SACRAMENTO — Already bulging with inmates wedged into gyms and hallways, California prisons must make room for 23,000 more felons over the next five years, according to new projections that are forcing managers to explore still more unusual options -- even tents -- to house bunks.
The forecast, which outlines much steeper growth than numbers released just six months ago, predicts enough new convicts to fill five prisons. California would have more than 193,000 inmates by 2011.
The growth is being driven by increases in new prison admissions and by parolees who either commit new crimes or violate the terms of their release and are re-incarcerated for short stays.
Though a recent report showed a decline in California's recidivism rate, officials said the state's overall population expansion inevitably means more people breaking the law.
The crowding is intensifying during a time of management turmoil. This week, the acting corrections secretary quit -- the second top official in two months to leave amid concerns about the guard union's influence over prison management.
On Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named a temporary replacement who told reporters that crowded conditions were a safety hazard and were among his top concerns.
In January, Schwarzenegger proposed building 83,000 more cells -- some in county jails, some in state lockups -- with bond sales totaling $13.1 billion. But that idea, part of his sweeping public works plan, stalled in the Legislature, and corrections officials are scrambling to create bed space.
Already, they say, most of the state's 33 prisons are at twice their intended capacity, jammed with about 170,000 people -- enough to fill the Rose Bowl more than two times over.
"Legally, we don't have the ability to say there's no room at the inn," said John Dovey, chief of adult institutions for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. "And every week the population keeps going up."
Last fall, Dovey wrote a memo to the corrections secretary warning of a "population crisis" in the prisons.
"We believe that an imminent and substantial threat to the public safety exists requiring immediate action," he wrote.
Since then, 3,970 more convicts have arrived, and officers who walk the tiers say tensions are alarmingly high.
The cost of housing the growing numbers is also straining the $8.2-billion corrections budget, already taxed by rising medical and mental healthcare costs.
