Granting prisoners early release credits for “continuous incarceration” is a win-win policy according to proponents of SB18XXX who claim the proposal will save money while improving the morale of lazy inmates. The idea of rewarding prisoners for doing nothing is not new and has long been advocated by the same legislators who support social promotion for public school students with failing grades. In fact the failing student population and the prison inmate population substantially overlap.
In fact, SB 18XXX, strikes the following words from the existing law: “Worktime credits shall apply for performance in work assignments and performance in elementary, Under current law, a convicted felon can earn early release credits as follows: “For every six months of full-time performance in a credit qualifying program, as designated by the director, a prisoner shall be awarded work time credit reductions from his or her term of confinement of six months.”
Accordingly, a felon newly convicted of carrying a loaded firearm while selling methamphetamine could be sentenced to four years in prison and released in two years by participating and earning credits in a full time education or work program
Under SB 18XXX, the words “full-time performance in a credit qualifying program” and “work time” are stricken and the words “continuous incarceration” are substituted, so the sentence would read: “For every six months of continuous incarceration, a prisoner shall be awarded credit reductions from his or her term of confinement of six months.”
Under this new standard the drug pushing felon with the firearm would be rewarded with one day of early release credit for every day of “continuous incarceration.” While “continuous incarceration” is not quite as great an accomplishment as earning a GED or learning a trade, proponents of SB 18XXX apparently reason that denying credits hurts inmate self esteem and that most inmates did after all work hard (average of five felony convictions) to get into prison.
It is noteworthy that the vision of California’s leadership is not shared by legislators in many other states or even in the often dysfunctional District of Colombia where educational good time credits are earned for performance and “shall not be awarded until completion of the academic or vocational program.”