1970s actions on prisons come back around to bite Gov. Brown

Sacramento Bee ^ | 5/24/11 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

History should record the late 1970s as an era of pivotal socioeconomic change in California – a new wave of inter- national migration, a shift from an industrial to a post-industrial economy, and a new baby boom.

Political events also abounded, topped by passage of Proposition 13 but including collective bargaining for public employees, expansion of mail voting, a decline in major-party registration, and the eruption of crime as a powerful issue.

By happenstance, Jerry Brown was governor as this socioeconomic tsunami crashed into California and played a central role in its political aspects.

The crime issue was especially vexing for Brown, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, and he responded by signing dozens of lock-'em-up anti-crime bills. Not surprisingly, the new laws and tougher attitudes by prosecutors and judges began raising the prison population.

When Brown became governor, the state had about 20,000 men and women behind bars and hadn't built a new prison in many years. By the end of his governorship, however, prisons were packed and corrections officials were begging for new space.

Reluctantly, Brown supported a $495 million bond issue to jump-start prison construction. During the 1980s and early 1990s, billions of dollars were spent on dozens of new prisons.

The Department of Corrections mushroomed into a huge state agency with tens of thousands of employees, and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association became a very powerful political force.

[scooby321]

I wonder what is population of California prisons are illegals

[WOBBLY BOB]

From everything I've read, it's at least 30%.

"new wave of inter-national migration" -libtalk for illegal invasion.

[rightly_dividing]

While prisons have become voters' least-popular spending category

While that may be true of some people, it is not with me. I am a firm believer in more and bigger prisons, and the funding to provide them. I noticed that Obama's stimulus had no money for prisons, and I remember Holder's statement that there were too many blacks in prison when he first took over AG post. It would seem that some people think that there should not be any consequences for crimes. Just slap their hands and leave them free to commit more crime.

[eyeamok]

We should immediately CLOSE all the Prisons in California and Build a POW style prison in the middle of the Mojave Desert. They can live in Tents with no AC, no TV, No Radio, in the Desert. Prison should not be a comfortable place to live. If the Prison Guards Unions complain, FIRE THEM, with the high unemployment rate I bet you could fill every position for $40,000 a year in 1 day.

[Robert357]

Karma is a bit*h.

I suspect that releasing that many prisoners, even if they are the less violent criminals (note less violent does not equal nonviolent), will like result in some deaths of innocent people.

I hope that reporters and others hold the judges and parole boards socially responsible for those deaths.

While I think that what the Westboro Baptist Church does at military funerals is an abomination, something similar in the front yards of judges and parole board members when people are killed by released felons, is probably overdue.