California Budget Cuts Offer Chance for Prison Reform

The painful budget cuts on the horizon in California could have an upside for criminal justice reformers.

When new California Governor Jerry Brown announced $12.5 billion in proposed state funding cuts last week, he included a call to close the state's juvenile prison system by 2014. Community based alternatives to incarceration have been shown to reduce crime and long-term recidivism (in Missouri, for example), and Brown's proposal would move California in that direction. This is progressive leadership, and Brown deserves congratulations for raising the dialogue on juvenile justice alternatives.

But the deal is far from done. The state legislature holds the keys to the budget, and the Ella Baker Center launched a petition on Change.org calling on state lawmakers to keep this critical cut in the final budget. The Baker Center has advocated for this reform for seven years, and wisely points out in this blog post that Brown's announcement "is not merely a victory of activists and politicians. The real champions are the mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles that would not give up on their children or our state."

Brown's proposed budget, however, does not mess with another costly, wasteful pillar of the state's justice system: the death penalty. The ACLU of Northern California is calling on Brown to raise the abolition of the death penalty to his budget plans, potentially saving taxpayers more than $125 million per year (plus $400 million on a ridiculous proposed new death row). Sign the ACLU's petition here.

We've been making the close-prisons-save-money-reduce-crime argument for years here at change.org, and it's good to see it finally gaining some traction across the political spectrum. Charles wrote recently about the push from such unlikely advocates as Newt Gingrich for another look at wasteful spending on our sprawling prison state. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is echoing Jerry Brown in his call to close empty juvenile facilities across the state.

We've reached a critical point for criminal justice reform. State budgets are requiring a second look, even at sacred cows like the prison system. Solid evidence can finally show that alternatives to incarceration prevent crime and save money. Criminal justice reform has the attention of the public and of our elected officials. Let's take advantage. Efforts in California to close juvenile prisons and end the death penalty and good place to focus. Please take action today.

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Photo Credit: Bob Tilden