The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/11365552p-12280139c.html

Other views: Prison reform must be a priority

By Jeff Adachi and Ruth Wilson Gilmore --
Special To The Sacramento Bee
Published 2:15 am PST Tuesday, November 9, 2004

Despite the narrow loss of Proposition 66 (the initiative to amend "three strikes"), Californians know they can't afford more failed prison policies and crumbling communities.

Nearly 4.5 million Californians voted for sentencing reform through Proposition 66. A Field Poll in May showed that more than half of Californians think the crime problem would be reduced through rehabilitation and education instead of prison time. A Public Policy Institute of California survey reported in June 2003 that 55 percent of Californians favored cuts to the prison budget. Nevertheless, this year's budget raises prison spending in the state to a historic high of $6 billion. Is anybody listening?

While the new budget delays operation of the $700 million Delano II prison until May 2005, the administration still plans to open the 5,160-bed prison. This, even though the Department of Corrections has projected a decline of approximately 15,000 prisoners in the 2004-05 fiscal year. A group of experienced California prison wardens told Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's California Performance Review panel this year that a better inmate environment would be 50,000 fewer prisoners, down from 162,000 today.

Why not mothball Delano II, use the opportunity of 15,000 fewer prisoners to close three more prisons and reallocate those funds to build communities, reduce crime and climb out of this fiscal hole? Why doesn't California implement changes we know will reduce prison populations and build safer communities?

While Schwarzenegger has called for "action action action" on budget restraint, even the specter of a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall has not compelled the administration to act aggressively on nonpartisan recommendations from the Little Hoover Commission, the Legislative Analyst's Office or from various bipartisan legislative committees that offer road maps to juvenile and adult Department of Corrections reform.

With the Little Hoover Commission reporting in 2003 that California sends people back to prison at nearly twice the national rate, we have to look at failed policies and a union of guards and parole agents who benefit from failure. Why not a system in which all benefit from success?

We don't need any more studies. Other states close prisons, invest in communities and enhance public safety. By asking, and answering, the right questions, this administration can work toward reducing prison spending and reinvest those funds in urban and rural communities to keep us all healthy and safe.

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About the writers:

Jeff Adachi is the public defender of the city and county of San Francisco. Reach him at jeff.adachi@sfgov.org. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Ph.D., is an associate professor of geography and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Reach her at rwgilmor@usc.edu. Both authors are part of a 17-member commission of experts established by Californians United for a Responsible Budget. Web site: www.curbprisonspending.org