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Not freeing inmates on time said costly
STORY TOOLS 
More from StateHundreds of inmates aren't getting the early releases they earned through good behavior and working in prison, costing the state millions in housing costs and legal settlements, according to a report Sunday.
Offenders were to remain in prison longer than they deserved in more than half of the 679 inmate cases sampled last year by state investigators, according to records obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Fifty-nine prisoners were released after serving a total of 20 years too many, an average of four months each.
"They just did what they wanted to do at the Department of Corrections," said Nicholas Shearin, 38, of Hawthorne, who received less than a third of the good behavior credit he was due and was released eight months later than he should have been.
The state paid $468,280 in legal settlements from 2000 to 2004 to prisoners who weren't released on time, according to a 2006 report published by California State University, Sacramento.
Researchers also projected that for 354 inmate cases reviewed last year, the state would have saved $2.3 million in housing costs if all had been released on time.
Failing to correct the errors could cost the state more than $110 million more in the next 15 years, researchers said.
Posted by Morris1 on February 19, 2008 at 3:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm pretty tired of hearing that they don't have the staff. That is not the problem of the inmates. There needs to be a huge class action suit against the State and CCPOA for this mess. Keeping people incarcerated beyond their sentence is illegal. There are no excuses! ACLU, Prison Law Offices, Taxpayers Insuring Public Safety, get with it. File it and take them down. This kind of shoddy management by this state is unacceptable.
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