California’s Budget Crisis
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Hooray to Times columnist Robert A. Jones (“On California,” April 3) for suggesting that a possible solution to the state budget crisis is reducing the state prison population. He’s absolutely right that a lot of money could be saved by not incarcerating simple parole violators. Such a change would not seriously endanger the public, because serious cases could still be prosecuted as new crimes.
The state could also save money in prisons by reforming the inequities in the time-credit laws that reduce an inmate’s sentence. Currently, only prisoners who work at a prison job or are in school earn full credit. Less than full credit is earned by many inmates because, even though they want to work, there aren’t enough jobs to go around. Changing these unfair rules would quickly reduce the population and thus save taxpayers millions of dollars.
STEVEN FAMA
San Francisco
The writer is an attorney with the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit organization that provides legal assistance to state prisoners.
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