In case you hadn’t noticed, we are pretty much at the moment of perfect storm for the prisons.  They are wildly overcrowded, and generally wild. They are the subject of Supreme litigation to release 40,000 prisoners. They are costing us more than we are spending on our higher education systems, and oh, yeah, there’s the fact that we face about $30 Billion of debt.

So you would think that this would be a super fantastic opportunity to try to do something about the prison situation.  For years, the voters and politicians of the state have been scared of doing anything other than trading on fear.  Rather than working on new solutions was considered too risky.  Thing is, while I was working for Kamala Harris’ campaign, I learned that somebody forgot to tell her that.  Instead, she has throughout her career as SF DA been willing to look at new ways to make this a safer world, rather than just the politically safe ways of locking up every offender and trying to keep the keys far away.

And perhaps we are seeing more Californians noticing that we, in fact, have a few problems here.  From today’s LA Times:

“Smart on Crime” is something of a Harris franchise, the name of her 2009 book. In it, and during her campaign, Harris argued that criminal justice money is wasted on the “revolving door” that prison has become as 70% of the 120,000 convicts released annually end up being caught committing new crimes.

She believes that prison should be the punishment for serious offenders and that greater pains should be taken to prod milder offenders with education, counseling, probation and other community-based support.

“I firmly believe in and advocate accountability and consequences when you are talking about rapists and murderers and child molesters – you’ve got to lock them up,” she said. “But you’ve also got to look at the fact that crime is not monolithic.” (LA Times)

However, we can’t really think that whatever changes are going to be either quick or easy.  At the same time this story (entitled “The time may be right for Kamala Harris”) was published, we get a story of Jerry Brown’s fealty to the prison guards union (CCPOA).

Jerry Brown is preparing to dance with the ones who brung him, specifically 31,000 members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. … In a speech that was closed to the public, Brown warned union members that there may not be much if any pay raise. But he also talked about his strong relationship with the union’s leaders and declared that he intends to work out a labor pact with them once in office.

“He reached out to a large segment of his employees and gave them hope,” said Chuck Alexander, the union’s second in command. “It made people feel a little bit better.”(SacBee)

CCPOA has been in a near constant war with Schwarzenegger. It occasionally was helpful, but more often what they were fighting was any attempt at reform. The target of their ire was sentencing reform primarily, as they would prefer to keep more people in prisons (and more guards in jobs).  The relationship with Brown will certainly be different. That’s probably a good think initially, but CCPOA is going to have to open up to reforms, or face some far more drastic options.

The court decision is still looming, but even a “victory” would only be a temporary for our prison and its history of letting people die in their own cesspools.  Everybody is going to need to make some changes in their thinking if we are to really tackle the prisons issue.  CCPOA is going to have to open up to reform.  Politicians, particularly Harris and Brown, are going to have to get really friendly with that third rail in order to provide the leadership our state needs.  And most importantly, our voters have to realize that their is a high cost of the “tough on crime” mantras, especially when not backed up with sensible rehabilitation procedures.

Big change is coming, but whether its delivered through democratic processes, through a court order, or some sort of disaster, well, who knows?