…Details are sketchy, and even the first steps will take months or years to complete. They include reviewing the federal government's contracts with more than 350 local jails and private prisons, with an eye toward consolidating many detainees in places more suitable for noncriminals facing deportation — some possibly in centers built and run by the government.

The plan aims to establish more centralized authority over the system, which holds about 400,000 immigration detainees over the course of a year, and more direct oversight of detention centers that have come under fire for mistreatment of detainees and substandard — sometimes fatal — medical care.

One move starts immediately: The government will stop sending families to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former state prison near Austin, Texas, that drew an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit and scathing news coverage for putting young children behind razor wire…

A federal court order demanding that California reduce its prison population by 40,591 would hit the Sacramento region harder than most places because so many local residents are incarcerated, according to a Bee review of prison data.

Counties send criminals to state prison at dramatically different rates, state figures show. In San Francisco County, for instance, two of every 1,000 residents are in state custody; in Yuba County, it's eight of every 1,000 residents – one of the highest rates in the state.

Upon release, the state typically returns inmates to their home counties, in fact, that often is a condition of parole…

Nearly 400 state prisoners eventually could return to Shasta County after three federal judges this week ruled to release a quarter of California's inmates.

Saying overcrowding and poor health care at the state's 33 adult prisons violated inmates' constitutional rights, the judges Tuesday gave prison officials 45 days to free some 40,000 of the state's nearly 150,000 inmates.

About 8,000 additional inmates have been sent to prisons in other states, while nearly 10,000 more are in conservation camps and community correctional facilities…

When the Legislature reconvenes later this month, lawmakers will debate Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's controversial plan to release 27,000 low- and moderate-risk inmates early as part of a cost-cutting measure that could save the state $1.2 billion over the next three years.

And that could just be the beginning. On Tuesday, a panel of three federal judges ruled that the state must reduce California's burgeoning prison population by 43,000 inmates. The ruling was based on a lawsuit filed by inmates complaining that overcrowding led to dangerous health conditions. Some prisons in San Diego, Chino and Shasta have already begun releasing inmates, including some convicted of weapons charges.

Today, the murder of Lily Burk — a 17-year-old high school senior with a promising future — has poured proverbial gasoline on the fiery debate, strengthening the hand of some law enforcement groups and officials who urge the governor's office to reconsider the proposals for public safety reasons. Others, such as the California Police Chiefs Association, have expressed more openness to the prison population reduction program, but are waiting to see its final details….

Police on Wednesday were looking for a parolee who they say led them on a car chase a day earlier through parts of Fremont and Newark before driving the wrong way on Interstate 880 to evade officers.

Authorities were looking for Hayward resident Santiago Ornelas, 33, a parolee thought to be armed with a gun and carrying drugs Tuesday in Fremont's Cabrillo neighborhood, police spokesman Detective Bill Veteran said.

The Fremont Police Department's Street Crimes Unit received information Tuesday afternoon that Ornelas was violating his parole by carrying the contraband and that he was driving a maroon 1992 Mitsubishi Eclipse, Veteran said….

An inmate at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville died Tuesday after a fight with his cellmate.

Nexter Sedillo, 50, and his cellmate fought at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations spokeswoman Terry Thornton said.

Medical staff responded but Sedillo was pronounced dead at 12:59 p.m., Thornton said…

The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved a bill to allow jailors to jam cell phone connections inside prisons.

Recent high-profile cases of contraband cell phones in prisons, coupled with the buzz over cell-jamming legislation, is helping spur a new market for wireless companies and intelligence contractors bent on stopping inmate cell phone use.

The bill, sponsored by the committee's ranking Republican, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, allows prisons to petition the Federal Communications Commission to use cell phone-jamming devices as long as they don't cause interference with bona fide communications…

The proposed early release of 44,000 prisoners from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation would be " … very, very devastating to law enforcement on both the state and local level."

That's a quote from Sonora Police Chief Mark Stinson who adds, "This will have a major impact on the local level because we are already struggling to provide the basic services without the influx of convicted criminals coming back into our community early. We're going to be really stuck supervising these individuals. Of course, the individuals who reoffend is astounding (70 percent). We're looking at these individuals returning to our community and then continuing to commit crimes in our community which we're left to have to deal once again and pick up the pieces of the state's broken system."

Stinson adds that given the current economic downturn it will be difficult for ex-convicts to secure employment. Many of them, he says, will simply return to what they know best, a life of crime…

It is shocking that in order to save the state money, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other elected officials are contemplating a massive early release of prison inmates, the elimination of parole supervision for released prisoners, and a refusal to return inmates who violate parole to prison.

We can prove, both anecdotally and by extensive studies, that this plan will increase crime and make victims out of many innocent Californians.

For a single anecdotal case epitomizing the danger of the governor's plan, look no further than the tragic murder last month of 17-year-old Lily Burk. The accused murderer, Charlie Samuel, is a poster child for the failings of the governor's plan…

The dominant cultural trait of the state Capitol is procrastination, a chronic tendency to deny reality as long as possible and thus avoid the political consequences of facing it.

That's why we have a perpetual state budget crisis, why we're on the brink of a calamitous water supply shortage, why public education is in turmoil, why our highways are congested and potholed, and, lastly, why we have a prison system with twice as many inmates as it was designed to handle.

These aren't sudden, unavoidable accidents. They are conditions that voters and officeholders allowed to fester despite multiple warnings, proof of a broken political system…