Lawmakers Visit Prison Voluntarily, Nobody Shanked

Be scared. Be very scared.

That's the message from the Assembly’s Republicans, who journeyed to suburban Folsom this morning to launch a "Keep Californians Safe" tour of the state's overcrowded prisons. With the famous gray tower of Folsom’s old lock-up forming an ominous backdrop, 27 GOP lawmakers lined up behind their leader, Assemblyman Mike Villines of Clovis, and accused Democrats of wanting to let bad guys out early.

"We are sick and tired of hearing our Democratic colleagues underestimate the dangerousness behind us," said Assemblyman Todd Spitzer of Orange, referring to the 4,000 felons eating lunch just over the prison’s stone walls.

"I personally want people to be scared," Spitzer added a bit later, "because that’s going to motivate people to act."

Villines said the prison tour, which runs through March and will take delegates to seven sites, was designed as part fact-finding mission and part communication device. He wants to highlight the depths of the overcrowding mess and stir talk of solutions inside the statehouse.

"This crisis isn't impending, it's here," Villines said of the overcrowding, which has prompted federal judges to consider a cap on the 172,000-inmate population.

Agreement on a remedy, however, may prove elusive. Democrats are pushing an independent criminal sentencing commission with the authority to impose changes unless the Legislature votes them down.

Republicans today greeted that idea with a strong nyet, calling it a stealth campaign by liberals who want "low-level" offenders set free. The GOP’s solution? Build more cells, house our prisoners in other states, or maybe create space for cons by retrofitting some unused state buildings.

Meanwhile, the inmates keep coming, busload after busload. It's enough to make one hum that old Johnny Cash tune … "Folsom Prison Blues." - Jenifer Warren, Times Staff Writer

(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP; AP file of Calif. State Prison L.A.)