APP - Waste of public funds?

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tekkychick

New member
As you all know, California has a prison overcrowding problem; we need to reduce population by 9,600 by December.

Gov Brown has just announced he wants to spend over $300 million next year - and over $700 million over two years - moving prisoners out of state and reshuffling them among the prisons. When asked about programs for drug offenders and those in for minor offenses, he basically said "well, we can't do that by Dec, but sure, we'll work on that long term" (quote is just a paraphrase based on a radio news report I heard on NPR)

http://www.capradio.org/articles/2013/08/27/brown-presents-plan-to-ease-prison-overcrowding/


So I gotta think - 300 million divided by 10,000 inmates - that's what, $30,000 an inmate? What if we got each prison to identify the least violent offenders, those that are mainly in for drug use or maybe a "third strike" that was pretty minor - and put them in halfway houses and spent the money on rehabilitating them?

The US has a LOT of people in prison; way too high compared to other countries. All those people can't really be vile, despicable, nasty, violent thugs.

Why would we spend $700 million plus over a couple years to just shuffle the problem around instead of focusing on rehab programs, fixing our parole systems, putting back programs that shorten sentences for good behavior if prisoners participate in training and rehab programs and fixing our legal system?

What a waste of money, in my opinion. Ties to the waste of money to drug test welfare recipients. These are our tax dollars! let's not waste them.
 
I'm all for rehabilitation for non-violent offenders.

I am of the opinion that all you accomplish by putting non-violent offenders such as drug addicts and alcoholics with one too many DUI's in hard core prison is turning normal people with a serious problem into real criminals.

Think about it. You're a heroin addict....you either sold the drug or stole to support your addiction. You get caught a couple of times and they throw you in with rapists, murderers and gang members who are truly violent and sociopathic people. You are a sitting duck to them and they abuse the hell out of you for the duration of your sentence....you learn violence to protect yourself as much as.possible, you learn how to be a better criminal from listening to other inmates talk. You may even join a prison gang for protection against the abuse.

Then your sentence is over. You have a huge black mark against your record which effectively bars you from having a good paying job, you have a huge chip on your shoulder from all the stuff you went through while inside, and now, with the information you gleaned from your fellow inmates, you know how to better avoid the criminal mistakes that landed you in prison to begin with.

A brand new dangerous criminal has been created.
 
By lumping them all together in a 'real' jail they all end up learning the worst from one another. Some good, some God, some basic education, but more stealing, jiving, and 'hard knocks'.

They do have jails designed for minimal security for the least violent offenders. Connecticut has actually shut down their last one, Burgen. They had dorm style room without locks. But even in this jail one learned more about stealing commissary money and talking about the next fix then the educational services offered.

Most importantly, non-violent offenders are still offenders, and its often as expensive to properly house them as the violent offenders.
 
Most of the non violent prisoners have been kicked to city & county jails, the ones left are the bad ones. Rehabilitation or any of the other things that liberals want to spend on these losers is a waste of money. Even Gov. Moonbeam himself rejected his own parties attempt at throwing money down the drain.

[h=1]Senate Democrats' prison plan 'not responsible,' Gov. Brown says[/h]Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday quickly rejected a plan by Senate Democrats to seek a three-year extension on meeting prison-inmate-reduction goals and then to meet those goals by allocating hundreds of millions of dollars for more rehabilitation, mental health and drug treatment programs.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) offered his plan as part of a proposed settlement with plaintiffs’ lawyers representing inmates in two class-action lawsuits.


"It would not be responsible to turn over California’s criminal justice policy to inmate lawyers who are not accountable to the people,” Brown said in a statement.

“My plan avoids early releases of thousands of prisoners and lays the foundation for longer-term changes, and that’s why local officials and law enforcement support it," he added.


http://www.latimes.com/local/politi...ry-brown-prison-plan-20130828,0,7439869.story
 
***RacerX*** said:
Most of the non violent prisoners have been kicked to city & county jails, the ones left are the bad ones. Rehabilitation or any of the other things that liberals want to spend on these losers is a waste of money. Even Gov. Moonbeam himself rejected his own parties attempt at throwing money down the drain.

[h=1]Senate Democrats' prison plan 'not responsible,' Gov. Brown says[/h]Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday quickly rejected a plan by Senate Democrats to seek a three-year extension on meeting prison-inmate-reduction goals and then to meet those goals by allocating hundreds of millions of dollars for more rehabilitation, mental health and drug treatment programs.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) offered his plan as part of a proposed settlement with plaintiffs’ lawyers representing inmates in two class-action lawsuits.


"It would not be responsible to turn over California’s criminal justice policy to inmate lawyers who are not accountable to the people,” Brown said in a statement.

“My plan avoids early releases of thousands of prisoners and lays the foundation for longer-term changes, and that’s why local officials and law enforcement support it," he added.


http://www.latimes.com/local/politi...ry-brown-prison-plan-20130828,0,7439869.story
Click to expand...

Rehabilitation a waste of money? I'm sorry, I disagree.

Many people that are in prison....even some of the violent ones...are people who, if they lived under different circumstances, would choose a different path.

Many of these criminals were made by hardships most of us can't imagine. They were brought up in poverty and crime infested locales. Where the law of the land is more about survival than it is about ethical and moral behavior.

Psychologically...many of these people have issues of PTSD. Except theirs stem not from war zones such as Iraq or Afghanistan... but the mean streets of our inner cities. They need real help in resolving what they've been through and the mindset that has been ingrained in them since childhood.

Now.... before you start on some kind of tirade about me being soft on violent criminals or excusing their behavior.... let me assure you that I am not. I am just saying that there are real differences between true Sociopathic behavior and a person who, through necessity and desperation, took a criminal path that may or may have not involved violence. Mental Health Professionals know the difference.

Some of these people CAN be rehabilitated. I think it behooves us to do so. Why let a person rot for 10 years and then get parole with no vocational... or more importantly... COPING skills? If you do that, it's just a waiting game for them to become a repeat offender...because their options, as limited as they were BEFORE they became a criminal, are now at least cut in half because of their criminal record.
 
I was meeting with our local sheriff; he was talking about the prisoners that are coming into the local jails due to realignment. He said a lot of them have serious mental health issues that have never been addressed; and locally, we don't have the funding nor resources to address it.

I agree, SP, with what you said -
there are real differences between true Sociopathic behavior and a person who, through necessity and desperation, took a criminal path that may or may have not involved violence. Mental Health Professionals know the difference.

Some of these people CAN be rehabilitated. I think it behooves us to do so. Why let a person rot for 10 years and then get parole with no vocational... or more importantly... COPING skills? If you do that, it's just a waiting game for them to become a repeat offender...because their options, as limited as they were BEFORE they became a criminal, are now at least cut in half because of their criminal record.
Click to expand...

We need to invest in rehab AND in mental health care. Or we need to invest in a lot more prisons. I prefer the former
 
tekkychick said:
I was meeting with our local sheriff; he was talking about the prisoners that are coming into the local jails due to realignment. He said a lot of them have serious mental health issues that have never been addressed; and locally, we don't have the funding nor resources to address it.

I agree, SP, with what you said -

We need to invest in rehab AND in mental health care. Or we need to invest in a lot more prisons. I prefer the former
Click to expand...

Yes...me too. We are getting a few people here and there in my place of employment from the prison system. These folk are developmentally disabled, have severe mental health issues and get very violent.
 
tekkychick said:
I was meeting with our local sheriff; he was talking about the prisoners that are coming into the local jails due to realignment. He said a lot of them have serious mental health issues that have never been addressed; and locally, we don't have the funding nor resources to address it.

I agree, SP, with what you said -

We need to invest in rehab AND in mental health care. Or we need to invest in a lot more prisons. I prefer the former
Click to expand...
There is always the Chinese solution.
 
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