Panel to examine California prison system

United Press International
March 6, 2004 Saturday

SACRAMENTO

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed former Gov. George
Deukmejian, a fellow-Republican, to lead a panel on the state’s
prisons.

The panel will recommend short- and long-term fixes of the youth and
adult penal system recently described in reports as racked with
corruption and mismanagement, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

“Go find out how to make this the best system in the country,”
Schwarzenegger said Friday, according to one panel member.

Last month, state-hired experts described the California Youth
Authority, which oversees teenage offenders, as a decrepit, violent
system.

Besides examining personnel, training, discipline, structure and
ethics, the panel will consider whether to close some facilities.

Deukmejian served as California’s governor from 1983 to 1991, during
which time the number of prisons doubled and the number of convicts
rose from 40,000 to more than 100,000.