The Criminal Justice Reform Battle in California: Cynical Politicians and Powerful Interests Attacking the Public Good

Here is picture that sums up much that is wrong with American politics. Five governors of California, Democrats and Republicans, joining forces to oppose something that is indisputably in the public interest.

This is an image that could be repeated, with different faces, in region after region of our country, involving issue after issue. Public officials standing against the public good, with the disastrous results on display from Detroit to Wall Street. All suffering from the same destructive force: the power of entrenched special interests to cloud the vision of our leaders, causing them to thwart good sense, good legislation, and the will of the people.

AP/Nick Ut

In today's version, we have Jerry Brown, Pete Wilson, Gray Davis, George Deukmejian, and Arnold Schwarzenegger coming together to oppose Prop 5, a common sense ballot initiative that seeks to effectively and intelligently tackle the chronic problems facing California's deeply flawed criminal justice system.

California's prisons are a budget-busting debacle. There are currently more than 170,000 inmates crammed into prisons designed to hold 100,000 people. Around 70,000 of these prisoners are nonviolent offenders, with over half of them incarcerated for a drug offense.

A large part of the problem is a parole system the New York Times recently called "perhaps the most counterproductive and ill-conceived" in the U.S.. California's recidivism rate is 70 percent -- twice the national average. This stems in no small measure from the state's insistence on treating paroled murderers the same way as paroled nonviolent drug offenders. They all spend 3-5 years on parole. This overburdens parole officers, who end up spending very little time with any of their charges -- violent or nonviolent (According to the Times, 80 percent of California parolees have fewer than two 15-minute meetings with their parole officer per month.) Wouldn't it make more sense to keep a closer watch on rapists and killers than on nonviolent drug offenders?

As a result of this dysfunctional system, prison costs have risen 50 percent since 2000, to over $10 billion a year -- close to 10% of the state's budget (and roughly the same amount California spends on higher education). It costs $46,000 a year to keep a nonviolent prisoner in the state behind bars. Is it any wonder California is gushing red ink?

Enter Prop 5, a ballot initiative that will reduce prison overcrowding, increase public safety, cut costs, expand drug treatment programs inside California's prisons, and start the state's first drug treatment program for at-risk youth.

Prop 5 is structured to build on the proven success of Prop 36, a law promoting drug treatment over incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders. It was approved by 61 percent of California voters in 2000, despite almost unanimous opposition from public officials. Since being enacted, Prop 36 has saved California taxpayers $2 billion -- and graduated 84,000 people who, according to studies, are far less likely to become repeat offenders.

"Prop 5 finally addresses the twin tragedy of crushing prison costs on society and the revolving trapdoor of incarceration that stems from locking up too many nonviolent offenders," filmmaker Gabriel London, who has documented the state of our prisons, told me.

Given all this, and the fact that a majority of the public favors low-cost treatment models over the high-cost incarceration model, passage of Prop 5 would seem like a no-brainer. Especially given its support from a wide-range of drug treatment professionals, good government advocates, and clearly-not-soft-on-crime law enforcement types such as former San Quentin warden Jeanne Woodford who, blogging on HuffPost, wrote of Prop 5:

Prop 5 may well be California's last chance to bring about a solution to the many, intertwined problems in our criminal justice system... Incarceration of non-serious non violent drug offenders does not improve public safety. Treatment and accountability do. Prop 5 provides treatment and accountability. It is accountability for the drug user, the prison system, treatment providers, probation departments and the courts.