California To Allow Release Of Sick & Dying Inmates
SACRAMENTO (KCBS) - One of the 21 bills signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Tuesday allows the release of medically-incapacitated prisoners.
California wastes $46 million each year guarding inmates who are in comas or who are so sick they pose no public safety threat, according to the governor.
KCBS Holly Quan Reporting:
There are 21 of these kinds of inmates housed in a nursing home or hospital at the cost of $5,800 a day.
Under the new law, authored by San Francisco Senator Mark Leno, those inmates will be released on medical parole to an unlocked facility which means they would be eligible for federal health care assistance, and their bills would no longer be a burden to counties.
"Excluded from this pool would be anyone sentenced to death, life without parole, or anyone in prison on a third strike," said Leno.
Leno says eventually up to 1,000 inmates could be eligible for medical parole saving the state more than $200 million. Critics worry prison officials may release too many inmates in order to cut costs.
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