More than 3,000 Washington Prisoners Mistakenly Freed Early

More than 3,000 prisoners in Washington have been mistakenly released early since 2002 because of an error by the state's Department of Corrections that resulted in wrongly calculated sentences for about 3 percent of the prison population.

At a news conference announcing the error Tuesday, Gov. Jay Inslee said he has ordered immediate steps to correct the longstanding computer glitch.

"Frankly, it is maddening," Inslee said.

Authorities say a July 2002 state Supreme Court ruling required the Corrections Department to apply good-behavior credits earned in county jail to state prison sentences. However, the programming fix ended up giving prisoners with sentencing enhancements too much so-called good time credit.

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