{"id":10131,"date":"2009-09-23T19:00:07","date_gmt":"2009-09-23T19:00:07","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-09-23T19:00:07","modified_gmt":"2009-09-23T19:00:07","slug":"black-or-white-prisons-and-the-next-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/09\/23\/black-or-white-prisons-and-the-next-governor\/","title":{"rendered":"Black or White: Prisons and the Next Governor"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object>As we drift headlong into the 2010 Governor’s race, there are some very big issues facing the state.  One of these, is the prison crisis.  The legislature and the Governor were only able to come up with cuts that would reduce the population by somewhere in the 25,000 range, while the federal courts are looking more in the 44,000 range<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Bee took a look<\/a> at how the candidates are talking about this issue, and let’s just say that some of the positions are semi-reasonable, and others simply aren’t.  Now, for those of you who were wondering about the Michael Jackson “Black or White” Video, well, I give you Steve Poizner’s black or white take on the world:<\/p>\n

Whitman and Poizner, on the other hand, have tried to out-tough each other, railing against legislation passed last month by the state Senate that would have let some inmates out earlier and appointed a commission to rework state sentencing laws. The ultimate version of the bill passed this month did not include the sentencing commission or a provision to release more than 6,000 inmates to home detention.<\/p>\n

“You have to be a really bad person to get into state prison,” Poizner said. “So I’m opposed to releasing people who are dangerous, absolutely opposed. That’s no way to balance the budget.”<\/b><\/p>\n

Whitman went even further, saying she opposed rewriting any prison and parole guidelines that would shorten prison terms for any inmate.(Sac Bee 9\/23\/09<\/a> emphasis mine<\/i>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Poizner simply takes the reactionary view, that is, that if you are in prison, you are a bad, bad, person.  Of course, this ignores the crazy, messed up world of parole violations that lead to people going to prison to serve out a term because they missed a meeting with their parole officer or some other technicality.  So, yes, you have to break the law to end up in prison, but painting all prisoners with such a wide brush serves neither the prison system, the prisoners, nor the state very well.<\/p>\n

And then you look at eMeg<\/a>‘s statement, and that seems all the more bizarre when you put it together with her statement from yesterday<\/a> saying that she wants to can 40,000 state workers.  As the governor’s staff has pointed out, you can’t fire that many workers without firing a bunch of prison guards.  And if you plan on increasing the prison population as eMeg seems to be saying here, well forget about cutting state employee roles, you’ll end up hiring another 10,000 prison guards.  And that doesn’t even consider the overtime pay that the guards get in spades.<\/p>\n

Jerry Brown, who mentioned that he would consider the position<\/a>, and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom have stated fairly similar positions. Both want to reduce recidivism (good!) but haven’t stated whether they would support a sentencing commission or any serious reform (bad!).  <\/p>\n

On the other hand, Republican Tom Campbell has actually been quite the reasonable guy on this front.  He supported the Senate bill (Good!) and has put out specific, pragmatic policies on this and some other issues, many of which are pretty vanilla milquetoast<\/a>. Nonetheless, a candidate that is willing to talk about the issue from a logical viewpoint, rather than an emotional reactionary viewpoint, deserves some credit.<\/p>\n

Campbell, on the other hand, is bucking the prevailing wisdom in his party. He backed both the Senate version and the final bill although both shorten prison terms of some inmates.<\/p>\n

“We have an opportunity to direct a more effective prison system,” Campbell said. “I’d rather approach this pragmatically, through outsourcing of prisoners, developing a triage of parole violators and focusing on more violent offenders in prisons.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, Arnold supported the Senate bill too, and that hardly makes him a great Governor, does it? But, unless our elected leaders are willing to deal with thhis issue out of a place of pragmatic, problem-solving leadership, rather than out of fear of an electoral backlash, we shouldn’t expect too much progress.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object>As we drift headlong into the 2010 Governor’s race, there are some very big issues facing the state.  One of these, is the prison crisis.  The legislature and the Governor were only able to come up with cuts that would reduce the population by somewhere in the 25,000 range, while the federal courts are looking more in the 44,000 range<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Bee took a look<\/a> at how the candidates are talking about this issue, and let’s just say that some of the positions are semi-reasonable, and others simply aren’t.  Now, for those of you who were wondering about the Michael Jackson “Black or White” Video, well, I give you Steve Poizner’s black or white take on the world:<\/p>\n

Whitman and Poizner, on the other hand, have tried to out-tough each other, railing against legislation passed last month by the state Senate that would have let some inmates out earlier and appointed a commission to rework state sentencing laws. The ultimate version of the bill passed this month did not include the sentencing commission or a provision to release more than 6,000 inmates to home detention.<\/p>\n

“You have to be a really bad person to get into state prison,” Poizner said. “So I’m opposed to releasing people who are dangerous, absolutely opposed. That’s no way to balance the budget.”<\/b><\/p>\n

Whitman went even further, saying she opposed rewriting any prison and parole guidelines that would shorten prison terms for any inmate.(Sac Bee 9\/23\/09<\/a> emphasis mine<\/i>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Poizner simply takes the reactionary view, that is, that if you are in prison, you are a bad, bad, person.  Of course, this ignores the crazy, messed up world of parole violations that lead to people going to prison to serve out a term because they missed a meeting with their parole officer or some other technicality.  So, yes, you have to break the law to end up in prison, but painting all prisoners with such a wide brush serves neither the prison system, the prisoners, nor the state very well.<\/p>\n

And then you look at eMeg<\/a>‘s statement, and that seems all the more bizarre when you put it together with her statement from yesterday<\/a> saying that she wants to can 40,000 state workers.  As the governor’s staff has pointed out, you can’t fire that many workers without firing a bunch of prison guards.  And if you plan on increasing the prison population as eMeg seems to be saying here, well forget about cutting state employee roles, you’ll end up hiring another 10,000 prison guards.  And that doesn’t even consider the overtime pay that the guards get in spades.<\/p>\n

Jerry Brown, who mentioned that he would consider the position<\/a>, and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom have stated fairly similar positions. Both want to reduce recidivism (good!) but haven’t stated whether they would support a sentencing commission or any serious reform (bad!).  <\/p>\n

On the other hand, Republican Tom Campbell has actually been quite the reasonable guy on this front.  He supported the Senate bill (Good!) and has put out specific, pragmatic policies on this and some other issues, many of which are pretty vanilla milquetoast<\/a>. Nonetheless, a candidate that is willing to talk about the issue from a logical viewpoint, rather than an emotional reactionary viewpoint, deserves some credit.<\/p>\n

Campbell, on the other hand, is bucking the prevailing wisdom in his party. He backed both the Senate version and the final bill although both shorten prison terms of some inmates.<\/p>\n

“We have an opportunity to direct a more effective prison system,” Campbell said. “I’d rather approach this pragmatically, through outsourcing of prisoners, developing a triage of parole violators and focusing on more violent offenders in prisons.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, Arnold supported the Senate bill too, and that hardly makes him a great Governor, does it? But, unless our elected leaders are willing to deal with thhis issue out of a place of pragmatic, problem-solving leadership, rather than out of fear of an electoral backlash, we shouldn’t expect too much progress.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[117,200],"tags":[415,7872,4467,770,60],"class_list":["post-10131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-117","category-200","tag-415","tag-7872","tag-4467","tag-770","tag-60"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2Dp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}