WKRN, Nashville, Tennessee News, Weather, and Sports |Victims' rights advocate calls early release 'scary'
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Many people voiced their opinion Tuesday in response to the possible early release of 4,000 state inmates.
The idea was floated Monday as part of a way to help reduce spending and cut the state budget.
While Tennessee Correction Commissioner George Little said the idea of early release is not a scare tactic, Verna Wyatt, a victims' rights advocate and executive director of You Have the Power, called it simply "scary."
"It's scary because not every person that is incarcerated is at the point where they need to be released," said Wyatt, who is often on the inside of prisons, working with inmates.
She said she sympathizes with the correction department's dilemma.
"All the [state] departments have cut out the fat, now they have to look at some really hard things, and what the department has left is to release beds," said Wyatt Tuesday after leading a class at a Metro detention facility off Harding Place.
She and others familiar with the prison system say inmates often show up again in jail after they have initially been released and programs to help them break the cycle could also be cut.
"If you read through these crimes, they say they were drunk or high, clearly if we have to get individuals out before they are ready to go, that would adversely affect public safety," Little said after Monday's budget hearings.
Wyatt argues that some inmates may not fare as well on the outside in the current economy.
"If we are going to turn people out on the streets, they are going to be in the employment line behind people who don't have felonies, so I think we are setting those people up for immediate failure," she added.
Wyatt became a victims' rights advocate after her own family was touched by murder and rape.
"I personally would rather be driving my car and fall into a pot hole than worry about my children being victimized," she said.
State lawmakers will decide what goes and what stays in their upcoming session that begins in January.
The next fiscal year begins July 1, 2010.
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