(IndyBay) As California considers how to reduce prison spending, it has overlooked releasing non-violent marijuana prisoners in favor of car thieves.

Later this month, the legislature will be debating a plan by Gov. Schwarzenegger to reduce $1.2 billion in prison spending as part of the state’s budget deal. Last week, a federal court ordered the state to eliminate 44,000 inmates over the next two years to reduce overcrowding.

However, a draft of the Administration’s plan by the Department of Corrections budget office makes no mention of marijuana or other non-violent drug prisoners. Instead, it proposes raising the felony threshold for crimes such as grand theft, writing bad checks and receiving stolen property. This would make it a misdemeanor instead of a felony to steal an automobile valued at less than $2,500.

In contrast, current laws make it a felony to sell a single joint or grow a single marijuana plant. Over the years, the state has repeatedly rejected proposals to reduce marijuana penalties. The Governor has indicated his opposition to Tom Ammiano’s bill AB 390 that would eliminate pot prisoners by legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana.

The Governor’s message seems to be, “Don’t tax pot, steal a car,” comments Cal NORML director Dale Gieringer.

To help cut prison spending, California NORML is calling on the legislature to reduce penalties for marijuana sales and cultivation from mandatory felonies to optional misdemeanors. “If the state needs to eliminate prisoners, non-violent marijuana crimes are a good place to start,” says Gieringer.

As of December 31, 2008, California had 1,538 marijuana felons in state prison, 15 times as many as in 1980. Another 30,000 prisoners are serving time for non-violent drug offenses, 12,000 of them for simple possession. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that one year of incarceration costs the state an average of $49,000.

This executes statewide a similar situation I reported on in Contra Costa County, California:

Misdemeanors such as assaults, thefts and burglaries will no longer be prosecuted in Contra Costa County because of budget cuts, the county’s top prosecutor said Tuesday.

People who are suspected of misdemeanor drug crimes, break minor traffic laws, shoplift, trespass or commit misdemeanor vandalism will also be in the clear. Those crimes won’t be prosecuted, either.

The changes are needed to help eliminate a $1.9 million budget deficit in the district attorney’s office for this fiscal year. By month’s end, six deputy district attorneys will be laid off, and 11 more will have to be let go by the end of the year, Kochly said.

Isn’t it amazing that even in times of dire economic need, California’s politicians are still more fearful of the threat to public order from non-violent marijuana users and growers than car thieves, stolen goods fencers, check kiters, shoplifters, vandals, trespassers, traffic scofflaws, and people who assault other people?

States ponder early release for prisoners – Economy in Turmoil- msnbc.com
NEW YORK – Their budgets in crisis, governors, legislators and prison officials across the nation are making or considering policy changes that will likely remove tens of thousands of offenders from prisons and parole supervision.

In California, faced with a projected $42 billion deficit and prison overcrowding that has triggered a federal lawsuit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to eliminate parole for all offenders not convicted of violent or sex-related crimes, reducing the parole population by about 70,000. He also wants to divert more petty criminals to county jails and grant early release to more inmates — steps that could trim the prison population by 15,000 over the next 18 months.

In Kentucky, where the inmate population had been soaring, even some murderers and other violent offenders are benefiting from a temporary cost-saving program that has granted early release to nearly 2,000 inmates.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine is proposing early release of about 1,000 inmates. New York Gov. David Paterson wants early release for 1,600 inmates as well as an overhaul of the so-called Rockefeller Drug Laws that impose lengthy mandatory sentences on many nonviolent drug offenders.

Here’s an idea: how about you stop arresting so many of those non-violent drug offenders in the first place?  Based on the numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2007:

• California arrested 289,449 people for drugs
• Kentucky arrested 11,883 people for drugs
• Virginia arrested 32,941 people for drugs
• New York arrested 61,163 people for drugs

Now if it is too scary to think about not arresting the users of all illegal drugs, let’s narrow it down to cannabis.  The FBI didn’t give me state-level breakdowns of cannabis arrests, but nationwide cannabis accounts for 47% of all drug arrests.  For the four states mentioned, that’s 185,854 cannabis arrests, and since 89% of those are possession-only arrests, that’s 165,410 otherwise law-abiding pot smokers arrested – not growers, traffickers, or dealers, just tokers.

To be fair, most of these 165,410 don’t spend much more than their booking time in a jail.  But it still takes time, money, and space to prosecute them and that begins to add up.  If these four states mentioned just taxed and regulated cannabis like Jagermeister, combined they’d raise $1.9 billion every year.  That wouldn’t completely solve these states’ budget crises, but it sure would keep a few more actual criminals behind bars.