Guest blog by James Clark, ACLU of Southern California 

New data in a study to be released next week on California’s death penalty has revealed that the price tag for death is even higher than we thought: $4 billion since 1978. Put another way, we spend $184 million more per year for death penalty inmates than we do on those sentenced to life without the chance of parole. All told, California is on track to spend $1 billion on the death penalty over the next five years.

The new estimate is the result of a three-year comprehensive examination of state, federal, and local expenditures on California’s death penalty by Arthur Alarcón, a federal judge on the 9th Circuit, and Paula Mitchell, a Loyola Law School professor. Mercury News called the study “highly credible” and that it made the case for replacing the death penalty “nearly indisputable.” Not that anyone was disputing the wasteful spending before – except for that guy who comments on all my blogs. By now, most folks get that the death penalty wastes hundreds of millions of our dwindling state dollars. Only now we know that it actually wastes billions.

$4 billion and what did that get us? A grand total of 13 executions. That’s over $300 million per execution above the cost of life without parole.

Meanwhile, nearly half of all murders in California go unsolved. How many dangerous individuals could we have locked up permanently and taken off our streets over the last 33 years if we hadn’t executed those 13 people? How many children and families could have accessed the education and health services they needed, or how many students could have had the opportunity to attend college?

Looking ahead, the study predicts another $9 billion will be spent by 2030. Unless of course Gov. Brown just cuts the death penalty spending already – and it really is that easy.

The Governor has the authority to convert all 714 of California’s death sentences to life without the possibility of parole, saving California $1 billion over five years without releasing a single prisoner. Grassroots organizations and thousands of individuals around the state have been asking the Governor to do just that since the day he took office, and these new figures are giving the idea more traction with those looking for budget fixes, like CNNMoney.

And here’s the kicker: California voters agree. Polls as recent as April 2011 show that Californians support cutting the death penalty [PDF]. A full 63% of likely voters favor the governor converting all existing death sentences to life without parole, with the requirement that prisoners work and pay restitution into the Victims’ Compensation Fund (death row inmates are not currently required to work). That support spans party and geographic lines – majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents all across the state agree. It’s hard not to when there are four billion reasons.

The case is closed on the death penalty. There’s no question that California’s death penalty is dysfunctional and that the only thing it’s killing is our economy. The experts know it, the voters know it, and our elected leaders need to acknowledge it. Tell Jerry Brown to give up the charade of the death penalty and to give back the hundreds of millions of dollars law enforcement and education leaders need to actually keep our families safe.

The end of Illinois’ death penalty comes at a time when more and more people express the view that the death penalty is ineffective, costly, and unjust. A slew of recent editorials and opinion pieces have highlighted the enormous problems with the death penalty in California in particular.  As these editorials and op eds show, it is time for California to cut this: the death penalty.

An editorial recently published in The San Jose Mercury, Pasadena Star News, Long Beach Telegram, and other papers, calls on Governor Brown to convert all death sentences to life imprisonment without any possibility of parole to the death penalty, to save the state $1 billion over the next five years. As these editorials point out, the money now wasted on the death penalty could be better spent to fund education and invest in public safety. Yet, at a time of financial crisis, the Governor and lawmakers are instead choosing to cut public safety, as well as healthcare and education, while remaining on track to spend $1 billion on the death penalty in five years.  

“This,” the editorial says, “is fiscal insanity.”

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has been called a lot of things, but never a leader in criminal justice reform. Yet, last week the CDCR took a positive step towards dealing with our broken and excessively costly prisons system while Assembly Members continued to run in circles. It seems the Assembly has set the bar for leadership so low, even the CDCR has met it.

Last Thursday, the CDCR announced it would close the largest youth prison in California, Herman G. Stark, largely regarded as one of the worst of the six remaining costly state run youth prisons.  Given the 75% recidivism rate of youth leaving these institutions, closing the youth prisons and diverting youth to the local level is one of the real reforms our coalition has called for to improve public safety and end wasteful prison spending. As part of the People’s Budget Fix, we have proposed keeping young offenders at the local level, closing all six of the costly and ineffective youth prisons, and diverting half of the budget currently spent on these prisons to local programs. If fully implemented, this reform would save $200 million a year.

Closing the largest youth prison is an excellent start which will save $30-40 million by the CDCR’s estimate. But we’ll need to do more if we’re going to come up with $1.2 billion in savings. The need for action could not be more urgent: we must find those savings in the Corrections’ budget to avoid more draconian cuts to education, health care and other public safety programs like domestic violence shelters and drug treatment programs.

Moreover, most Californians agree we need to cut wasteful prison spending. Polls show that most Californians think we should cut the Corrections budget and we should protect funding for education. Most Californians also agree that state prison should be reserved for people who commit violent offenses, not petty ones.

Yet, the Assembly cannot agree on what seems like common sense to the rest of us: people who commit low-level crimes like petty theft and simple drug possession should be held accountable on the local level, not in prison cells at a cost of nearly $50,000 per person per year. It shocks the conscience that Assembly Members were willing to vote for billions of dollars of cuts to education-the most important program to average Californians-but are afraid to cut wasteful prison spending by even a fraction of that.  

Even if the Assembly passes its compromise bill this week, the CDCR and the Governor will have to come up with another nearly $1 billion in cuts. How? Without legislative action, the options for the CDCR and the Governor narrow, but they do have options. For example:

• Keep all young offenders local: The CDCR should close the five other youth prisons and divert all young offenders to local facilities and programs, to achieve the full savings of $1 billion in five years.

• Convert death sentences: The Governor should convert all death sentences to permanent imprisonment putting an end to the costly charade of capital punishment in California and saving $1 billion in five years.

• Expand alternative sanctions for technical violations of parole: In response to some technical violations by low-risk parolees, the CDCR should expand use of non-incarceration sanctions, including more intensive supervision, drug treatment and vocational training. In five years, net savings could surpass $1 billion.

Real reform of our criminal justice system will take years, not weeks. But it must start now. The reforms approved by the Senate and supported by the Governor and the CDCR should be easy for the Assembly to adopt. But if the Assembly doesn’t want to be part of the solution, than we should move on without them.

Natasha Minsker is death penalty policy director of the ACLU of Northern California. The People’s Budget Fix coalition includes the ACLU of Northern California, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Drug Policy Alliance, and Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes.

I don’t know what they’re drinking in the Assembly in Sacramento, but it’s not the coffee we’ve been offering.  Assembly members stumbled out of the chamber early Friday morning without voting on a bill that would reduce prison spending; a bill that is supported by the Republican Governor, the head of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and received an “aye” vote in the Senate on Thursday.  One of the sticking points in the Assembly: the idea that we might reduce some petty thefts to misdemeanors, rather than crimes that can result in a prison sentence when charged as a felony.

Really? Assembly Members are really voting against the bill because they think stealing a piece of pizza should get you a spot in California’s overwhelmed prison system at the price tag of $50,000 a year?  If that’s what they are thinking, they can’t be thinking straight. They must be under the influence of something, or more likely, some special interests. They are certainly not acting in the interest of public safety for the people of California.

The bill passed by the Senate is by no means perfect, but it’s an important first step in the right direction – it will only begin to get us close to the $1.2 billion in cuts needed from the prison budget and implement small but overdue criminal justice reforms.   In passing the bill, the Senate showed tremendous leadership and put healing California corrections and our public safety first.   Doubt is currently looming over whether our Assembly will match the Senate’s courage.  

If our Assembly Members insist on maintaining the status quo and gutting any real reform out of the bill, the people they will really be punishing are the people most in need: the children and the poor who depend on the state’s safety net. If we can’t make sensible reforms to save money in our corrections’ system, then more children will lose their health care, more teachers will be laid off, and more health and safety programs will be cut. Inevitably, we will have more people stealing more pizza and headed off to the only government program left: prison.

It’s time for our elected leaders to lead us out of this mess.

Natasha Minsker is the death penalty policy director for the ACLU of Northern California.