Posted on 09/28/2007 7:56:15 AM PDT by Politics4Fun
What does the California prison system have in common with Harvard University? It costs precisely as much to house, feed and guard one prisoner for one year in a California state prison as tuition, meals and housing cost for a student enrolled for one academic year at Harvard. As far as California taxpayers are concerned, it gets even worse. Their prison system is so overcrowded that its reached a breaking point. Either the state finds a long-term solution, or the federal courts have warned that theyll begin ordering the release of inmates, just to ease the crush.
In this two-hour broadcast, Ted Koppel examines how California got to this point and presents an inside view of the crisis through in-depth interviews with inmates, guards and prison officials at California State Prison Solano in Vacaville. KOPPEL ON DISCOVERY: BREAKING POINT premieres on Discovery Channel on Sunday, October 7 at 9 PM (ET/PT).
Designed to accommodate no more than 100,000 inmates, Californias prisons now hold 173,000, each at an annual cost of $43,000. How did things get so out of control? Mandatory sentencing is a big part of the answer. When California voters threw their support behind a get-tough-on-crime bill that came to be known as three strikes and youre out, the state prison system filled up and is now overflowing.
While shooting this latest installment of KOPPEL ON DISCOVERY, Koppel spent a number of days among the general population at Solano. His reporting focuses on the inhabitants of H dorm, where inmates are stacked in triple-deck bunk beds on an old indoor basketball court. Correctional officers are so badly outnumbered that prison officials keep inmates segregated by race and gang affiliation in a desperate effort to avoid friction and maintain control. Even so, Solano still sees three to four race riots a year. Using smuggled cell phones, gang bosses continue running criminal operations on the street from behind prison walls. At the same time, theyre running drug and prostitution rings inside Solano.
Koppel will introduce viewers to many of Solanos inmates, including Travis Tippets, Joseph Mason and Brian ONeal. Having completed a 6-year sentence for assault with a deadly weapon, Tippets is being released from Solano and sits for a brief exit interview with Koppel. The last time he was paroled, it took Tippets less than a day to get arrested and sent back. Knowing that a third strike could land him back in prison for life, Tippets finds out how hard it is to get a job with no skills and a criminal record. Joseph Mason is a third-striker. Hes been arrested and convicted three times for non-violent burglaries, and he wont be eligible for parole until 2019; the ultimate irony is that he voted for the Three Strikes Law. Brian ONeal is also a non-violent repeat offender. He has been to prison 11 times, and nine of those sentences were for violating parole. Koppels cameras track ONeals 11th release from prison as his pregnant girlfriend picks him up and the two drive out of Solano. Within weeks, ONeal is arrested again for violating his parole.
If so, stopping illegals would, over time, significantly reduce the prison population.
Also, limit 3 strikes law to violent crimes (I prefer 2 strikes), force nonviolent prisoners to learn & work at a trade prior to release, & Stop the insane War on Drugs.
I don’t know that number but it would definitely be interesting to find out. I do know that America has more people in prison than any other country in the world. Not sure how it’s calculated (percentage of population or just pure number of people?) but Koppel mentions it in the video that’s on the original site.
Idea! Send the illegals back to jails in their home countries, & pay the local authorities somewhat less than $43k/yr per prisoner to jail them. I’ll bet they’ll take them for way less than $43k, & they wont be inclined to let them go as they will lose money. We, of course, will trust, but verify, before payment.
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