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Governor Brown
After serving two terms in the 1970s and’80s, Gov. Brown re-entered office in 2010 with a 10-point margin over Ebay CEO Meg Whitman, a pro-choice and now pro-gay marriage Republican. She had promised her business savvy would turn California around. After spending millions on advertising (including a commercial showing Bill Clinton accusing Mr. Brown of trying to undo Prop. 13), Ms. Whitman still could not win. In retrospect, Mr. Brown actually got the worse sentence. Incarcerated in Sacramento with liberal Democratic legislators ready to riot if they cannot spend more taxpayer dollars, with public sector unions (including the powerful prison guards union), pension problems with structural deficits, he must fall to sleep at night wondering why someone did not shank him before he decided to step back into the governor's mansion.
The bloodiest threat facing the governor, however, has nothing to do with spending, taxes or the bureaucracies that strangle California's capacity to recover and retain the growing exodus of residents. The state’s bursting prison population has become tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment under a Supreme Court ruling. Resisting dangers to public safety and potential business investment, Gov. Brown submitted another appeal to block the federal order requiring that the state release 10,000 inmates by year's end. The Court demurred. Prisoners must be released.
Why So Crowded?
The excessively crowded prison system is a disgraceful symbol of the problems locking up our economic recovery.
Why are so many behind bars?
Gov. Brown owns some blame. In his 1970s Moonbeam phase, he supported mandated sentencing for all cases, thus removing from judges the discretion to reduce sentences or even opt for probation and community service in more complicated cases. The controversial tenure of the first woman on the state Court, Chief Justice Rose Bird , a Brown appointee, highlighted the public's frustration with a perception of government permitting rampant criminality. Moreover, Ms. Bird’s staunch opposition to the death penalty was said to be undermining deterrence. She also struck down the “use a gun, go to jail” enhancements. In 1986, she became the first recalled Supreme Court justice.
A tough-on-crime mandate in the 1980s and 1990s stirred voters and lawmakers to enact stricter sentencing. The progressive prison politics of the 1970s – with overly lenient sentences from liberal judges – disturbed voters. The initiative process only added to the overpopulation. With the tragic kidnapping/murder of Polly Klaas, voters signaled their support for a three-strikes law that would incarcerate felony offenders for three times the sentence if convicted of a second strike, and 25-to-life for a third. Recidivism rates have remained high. Rehabilitation programs have been cut, not just because of pinched budgets but the voters' conviction that rehab does not work. No matter how many people are locked up, they have to come out again. With no training, no skills, 65 percent of parolees return to prison.
Did the Crackdown Work?
Tougher laws, more stringent attitudes about crime, and the influential prison guards’ have increased the number of prisons. There's a great deal of money to divvy among private contractors. Unions representing prison employees see nothing but profits and compliant politicians. In 2006, the prison population exploded to 163,000. Because of court-ordered realignment, it is down 19,000, to 144,000. Still, the federal order requires that prisons operate only at 137.5 percent of capacity, 110,000. Overcrowding persists.
What can be done?
California constructed more prisons in surplus days. Because of voter resistance, plus a lingering recession, realignment to county jails and early release of non-violent offenders have eased the crowding. Unlike other supermajority Democratic states, like Rhode Island and Illinois, the dangers of tax-and-spend statism have a more lethal face in California, where tough love requires high taxes that voters are tired of paying.
Like many progressive (blue and bankrupt) states, California overcriminalizes and underprepares, panders to public employee associations and pilfers from private citizens. A reduction in penalties for non-violent crimes would shrink the number of inmates. Decriminalizing low-level controlled substances would provide a revenue source as well as diminish incarcerations. Fundamental reforms restricting the power of prison unions, like paycheck protection and lobby inhibition, would free up legislators to serve their state and not the special interests.
From government waste to union collusion, California can find no better symbol of its symptomatic distress than the prison system. With rising crime rates and a hastening exodus by residents, plus unaltered budget and spending problems, Gov. Brown is locked up because of early release.
Arthur Christopher Schaper is a teacher-turned-writer on topics both timeless and timely; political, cultural, and eternal. A lifelong Southern California resident, he currently lives in Torrance.
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