Posted on 02/15/2010 4:42:37 PM PST by SmithL
The fury unleashed in Sacramento over the early releases of a couple hundred inmates has set the stage for a more massive but less detectable state prisoner population shift about to unfold.
By the end of the year, another 6,300 offenders from Modoc to San Diego who otherwise would have been behind prison bars will instead be on the streets – and the debate already is raging on the public safety fallout.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration, which pushed for the bill that led to the prison population reduction to save money in a cash-strapped state, contends the legislation will make the state safer. More parole supervision time will be reserved for the truly dangerous, a prison agency spokesman said, and more inmates will complete more rehabilitation programs to smooth their transition into free society – even if it comes six weeks earlier than their sentences had prescribed.
"What you really have is a changing California parole structure that is really unprecedented," the corrections department's Oscar Hidalgo said. "It allows our agents to focus on the highest-risk parolees, which increases public safety. As far as the earned credits, we're asking inmates to complete programs that have proven helpful to success on the outside, such as getting a GED or learning a trade."
Law enforcement and victims' rights groups counter that the bill that enabled the upcoming offender population shift from inside to out is a high-risk move. They say that police budgets slashed as a result of depressed local economies will mean fewer street cops available to cope with increased numbers of so-called lesser-risk offenders such as car thieves, drunken drivers and spousal abusers.
"The legislation was based on a lie that the prisons are filled with low-level offenders who pose no real threat to public safety,
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
The choice is plain. Raise taxes or exterminate legislators.
Sheeple will accept the taxes
It’s not bad for a 9-month work year.
(My wife is a teacher)
Do you work?
As a new teacher 35,000 is not a lot to cover a year round schedule. And as the husband of a teacher, you know that teaching does not end when school is out. There is so much prep and grading to do, in order to be effective. Teachers deserve a pay raise, if anything. Cut the salraies of superintendents. Found out ours makes almost $400,000 a year!
Let all the felons free.
Jail all of the California legislature.
Less crime, and the real perps are put behind bars.
We’ll all be safer.
And...we can take care of the criminals ourselves as soon as we get rid of liberal gun restrictions.
If she was a Detroit 75 grand per year teacher you could quit your job. Hell, she could quit her job too since we seem to pay for that as well. LOL
Actually, I haven’t been working for the last 3 years. We got married right after she had started her master’s program and I was 1 year in to my bachelor’s degree. I graduate in April. We’ll end up with the 14k student loan that she took out before we started dating, but otherwise we’ve been living on her salary of a little less than 40k. It helped that I worked before college and had some savings, but we drive 10 year-old cars and don’t do anything that costs much money.
As for the after-school hours, she rarely has to put any time outside of her 7:15-2:45 contract time. She gets about two hours each day (between her prep period and lunch) that enable her to keep up on her grading, etc. After her first year of teaching, there hasn’t been a lot of prep that she needs to do.
40 grand isn’t spectacular but its not terrible survival money for two people. Sounds like you’re living within your means and that helps.
Honestly I mostly hope she teaches out of a love of teaching more than to collect a paycheck. Most of my teachers were the same teachers who taught my parents and that was a true love of teaching.
Why back a party that backs dunderheads like Ahnold over a true conservative like McClintock?
When you vote for the lesser of two evils, you still get evil.
Local jails are packed. For minor offenses in my county, you currently have to wait 6-9 months to even serve your term. There is no room. As it stands now, if you have more than a year’s sentence, you get sent to state prison. They want to change that to three years. But local jails are already full to the brim and we can’t expand them because there is no money to build or staff them.
Sending back prisoners early to reoffend and requiring local jails to hold prisoners longer will just end up with people not serving their sentences and being released on the street. I don’t see any other way it could end up with the jail capacity and budget the way it is.
This will be her last year of teaching now that I’ll have a job. Plus, we’ll get an instant pay raise of 10-15k.
For many males, a career choice it between doing something you love versus doing something that will support a family. I chose to get into business, where I probably would have preferred to coach basketball. We all would like to make more money in our chosen careers, but the balance between money and love is still a choice we make.
I have no doubt that if we removed unions from teaching, many teachers would make more money than they do now. The power of negotiation is in favor of effective, hard-working, and talented teachers who would be able to negotiate a higher salary based on their merits, as opposed to being limited by the least-common denominator chosen by the union heads.
Exactly, and the “offenses” that can land one in a local jail are not things such as armed robbery or rape or what have you.
Typically they are traffic offenses..and not neccessarily DUI’s.
Imho, this is one thing the Libertarian Party has mostly right.
So, what do you suggest for budget cuts?
“A school superintendent in Rhode Island is trying to fix an abysmally bad school system. Her plan calls for teachers at a local high school to work 25 minutes longer per day, each lunch with students once in a while, and help with tutoring. The teachers’ union has refused to accept these apparently onerous demands.
The teachers at the high school make $70,000-$78,000, as compared to a median income in the town of $22,000. This exemplifies a nationwide trend in which public sector workers make far more than their private-sector counterparts (with better benefits). “
From a thread about 30 spots upwards of this one.
“Prison population shift!?!’’. Wow. That is some fancy use of the language.
CA education system is in worse shape. I am usually at school 3 hours a day after im technically off, i eat lunch with the kids at least once a week, and i tutor during my prep period. Teachers are the foundation and molds for the future generation. Unfortunately, the future generation is not looking good
Stop with the stupid spending. No high speed rail system. Cut administrative spending and salaries. Cut or eliminate legislative salaries. Start licensing offshore drilling and then tax the profits and licensing fee. There are thousands of programs that can be cut.
“If she was a Detroit 75 grand per year teacher”
They need that much because their life insurance premiums are so high, right?
There is a reason that England and France once had offshore penal colonies (Australia and Devils Island): more cost effective than local prisons.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.