LOS ANGELES, March 14 (Xinhua) -- California are juggling 171,000 prisoners in a system built for fewer than half that many inmates, a newspaper report said on Saturday.

    Grappling with such severe overcrowding, California prison officials are considering shifting more long-term inmates to the only state prison in Los Angeles County, according to the local newspaper Antelope Valley Press.

    But that possibility has worried officials that additional permanent inmates living there would mean their relatives would flock to the area, bringing gang members and unsavory people to an area hard-hit by the recession, the paper said.

    A state senator has asked the California Department of Corrections to reconsider its plan to house more long-term inmates at the California State Prison-Los Angeles County.

    The shift of large numbers of long-term prisoners "would dramatically harm the quality of life for those on my community," said state Senator George Runner in a letter to prison officials quoted by the newspaper.

    Currently, two thirds of the 4,800 prisoners at the prison in the Antelope Valley are "reception inmates" who are evaluated and then sent on to other prisons in the state. That policy was instituted several years ago at the request of Antelope Valley elected officials, who said the prison was attracting family members who included a large number of gang members and criminals.

    "If you have long-term housing, especially for higher-need inmates, you have visitors coming up here," said Lancaster Vice Mayor Ron Smith, in an interview with the Antelope Valley Press. "You have visitors coming up here, you have people actually move up here," he said.

    "You get a bunch of gangsters coming up here to visit their friends in prison -- on the way back, are they going to commit some crimes?" he asked.

    Runner told the newspaper the plan "would attract gang members and other unsavory elements to a community already hurt by drastically fallen housing prices and a depressed rental market."