Resolution Publicity Project: Day 2

by dday [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Grassroots progressives are picking up on my plea to call representatives to publicize what the party has voted to endorse and ensure that state and federal lawmakers will answer the call of their party and support these initiatives.  The first resolution I mentioned was net neutrality; now we should push the resolution on sentencing reform, which I've included in the extended entry.

We know that our criminal justice system nationwide is perverse.  For violent and nonviolent offenders alike, it has become a crucible which demands MORE violence as a means to survive. 

This is what our system of justice does: It takes the unlawful and makes them more violent. It takes criminals and makes them worse, reducing their future options, encouraging them to become more physically brutal, cultivating their marginalization from society. Such is the irony of the politics of crime in this country. We are so afraid of violent criminals that we force our politicians to continually worsen their punishment, condemning them to prisons that have been shown to make inmates more violent.

This is especially true in California, home to the highest recidivism rate in the nation, because all of the overcrowding has for all practical purposes eliminated any treatment or rehabilitation programs and turned the jails into human waste dumps.  This is not something we can build our way out from under; it's too far gone.  Only some meaningful reform that silences the "tough on crime" crowd and revisits the role of incarceration as an opportunity for redemption and a return to civil society will fix this crisis.  AB 900, which enabled the Governor to add 53,000 beds in exchange for token accountability, is already causing concern that even that accountability will be circumvented.  Enough.  The Governor's plan is overly cautious and seeks to kick the can down the road.  We need real reform.

Schwarzenegger's prison managers have begun to implement a program to assess each inmate and give him or her an individual program to follow while in prison. They have also begun a comprehensive re-evaluation of every rehabilitation program to determine which work and which should be abandoned.

But the biggest reductions in overcrowding would come from changes in sentencing laws and parole policies. On those issues, Schwarzenegger must lead the way.

California has the highest recidivism rate in the country, with 70 percent of inmates returning to prison within three years after release. What the state has been doing for a generation is not working. The current policies are draining the treasury and making the streets less safe. It's time to try a new approach.

over...
This weekend at the CDP E-Board, progressives passed a parole and sentencing reform resolution that mirrors Gloria Romero's legislation to create an independent sentencing commission to address this runaway train we've created with our prisons.

CDP RESOLUTION TO SUPPORT PAROLE & SENTENCING REFORM TO ADDRESS OVERCROWDED PRISONS

PASSED at E-Board meeting of the California Democrats in Sacramento

WHEREAS Governor Schwarzengger and California legislators decided to build 53,000 new prison and jail beds at a 25-year cost of $15-billion dollars in construction and debt service funds;

WHEREAS this legislative decision was made without a single public hearing in a state that, according to the California Legislative Analyst, currently incarcerates 240,000 inmates in prisons and jails, almost 70% of  whom are people of color, 29% African American, even though African Americans constitute only 6% of the Adult population;

WHEREAS the current plan to build new prison and jail beds ignores the Governor's Independent Review Panel and the Little Hoover Commission recommendations for parole and sentencing reform that would immediately and drastically reduce California's prison population and address the problem of overcrowding in a state that, according to the California Legislative Analyst, spends $43,000 each year to incarcerate but only $8,000 to educate a student in our public schools;

THEREFORE BE  IT RESOLVED the California Democratic Party supports implementation of the state's Independent Review Panel and the Little Hoover Commission's parole and sentencing reforms: releasing selected low-risk non-violent offenders without parole; moving parolees off parole automatically after 12 clean months; providing community alternatives, not prison, for technical violations of parole; creating a sentencing commission that would recommend changes to penalties.

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED the California Democratic Party, recognizing a disproportionate percentage of minorities is behind bars, supports implementation of these reforms to address overcrowding in prisons and jails.

Time to call your Democratic legislators in the state and tell them that their party has endorsed this resolution and that you would like them to support it as well.  Make sure you get an answer.  The Romero bill is in the Assembly right now, so that's where your phone call will do the most good.  Please give our prisons a chance at success and make this state safer by calling now.