Nevada lawmakers question prison director's statements

A Nevada lawmaker is questioning claims that the state's financial crisis could force the release of nearly a quarter of Nevada's prison inmates.

Sen. Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, challenged the statements in asking state Parole Board Chairwoman Dorla Salling on Wednesday whether she was asked by prison officials to prepare for a sudden surge in parole hearings.

"As it stands now, they have to be eligible for parole to be paroled," Salling said during a budget subcommittee hearing. "They would have to come through us and we would have to grant them parole."

Salling said the Parole Board's first priority is public safety and would not parole someone prematurely.

Glen Whorton, the prison system's assistant director for operations, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday that the state could be forced to release the inmates if the Legislature decides to cut Gov. Kenny Guinn's $4.81 billion two-year spending plan.

Whorton said that deep budget cuts would force the release of about 2,500 inmates. That's out of a total inmate population of just over 10,300.

Whorton said the inmates would come from minimum-security facilities, such as work camps, where most of the inmates are serving sentences for drug, property or drunken-driving offenses.

But Salling said she had not been told to expect an influx of people, and anyone being released from prison before the expiration of their sentence would have to go through the Parole Board.

Tiffany said the threat to release prison inmates demonstrates the department's frustration of dealing with a tight budget.

"I think that (Corrections Director Jackie Crawford's) concerned because of the budget cycle. And I also think that it's probably not reality to throw around those kinds of numbers, but the governor was doing the same thing," Tiffany said. "I think it was over-exaggerated to make a point, but I think she does have a point to be made."

Tiffany said the threat was not a push for Gov. Kenny Guinn's tax proposal, but rather a tactic to help ensure the department's budget is flush. She also said there should be enough money to go around.

"There's money that can be redistributed. There's money that can be reallocated because some of our budgets had as high as a 15 percent to 50 percent increase," Tiffany said. "So I don't think it was a cry about taxes. I think it was a concern for her department."