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April 25, 2007
URGENT: Phone Calls/Faxes/E-mails Needed to Stop Prison Expansion
Dear FCL Supporter,
It's crunch time in Sacramento. Legislative leaders are meeting privately to determine the course our state will take with regards to our prison system. These decisions also impact our state's ability to fund other important programs. In what has become a zero-sum dilemma, any increase in prison spending means fewer dollars available for social services, health care and higher education. The Legislative Analyst's Office has upped its estimate of the cost of incarceration to taxpayers to over $43,000 per prisoner per year. Roughly half of California's prisoners are incarcerated for nonviolent, non-serious offenses, and at 70 percent, our state's recidivism rate is double the national average.
Thus, it's fair to say that the decisions made in Sacramento in the coming days will shape the future of of California. Will California continue to be the leader in incarceration, or will we become a land of hope and opportunity for all?
For the third time in less than a year, Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed to expand our prison system. Twice, your voice has made a difference.
This time, the governor has proposed spending $10.9 billion to construct 78,000 new prison and jail beds. By comparison, the governor has proposed a mere $41 million increase in new spending for programming that would reduce recidivism and reduce prison overcrowding. In other words, the governor has proposed making a broken system bigger under the guise of "reform."
And the governor proposes to finance these new beds by issuing lease-revenue bonds. In addition to costing taxpayers more, the use of lease-revenue bonds (instead of General Obligation bonds) is a cynical maneuver to bypass the voters, who have repeatedly said that they do not favor more prison construction.
Proponents of the governor's plan are using scare tactics. They claim that paroling some prisoners convicted of nonviolent offenses a few months early will lead to a new crime wave. In fact, Assembly Member Todd Spitzer (a rumored candidate for Orange County District Attorney) claimed on the Assembly Floor that our failure to build new prisons is hurting our state's economy. Los Angeles, Spitzer claimed, failed to obtain the US Olympic Committee's nomination for the 2016 Olympics because it is an out of control city beset by roving gangs. California already releases an average of 10,000 prisoners per month on parole.
California incarcerates at seven times the rate of other industrialized nations. Our state now spends more for incarceration than the amount of General Fund support it provides for the University of California and California State University systems combined. Currently, there are too few nurses, doctors, mental health professionals, prison educators or correctional officers to staff California's prison system, let alone, support expansion. In only five years, the budget for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has nearly doubled and will continue to grow until we reduce the number of people incarcerated by making more use of alternative sanctions and by providing more substance abuse treatment, education and vocational training, and mental health treatment.
We need to let our legislative leaders know that adding capacity is not the answer.
Please call Assembly Speaker Fabian and Senate President pro Tempore Don Perata and tell them that:
- You oppose the governor's plan to add 78,000 new prison and jail beds. The Governor's own Independent Review Panel, chaired by former Governor George Deukmejian, said that "the key to reforming the system is to reduce the numbers."
- Reject the use of lease-revenue bonds. If new prison and jail beds are part of any deal, California voters deserve to have a say. Put General Obligation bonds on the ballot, as required by the California Constitution.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez
Sacramento Office
Phone: (916) 319-2046
Fax: (916) 319-2146
Los Angeles Office
Phone: (213) 620-4646
Fax: (213) 620-6319
E-mail: speaker.nunez@assembly.ca.gov
Senate President pro Tempore Don Perata
Sacramento Office
Phone: (916) 651-4009
Fax: (916) 327-1997
Oakland Office
Phone: (510) 286-1333
Fax: (510) 286-3885
E-mail: senator.perata@sen.ca.gov
Sincerely,
Jim Lindburg
Legislative Advocate
http://www.fclca.org
E-mail: JimL@fclca.org
Phone: (916) 443-3734
Fax: (916) 448-6109
Click Here to Donate to the FCL
To read the bill text and to see how your legislators voted on AB 900, point your web browser to:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_900&sess=CUR&house=B&author=solorio
Note: References to committee hearings on AB 900 refer to an earlier version of the bill that dealt with the California Transportation Commission. AB 900 was quickly gutted and amended to its current version after legislative leaders announced that a deal had been made on prison "reform."
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