|
August 7, 2006
Oppose the governor's prison expansion
"They [the prison guards union] want to build more prisons, I want to build more prisons. So I ... say let us work together in pushing the Legislature to build more prisons."
- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Orange County Register, July 27, 2006.
Dear FCL Supporter,
Thanks to your help, a prison expansion proposal was defeated last Spring. Now the prison building lobby is back and is pulling out all the stops in order to build more prisons.
On the heels of report by a federal judge which claimed that the governor has relinquished control of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to the prison guards union, and with his re-election bid looming, the governor has called a Special Session of the Legislature beginning Monday, August 7 to deal with the prison overcrowding crisis. Included in his proposal are plans to build two new prisons at a cost of $1.2 billion dollars, transferring women prisoners to smaller prisons and constructing temporary facilities and re-entry facilities on existing prison grounds. .
We need to make sure that the Legislature does the right thing and follows other states that have taken steps to reduce their prison populations. With the prison population approaching 200 percent of capacity, something has to give. The governor wants to take the politically expedient course and spend $6 billion to expand prison capacity.
The governor is touting his proposals as "reform."
Prisons are severely overcrowded and with 16,000 prisoners housed in nontraditional beds (usually bunk beds in prison day rooms and gymnasiums), there is a severe shortage of space for running programs. Moreover, CDCR indicates that by June 30th, 2007, there will be no more room for nontraditional beds. The governor's "Guns and Butter" rhetoric fallaciously argues that we need to make our prison system bigger in order to create program space before we can make it smaller. History demonstrates that while the Legislature has consistently funded bricks and mortar, it has not funded services to prisoners that could help them to successfully transition into the community. Typically, programs for prisoners are the first thing to be cut in bad budget years, which means that any new prisons will become places where prisoners are warehoused.
This approach is wrong because:
- Both the governor and the Legislature have been unwilling to do the things that would make prison expansion unnecessary. The governor's "reform" proposals ignore the root causes of the overcrowding crisis, namely sentencing enhancements and the large number of parole violators returned to custody for technical violations. In the last 30 years, the Legislature has passed over 1000 sentencing enhancements and has created new categories of felonies. As a result, 56 percent of prisoners are serving sentences for nonviolent offenses. Absent from governor's proposals is the need to reform parole. California's recidivism rate is double the national average due to our large numbers of returns-to-custody for technical parole violations. Technical violations of parole are better handled in the community by requiring drug treatment, mental health treatment, and wraparound services. California could also parole geriatric and medically incapacitated prisoners who pose no risk to public safety.
- Expanding prisons and jails does not make the public safer. Other states have had larger decreases in crime than California while reducing their prison and jail populations. New York State, for example, reduced its prison population by making more use of community corrections (Jacobson, Michael. Downsizing Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and Mass Incarceration, New York University Press, 2005). A recently released study by the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice, found no relationship between incarceration rates and crime rates (http://cjcj.org/pubs/testing_incapacitationpr.html).
- The state's prison population projections are unreliable. The California State Auditor indicates that CDCR's prison population estimates accurately predict population trends for a year or two at best. Beyond that, the estimates are of little value (California State Auditor Report, 2005-105, http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2005-105.pdf).
- California voters have said "no" to building more prisons. Therefore, the governor is proposing to finance new prison construction with lease-revenue bonds which do not require voter approval. Lease-revenue bonds are normally used to finance the construction of facilities that will provide a revenue stream, such as toll bridges and sports stadiums. It is a sad commentary on our state when its elected officials consider prisons as revenue-generators. Because lease-revenue bonds are not backed by the full faith and credit of the State of California, they demand higher interest rates which adds to the cost of construction.
Building new prisons is a drain on the state's economy. In addition to costing $200,000 per cell to construct, taxpayers will be saddled with the operational costs of these new prisons for decades to come. The governor's budget included only $53 million in new funding for rehabilitation; yet, in two years, the corrections budget has expanded by a third, from $6 billion to $8 billion. Building new prisons is similar to building new freeways: as soon as they open, they are full. California now spends more for incarceration than the amount of state support provided for the University of California and California State University combined. For the cost of incarcerating a prisoner for one year ($34,000), California could send two students to UCLA, tuition and room and board included.
The governor's own Independent Review Panel on Corrections said that "the key to reforming the system lies in reducing the numbers [of prisoners]."
TAKE ACTION NOW:
Now is the time to tell Governor Schwarzenegger and the Legislature that you want them to fix Corrections -- not make a broken system bigger. Write letters and make phone calls in opposition to the governor's prison expansion proposals and send them to:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: (916) 445-4633
E-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez
State Capitol
Room 219
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: (916) 319-2146
E-mail: speaker.nunez@assembly.ca.gov
Phone: (916) 319-2046
Senate President pro Tem Don Perata
State Capitol
Room 205
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: (916) 327-1997
E-mail: senator.perata@sen.ca.gov
Phone: (916) 445-6577
Senator Gloria Romero
Chair, Select Committee on California's Correctional System
State Capitol
Room 313
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: (916) 445-0485
E-mail: gloria.romero@sen.ca.gov
Phone: (916) 651-4024
Sincerely yours,
Jim Lindburg
Legislative Advocate
Friends Committee on Legislation
717 K St., Suite 500-B
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 443-3734
Click Here to Donate to the FCL
|
