Re "Have parole agencies learned from Garrido?" (Editorials, July 16):

The Bee's editorial spoke to the pathetic lapses in parole supervision. Unfortunately supervision is just one part of the process. While parolee supervision stays in the news – a state prison parolee who had his ankle monitor removed by his parole agent in an attempt to save money was involved in a home invasion and shootout in a Rancho Cordova neighborhood – the real issue is the lack of rehabilitation for our inmate population. Is this a harbinger of things to come under Assembly Bill 109, the new state law that transfers parolee supervision to California's counties?

The trials and tribulations of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Its missteps and its continuation of failed parole policies have cost state government and particularly CDCR the support of the electorate.

Every day, unprepared inmates are returned on parole to California's cities and counties. These individuals have no marketable skills, hence any thought that they might become taxpayers instead of "tax consumers" is truly laughable.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision on early releases of some 30,000 inmates has recently been issued. California will soon be overrun by released lawbreakers who have no skills save their criminal ones. In Sacramento County, some 4,000 inmates are released on parole every year – coupled with serious budget and position reductions on the horizon for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department and Sacramento Police Department this potential flood of ex-offenders could be devastating.

In March, the inspector general of Sacramento County issued a critical report on California's prison and parole system. He suggested reforms to parole that would save millions of dollars a year, while at the same time increasing tax revenue by training and putting parolees to work at livable wage jobs. On April 26, a lawsuit was filed in federal court in Oakland, which seeks to turn the corrections department on its head. The suit, Wheat v. California, would establish another federal court receivership, this time for the embattled and much-criticized CDCR Division of Adult Parole Operations.

Using a court-mandated receivership or a "parole czar" to require solid "inside-outside" vocational training curriculums, which can be started while a parolee is still a state prison inmate, and then finished after they are paroled, will work. As with all vocational training graduates, parolees will then have help with job placement.

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Robert Presley, left, is a former state senator, former secretary of the California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, and a former undersheriff for Riverside County. Larry Bowler is a former state assemblyman and retired Sacramento County sheriff's lieutenant.