The emergency proclamation speeds things up by allowing the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to avoid the competitive bidding process.  In fact, Secretary Jim Tilton says they’re already poised to sign contracts to send 22-hundred inmates to private prisons in Oklahoma, Arizona, Tennessee and Indiana.  He says it will be cheaper than housing them in California prisons.  Tilton says surveys done last month showed that 19-thousand inmates were interested in a transfer.

“If I was living in a gym with 240 other individuals and had no program then I’d probably raise my hand also to get out of that environment to get into a safe environment and to get some programming.”

The proclamation also allows Tilton to send inmates out of state involuntarily, if not enough volunteer to go.  He says his goal is to send five-thousand inmates out of state.