Lieu sent a letter to Matthew Cate, secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, "demanding that CDCR stop misleading the public."

"In my over 15 years of public service, including serving on active duty to defend our country, I have never before seen this scale of deception and misleading statements being made by a California governmental agency to the media," said Lieu, D-Torrance.

The Corrections Department enacted a cost-saving effort on Monday, reducing its 170,000-inmate system by 6,500 inmates. A law passed late last year also calls for lifting the supervision of thousands of parolees, including about 7,700 in Los Angeles County.

State officials have defended the move, touting what they called improvements to the parole and corrections systems that will allow them to focus on the most dangerous offenders.

But Lieu and other critics say the state is putting a too-positive spin on the program and making false statements about some of its details.

For example, state officials said inmate releases were not imminent. But Lieu said under the new law's rules on credits, local counties have begun making early releases from their jails, including at least 260 inmates released in San Diego.

He also complained that statements about increased supervision of parolees were inaccurate, as were predictions of lowered crime rates.

But in a letter to Lieu, Cate stood behind those comments, saying the legislation will not result in the "immediate release of thousands of state prisoners."

Instead, he said, the releases will be made gradually under "proposals that are smart on crime" and following guidelines by expert panels.

"While this legislation does reward inmates who earn a GED or learn a trade with up to six weeks of additional sentencing credits, it will also reduce the likelihood of future criminality," Cate wrote. "Our communities are safer as a result of this legislation. We stand behind that belief unequivocally."

Lieu wrote that rehabilitation services and incentives in prisons were largely eliminated, not expanded, as part of the law.

The CDCR described the new law as a "landmark achievement" because it provided incentives for inmates to get a GED, learn a trade, get clean and sober - thus reducing recidivism and and crime, Lieu wrote.

But he noted that the state already had incentives for those improvements and the new law lessens requirements for rehabilitation while cutting staff and funding for rehab programs. The law also states that for every six months of incarceration, a prisoner's sentence is reduced by six months.

Cate said he agrees with the state's elected officials that California can no longer afford to use short-term prison stints of three to four months to punish low-risk parole violators.

"This administration is rightfully redirecting some of those resources to better supervise our dangerous parolees and better train our parole agents, over and beyond the legislation itself," Cate wrote.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich also criticized the new law, citing a Harvard University study that found that releasing criminals costs more in the long run as they commit additional crimes and are rearrested, retried and re-sentenced.

The study found that for each criminal locked up, there is a reduction of between five and six reported crimes.

"Putting criminals back into our communities is an irresponsible and reckless way to balance the state's budget," Antonovich said.