Gov. Jerry Brown plans $1 billion in prison cuts

[FreakinDJ]

Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer

Gov. Jerry Brown wants to cut state prison spending next fiscal year for the first time in nearly a decade, a departure from the goals of recent administrations, which consistently increased corrections spending and pushed for prison expansion.

Brown's budget would save California $1.1 billion on housing inmates and hundreds of millions more by allowing the state to halt some prison construction - savings largely due to his administration's recent overhaul of the state's criminal justice system.

General fund spending on prisons nearly doubled under Brown's Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, from $5.2 billion in 2004 to $9.5 billion in 2011, when Brown, a Democrat, took office. The increase in spending was largely caused by an exploding inmate population and a court order to improve medical care in prisons.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/14/MNEM1MNAFQ.DTL#ixzz1jch7kgmj

[LuvNewcastle]

1. That's a good start.

A large percentage of the people in the system shouldn't even have been arrested, much less done any time. Maybe now they'll start being a little more selective about the people they arrest and throw in prison. If you build it, they will fill it.

[Javaman]

2. I have a feeling that pot will become legal by defacto order...

They won't arrest anyone with it anymore.

They can't afford to house them.

[Blacksheep214]

3. Next you release

All the racially oversentenced.

Sentencing equity would have seen many releases much sooner or simply probation.

Of course they now will have more room for the really deserving.

Finally you eliminate CCA private for profit prisons and the companies who use prisoners as cut rate labor. There must be no reason anyone profits off prisons, except license plates.

Finally you pump marijuana smoke into the cells and feed them twinkies and get them fat. Fat, lazy and sedate will make the population easier to manage. Unlike these hulks with attitudes we have now.

Okay, we can talk about that last one!

[tridim]

4. Enough talk, the simple solution to prison overpopulation is still there, yet it is always ignored.

Le-gal-ize it. Do it now.

[madrchsod]

5. how clever of him..dumping the problem back to the counties and cities.

maybe getting more employment and rehab programs would be more effective

[lbfromlv]

10. You are correct, madrchsod

Yes, he is dumping the problem back on the local jurisdictions that are making bad prosecutorial decisions. But the republicans should be happy. He's not seeking a "tax increase" to pay for more jail space.

[Sirveri]

16. He is seeking a tax increase, he's just getting the run around about it.

So in the mean time he's balancing the budget however he can.

[radhika]

15. Legalization is sufficient for pot - doesn't need rehab programs n/t

[KamaAina]

21. Our county was seriously considering applying for funds to build more jails

even though it has 1500 empty cells!

"But see, they're the wrong kind of cells. Not enough of them are maximum-security..."



Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed (after the splashy front page story in the Merc, anyway )

[disndat]

6. The prison industrial empire

if like the military industrial empire as described by Eisenhower . The Republicans $$$ answer to crime, a huge boondoggle that enriches their supporters.

[SoapBox]

9. Super ditto.

You are spot on. Look at the creepy stuff in Arizona.

[Igel]

7. His own "starve the beast" strategy.

Thing is, usually it's interpreted to mean "cut income and then that forces Congress to cut spending." At least that follows the usual way of deciding something about enforcement and the way the "starve the beast" strategy is usually intended to work.

This is a tad different. It's "reduce spending and then have the court impose the hard decisions." It one-ups "starve the beast" on the cynicism scale.

Like we need more cynicism.

[SoapBox]

8. Here's hoping that some of those massive cuts will be to that damned Prison Guards Union...

Make no mistake...I am wholly in favor of unions.

BUT...this group has struck terror in the hearts of CA politicians (governors!) for years...time, WAY past time, to take them down
a BIG notch.

They are the ones that are taking phones in for the crooks...won't allow their members to be security scanned (with out pay beginning
at the scanning point, blah, blah, blah) and it goes on and on.

Make your cuts carefully Jerry.

[lbfromlv]

11. Totally agree

Somehow Charlie Manson - and others - had a cell phone? How did he smuggle that by the alert protectors from the prisoners?

[FreakinDJ]

12. Prison guards are the primary source of smuggled phones, according to a state report.

Los Angeles Times noted in December, it's not a crime to have a cellphone in a California prison and federal regulators won't let wardens jam signals. Prison guards are the primary source of smuggled phones, according to a state report.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/02/hello-satan-charles-manson-caught-again-with-cellphone-in-prison/1

[hedgehog]

13. I was thinking today that it would be cheaper all around if

we gave any recreational drug for free to any adult who wanted it. Offer all the rehab people want, but stop criminalizing drugs. In fact, I'd speculate that if we provided free studio apartments complete with honking big televisions and food tickets to junkies it'd be less expensive than what we're spending now.

[Hepburn]

14. The majority of people in prison?

Drug related crimes.

Maybe this cut in the prison budget will stop some of the nonsense connected with personal possession.

[Sirveri]

17. So he will just shift them from the state institutes into county lockups and city lock ups.

What fun that will be.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. He said "state" prisons. No word about continued funding for PRIVATE prisons.

I have no idea how many or what % of Ca. prisons are privatized.
But I am willing to bet they will not be cut.

[Sirveri]

20. Maybe, though I'm willing to give Jerry the benefit of the doubt on that one.

He wants to do the right thing, but voters like to be stupid and screw everything up for him so he goes with what they want to do.

That said, he might be tied up by contractual obligations that would be more painful to get out of than he'd save.

[BiggJawn]

19. He's not going to release anybody.

He's going to clothe them in Sheriff Joe's discards and not feed them.