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How Prison Overcrowding Could Help You

By Steven Rodriguez

The state of California has a massive prison overcrowding problem, due in part to the nation’s “war on drugs” and the state’s Three Strike laws.  Laws and policies such as these can often put non-violent offenders in jail for long periods of time, even as their crimes would barely warrant parole in other states.  As a result, California currently has almost 200,000 people in jail and this has created not only an overcrowding problem, but a major budget crisis as well. As politicians tackle this issue, a few different options being explored to solve this issue involve releasing current prisoners and/or handling lower level and non-violent offences differently than before.  For example, any low risk offense such as failing a drug test would no longer be handed a prison sentence, rather drug treatment and possible house arrest would be handed down...continue to full post

Full post as published by LA Criminal Defense Blog on May 23, 2008 (boomark / email).