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Old 12-10-2007, 10:49 PM
 
Location: The mountians of Northern California.
1,354 posts, read 6,361,947 times
Reputation: 1343

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The Calif. Republican Caucus has a prison reform survey at their site. Those of you in Calif know how dire our prison situation is right now. I have a vested interest in the Calif. prison system. My hubby and brother in law are officers. I live in a small town that has a huge population of corrections officers and their families. But I also think something should be done by the legislature. A few years ago when the state shut down the officer training academy (that is why there are 3,000 vacant jobs at the present time but that is another topic), they also cut back on education and vocational services.

The Calif. recidivism rate is just above 70%. Inmates that participate in the fire fighting camps and the underwater welding program re-offend at less then 30%. I think about half of the inmates will never be rehabilitated, its too late in life for them to 'want' to change. But teaching a trade to the non-violent offenders can save money for the state. Turn them into tax payers instead of a burden on the state. But until our legislature actually tries to rehabilitate inmates, nothing will change. At this point there are no rehabilitation services. I wish the legislature would take a better look at the fire fighting program. Many of those inmates parole directly to a job with the dept of forestry and become decent citizens.

I am not for early releases, you do the crime you do the time. I am hoping that the non-violent offenders can get some help to keep them from the revolving door that CDCR has become. It costs us just under $40,000 a year to house an average inmate. Because of the officer shortage and the overcrowding, it costs many prisons $40,000 a day in overtime May-Sept. to staff the vacancies. No kidding, that is an actual figure from the prison where my husband works.

I would like to think the caucus will listen to the comments given on their survey, but I am a huge skeptic of our elected leaders. Once they reach that level they forget who put them there and is really best for the people in their state and/or voting district. If you are interested, check it out.

Prison Reform - California State Assembly Republican Caucus
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Old 12-12-2007, 11:24 AM
 
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
1,482 posts, read 5,163,672 times
Reputation: 798
Better yet, write your legislators and tell them the war on drugs is a failure and to pen bills to legalize and tax rather than filling our prisons.
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