Reason Magazine: Zach Weissmueller: 'Crowded Prisons, Unions & CA Three Strikes: Why We Can't Just Build More Cages'

Source:Reason Magazine- with a look at the California prison system.

"Where other states are investing resources in, 'How do we help these people not come back into the prison system?,' California is not," says Adrian Moore, Vice President of Research at Reason Foundation. 

The United States locks up more prisoners than any other country. And in the country holding the most prisoners in the world, California is the state that incarcerates more people than any other. California's prisons are so overcrowded that the Supreme Court ruled them in violation of the Eighth Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause. 

Moore and others lay much of the blame at the feet of California's powerful prison guard union, the California Correction Peace Officer's Association (CCPOA), which is unrelenting in its advocacy for tough-on-crime laws, including California Three Strikes, under which any third-time felon can receive a 25-year to life sentence, even if the crime is not a violent, "serious felony (PDF)."

California voters have a chance to reform Three Strikes this year by voting for Prop 36, which would allow Third Strikers convicted of non-serious, nonviolent crimes to appeal for a sentence reduction. More than 3,500 Third Strikers were sentenced for a non-violent, non-serious crime, and of these, more than 1,300 were sentenced for drug-related offenses (PDF). CCPOA, which has donated money to stopping similar reforms in the past, has stayed relatively silent this time around, but another lobbying group, the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) has stepped up with a $100,000 donation to an anti-Prop 36 campaign. 

"We do lobby for stronger laws on the book that we can use to put people away, because these are people that are preying on the citizens of California," says Ron Cottingham, president of PORAC. 

But with prisons overcrowding, recidivism high, and local jails facing troubles of their own, some sort of reform will need to happen, says Moore, though he doesn't expect a viable solution to be offered by the unions any time soon. 

"[The unions] are following their own self-interest," says Moore, "which is to have the prison system in California continue to be large and to grow over time, and they have been very successful at that." 

From Reason Magazine

We have too many people in prison in America for several reasons: 

We arrest too many people 

We have too many bad laws 

We arrest people who aren't threats to society and arrest them for things that shouldn't be illegal 

The War on Drugs is an excellent example of that and lose too many people in our education system, young people who turn to crime to simply make a living in America. We simply aren't educating enough people in the United States and giving them a good enough education so they can get themselves the skills that they need to be successful in life and not have to victimize innocent people and end up in prison. 

And the people we do arrest that need to be in prison for the good of society, we don't prepare them in prison for life on the outside. So they have the skills that they need to be successful in life and not have to go back to crime in order to support themselves financially.

California is an excellent example of this but the good news is that it doesn't have to be this way. We can correct our corrections system (pun intended) by fixing our education system so we don't lose as many students to crime each year. And by repealing a lot of our bad laws, as they result to the War on Drugs, gambling and even prostitution and instead regulate and tax these activities. And use that money to fund things that we actually need in this country. As well as preparing our inmates for life on the outside with work and education, so they have the skills that they need to make it on the outside.