It’s a little difficult to cut through the Washington Times’ scare-story, but here goes: as part of his budget proposal, Mayor Fenty has proposed extending an already-existing program in fiscal 2010, which would allow more of D.C.’s prisoners to earn nominal sentence reductions (think days, not months) in exchange for volunteering for work details, exhibiting good behavior, and completing various educational and vocational programs. An expanded early-release program, which Fenty estimates could save the cash-strapped District around $4 million, is certainly an initiative worth serious consideration and debate — Virginia, for instance, has been going back and forth on a similarly-motivated program for quite some time now — but it’s certainly not a manic rush to release violent murderers and rapists, as the Times’ wildly inflated “80 percent of the city’s inmates” lede suggests. Quite the contrary: the program is mostly closed to inmates serving time for violent crimes. D.C. Department of Corrections Director Devon Brown also noted that interested inmates would be required to participate in qualifying activities for one month before they became eligible to earn reduction credits. Hmm, encouraging convicted offenders to engage in productive behaviors involving increasing education and getting jobs — isn’t this kinda the point of incarceration?