To: The California State House, The California State Senate, and Governor Gavin Newsom
CUT THE WASTE IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
The Legislature and Governor should re-examine the criminal justice system: reduce the number of acts defined as crimes, reduce the length of sentences for all but those who commit violent offenses, and determine what other social institutions should deal with what we now define as criminal behavior, and cut the costs of the State University system to individual students. We cannot justify cuts to education when we maintain a bloated criminal justice system. What we save will ensure a brighter future for our youth and our State.
Why is this important?
Our State spends more on prisons than on the University system. The result: bloated costs for law enforcement, jails, prisons, and Courts -- accompanied by a reduction in our ability to provide college-level education and its benefits to individual students and our State's economy. Students are faced with foregoing education or incurring enormous personal debt -- and we all lose. California's economic engine depends on a highly educated workforce. It is time to re-examine our priorities when the cost of a year in prison to society is many times greater than the cost of a year in college.