The challenging politics of reform
Apparently the possible unconstitutionality of the California sentencing system (background here and here) is the least of that state’s criminal justice problems. The Los Angeles Times yesterday ran this interesting editorial which spotlights other problems with California justice and also the challenging politics that can impede sound reforms. Here is a snippet:
State prisons are already overflowing, with twice the number of inmates they were designed to hold… Part of the reason for the huge and growing jail population is a series of get-tough-on-crime laws passed since the 1980s. But another is the gross inadequacy of rehabilitation programs at state prisons, including wrongheaded approaches to parole violators, youth offenders and women.
California has the second-highest recidivism rate in the United States. Only 21% of the state’s parolees successfully complete their term of supervision, according to the U.S. Department of Justice….
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed many sensible reforms to reduce recidivism and lower the prison population, only to be thwarted at every turn by the politically powerful state prison guards union — which opposes anything that could jeopardize jobs for its members. In 2004, pressure from the union was a factor in the state’s decision to close 300 vocational education programs in the prisons — programs that gave inmates badly needed job skills. Last year, in a move also backed by the guards, the state ended a program that sent nonviolent parole violators to community-based rehabilitation centers or to home detention….
Schwarzenegger hasn’t given up trying, partially because he’s bound by court orders and settlement agreements to improve prison conditions. He recently released plans to better house and rehabilitate youth offenders, whose experience with the state correctional system too often helps mold them into career criminals, and to move nonviolent female inmates to private community centers…. Schwarzenegger needs to find the backbone to support these reforms with what political capital he has left.
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