A corrections reform group Monday recommended the state close four prisons -- and not open one in Delano -- and reduce the inmate population by thousands, then shift the savings to rehabilitation and other programs.

The recommendations come a month after California Department of Corrections officials declared a prison-crowding emergency and began triple-bunking prisoners at five facilities.

Members of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, which includes longtime critics of the CDC, said the prisons they want closed are expensive, plagued with human rights abuses and are falling apart.

They said California imprisons too many people and doesn't need Delano II, which is costing more than $700 million to build and will cost $100 million a year to operate.

The facility, down the street from North Kern State Prison, is expected to open next spring.

"It's not needed, the state can't afford it and the people of California have said over and over they don't want it," said Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a professor at the University of Southern California.

Corrections officials said the state desperately needs all of its existing prisons and Delano II due to an unexpected increase in inmates.

California particularly needs space for Level 4 inmates -- the most serious offenders, they said. Delano II will predominantly house Level 4 prisoners.

"We have dangerous levels of overcrowding in prisons," said CDC spokeswoman Terry Thornton. "Delano II is expected to help alleviate that."

Recent years' projections that the inmate population will shrink "are not panning out," Thornton said.

As of Monday there were 162,476 inmates in the prison system, 2,798 more than the same time last year.

One reason is an influx of about 1,200 unexpected inmates from counties that can't afford to keep them in their jails, according to the CDC. Arrests and convictions are up, Thornton said.

For example, North Kern State Prison in Delano, a "reception center," is seeing a big uptick in inmates from Los Angeles County, officials said.

Members of Californians United for a Responsible Budget said one big problem is that California incarcerates too many people for too long.

Those include people sent back to prison for "frivolous" reasons, inmates not paroled when eligible and criminals sentenced to life for a third-strike crime that was not violent.

Thornton said judges, not the CDC, make sentencing decisions.

To boot, the CDC critics said, California has woefully inadequate educational and substance-abuse programs for prisoners and released criminals.

Joe Morales of the Delano-based Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment said corrections savings should be diverted to rehabilitation efforts, public education in general and economic development programs.

"Prisons are not providing jobs for the local community here," Morales said of Delano. "Most of the guards ... come out of Bakersfield, Visalia. They don't live here. They don't shop here. Adding another prison is going to worsen things in this area."

Californians United for a Responsible Budget urged the shuttering of Pelican Bay State Prison, Folsom State Prison, Valley State Prison for Women and California Correctional Center, Susanville. Together they cost nearly $411 million to run, the group said.

Already, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is working to cut $400 million from the corrections department to deal with the state's budget deficit.

Kern County also has state prisons in Tehachapi and Wasco.