California prison system 'collapsing under its own weight,' Schwarzenegger says

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prison20-2009aug20,0,3077824.story


In a visit to the Chino facility where inmates rioted Aug. 8, the governor complains that politicians have 'swept the problem under the rug for so long.'




-snip-

"It is hard to argue that the money is spent wisely and efficiently," he said. "We have one of the highest rates of recidivism in the nation. . . . The politicians in Sacramento have swept the problem under the rug for so long. California is quite literally losing control of our prisons."

Schwarzenegger has failed to bring the prison system under control since his election almost six years ago, despite pledging to do so.

-snip-

A plan backed by Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders would reduce the prison population by 37,000 over two years through a variety of measures, such as offering house arrest during the last year of an inmate's sentence and letting inmates earn their way off parole earlier. Republicans say the proposal would endanger public safety.

The state also is under pressure from the federal courts to reduce overcrowding.

A three-judge panel presiding over a pair of inmate lawsuits said this month that it would order the state to reduce its prison population by more than 40,000 unless officials devise a plan to do so first. California now has nearly 170,000 prisoners in custody.
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turn the pot users/sellers/growers out. that should clear up a lot of cells.

after having been in office for 6 years.

instead of working with the majority Democrats, he has decided to throw raw meat out to the "no taxes" right wing base

The state Senate on Thursday narrowly approved a prison bill brokered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic lawmakers that would save the state $525 million this year by reducing the prison population by 27,000 inmates.

The legislation includes controversial plans such as allowing nonviolent elderly and sick inmates to finish their sentences outside prison walls in homes or community hospitals, where they would be monitored with GPS devices. The bill also includes the creation of a sentencing commission that would revamp the state's punishment and parole rules.

Republicans argued strongly against the bill.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/20/BAQS19BFR3.DTL#ixzz0Oq27Z5U3

and to raise tobacco taxes helped create this mess months back

We wouldn't even be discussing letting go of prisoners of Arnold had been willing to buck the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs holding the Republicans hostage

And the California legislature contains a lot of 2/3 rules which means any legislation that affects budgets can be held up by the 1/3 minority of frothy-mouthed inland Republicans. Add to that our referendum system, which has precedence over the legislature...and unfortunately the citizens of California have voted some really stupid laws into being. Like 3 strikes = life sentence, which has been a major contributor to our prison population.

Did I miss anything?

repukes don't want to spend.... unless they are lining their own pockets with it.

and an egregiously partisan and irresponsible one at that. Have you stopped to think that maybe it's your party - with its vengeful fascination for capital punishment and 3-strikes, coupled with a selfish desire to avoid taxes - that's driving the problem?

Idiot...

nt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law

Of course it was strongly supported by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, ie the prison guards union: http://www.ccpoa.org/history.shtml

In the winter of 1993, Assemblymen Bill Jones and Jim Costa introduced AB 971, the original three strikes bill. However, the liberally controlled legislature stalled the bill until the media firestorm around the Polly Klass murder by Richard Allen Davis evoked a citizen's initiative. The "Three Strikes and You're Out" initiative was circulated in the summer of 1993 in hopes of qualifying for the November 1994 ballot (Proposition 184). This initiative was strongly backed by CCPOA. By Christmas 1993, it had over 800,000 signatures. The legislature in January and February 1994 could not pass it quick enough, and on March 7, 1994, Governor Wilson signed the Three Strikes Law. Proposition 184 was approved by the voters with an overwhelming 72% in November 1994. It should be noted that neither the law, nor the proposition, carried any money allocations for its expected impact on the prison system or its staff.

And yet they still supported it despite knowing perfectly well it would lead to an epidemic of overcrowding followed by more prison building.

the more fat cash for the likes of Wackenhut Corrections, Cornell Corrections, and the Corrections Corporation of America, etc.

Private prison entities make serious coin off of 3-strikes, funded, of course, by the California taxpayers.

Gov. Arnie helped with the looting, as predicted. Gov Wilson was also a big proponent of deregulating energy in CA. Californians know all too well how that worked out for them.

Or have people stopped laughing at those?

aka drug users
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXQgdKQDDws

to know how many people are in CA prisons for non-violent pot offenses.

Maybe it's because I live in the SF Bay Area where busting stoners doesn't even seem to be on the police radar unless it invovles a DUI. People smoke openly.

The stuff should be decriminalized. It would do a lot to take the Mexican drug cartels out of the picture. Those guys are violent.

The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009
http://webb.senate.gov/email/criminaljusticereform.html

Apparently his blue-ribbon panel is already hard at work figuring out the solutions these problems.

you're the governor after all. start going through the rolls and turn all the possession convicts loose.

Like him or not, Schwarzenegger is not responsible for the state of CA prisons. They were terrible when he came into office, the three strikes had been in place for a long time before that (one of the root causes of the problem) and no governor of Ca has magic wand commutation powers due to our complex patchwork of sentencing laws.

He's just (finally) got a deal past the state Republicans that would result in the release of ~27,000 prisoners. Since estimates are that about 20,000 prisoners are in jail on drug related charges of one kind or another, this does indeed amount to freeing most or all of the people in there for simple possession (obviously, it would be a good idea to keep the gun-toting dealer types behind bars).

But the only reason they've managed to get this passed is because our budget crisis is so severe that Schwarzenegger finally managed to convince a few Republican legislators to vote with the Democrats on it. Every time this was tried in the past it was shot down in the legislature.

Just wait for more proposals for prisoners to pay their way by hiring out prisoners to private contractors

In some places, the word for forced prisoner labor is "gulag"

"We need to privatize more of the system", in 5, 4, 3...

Of course, the puritans will be offended, but they probably won't vote for Arnie anyway, what with him being a furriner from Hollywood and all that.

Seriously.

The CCPOA was a major backer of the three strikes law, even though that law contained no extra funding for prisons and overcrowding was an obvious result. They are a tenth the size of the teachers union and donate twice as much money to politicians. They even donate to Republicans - their contributions to Pete Wilson (the last GOP governor before Schwarzenegger) set a record for the largest political donation at the time (a record they broke a few years later when donating to Gray Davis).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_Officers_Association
http://www.prisonactivist.org/archive/factsheets/ccpoa.pdf
http://www.law.stanford.edu/program/centers/scjc/workingpapers/BCarassco-wp4_06.pdf

The CCPOA is a key component of the prison-industrial complex we have in CA. They donate heavily to any 'tough on crime' legislators or ballot initiatives which would result in more people going to prison.

The answer seems rather obvious.

let all the non violent pot busts peeps out.

PLUS -- every year -- every past year, every future year -- more than 400,000 prisoners

are released into society!

Imagine -- after that experience!!!

Are we insane?

From the OP

A plan backed by Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders would reduce the prison population by 37,000 over two years through a variety of measures, such as offering house arrest during the last year of an inmate's sentence and letting inmates earn their way off parole earlier. Republicans say the proposal would endanger public safety.

This proposal just passed the CA senate by the way. I got your nonviolent drug offender release right here and IT'S BACKED BY SCHWARZENEGGER. He's been trying to get this passed by the legislature for ages. Schwarzenegger does not hate stoners! He is not a tool of the prison-industrial complex! In any case, drug offenders make up only about 20% of our prison population (including violent offenders), which is less than the number of prisoners who will now be allowed out on early release.

Look, I'm not a spokesman for Schwarzenegger or anything, but it seems like 75% of people in this thread just read the headline and the last line of the OP and completely skipped over all the important information that was in between. Hate the prison-industrial complex like I do? Start by looking at the most powerful lobby in the state, the CCPOA.

sense in sentencing...too many in for almost no reason...


On edit: Trust the judges to sentence properly and stop making useless laws like the war on drugs...

Or you can have low taxes.

You can't have both.

Sincerely,
Everybody else

All the social programs that have been busted for lack of funding going all the way back to Proposition 13 have raised a couple of generations of poor people and street kids, who lack education and parenting because there is no one around to supervise and teach them. They are most of the prison populations. Every time I see the prison gangs working on the roads around here, they are mostly minorities who probably come out of inner city hells.

You and your rich Republican friends, who put you in office, are responsible for this, yet you only want to treat the symptom not the cause and whine about it besides.

Want some California cheese with your whine Arnold? The cheese no doubt was largely produced by immigrant workers, for rich ranchers and manufacturers. Their kids are at home with nobody there because mom and dad are working two or three jobs each to feed and house them. Their schools are falling apart because of lack of funding and lack of teachers. There are no head start programs that are sufficient any more or community recreation centers for them. Way to go RNC and Arnold.

Yet, this state is still one of the largest economies in the world and Arnold doesn't have the brains to start moving the legislature to start taxing them, and many are from foreign countries too. I don't hear Lou Dobbs and his ilk complaining about their Green Cards.

Sorry, I had to rant.

the Republicans get themselves another Governor who runs on cleaning up crime in California. See how that works?