There's never been a better time to go on a crime spree in California. To cut the state's $20 billion budget deficit, under a proposed plan convicted felons can be released on parole with no supervision. Not a bad idea!

According to the AP, "restrictions have been relaxed for nonviolent criminals like burglars, drug offenders and fraudsters" — meaning its time to get dust off those digital scales and crowbars and get to work.

The proposed law will benefit some, like Eric Susie, who, according to the Times, "recently had his parole terms readjusted under the new law. Mr. Susie had served 13 months in prison for possessing an M-80 firecracker wrapped with razors near a school (he argued, unsuccessfully, that it belonged to a friend)." No big deal, just a prankster with a friend's low-grade explosives and razor blades near a school. Relax!

Fiscally responsible Gov. Schwarzenegger backs the plan, but Cmdr. Todd Rogers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department told the AP that "it's a pretty significant concern from the public safety standpoint. There's a really good chance these guys are going to go out and caper again." What, a convicted felon, released early and left totally unsupervised, might go out and break the law again? That never happens.

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