California may have to cut prison population by 40 percent

California can cut the prison population by 40% or more just by releasing all non-violated drug criminals.

I like the sounds of this. In reality, we should not have prisons. For every person that we put in prison, we also put on more citizens in prison to guard them. This just increases our domination ideology and forces us to continue to separate ourselves in order to fuel the prison-industrial-complex. Prisons are not in business of making better communities, or education or even safety. They are in the business of reinforcing our skewed power dynamics, encouraging racism and making private corporations wealthy. To be sure, we need not just give people free reign on the planet, but our system is NOT designed for helping offenders or the communities that they come from.
Not to mention riding prisons from the budget frees up room for education, college access, health care and providing services that prevent the destruction of our communities instead of damage control at the end of a cycle.

tear down the bars...

half these men are in only for getting caught with a bag of grass. release them. problem solved.

Simple - let all the non-violent pot offenders out, it's absolutely absurd that they're in their in the first place, what for driving around with a flower in their car (maybe in their case 25 pounds of flowers.) Either way, it's a flower that grows from the ground. Even you hardcore conservatives should agree, if your really the bible thumping - god fearing individuals that you claim to be. God said in the old testament (a few times) that he put these trees and plants in the dirt for us to use, and apparently Jesus hung out with a bunch of people that did just that. Seriously, the state is wasting our tax dollars by keeping these people in jail. Legalize it!

the average citizen is a criminal. it's the way our system works, there's something that you do or have that is illegal and you may not be aware of it.
there won't be a reduction, especially in california, because it is a major source of funding. the state and counties are paid for head counts in the jails and prisons through taxes. as a drunken indian, i know jail and the games the cops play to detain you for another shift change and head count. the big one is" the lost paper work".
i've mentioned before that i work in sober living houses and that the prisons are releasing some inmates early into sober living. the inmates get $600 a month for rent and the prison gets the full amount for the inmates incarceration from taxes. i don't know what the amount is, i guess it's a lot. keeping people locked up is just too profitable to ever stop.

I know, lets have them work for SEIU.

Good, we spend WAY too much money on the prison-industrial complex - California is out of money - I and many others suggested this to our "governor" to stop further cuts to programs for the disabled, parks and schools. There needs to be a fundamental shift in what we value - what we spend money on.

they need to get all those people in there on marijuana charges and violators of parole...

Wow, thats scary dude. Just kick em back out to da street. Wow.

jess
www.online-anonymity.cz.tc

look its easy, find those with stupid crimes like, having some weed on them and let them go, push up the execution date on rapists and murders, deport all "foreigners"

that should take a good chunk of that number up.

or they can just admit that they can no longer afford to create profit for foreign companies by imprisioning americans

Ya, just make sure to let out the rapists and not those evil drug offenders. I don't wanna see a monster like Rush Limbaugh back on the streets. Wait a minute...

prisons = the war the on poor. Well for the most part

Well, for starters, how about we FINALLY get rid of the ones on death row?

This is where they should let all those innocent people out - but if it's politics as usual, they'll let out the kind who will give them the excuse to give more money to prison systems management and show what a mistake it was.

If they were to take most "soft" drug offenders out of the prisons, it is likely they'd take 30 to 40 % out of the prison population... you think?