No funding for alternative sentencing instead of more prisons.
We spend an awful lot of money on the criminal justice system that could better be spent at the other end of the spectrum.
We're releasing hardened criminals from jails all over California. They don't have the money. They don't have the room anymore. The jails are overflowing so we gotta get rid of somebody.
People return home from prison and face legal discrimination in virtually all areas of social and economic and political life. They are legally discriminated against employment, barred from public housing, and denied other public benefits.
It makes a lot more sense for us to be investing in jobs and education rather than jails and incarceration.
People have started to see that 'smart on crime' rather than 'tough on crime' makes sense.
What does this system seem designed to do? As I see it, it seems designed to send people right back to prison, which is what happens about 70% of the time.
About 70% of those released from prison return within a few years, and the majority of those who return in some states do so in a matter of months because the challenges associated with mere survival on the outside are so immense.
We are a humane society, and one which believes that we have to help rehabilitate offenders so they turn away from crime.
We are obliged – obliged – to do everything we can so that when they are released, they don’t come back.
