Amid all the angst about budget cuts, it’s heartening to hear of
a plan that not only reduces costs but helps reform the state’s
dysfunctional prison system.
Amid all the angst about budget cuts, it’s heartening to hear of a plan that not only reduces costs but helps reform the state’s dysfunctional prison system.
At the moment, it’s a plan Democrats like and Republicans don’t, but that could change. With some tweaking, both political parties, and the governor, should be able to sign off on it.
Here’s the sensitive part. The plan touches on early release, a subject that got Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in trouble when he advanced it in his budget proposal. But this time, the focus is on dying prisoners and paraplegics, who pose no risk and could be treated more humanely and less expensively outside prison walls. …
The bill, sponsored by Democrat Mike Machado of Linden, provides for no parole at all for low-risk offenders who have finished serving their sentences. …
Some nonviolent offenders would spend less time on parole: five months rather than three years. Somewhat more serious offenders would serve 16 months of “clean” parole. …
Prisoners who completed educational and vocational programs while behind bars would get credits toward earlier release. …
The reason the parole changes do more good than harm is because the system is working badly. Parole officers are stretched too thin to have a positive effect on their charges, and all too often even well-intentioned parolees are sent back to prison for small, almost trivial parole violations. That makes no sense.
As a Sacramento Bee editorial pointed out, Machado’s bill came out of the Senate Budget Committee only as a “concept package,” to be written in a closed conference committee session. That’s bad process.
But it is a good concept, worth transforming into good policy.
This editorial first appeared in the Long Beach Press Telegram on June. 9.
