Prison report: Jails v. Education

By Just A Guy

They're spending a lot on prisons, but not on lunch -- this is what CDCR serves

According to an article in the SFGate and the governor’s State of the State address the governor wants to increase spending on higher education and reduce spending on prisons. Personally, I don’t care if this is political wrangling or not, it’s about the most sensible thing to come out of the governor’s office in quite some time with respect to prisons and prison spending.

"It's a very simplistic solution to a very complex problem," said Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster. "I believe the first priority of state government is to keep people safe. To cap that certainly doesn't make any sense to me."

You know, sometimes simple solutions to complex problems are the only solutions that work. It seems as if California and its government have been over thinking the whole issue on prisons for quite a while. If more money is spent on higher education then maybe less people will go to prison? Simplistic, yes, but makes sense, right?

What’s so complex about the problem anyway? The complexity really lies in how, after many years of an increasing prison budget and a decreasing higher education budget, years of crying out how awful EVERY SINGLE PERSON in prison is, years of political maneuvering, the political folks will reduce costs while standing by their claims that less spending on prisons erodes public safety. That is the complex part.

There will be many detractors like Sen. George Runner, but they are not thinking long term or big picture. They appear to be concerned only with their political futures, either that or they are just idiots (maybe both). I have, in many past blogs, expressed the idea that if you educate you reduce public safety risk. If these politician’s are really concerned with public safety they will gladly make more funds available to higher education.

Meanwhile, take a look at the pictures in this blog and ask…who is really making money from CDCR. It ain’t the inmates!

CDCR celebrates the capture of inmate cell phones -- but who do you suppose smuggles them in an makes money off them?

Oh -- and they aren't spending much money on maintenance, either -- at least, not when it comes to the plumbing. Everything at CDCR seems to be in the shitter:

By Tim Redmond: January 13, 2010 11:47 AM
http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2010/01/prison_report_jails_v_educatio.html