"California's prison budget will overtake spending on the state's universities in five years"

[ProSense]

Prisons' budget to trump colleges'

No other big state spends as much to incarcerate compared with higher education funding

James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, May 21, 2007

<...>

Based on current spending trends, California's prison budget will overtake spending on the state's universities in five years. No other big state in the country spends close to as much on its prisons compared with universities.

But California has all but guaranteed that prisons will eat up an increasingly large share of taxpayer money because of chronic failures in a system that the state is now planning to expand.

Under a new state law, California will spend $7.4 billion to build 40,000 new prison beds, and that is over and above the current annual operating budget of more than $10 billion. Interest payments alone on the billions of dollars of bonds that will be sold to finance the new construction will amount to $330 million a year by 2011 -- all money that will not be available for higher education or other state priorities.

<...>

Asked if the prison spending accurately reflected the state's values and priorities, several politicians insisted it did not, and some suggested it was something of an embarrassment for a state that in other areas, such as environmental programs, likes to think of itself as a pioneer in smart policymaking.

"I'll tell you what, it's clearly not a statement of our priorities," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles. "Our policies are hurting the economy of California. This is a disservice to our economy."

<...>

According to the May revisions of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget, the state will spend $10 billion on prisons in fiscal 2007-08, a 9 percent increase from last year.

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[Jed Dilligan]

1. And how much of that represents enforcing stupid laws

i.e., drug laws, that DC won't let us change?

[ThomCat]

2. It's sick that despite pressure to balance budgets

prisons never seem to get scaled back. We already imprison far too many people, and there's very little political will to do anything positive about it.
x(

[High Plains]

8. No, this is California's choice.

It doesn't prosecute or imprison federal offenders.

It's a legacy of "tough on crime" GOP governors like Reagan and Pete Wilson, although Dem Gray Davis didn't do anything to stop it, either. You have people in California doing "three-strikes" sentences of 25-to-life whose first offenses were drug felonies and third offenses were things like stealing golf clubs or pizzas.

You also get institutional momentum going. The California prison guards' union is a major player in state politics and a major donor. Gee, I wonder what their position on sentencing reform is?

The "land of the free" locks up more people in real numbers and per capita than anywhere else in the world, and California is doing its part. We are an insanely punitive society, and it doesn't do us any good. This is a very ugly facet of life in America.

[jody]

11. Is CA required to enforce fed drug laws? Why not let fed govt prosecute and jail drug law offenders?

[Faux pas]

3. California never could get it right. If they spent more money

on education, they wouldn't need so many prisons. Of course logic would have to be involved in coming up with that solution. ;)

[Alexander]

4. So, does anyone still think marijuana should be illegal?

Christ on a cracker, isn't it obvious that this wouldn't be happening if we didn't throw kids in jail for toking up?

[tyedyeto]

5. Now, that is a crime. n/t

[stillcool]

6. but look at all the neat stuff..

you'll be able to buy...even cheaper!

http://catalog.pia.ca.gov/store.php?fromPage=index.php
California alone has the biggest prison system in the Western industrialized world. It has more prisoners than France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and Holland combined while these countries have 11 times the population of California.According to official figures, Iran incarcerates 220 citizens per 100,000, compared to US figures of 727. Overall, the total "criminal justice" system in the US, including those in prison, on parole and on probation, is approaching 6,000,000. In the last 20 years, 1000 new prisons have been built; yet they hold double their capacity.

Prisoners, 75% of who are either Black or Hispanic, are forced to work for 20 cents an hour, some even as low as 75 cents a day.They produce everything from eyewear and furniture to vehicle parts and computer software.This has lead to thousands of layoffs and the lowering of the overall wage scale of the entire working class. At Soledad Prison in California, prisoners produce work-shirts exported to Asia as well as El Salvadoran license plates more cheaply than in El Salvador, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. A May/99 report in the Wall Street Journal summarized that while “more expensive private-sector workers may lose their jobs to prison labour, assigning work to the most cost-efficient producer is good for the economy.” The February/00 Wall Street Journal reported “Prisoners are excluded from employment calculation. And since most inmates are economically disadvantaged and unskilled, jailing so many people has effectively taken a big block of the nation's least-employable citizens out of the equation.”http://www.ashrafdehghani.com/articles-english/on%20prison.htm

[MN ChimpH8R]

9. Isn't there another word for this?

Oh that's right, slavery is the word for this.

:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

[High Plains]

7. California Uber Alles

[ProSense]

10. Kick! n/t