Almost 9 Billion last year. More this year. That’s what the taxpayers of CA are spending on ~175K prisoners in CA jails. Which are overcrowded, understaffed, and constantly under court orders to become less like chthonic criminal houses of learning and prostitution. The Union is suing too, because they’re being asked to work impossible hours with ancient “technology” and too many charges.
Meanwhile, analysts say they are working hundreds of hours overtime. The state’s 25-year-old computers cannot analyze the complex sentencing formulas created by a crazy-quilt of laws passed by the Legislature and by voters through the initiative process, and modified by the courts.Toni Garcia, a case records analyst at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, complained that the governor and the Legislature pass new laws spending billions on reforming the system when prison workers have to share desks and computers, and requests for staff are met with “red tape.”
“They’re going to build all these facilities to help reform,” Garcia said. “It’s all great. But we need to fix the system the way it is now.”
Ahnuld is releasing 33,000 prisoners, just to catch-up with already on file judicial decrees about resentencing and early release. My question: 9 billion a year seems like a lot of money, and CA doesn’t seem to have much to show for it, year in and year out. Where is it going, if not for the actual prison and the guards/analysists who staff it?
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I wish the prison/punishment issue were on anyone's agenda
Great catch, CD.
Not sure but we may finally be at the day when we build more prisons than schools. We can’t afford to give our kids music and art in their schools, but we can afford to continue to put away non-violent offenders. Three strikes and we’re out.
All part of clawback
The Conservative
Ascendancy started in the mid-1970s when real wages went flat.
There’s a lot to be clawed back.
I’d say, on the one hand: Legalize marijuana, no advertising, so the little guy can be a dealer, not RJ Reynolds, and free everyone in jail because of it. [OTOH, some insane percentage of black men are in or have been in jail. The “six degrees of Kevin Bacon” on this is beyond absurd, and clearly racist. That needs to be fixed, and operationally should boil down to letting most of them out, just like the pot guys. I just don’t know about freeing the white powder guys, as opposed to the green leaf guys. Feel free to call me on racism, guys—no irony intended.]
Note that “free” means “free to function in society” not “free to sleep under a bridge.” That will take money. And that money would be better spent on freeing people instead of jailing them.
On the other: Attack the prison industrial complex and try to shrink the tumor.
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan