 47 and Proposition 57 in California as key drivers of the increase in crime over recent years. Advocates argued that these propositions would reduce the prison population and strain on the system, but DeMaio says that in actuality the propositions tied the hands of law enforcement to crack down on crime and reduced many penalties to simple slaps on the wrist — emboldening criminals and causing repeat offenses.

"Letting criminals back out onto the street has only made our communities less safe, and these new crime statistics prove that California's policies are the cause and are an abject failure," said DeMaio. "But the liberal media in California is doing everything they can to cover for Democrat politicians and convince you not to believe your lying eyes."

That's why DeMaio and Reform California are working hard to get this information out to key voters in California and to educate the public. Reform California is also running a campaign to restore public safety by repealing Props 47 and 57, which are key drivers of the surge in crime. Join the campaign to restore public safety in California at restorepublicsaftey.org.