Interesting Supreme Court decision:
The Supreme Court ordered California on Monday to release tens of thousands of its prisoners to relieve overcrowding, saying that “needless suffering and death” had resulted from putting too many inmates into facilities that cannot hold them in decent conditions.
It is one of the largest prison release orders in the nation’s history, and it sharply split the high court.
Justices upheld an order from a three-judge panel in California that called for releasing 38,000 to 46,000 prisoners. Since then, the state has transferred about 9,000 state inmates to county jails. As a result, the total prison population is now about 32,000 more than the capacity limit set by the panel.
There are a lot of things at play here that make this a complicated debate. Obviously there is the California budget crisis and the inability to raise taxes, D-Day when he was at Calitics used to talk about the extraordinary power of the correctional officers union which has an incentive (it would seem) to keep as many people locked up as possible, there is the rise in the Prison-Industrial complex, and so on. If you are looking for informed commentary on the issue, this is the wrong place.
I do have a question, though- how many non-violent drug offenders are locked up in California prisons? Could that make a good dent in the prison population? And what if jails served as a place to rehabilitate people rather than to just lock them up, would there be less recidivism and fewer inmates? And how does the three strikes rule play out here?
Bulworth
Three strikes is like wars and tax cuts–they pay for themselves.
trollhattan
F*cking three strikes–how does it work?
Lots and lots of non-violent offenders locked away and Corrections has moved away from a rehabilitation to a warehousing environment, so there’s a high recidivism rate (seven of ten within three years).
The good news: Republicans are using this ruling to blame the mess on the Democrats.
More “adequate prisons” paid for, perhaps, using couch-cushion change .
pragmatism
at least 40K of the nonviolent ones–bill signed earlier this year to transfer them to the counties. many of them in state prison due to 3 strikes.
MattR
Scalia complained that “terrible things are sure to happen as a consequence of this outrageous order.”. Can one of the lawyers point me to the clause in the constitution that says that we are allowed to ignore parts of it whenever the real world consequences of adhering to it are difficult?
Just Some Fuckhead
If we were serious about solving this, we’d lower tax rates for the wealthiest Americans and issue vouchers to our prison population. Allowing them to shop around for the cheapest prison stay would put downward pressure on incarceration costs and many would likely forgo necessary incarceration and therefore unburden the system.
piratedan
well this is where that California ban on all things Arizona comes into play, they can’t ship them to Arizona to use all of those available beds in the private prison system…..
trollhattan
Want to add that during the debates, Meg Whitman was asked about the death penalty and her answer included stepping up executions so we could save money by not building an expensive new death row. My kind of financial genius.
cyntax
According to the Stanford Three Strikes Project:
Obviously more prisons are needed.
Han's Solo
Non violent drug offenders should be released, especially those jailed on marijuana infractions.
If California legalized weed and offered a limited clemency to all non violent offenders it would: 1) save money on jailing otherwise non-criminals (mostly) 2) Strike a major blow against the Mexican drug cartels 3) Generate billions in tax revenues, and, for the first time in the history of the world, users of a substance would cheer when hefty taxes are levied on said substance 4) save money on policing.
Of course that makes way too much sense to ever fly in America.
Sadly, I bet they release rapist and dog molesters, because people who smoke weed are icky.
Ruckus
John. All of your points are good. Three strikes sounds like a good thing, get the criminals off the streets and all that. And it works, they are off the streets. But what’s next? And how many are basically railroaded off the streets by over zealous police/prosecutors looking to keep their numbers/subsidies up? Does it actually slow/stop crime?
What does get to me is in the US that we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Why is that and what do we get for that? If we had fewer poor people would we have less crime?
Just Some Fuckhead
Maybe we could balance out “three strikes and you’re out” with “four balls and you walk”.
The Dangerman
I swear she said she was 18!
What? Break? Nevermind. Carry on.
Bulworth
As long as we cut taxes and cut gubmit spending.
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
It isn’t just about drug offenses and three strikes inmates – it is about the duration of sentences on non-violent thefts, the idiot notion in rural areas about being harshly punitive on misdemeanors (thereby hanging records around the necks of 18 year olds), and overpolicing silly shit while ignoring the important.
The Bobs
I usually read Mark Kleiman about this stuff, but he hasn’t commented about it yet.
Lojasmo
Lots.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
We could easily solve this problem if we just let all the white people out of prison, but noooooo. Loony libs would cry racism like they always do…
Violet
Are you asking the Citizens of California to spend their hard-earned money so that prisons can do the job that those criminals’ deadbeat parents should have done? And why didn’t the schools do their job? Why should the Citizens of California have to pay twice? If the criminals wanted to be educated and do something with their lives, they should have stayed in school and taken advantage of the opportunities they had then. Prisons aren’t parents and schools. Prisons are for punishment.
^^^ Those are pretty much the arguments against rehabilitation you’ll hear. The argument about the role of prisons (punishment vs. rehabilitation) has been going on a long time.
cyntax
@Bulworth:
Spending on prisons, the only kind of spending that’s OK for poor people!
Villago Delenda Est
@Yevgraf (fka Michael):
No banksters, stealing countless millions, are affected by any of this.
Only “low class” offenders.
thefncrow
You guys have seen the Scalia remarks in the dissent, right? Because, hoo boy, those are some telling remarks.
Scalia starts by bitching at the court for not contorting existing law to find a way to prevent the injunction. I’m not really being fanciful with my language there, either: The so-called “textualist” is arguing for bending the language of the law any way necessary to force his preferred result:
“There comes before us, now and then, a case whose proper outcome is so clearly indicated by tradition and common sense, that its decision ought to shape the law, rather than vice versa. One would think that, before allowing the decree of a federal district court to release 46,000 convicted felons, this Court would bend every effort to read the law in such a way as to avoid that outrageous result. Today, quite to the contrary, the Court disregards stringently drawn provisions of the governing statute, and traditional constitutional limitations upon the power of a federal judge, in order to uphold the absurd.”
Scalia later tries to invoke the spectre of “big scary muscular black guys coming to get you”:
“Most of them will not be prisoners with medical conditions or severe mental illness; and many will undoubtedly be fine physical specimens who have developed intimidating muscles pumping iron in the prison gym.”
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
A shit ton & Yes.
Years ago I read an excellent article about Japan’s prison system and their recidivism rates. In a nutshell, YES.
martha
@Just Some Fuckhead: What a wonderful world it would beeeee
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@thefncrow: “…and many will undoubtedly be fine physical specimens who have developed intimidating muscles pumping iron in the prison gym.”
I had no idea Scally wrote blaxploitation p0rn.
Fucking creep.
Jay in Oregon
New tagline? :)
cleek
@thefncrow:
non-black people can build muscles, too.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
Um, Newt Gingrich is on line two, Baron, and he’s letting you know that you’re infringing on his trademarked talking points.
Chris
A few years ago, I had to do a ton of research on MS-13 for a college class, which included the reactions various governments had to the phenomenon.
Don’t know if this has changed much, but at the time, the country that had had the most success by far handling the gang problem was Nicaragua – and just by coincidence, it also happened to be the only country that seriously invested in rehabilitation programs to give gang members other options once they left jailed. (The place is run by Dirty Fucking Lefties, I should point out – same guys we financed death squads against back in the good old Reagan years).
The rest of the countries in the area, largely with U.S. and especially FBI prodding, had instituted strict “mano dura” laws with next to no rehabilitation on the side, ’cause that’s coddling delinquents which is bleeding heart bullshit. But those countries were doing a hell of a lot worse than Nicaragua was, and none of the Nixonian “law and order” laws appeared to be doing them much good.
jl
@cyntax: thanks for that link.
CA Dept of Correctiosn reports breakdown of new admissions by type of crime. Drug offenses in 2008 accounted for about 26% for men, and 33% for women.
There are some graphs describing the two and three strikes population, but can’t do anything with them as presented. Somebody will have to type the numbers from the goofy USA Today style graphs into a spreadsheet.
California Dept of corrections and Rehabilitation
Corrections/Moving Forward
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/News/2009_Press_Releases/docs/CDCR_Annual_Report.pdf
Pew Foundation stats on recent recidivism rates show CA to be horrible, almost 60%. From quick glance, that seems to be the second worst in the US, behind Utah at about 65%
Look for ‘State of Recidivism’ Report on following URL:
http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/initiatives_detail.aspx?initiativeID=59070
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
@thefncrow: Scalia’s creepy writing is 1000% scarier than the release of the prisoners, thanks to his position on the court. Perhaps he’ll step down from the court one day and go write for Brietbart, perhaps dressing up for sting operations as an old person trying to bilk social security.
Cris (without an H)
White men can’t pump (iron)?
The Moar You Know
@trollhattan: WITH WHAT MONEY? We already spend more on prisons than our entire state college system!
Through the intransigence of the Republicans, our state is now so far into the shitter that we may be shutting the schools for over half of next year. No shit. I almost wish they would just to make Nazi Party Mom and Dad have to decide which one gets to stay at home with their little sociopathic monsters as to not get their McMansion burned down.
I love California but something fundamental about how this state is run has to be changed, because it’s not working anymore.
cat48
Mark Halperin Prediction on Hardball
Jon Huntsman will be the next prez of the US.. …
I hope his predictions are wrong as usual.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
In other news, water is wet.
Roger Moore
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You owe me a new keyboard.
Culture of Truth
Scalia invokes original intent in the sense that the Founders were also scared of muscular specimens
Violet
@cat48:
I can see him being right, but the next president not being elected until 2016. Obama wins re-election and that makes the next president the one who wins the following election.
Villago Delenda Est
@cat48:
Well, by “next” he may mean in 2016.
But there’s no way in hell that Huntsman can secure the nomination this cycle, because the crazies are on the loose and will make certain that someone who was a member of the Near Administration will not get the nomination.
After the thorough buttkicking that will take place in 17 odd months, the GOP will realize that they can’t win with the crazy, which will provide Huntsman an opportunity.
Tonybrown74
Has Mark Halperin ever been right?
Calouste
@Ruckus:
The US has not not just the highest incaceration rate in the world, it has a rate that is 7 to 10 times as high as most other OECD countries.
jl
Report says that about 20% of second strikers in for drugs, about 15% of third strikers. About 45% of third strikers in for drugs for property crime.
CA has a relatively strict and unforgiving third strike law when it comes to what counts towards three strikes. After the first qualifying conviction, pretty much anything can count.
Cole’s bleg disguised as a post did not ask about parole. Parole has been almost nonexistent in CA under Davis and the Schwarzenenegger. Brown just released his review of parole board recommendations, and is following a more normal policy compared to other states. I don’t remember the numbers and don’t have time to look for them now.
Edit: numbers read from the CA Dept of Corr. report’s goofy graphs, so only good to plus minus couple of percentage points.
Nomad
@thefncrow:
Anyone recall Scalia responding as such when questioned about legislating from the bench during confirmation hearings?
PS: Thin Lizzy now running all around my brain.
pharniel
There was a story on NPR a few months ago about how when Johnny Cash played Folsum it had a recidivism rate <10% and now has one in the 90's.
ANd it was basically how the state had gutted rehabilitation programs and instead tried to cram more people in prison.
EconWatcher
@trollhattan:
True story: When I was single and doing criminal defense for a living, I went to a bar one night seeking female companionship–something I wasn’t very good at securing, particularly in the bar setting.
Anyhoo, my luck seemed to change, because a surprisingly attractive young woman seemed surprisingly interested in me. When she found out what I did for a living, she asked what I thought of the death penalty. I said I wasn’t a fan, and gave a few quick anecdotes to show the unreliablity of the criminal justice system for sorting the guilty from the innocent.
She then replied, and I quote, “But don’t you think the death penalty is a good solution for prison overcrowding?”
I sat stunned for a moment, as I contemplated the question, could I possibly sleep with someone who just said that? Yes, I’m desperate, but am I THAT desperate?
And then I sadly made some excuses and beat a quick retreat.
merrinc
@thefncrow:
Will that man never DIE?
Just Some Fuckhead
Anyone given any thought to turning Oklahoma into a penal state and taking advantage of the highest rate of tornadoes per square mile in the US?
cyntax
@jl:
Yeah the CADC is a bit out of control with those 3D graphics; Professor Tuftee would not be pleased.
I was checking out the section on adult education. It’s interesting how they switch to using raw numbers there instead of the trend lines and percentages used elsewhere. The most obviously useful data would be to see what percentage of the prison population is using these programs, and whether the rate of recidivism for that cohort is lower than the over-all population. Strangely such data is absent.
jl
forgot to mention, that CA Dept Corr. report says average age of second and third strike population is about 40. That seems very ancient compared to rest of prison population with is very heavily weighted towards those in 20s and 30s.
Eyeballing graph, looks like maybe 20 or more percent of three strkers over 50. Will try to get reliable numbers out of goofy graph later since I am curious now. about a quarter of CA population 50 plus. That would be wild if proportion of 50 plus three strikers was close to proportion in general population. Very old for a prison population of any kind.
Poopyman
@Just Some Fuckhead: Thank you, Reverend Jonathan Swift.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@EconWatcher: Wow. Just … Yuck.
At least you don’t have to live with the shame of having had sex with Michelle Malkin.
Steeplejack
I think it is an offense against humanity that we have private, for-profit prisons in this country. It makes me sick.
Does anyone know when and how that got started? Would have been easier to nip it in the bud.
superking
I’m not informed either, and I think those are all good questions. I would only add that the number of non-violent drug offenders in prison (as opposed to your local jail) is really low. People don’t usually go to prison for possession alone, unless it is a really b iv quantity of drugs. Now they might spend a few days in jail for having a joint on them, depending on their criminal history, but so will Uncle Jim Bob when he gets in a fight with Cooter down at Luke’s Slop N’ Suds.
merrinc
@cat48:
Halperin is a fucking moron. Have all his former journalism profs committed suicide in utter despair?
Jazz Superluminar
Scalia:
For those of us keeping score at home, this is the same guy who thought it wrong to intervene to keep a clearly innocent man from being executed, right?
jon
We have a similar overcrowding issue in Arizona. Guess what our plan is? Throw some back to the county jails.
Same “solution” for California. Welcome to those “unfunded mandates”, counties. When it hits closer than the state level, the fun begins. Enjoy those property tax rate increases… oh wait, nevermind. Enjoy the next round of lawsuits, I guess.
But let’s keep on ignoring the sentencing, the “truth-in-sentencing”, and the “war on drugs” stuff. Nothing to see here, move along.
jl
IIRC, a slew of undisciplined regression analysis done by glibertarian economists 20 or 30 years ago advocated the lock em up approach to corrections and rehabilitation based on a social cost benefit rationale.
There is a slew of these gibertarian type economists in CA academics, especially in Southern California. This all happened when I was a snot nosed kid, but my impression of reading about it is that this policy recommendation was sold very hard and successfully in CA. The same bunch has been fighting subsidized public higher education in CA for decades, and want Cal State and UC tuition to cover full costs on the theory that if a kid was worth educating, the market would find a way to get him or her the needed tuition funds.
CA is not very liberal on average when it comes to economic policy. I remember seeing a graph showing CA public attitudes on economic policy in dead center of US opinion.
So, despite CA’s reputation, the prison situation in CA is another glibertarian reactionary experiment gone wrong. IMHO also too.
EconWatcher
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
The horror, the horror!
Yukkurishiteittene
Scalia is so laughably transparent in his opinions. You can practically TASTE in every word his racism, sexism, homophobia, and general hatred (for anyone not white, male and wealthy, that is).
The Supreme Court should have a sound system wired up to play Yackety Sax any time he enters, leaves, or speaks.
PIGL
@Culture of Truth:
FIFY.
America has become an open celebration of perversion, cruelty and death.
Sloegin
3-strikes is a huge chunk Of Kalifornia’s mess. Washington state has a huge burden as well with its 3-strikes, but at least Washington’s is for violent crime, not all crimes.
When the voting population thinks they know how to handle criminal law better than the people put in charge of it, all it does is create a giant fiscal black hole.
The problem isn’t enough prisons, it’s stupid law.
Omnes Omnibus
@PIGL: I don’t know about that, boyo. In this particular case, the Supreme Court ordered the release of the prisoners. Scalia’s side lost this one.
fasteddie9318
Goddamn that fucking socialist Democrat Schwarzenegger for not building vast new prisons to protect Californians from weed smokers! Between him and that Democrat bastard Bush, this whole country is going to hell in a handbasket!
trollhattan
@EconWatcher:
Ugh. Tactical retreat seems like the only response for anybody not turned on by sociopathy.
I suppose when the crack team of Shrub and Gonzo were keeping the Texas death house rockin’ they were making a pretty good dent in the death row population. When I think about it, that was probably Shrub operating at his highest level of competence.
jl
In an attempt to talk like a VSP, I make this final comment: you people should quit whining. A lot of states make some big bucks by housing CA inmates. We are stimulating your economies! CA does and does and does for you people and what do we get? Whines and complaints and badmouthing.
You ingrates.
Roger Moore
@merrinc:
Preferably in some way that’s both embarrassing and takes Clarence Thomas down with him? I’m a fatal car crash after a drug fueled rampage might be a nice ending.
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan:
I believe he passed that threshold when he left the Yale cheerleading squad.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
Halprin is a rube. Huntsman is already pulling a McCain, taking his previously reasonable positions and reversing them to appeal to the crazies. All of those who thought he was pretty awesome for a republican govenor (like me, who cheered his fight to try to remove sales tax on food, but lost to the crazy state legislature) are already seeing the man who once was reasonable and not so bad, is already becoming a shell of a person who has no real principles he won’t sell out for a crazy person’s vote.
geemoney
Since we’re going with uninformed commentary, I offer up this excellent song:
System of a Down – Prison Song
jl
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
And like me too. I thought Huntsman might be a GOP candidate that would allow me to sleep well at night, but he is pulling a Mitt (I think Mitt is better parallel than McCain).
I had not kept up with Huntsman’s groveling to the reactionaries: lying about his position on Obama stimulus, dancing toward vaguely supporting Ryan ‘budget plan’, or maybe not, as he balances general voter polls and what he needs to do to poll above zero in primary races.
Seems to me Huntsman had no chance in primary or caucuses, so probably all hypothetical anyway.
Dennis SGMM
Now we know the process that produced the Citizens United decision: Fat Tony decided what the proper outcome was and then wrote the reasoning for it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
Yup, pretty much like how McCain sold out everyone who was in the Hanoi Hilton with him by backing the deserting coward malassministration “enhanced interrogation techniques” policy in order to get the 2008 nomination…along with conceding to the crazies on other issues as well.
McCain’s been seeing the light, recently, on torture, which is good for him…I guess he realizes how wrong he was to sacrifice his sacred honor to fuel his ambition, but I gotta tell you John, it’s too late. The water is under the bridge. You can mitigate the stain, but it will never go away.
JPL
@jl: IMO…The crazies will split the vote. That leaves Huntsman or Romney to pick up the pieces. Majority wins so who knows.
Mnemosyne
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
I must be irretrievably frivolous, because I read that and this quote immediately sprang to mind:
Homer: “I had to do a stupid Kabuki play about the 47 Ronin. I wanted to be Yoshi but they made me Ori.”
PIGL
@Omnes Omnibus: yes, of course, the court order is a good thing. But will it last? How come it’s even necessary? How does a man like Scalia become a Supreme in the first place? That’s more what I was getting at. How can the GOP command a majority of the House, and threaten to take the Senate, unless the country is in the grip of a death cult?
I suppose a better metaphor would be of a Bradburyesque three-ring circus, in the right wing of which unspeakable acts were performed and boastfully trumpted. The middle ring would be a bunch of concerned serious media-type paying respectful attention to the right ring, and all but ignoring the left, except on those rare occaisions when wrong should fail and right prevail.
danimal
The talk radio crowd is just hoping that prison violence will winnow down the prison population. Oh, and prisoners don’t deserve health care, because that costs money, donchaknow? These are the most common conservative responses to prison crowding. Either they don’t really think the issue through, or they are monstrous human beings. (OK, those two options are not mutually exclusive, some don’t think it through AND are monsters, so sue me.)
I don’t condone crime (DUH-who does?) but we owe a minimal standard of living for incarcerated persons. The fact that every conservative I know would give me an hour’s argument before agreeing to that last sentence is all you need to know about right-wingers these days.
Judas Escargot
@Han’s Solo:
Even more sadly, this is because your modern GOP partisan hack has more in common psychologically/emotionally with the rapist dog molester than with the dirty hippie pot-smoker.
Just sayin’.
Tulip
Couple of things. One it’s hard to find real data on this (or my Googling skillz are lacking)
In 2005 PPIC said the following:
“Since 1994, increasing numbers of prisoners have been sentenced under the Three Strikes law – currently, 5 percent are “third strikers,” serving 25 years to life, while 21 percent are “second strikers,” serving double the normal sentence for a second felony conviction.”
and
“A growing majority of admissions are returns to prison for new crimes or parole violations, as opposed to new admissions – 67 percent were return admissions in 2004, compared to 59 percent in 1990.”
CALIFORNIA’S CHANGINGPRISON POPULATION
And in a 2006 Washington Post article it says:
“In 1977, then-Gov. Jerry Brown (D), responding to a worries about rising crime, did away with indeterminate sentencing. Three years later, state lawmakers enacted legislation that said the purpose of incarceration was punishment alone, formally writing rehabilitation and treatment out of the penal code. (Brown is today running for state attorney general on a platform that calls for sentencing procedures that would lower prison population.
California’s Crisis In Prison Systems A Threat to Public
Not sure what it all means… only slightly over 50% of the prison population is incarcerated because of violent crimes and it is aging. The whole thing is such a mess. It’s such a mess I actually agree with the ruling of the SCOTUS. Well except for Scalia. Geez, what a surprise.
Martin
Thank goodness. We’ve needed to release a shitton of non-violent inmates for ages. Too bad we’ll just fill the place up again since 3 strikes is still on the books.
Omnes Omnibus
@PIGL:
Of course it will last. The Supreme Court is the final arbiter in this case. The District Court order will now be enforced.
Politicians are scared to do anything that would cause them to be perceived as soft on crime. State courts with elected judges and politically ambitious prosecutors are the same. Federal courts with judges who have lifetime appointments don’t always have those concerns.
As far as your other questions go, I think a death cult is a bit too far. Most people do not follow politics closely enough to understand issues. They are trying to live their lives and take care of their families. This is, of course, something the the Right is making more and more difficult. This means that the people heave even less time to spend following politics. And so on. At the same time, the Right (and if they are the death cult of which you speak, I have fewer issues with what you say) has huge amounts of money to spend on offering simple explanations to the people who spend little time on politics. The answers from the center and the left are complicated because they are actually trying to resolve complicated questions.
fasteddie9318
Doesn’t California have privatized prisons? Has nobody considered the impact of this draconian decision to release
revenue streamsprisoners on the heroic Galtian heroes of the private prison industry? HOW ARE THESE COURAGEOUS MAKERS SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE THE REPEATED INTERFERENCE OF THE TAKERS?PIGL
@Omnes Omnibus: The Right and their roaders are largely the death cult of which I speak. “Southern Death Cult on the Skids”, as it were.
And yet, I was waiting for someone here to chime in with “do the crime, do the time”. With the exception of the far left and some libertarians, who is opposed to the war on drugs, who is opposed to draconian sentences, who defends womens rights? The Southern Death Cult is the source of the zombie infection, but the center ring has nearly been conquered, it seems.
I will stop now before I murder anymore metaphors.
Ruckus
@Calouste:
Thank what/who ever for our puritan culture, basis of a lot of our laws, religious bullshit, and fear of everything. The europeans told them to fuck off centuries ago so they came here to do their stuff. And we are still paying for it. How did prohibition work out? We have the alcohol back but in a lot of states the laws are still screwy. Banning it didn’t work, as usual. Banning substances or activities that people want to do never does. Alcohol, drugs, “underage” sex and… Other countries learn this, but not us.
One of my favorite lines in a movie is from Men in Black when Tommy Lee Jones tells Will Smith that persons are not stupid but people are. I believe that is because most of us are by nature, followers. And we follow those that sound like strong leaders, even if they lead us down a pretty crappy path. We need to change the balance and find some actual strong leaders, something that the liberal side of the isle has had in very short supply for some time. Notice that I did not say the conservatives have strong leaders, they just yell louder.
Tonal Crow
@Yevgraf (fka Michael): It’s also about too many criminal laws. It’s time to scrub victimless crimes from the codes, and to carefully evaluate how we should treat the remaining crimes.
dday
Some fun stats:
The CCPOA (prison guards union) supported 108 candidates in California in 2010. 105 of them won.
The CA legislature has passed 1,000 sentencing laws since 1978. All of them increased sentences.
As of 2008, 2/3 of all cases of recidivism – inmates re-entering prison – were due to technical parole violations. Like missing a scheduled meeting.
Incidentally, how three strikes affects the prison system the most is how it makes the prison population older. This makes prison health care more expensive, forcing cutbacks to the system to keep on budget. The lack of personnel, then, leads to preventable deaths among the prison population (112 in the last couple years). This was the crux of the case against California, that these preventable deaths represented cruel and unusual punishment.
burnspbesq
@PIGL:
Southern Culture on the Skids’ lawyers would like a word with you. Something about libel, slander, damage to reputation, trademark infringement, and the like.
burnspbesq
@MattR:
Wait, what? You thought Scalia was a principled originalist?
How quaint.
danimal
@dday: Does anyone else find it ironic that the biggest supporters of tough on crime legislation/initiatives for the past 20 years has been CCPOA?
All the tough-minded conservative pols have supported a….union (gasp!)…without a second thought. Not just a union, but one of those dreadful, tax-guzzling public employee unions! The evilest of the evil! And they still have no clue that THEY (the CA conservatives) have been played like a fiddle by CCPOA. Every time a harsh sentencing initiative comes up for a vote, conservatives will back it to the hilt, further enriching the prison guards union.
CRA
Thin Lizzy:
“Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak
Somewhere in this town”
Psst… it’s goin’ down at the JAIL
(That lyric always bugged me a bit)
FlipYrWhig
@cat48: This is excellent news! For John McCain!
White Trash Liberal
The grousing about 3 strikes is important, but an important criticism is missing from this thread: mandatory minimums. The ability to sentence has been taken out of a judge’s hands for even minor drug possession charges in California.
mclaren
As of 1997, 57% of California inmates were in prison for non-violent crimes.
Personal story about California’s three strikes law: an acquaintance of mine got thrown in prison for a mandatory minimum of 20 years under California’s three strikes law. His two prior offenses? 1) at age 17 he used a phony ID to buy drinks in a bar, got busted, and plead to a felony; 2) he got caught with more an ounce of weed in college and plead it out in return for parole etc.; 3) he beat up his girlfriend.
Did the guy deserve prison time? For number 3, definitely. 20 years with no parole? You be the judge.
El Cid
@danimal: It’s funny — the anti-unionists I know don’t seem to think of police or firefighters or C.O. unions as “unions”. Some of them clearly state that.
You know the routine. They aren’t like your terrible company unions which make companies pay a worker 4 times the wage of his hard-working cousin while paying for the union boss to go to fancy vacations, and that worker only has to work 10 hours a week and no one can say nothing to him or the union blah blah blah.
It’s that they don’t see the P/F/C.O. unions striking, or looking like or sounding like the unions they’ve seen or been told about or imagined.
They really do see those unions as different. More like some sort of guys who do these dangerous jobs having to stick together so that the gubmit byurokraps give ’em what they earn. But if they don’t, they don’t walk off the job and hold those responsibilities up.
Mike G
@danimal:
Cops and prison guards magically don’t count as evil public employee unions, just like 50% of the world’s military spending magically doesn’t count as Big Government.
Both involve abusing brown people, so it’s all OK with Republicans.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@MattR:
i believe you would cite bush v gore, as precedent if you are arguing that point.
pkdz
“If our nation were to return to the rates of incarceration we had in the 1970s, we would have to release 4 out of 5 people behind bars.” –Michelle Alexander
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/opinion/15alexander.html
Odie Hugh Manatee
@danimal:
A few of my customers work for the Cali prison system as guards and I’m sure I will be hearing the whining from them about this. A couple of them talk of the prisoners as if they are animals and one seems to derive a bit too much happiness teaching them about his authoritah.
California dreamin’? More like California nightmare.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Just Some Fuckhead:
“a man once told me to walk with the lord, i’d rather walk with the bases loaded.”
bob h
Yes, maybe it is time to rethink incarceration of non-violent drug offenders. And maybe women jailed for prostitution could be let out, too.
Pug
As of 2008, 2/3 of all cases of recidivism – inmates re-entering prison – were due to technical parole violations. Like missing a scheduled meeting.
This is the real reason for such high recidivism rates. Everyone completing their sentence in California is on parole for three years, so they are not really out of the system.
Let’s face it, a lot of these guys are fuck ups. That’s how they ended up in the joint in the first place. They don’t make it through three years of drug tests and parole officer visits and they end up back in Folsom for a while.
lawguy
@The Dangerman: How old was she? 47. Thank you Benny Hill.
negative 1
@Calouste: Just curious — how many OECD lists can we slip to the middle of before they just start calling us a 3rd world country? I’m struggling to find ones that we’re in the top 10 for that aren’t GDP.
djesno
@Just Some Fuckhead: HERE, HERE, old chap!
currants
@Dennis SGMM: MOST of his decisions read that way. And when the ruling doesn’t go his way, his dissents give you the same sense you get from a 5 yr old’s temper tantrum (i.e. shriekingly angry).