California’s Prison System Chaos.
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California’s Prison System Chaos.
Have you ever wondered where and how our tax money being spent? We pay taxes for services that we all benefit from as a community. Things like roads, law enforcement, libraries, transportation systems, to live comfortable and safe. However; a very big chunk of that money goes towards prisons and jails. California’s current prison budget is almost $10 billion dollars (Jerrod). Even this sum is not enough to incarcerate all of the offenders. California will need an additional two to four billion dollars to address the overcrowded problem (Hayes). This does not necessarily mean that the crime rate has increased, this just means that politicians need to change the way our prison system works. In the end we are the ones paying for everything. Statistics have shown that the crime rate has decreased over the years but prison population continued to grow (Mayeux). This has started since 1980s when California released a series of strictest mandatory sentencing laws and stringiest parole policies in the nation (Young). These actions have increased prison population by 700 percent since the 1980s (Young). All at the expense of taxpayers which costs us $32 billion dollars yearly nationwide and keeps growing (Kieso). Government cut budgets for education but they keep adding money to correction and rehabilitation sector (Mayeux). Prisons are overcrowded to the point that Supreme Court ordered our state to release 46,000 prisoners because there is just no room for them (Jerrod). Purpose of this proposal is to provide more information on this issue and propose a solution to reduce prison population by reducing the numbers of secondary offenders and going for the root of the problem. Politicians complain about how they do not have enough money to support this and that and they keep cutting budgets from essential public services like academic system. The problem is not how much money we as a society have but how we use it.
California’s Prison System Chaos.
Have you ever wondered where and how our tax money being spent? We pay taxes for services that we all benefit from as a community. Things like roads, law enforcement, libraries, transportation systems, to live comfortable and safe. However; a very big chunk of that money goes towards prisons and jails. California’s current prison budget is almost $10 billion dollars (Jerrod). Even this sum is not enough to incarcerate all of the offenders. California will need an additional two to four billion dollars to address the overcrowded problem (Hayes). This does not necessarily mean that the crime rate has increased, this just means that politicians need to change the way our prison system works. In the end we are the ones paying for everything. Statistics have shown that the crime rate has decreased over the years but prison population continued to grow (Mayeux). This has started since 1980s when California released a series of strictest mandatory sentencing laws and stringiest parole policies in the nation (Young). These actions have increased prison population by 700 percent since the 1980s (Young). All at the expense of taxpayers which costs us $32 billion dollars yearly nationwide and keeps growing (Kieso). Government cut budgets for education but they keep adding money to correction and rehabilitation sector (Mayeux). Prisons are overcrowded to the point that Supreme Court ordered our state to release 46,000 prisoners because there is just no room for them (Jerrod). Purpose of this proposal is to provide more information on this issue and propose a solution to reduce prison population by reducing the numbers of secondary offenders and going for the root of the problem. Politicians complain about how they do not have enough money to support this and that and they keep cutting budgets from essential public services like academic system. The problem is not how much money we as a society have but how we use it.
Cited: Hayes, Joseph M. “California’s Changing Prison Population” PPIC.org. N.P. April, 2012. Web. Oct 16, 2012. Jerrod, Anthony. “Supreme Court Ruling on Calif. Prison population will save lives and money” The grio, Opinion. N.P. May 24,2011. Web. 10/20/2012 Kieso, Douglas W. Unjust sentencing and California 3 strikes law. California: LFB Scholarly, Pub. 2005. Ebook Collection (EBSCOhost) Web. Oct. 16, 2012 Mayeux, Sara. “The Origins Of Back-End Sentencing In California: A Dispatch From The Archives.” Stanford Law & Policy Review. 2011, Vol. 22 Issue 2, p529-543. Perkinson, Robert. “Guarded Hope” Boston Review, Jul/Aug2008, Vol. 33 Issue 4, p17-20, 4p, (Article)