Posted on 08/24/2007 5:39:54 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Note: This commentary was delivered by PFM President Mark Earley.
Last month, federal judges “ordered the creation of a three-judge panel” to address the overcrowding crisis in California’s prisons. One possible solution is a cap on prison population. That could force the state to release up to 35,000 inmates.
Sounds drastic, doesn’t it? It’s a shame that no one saw it coming—no one except people who work in and around the criminal justice system, including Justice Fellowship, the criminal justice reform arm of Prison Fellowship.
California’s prisons put the “crowd” in “overcrowded.” There are 173,000 inmates in a system designed to hold about half that many. That’s why Governor Schwarzenegger issued an emergency order last year transferring 8,000 inmates to private facilities in other states.
As states often do, California is trying to spend and build its way out of the problem. Last spring, the legislature agreed to spend $7.8 billion on 53,000 new beds. But if past history is any guide, this won’t work. Since 1980 California has built more than 30 prisons, and the system is more overcrowded now than it was when they began.
Naturally, legislators have vowed to fight any order to release inmates. But some of the energy being used to oppose the panel should be directed at understanding and addressing the causes of California’s crisis.
This crisis stems from what Berkeley Law professor Jonathan Simon calls California’s “indiscriminate” use of incarceration. According to Simon, “the real problem lies not in our prisons but in our Legislature and our courthouses.”
At the same time California was building all those prisons, legislators were busy amending the state’s sentencing laws. It may be debatable whether the massive increase in incarceration reduced crime, but there’s no debate about where the overcrowding crisis comes from—increased incarceration.
California’s “three strikes” law and other “get tough” gestures made lifers out of many non-violent drug and property offenders and extended the prison terms of many others. In addition, many California inmates are in prison for technical parole violations.
In the early 1990s, Justice Fellowship predicted the disastrous effects of “three strike” laws and urged California to rethink the way it dealt with parole violations and non-violent offenders.
The warnings were drowned out by a cacophony of “get tough on crime” rhetoric. Now, the bill for shortsightedness has come due.
To make matters worse, this warehousing, as the governor acknowledged, has done nothing to prepare inmates for life after release. The governor has just appointed Justice Fellowship’s Pat Nolan to a 14-member rehabilitation strike team to help the state develop policies to prepare inmates to reenter society.
Don’t get me wrong. We need prisons, but for dangerous criminals who pose a threat to community safety. But for nonviolent offenders, more appropriate punishments such as restitution and community service make so much more sense—for our communities, for victims, and for the overcrowded prison system. Visit the website of Justice Fellowship for more information.
Sorry about not giving you a response immediately, but I don’t live on the computer.
Have you visited a prison? A government VIP invited me on a tour of the prison facilities in Florence, Colorado. The whole thing just didn’t make sense, unless you made money from the system.
What is the purpose of a prison? Just punishment? Basic psychology should tell you that you can’t take away all hope from a person in any incarceration. Does anybody here believe that the Nazis did it correctly; wire em up and feed them gruel? If we’re going to release the prisoners after their incarceration, how will the f’em philosophy of yours make things better?
What is wrong with the prisoners doing duties for society instead of making furniture for the federal prison industries corporation?
Your citing my possible gain from a change in how one pays their debt to society is noted. No, I would not gain by the change.
So, the recidivism rate is due to prison conditions not being bad enough?
riiiiiiigggght!
Do not EVER attack Ronald Reagan again!
The solution is simple... do what Castro did... send them someplace else... Iran would be perfect...
The solution is simple... do what Castro did... send them someplace else... Iran would be perfect...
disagreeing is attacking?
Riiiiiight!
;^)
It did not bother me that you disagreed with me. I don’t consider a disagreement an attack. I was pissed because of what you said about President Reagan.
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