About one third of California's inmate population will be freed over the course of the next two to three years in what seems to be the only viable answer to the state's prison overcrowding, which a Federal Court has deemed unconstitutional, according to this AP report.
Without a U.S. Supreme Court reprieve, California will have to free roughly a third of its prison inmates in a few years, and how that can be done safely is still hotly debated.
Corrections officials said Tuesday they are struggling with their response to a tentative federal court ruling this week that the state must remove as many as 57,000 inmates over the next two or three years.
The state's 33 adult prisons now hold about 158,000 inmates. But the judges said overcrowding is so severe it unconstitutionally compromises medical care of inmates, and releasing prisoners is the only solution.
Well, I guess that could be a way to deal with the state's budget woes. Kentucky has toyed with roughly the same idea, with non-violent offenders. Frankly, probably a good third of most prison's inmates have no business there, but are themselves victims of minimum sentencing guidelines, put mostly in place during the Reagan years as a means of addressing the problem of illicit drug use.
Still, this might be a good idea that is finally being implemented at the worst possible time. Most of these prisoners, or at least a large percentage of them, will probably end up on public assistance, therefore saving California no money, and possibly even costing more. Add to this the very real problem of the huge surge in unemployment and you can see where this is adding gasoline to an already blazing fire. What choice will they have but to turn to public assistance-or to crime? Speaking of which, let's be candid here-a good many of them probably do belong in prison after all, and that's probably exactly where they will be heading back to at some point, regardless of the economy, under the best of circumstances.
What struck me most about this news item though was its seeming presumption that time will stand still for the next three years. I am sure there will be plenty of new arrivals that will serve to keep the California prison system as overcrowded over the next few years as it is now-unless of course they either change a few unnecessarily oppressive drug laws, or just flat out ignore them. Either one would be sufficient to help solve the budget woes of many a cash-strapped state.
Well, if they are just going to turn around and put them right back on the streets anyway, what purpose does it serve to enforce the law to begin with? Isn't that a waste not only of taxpayer's money, but police resources?
2 comments:
Your post is all over the place, like your weighing out options aloud.
Say something to the effect, some don't belong in prison, and should be released, particularly with CA's budget woes.
The post is cluttered with unproven assertions.
Well, it's going to be hard as hell for most of them to find work, California's current economic woes being what they are. The main point is that most of the ones that are in prison for things like drum crimes never should have been prosecuted to begin with. They ought to at least abolish minimum sentencing guidelines and allow judicial discretion in sentencing.
Still, no doubt a good many of them are criminals and would be there anyway, and will be going back, especially, again, due to the current conditions.
The reason given by the federal court had nothing to do with budgetary concerns, by the way, it was simply the view that overcrowding of prisoners is a breach of their constitutional rights. Some might view it as a way of helping solve budget woes, as was discussed in Kentucky, but this doesn't take into account the extra pool of unemployed and the further drain on social services.
The main point in that regard is that this should have been done a long time ago, when there wasn't such a huge economic crisis. Instead, they have done what should have been done, but are doing it at the worst possible time.
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