For Immediate Release

Los Angeles, July 9, 2009 – Granting early releases to inmates serving time for parole violations is a shortsighted, counterproductive budget balancing maneuver that threatens to undermine progress made in reducing Los Angeles’ crime rate, the President of Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) said today.

“We are alarmed by reports that the state is turning to a prisoner release program to deal with overcrowding and a fiscal crisis,” said Paul M. Weber.

“As we have been saying since we first learned that early releases were on the table, public safety must be the top priority of lawmakers. There are real life-and-death consequences to putting dangerous criminals back out on the streets, and we are adamantly opposed to jeopardizing the safety of our communities for negligible savings. We urge the state to reconsider its actions and rescind this dangerous public policy.”

Weber repeated the LAPPL’s call for the governor and state legislators to “come up with other cost-savings ideas that do not endanger communities and threaten the public safety that officers across the state have worked so hard to achieve."

In a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger publically released on May 5, 2009, Weber wrote: “When a person is sent to prison, it is because they have demonstrated by their recent crime – or a life of crime – that they are a danger to the community. If they were truly ‘low risk’ they would not have landed in prison. Labeling them as such, and releasing them on parole, doesn’t change that fact.”

About the LAPPL Formed in 1923, the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) represents the more than 9,800 dedicated and professional sworn members of the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPPL serves to advance the interests of LAPD officers through legislative and legal advocacy, political action and education. The LAPPL can be found on the Web at www.LAPD.com