Evidence from California against 3 Strikes
The Californian State auditor has released a very frank, and frankly chilling, assessment of the consequences of that State’s ‘3 strikes’ legislation. The prison population in California now numbers close to 177,000.
The ‘highlights’ of the report tell us that:
Inmates incarcerated under the three strikes law (striker inmates):
- Make up 25 percent of the inmate population as of April 2009.
- Receive sentences that are, on average, nine years longer-resulting in about $19.2 billion in additional costs over the duration of their incarceration.
- Include many individuals currently convicted for an offense that is not a strike, were convicted of committing multiple serious or violent offenses on the same day, and some that committed strikeable offenses as a juvenile.
- Inmate health care costs are significant to the cost of housing inmates. In fiscal year 2007-08, $529 million was incurred for contracted services by specialty health care providers. Additionally:
- 30 percent of the inmates receiving such care cost more than $427 million.
- The costs for the remaining 70 percent averaged just over $1,000 per inmate.
- The costs for those inmates who died during the last quarter ranged from $150 for one inmate to more than $1 million for another
- A significant portion of the increased workload due to medical guarding and transportation is covered through overtime.
- The large leave balances of custody staff, to which the furlough program has contributed a significant amount, will eventually cost the State from $546 million to more than $1 billion.
Rev. Ron Givens, who visited New Zealand recently warning against us adopting a similar regime, told us that the Californian State budget spends almost 18% of its budget on Corrections, and less than one per cent on primary school education.
Does that sound like the sort of social spending, or indeed the sort of society, that we aspire to?
Source: Green Party MP David Clendon blog
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