The Problem at Hand

Today in California we are facing an impending crisis which threatens our way of life. In short, our prison system is overloaded. As of the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, California had over 300,000 offenders in the CDCR (California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation) system. Of those 300,000; about 170,000 were actual inmates serving time within institutions. The estimated cost of those inmates was $8,330,000,000; the budget proposed by the CDCR for the following year hovered around $10 billion. [1] The systemic problem Californian prisons are having is the high rate of recidivism; which as of April 2008 floated around 54%. [2] We are spending roughly $49,000 per year, per inmate only to find that they are committing more crimes and returning to prison. The more people fill our prisons the more resources out of the state budget they take up. If the cost continues to rise at $2 billion per year the entire system will crash the government budget altogether.

The budget isn’t the only concern Californians should have about their prisons. While the prison system is well underfunded, it is grossly overpopulated. Laws such as the Three Strikes have been used to put mild offenders away for life in addition to the violent offenders the law was intended for. This situation has created serious security issues within our prisons. Since prisons can’t afford new buildings, many prisons such as Solano State prison have converted gymnasiums into dormitories for lower risk offenders. Inside hundreds of inmates are supervised by three to four unarmed guards – depending on the level of security, one armed guard can be assigned to watch from an elevated position – supported only by radio. The picture above gives a slight example of such a conversion.

Beyond fiscal concerns of overcrowding, the conditions for the treatment of our prisoners have been deemed cruel and unusual by federal courts. Just last year the federal courts mandated that we reduce our prison population by 40 percent. [3] Considering the federal government has had to intervene in this situation, should clue us in that it is time to get everything sorted and solved.

Of course recidivism and overcrowding can be seen as symptoms of the true problem at hand. While stop gap measures such as early release of prisoners may lighten our burden temporarily, California is still set to overfill its prisons again and again. In order to understand how to fix our prison system we have to examine the reason why it became the way it is today. This blog is intended to sort out and reveal the issues at hand and hopefully provide some insight on how to solve our prison crisis.



[1] Fourth Quarter 2008 Facts and Figures. (2009). Retrieved February 5, 2010, from California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation website: http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Divisions_Boards/Adult_Operations/docs/Fourth_Quarter_2008_Facts_and_Figures.pdf

[2] Recidivism Rates (June 13, 2008). Retrieved February 7, 2010, from California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation website: http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Reports_Research/Offender_Information_Services_Branch/Annual/RECID2/RECID2d2005.pdf
[3] California may have to cut prison population by 40 percent. (February 10, 2009). Retrieved February 5, 2010, from CNN website: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/10/california.prisons/