By James Koh FOX 5 San Diego Reporter

9:24 p.m. PDT, November 2, 2011

SANTEE, Calif. - To solve the inmate overpopulation problem in California, a state assemblyman from Santee said he wants to explore using tax dollars to build prisons on international soil.

With more than 27,000 illegal immigrant inmates, Assemblyman Brian Jones (R-Santee) said it could be more cost effective to build penitentiaries on foreign soil and deporting those inmates to their respective countries.  

"It might just be less expensive for us to build prisons in their home countries and keep them there and let their home country take care of them," Jones said.   "The genesis of this idea is my frustration with our state government on solving our overpopulation problem in the prisons."

Jones said the idea started as just a flippant comment but has seemed to gain popularity despite the fact he has not had a chance to explore how feasible or accurate his idea is.

"This idea was more hyperbole but to my surprise it's caught on and gotten national attention," Jones said.  "I presented it as a wild idea and then found out maybe it's not so wild."

By the end of 2010, California prisons held about 163,000 inmates, according to a report by the Public Policy Institute of California.  The report went on to say "California penal institutions are operating at 175 percent of their design capacity."

The state penitentiaries are so overcrowded the US Supreme Court has ordered California to release more than 30,000 inmates.  

The Government Accountability Office reported that in 2008 California incarcerated approximately 27,000 inmates who were illegal immigrants.  

"The more realistic solution is building prisons in other states like Nevada and Arizona where we can build them cheaper than in California," Jones said.  

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in California was budgeted approximately $9 billion this year, about 7 percent of the entire budget.

The assemblyman said that while his idea is interesting and a conversation starter he admitted he hasn't fleshed out the details to his plan quite yet.

"The next step is to answer those questions: is it more cost effective, is it legal, and is it possible?" Jones said.

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