CA: The pandering pair - When all else fails, build more prisons

Sac Bee ^ | 7/11/06 | Editorial

[NormsRevenge]

Just when you thought California's 20-year prison construction boom was over, here comes another election season. Gubernatorial candidates Arnold Schwarzenegger and Phil Angelides are falling over each other to launch a new era of prison construction. This is bipartisan, equal opportunity pandering and fear mongering, with an obvious impetus. The prison guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), has $10 million to spend to help or defeat a candidate for governor.

How obvious is this link? Schwarzenegger recently told The Bee editorial board that Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez, a card-carrying member of the CCPOA, would be handling his prison bill.

Unlike the rest of his infrastructure package, Schwarzenegger intends to bypass voters to pay for his prison-building plan with revenue-payment bonds that don't require a vote of the people. The reason: The governor and legislators know that it will be tough to sell the public on paying to build more prisons.

Angelides has't said how he would pay for his plan.

But the main issue isn't financing. The main issue is that building more state prisons is the wrong way to fix California's prison system.

The last two decades should make clear that the problem isn't too few cells. In a little more than 20 years, California built 22 new prisons, beginning with California State Prison, Solano, in 1984, and ending with Kern State Valley Prison in Delano, which opened in June 2005.

Experts predicted that the end of the construction era would give California the opportunity to concentrate on actually "correcting" prisoners -- and not just warehousing them -- thus getting its terrible parole failure rate under control.

--snip--

Schwarzenegger has called a special legislative session for Aug. 7. He wants lawmakers to authorize the building of two new prisons. ...

[GVnana]

the end of the construction era would give California the opportunity to concentrate on actually "correcting" prisoners

Not a chance.

[Ben Mugged]

Step 1) Identify prisoners in state prison who are in this country illegally (estimated at 55%)
Step 2) Transfer these prisoners to federal prison where they belong

Problem solved.

[calcowgirl]

The corrections budget took 4.3 percent of the state's general fund in 1985-86. Last fiscal year it consumed 8.8 percent. With the new proposals, the sky's the limit.

When, oh when, will the taxpayer get mad enough to throw all the incompetent, big spending liberals out of Sacramento? The sky isn't the limit--our pockets are. And the pockets of the next generation through borrowing.

California needs a governor who will stand up to the prison guards union -- especially in an election year. Instead, we have an incumbent and a challenger competing to see who can grovel most abjectly before the union and its political war chest.

Amen.