Cal. State Sen. Bob Dutton has this article at the FlashReport on one of the myths in the current California prison debate -- we can easily save buckets of money by releasing the scads of prisoners who have one foot in the grave and are no threat to anyone. Turns out the Department of Finance asked the federal receiver that a while ago, and -- you guessed it -- there aren't scads. There aren't enough such prisoners to have any significant budget impact. The memo is here.

BTW, while releasing a hospitalized prisoner might save the corrections budget some money, it would not save the overall government budget much. The hospital cost will still be borne by the taxpayer, just out of a different pot.