Prison director says budget cuts would force release of 2,500 prisoners

Prison officials said Friday if lawmakers don't pass tax increases proposed in Gov. Kenny Guinn's, they would have to release up to 2,500 inmates and eliminate all education and literacy programs in the prison system.

Director of Corrections Jackie Crawford said her department's share of the proposed $1 billion increase in revenues would come to about $27 million a year.

"We would have to release 2,493 minimum custody inmates to informal parole," she said. "All minimum-custody programs would be closed, education and literacy programs cut and legislation passed to prevent them from coming back to prison for parole violations."

She said it would mean 301 staff eliminated -- including several in mental-health programs the state is mandated to provide under a federal court order.

"This is not a threat, it is an impact," she told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday.

"You would break the back of our department. This would place the department and the public at risk."

Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, said he and other lawmakers are concerned about the situation but are facing pressure from residents who don't want the tax increases proposed by Guinn.

Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, asked how many minimum-security inmates in the system's conservation camps could be released without jeopardizing public safety.

"I'm not comfortable with any of this," said Deputy Director Glen Whorton. "This is something we do not want to do."

He said he can't confidently predict it would be safe to release any of those inmates

"Anybody who says they can predict the behavior of an individual is either lying to you or a fool," Whorton said.

Parole and Probation Director Amy Wright said putting that many inmates on the street would force her department to seek budget increases. She said probation and parole's budget was built on projections that the caseload of 11,400 would grow slowly. Emptying the state's minimum-security prisons onto the street would increase that by 20 percent.

"It would be a substantial increase in personnel, equipment and training," she said.

Crawford has not yet presented the projections to the committees that review her budgets.