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June 7, 2007
Prison deal aftermath
Dear FCL Supporter,
Betsy Morris, Strawberry Creek Meeting, is going to meet with Senator Perata in Oakland to talk about the prison deal recently enacted into law by Assembly Bill 900.
If legislators don't hear from their constituents, they assume that people don't care or are not paying attention. We strongly encourage citizens to make appointments with their legislators to express their disappointment.
If you would like more information or would like to know how your state representatives voted on AB 900, please contact the FCL Office.
Sincerely,
Jim Lindburg
AB 900 Talking Points
- Prisons are dangerously overcrowded. This is because our state's incarceration rate has increased five-fold since 1980. California has experienced an incarceration wave, rather than a crime wave. In 1980, California incarcerated 137 adults per 100,000 residents. In 2006, the number has increased to 689 residents per 100,000 residents. In 1980, the State spent about 4 percent of its General Fund dollars for corrections and 10 percent for higher education. Today, those numbers have flip-flopped.
- Building more prisons will not solve prison overcrowding; rather it will make it easier for legislators to continue passing new sentencing enhancements and create new felonies. Adding more prison beds is analogous to building more freeways, which encourages more cars on the road. As soon as they are opened, they are full. Even before the ink on AB 900 was dry, legislators were proposing new sentencing enhancements (though the Senate Public Safety Committee is temporarily holding bills which increase penalties), despite the fact that the courts could place the prison system under federal control for its failure to address overcrowding.
- Building more prison beds is not desirable, given our state's 70 percent recidivism rate which is double the national average. Despite talk of rehabilitation, AB 900 makes only a token investment in rehabilitation in prisons that are designed to punish. Many of our gang problems begin in prison, and in communities where large numbers of people are incarcerated and with little economic opportunity, prison culture is easily transmitted back into local neighborhoods.
- We punish too many people because we are mad at them, not because they pose a serious risk to public safety. Incarceration tears at the fabric of families and entire communities and should be used sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. Half of the people in prison are serving terms for nonviolent offenses. It makes more sense to parole some prisoners a few months early and to invest in services for them to reduce recidivism. Services should be comprehensive and tailored to the individual include substance abuse treatment, anger management, mental health services, counseling, vocational training and education. Paroling some prisoners a few months is the surest way to reduce prison overcrowding.
- The best way reduce the threat of a federal takeover of the state prison system is to reduce the number of people in prison. Senator Machado said it best in Senate Subcommittee 4 when he opined that California should consider imposing its own prison population caps to show the courts that we are serious about reducing overcrowding. In 2004, the Corrections Independent Review Panel, chaired by former Governor George Deukmejian, said that they key to prison reform is to reduce the number of people in prison. Three judges in separate cases are currently considering population caps.
- We should not ask California’s poorest and economically disadvantaged citizens to bear the price of political expediency. Rather than investing in added capacity, the Legislature should take proactive steps to reduce the number of people who go to prison. AB 900 will cost taxpayers $15 billion (when including the debt service on the bonds). That's $283K per bed. Instead, we should invest in services for at-risk people and marginalized communities in order to reduce the demand for new prison beds.
Sincerely,
Jim Lindburg
Legislative Advocate
http://www.fclca.org
E-mail: JimL@fclca.org
Phone: (916) 443-3734
Fax: (916) 448-6109
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