California's plan to release nonviolent female inmates, most of them mothers, is long overdue.

The plan, which went into effect this week, grew out of legislation signed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It will save taxpayers an estimated $6 million this year, help California comply with court orders to relieve overcrowding in state lockups, and reunite women prisoners with their children.

More than 4,000 female inmates in California are potentially eligible for the alternative custody program.

This is not a "get-out-of-jail-free card," as some critics have termed it. The women will not be dumped into communities. They still will be under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

But instead of prison, they will serve their sentences in their own homes. They will be assigned parole officers, wear electronic monitoring devices and be required to abide by strict curfews.

The criteria for eligibility for alternative custody are strict. Women inmates can have no violent, serious or sex-related convictions. They must undergo assessments to determine whether they are suitable candidates for release into the community and have behaved themselves in prison. Most importantly, they must have some place safe and stable to go, and must enroll in drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, school or job training, or find work.

Because the state is not investing a dime into alternative sentencing programs, this last requirement will be hard to achieve.

Two inmates who had been prescreened for release were unable to secure suitable home placements. In one case, the father in the home had a gun collection that he was unwilling to give up. In the other, the mother didn't want her daughter back in the home.

While the Brown administration estimates 500 women inmates a year will be released into the alternative custody program, these early failures suggest that reaching that goal will not be easy. No women have been released so far.

The effort, nonetheless, is worthwhile. California's female inmate population has soared, climbing from just over 1,100 in 1978 to more than 9,500 today. More than half the women in prison have children.

Because many prisons are so remote, most women locked up never receive visitors. Parent-child relationships deteriorate. Children of incarcerated mothers often are lost in the dysfunctional foster care system. Studies consistently show that women who maintain contact with their children are less likely to return to prison.

The goal of the alternative sentencing program is to lower recidivism, encourage community and family involvement, hold fewer children in the child welfare system and reduce the likelihood that an inmate's children will embark on a life of crime.

Women felons are more likely to achieve those goals if they can serve their time at home, rather than locked behind expensive prison bars.

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