Error Message: California Computer Errors Release 1000 Violent Offenders

The Coming California Apocalypse

The sound and the fury in the wake of the Supremes decision in Brown v. Plata on California Prison overcrowding was probably provoked by 'Nino's "judicial travesty" language which went on to warn of the coming apocalypse of bad-things when hordes of violent criminals are freed to roam the streets and do untold horrors.  It's actually kind of comforting to know that contrary to the belief that a single Supreme Court decision will unleash these dangerous offenders, the State of California accomplishes this nightmare the old fashioned way: computer error.  That's right, this is Jack Dolan's article for the LA Times:

"Computer errors prompted California prison officials to mistakenly release an estimated 450 inmates with "a high risk for violence" as unsupervised parolees in a program meant to ease overcrowding, according to the state's inspector general.  More than 1,000 additional prisoners presenting a high risk of committing drug crimes, property crimes and other offenses were also let out, officials said.

No attempt was made to return any of the offenders to state lockups or place them on supervised parole, said inspector general spokeswoman Renee Hansen.  All of the prisoners were placed on 'non-revocable parole,' whose participants are not required to report to parole officers and can be sent back to prison only if caught committing a crime. The program was started in January 2010 for inmates judged to be at very low risk of reoffending, leaving parole agents free to focus on supervising higher-risk parolees.

The revelations come two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California's prisons are dangerously overcrowded and upheld an earlier order that state officials find a way to reduce the 143,335-inmate population by roughly 33,000. The state has two years to comply."
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Good job, California! 

The taxpayers have so much to be grateful for when they think about their public employees.  This is after all the same state that has Silicon Valley, right?