Future For Our Children: Prisons Or Universities?

(1) We need both prisons and schools -- what's the problem?

Californians want great schools, and we want to be safe from crime. The problem is that we've gotten out of balance, and our budgets no longer reflect our values.

In 20 years California built 23 new prisons and only 1 new university. It's easier and easier to get into prison and harder and harder to get into college. Scholarship money has dried up, causing college graduates to start their working lives with massive student loan debt. Meanwhile the cost of keeping someone in prison could pay for Harvard.

More than half the people sent to California prisons in a recent year were sent for technical parole violations-they had broken no law. Over 70,000 people in 2001 went to prison on these technical violations. (Source is a report by Education not Incarceration.)

(2) What do Californians really want?

California voters were asked where the state should make cuts to balance the budget. They ranked Corrections as the department they were most willing to cut. Education was ranked most important to preserve spending. 58% of likely voters favor a moratorium on all prison construction. (June 2002 poll by FairbanksMaslin).

The great majority of Californians and Americans believe that nonviolent crimes should be sentenced to community service instead of prison, and that drug abuse should be handled by treatment and counseling as opposed to prison.

(3) So why does Sacramento budget more and more for prisons?

Prisons much more than schools, provide ways to pay back campaign contributors.

• To construct expensive high-tech prisons
• To pay prison guards more than teachers, with lower educational requirements
• To provide housing, healthcare, food, clothing and other services
• To provide corporate contractors with low wage, virtually enslaved workers to make "Made in the USA" products, and provide telephone customer service.

(4) How do we fix it?

In order to make sure that budget priorities are in line with Californians' priorities, we must change the way we elect representatives to make these decisions for us.

• Cut the cord between the decision-makers and huge campaign donations. A solution is voluntary public campaign finance. The Green Party is leading the way by never accepting corporate campaign contributions. We are supported by real persons, not corporate persons.
• Set up elections so we can vote for the candidates we really want, via ranked choice (or instant runoff) voting, where we rank our choices 1-2-3.
• Get decision-making closer to the people (see "Prop 13: Keep the good - fix the bad" section of this website).