November 26, 2007
Orange Co. CA: Editorial: Too many of us in prisons. Prison overcrowding reflects tougher sentencing, often for victimless offenses, not more crime

Monday, November 26, 2007
Editorial: Too many of us in prisons
Prison overcrowding reflects tougher sentencing, often for victimless offenses, not more crime
An Orange County Register editorial
 

It was more than a year ago that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger looked at the 175,000 prisoners crammed into a state prison system built for half as many and proclaimed a state of emergency.

So far, this emergency has been addressed largely in terms of prison "supply" – more beds. As we have argued before in these pages, a truly comprehensive solution for California's prison overcrowding must focus also on reducing prison "demand": reducing the number of criminals by reforming sentences for those lawbreakers who don't threaten public safety. But lest our readers think these suggestions are unique, a research institute that works closely with corrections departments around the country conducted an analysis of the nation as a whole, and it found both the same problem and the same necessary solution.

California's jails hold one of every 200 Californians, at an annual cost to taxpayers that rivals that of the state's university system. But as the report issued last week by the JFA Institute demonstrates, this follows the pattern of the nation as a whole, which now warehouses 2.2 million prisoners at a cost of $100 billion a year: a tenfold increase from three decades ago. JFA Institute, based in Washington, D.C., works with various levels of government and philanthropic agencies to evaluate criminal-justice policies and design research-based policy solutions ( www.JFA-associates.com).

Who are these 2.2 million people? Among them are Elisa Kelly and George Robinson, sentenced to 27 months in prison for hosting a drinking party for their son's nine friends in their own home. There's Jessica Hall, sentenced to 24 months for throwing a cup of McDonald's coffee at a car that cut her off. And then there are the hundreds of thousands of people imprisoned for nonviolent drug crimes.

As these examples suggest, and the JFA report demonstrates with statistical evidence, the primary reason for overcrowded prisons is not an explosion of crime, but an explosion of prison sentences. Not only are these sentences many times the length of those for equivalent crimes in other industrialized nations, they are "significantly longer than they were in earlier periods in our penal history." The result is greater expense for less effect, as is testified by rates of recidivism and crime alike.

The JFA Institute argues that its recommendations would save the U.S. taxpayer $20 billion a year and, eventually, reduce prison rolls by half. Certainly, they represent the real reforms that California and America as a whole need: reducing sentences, eliminating the use of prison for parole violators, reducing parole and probation supervision periods and, most importantly, decriminalizing victimless crimes, particularly those related to drug use and abuse.

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/prison-jfa-sentences-1928993-reducing-institute#