The state of California is currently in the beginning stages of implementing a Supreme Court-mandated decrease in their inmate population. Over the next three months, they are required to move over 11,000 prisoners from state facilities which are currently at 180 percent capacity, with the larger goal of 34,000 inmates moved over the next two years.
This past year, the Court ruled that poor living conditions due to overcrowding in state prison facilities violated prisoners’ constitutional rights. Subsequently, state legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown passed a plan that will relocate many of the offenders to their individual county prisons and probation systems.
The move will include those offenders who have committed nonviolent, nonsexual and other minor crimes. The state hopes that time served in the county system will do more to rehabilitate these criminals, whereas the harsh life inside state institutions just cause offenders to float in and out of prison.
While the decrease in inmate population is both necessary and fiscally beneficial, perhaps the state should also examine the issue’s catalyst rather than its end result. A state with fewer convictions is a state with fewer prisoners and more cash in its pocket. Keeping these inmates incarcerated for long amounts of time gets prohibitively expensive, and it is unfair to the taxpayers (whether those taxes be paid locally or to the state) to impose such a financial burden.
Sending criminals through the grind of the system rarely rehabilitates them; it simply makes them angrier and more likely to commit crimes once they get out. This constant inundation of new prisoners also drives up costs for the state, as they pay for a medical screening and other tests every time an inmate enters or re-enters the system.
Those prisoners with a nonviolent criminal record should simply be let out instead of relocated to the county system. Better yet, their convictions should not carry jail time in the first place. Those inmates with good behavior should be released early, and new innovations in technology would allow the state to monitor convicts after their release in such a way that their monthly expenses would be significantly less.
While the decrease in inmate population is a step in the right direction, the system needs a serious reevaluation to prevent a future drain of financial resources, not only in California, but also nationwide.
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