Time to reform state’s prison system

If ever there was a need for prison reform in California, it is now. Faced with an unprecedented budget deficit and more prisoners in its penitentiaries than ever before, the state should look to parole most if not all of the estimated 25,000 to 50,000 non-violent, non-serious offender inmates currently incarcerated at a tremendous financial burden to the state.

To his credit, Gov. Schwarzenegger is looking to revamp the state’s $5.3 billion prison and parole system, according to a story in the Sacramento Bee. Schwarzenegger, of course, never breathed a word of such a plan during the recall election—that would have been political suicide. But now that he is in the Governor’s Office, the moderate Republican, unlike his Democratic predecessor, can afford such bold political moves without facing accusations of being soft on crime.

A decade of tough-on-crime legislation combined with a powerful prison guards’ union has created a situation in which the state has jailed many more people than it can afford to house. Central to the governor’s plan, which was first proposed during last year’s budget debates, is the shifting of $50 million from the state prison budget to the state parole budget. The idea is to counsel and help prisoners before they go on parole to help reduce the number of parole violations and the number who return to prison.

Such reform is financially—and morally—prudent.