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Defending the prison cuts in the new California budget

By Douglas A. Berman

Writing in the Sacremento Bee, Michael Vitiello has this new commentary, headlined "Prison budget cuts, done well, do no harm," praising the prison reforms in California's recently hammered out budget.  Here is how the commentary starts: Watching California's recent budget negotiations could make grown-ups cry.  But one potentially healthy development is the proposal to reduce the prison budget by $1.2 billion. Many scholars and nonpartisan observers have argued for several years that California's prison budget is bloated and that sensible policies could reduce expenditures without sacrificing public safety. Not everyone agrees. For example, when Republican Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee learned that the Democrats and the governor backed early prisoner release and creation of a sentencing commission, he accused the Democrats of "concocting a radioactive corrections bill that includes the worst of the worst ? a sentencing commission and release of 27,000 prisoners...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 01, 2009 (boomark / email).