Some Holiday Reading for Jerry Brown

When Jerry Brown takes office January 3 as California's new governor, he'll be inheriting a state in complete disarray. And one of the more pressing puzzles Arnold Schwarzenegger will leave on Brown's desk is the state's overcrowded prison system and the revolving door of incarceration, parole and employment.

California has seen its prison population grow by more than 500 percent over the last three drug-war decades and eight million people in the state have criminal records. Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a closely watched case that will determine whether prisoners' constitutional rights have been violated by overcrowded facilities. California could be required to shrink its prison population by as many as 40,000 people.

Regardless of the outcome in Schwarzenegger v. Plata next week, California -- like most states -- is staring down a stagnant economy and a towering unemployment rate. One way to climb out of this recession is to break the bind between poverty and crime and to stop the revolving door of prison. A new report from Berkeley Law School's Center for Criminal Justice outlines important steps the state can take to improve the path to gainful employment for people with criminal records.

Rina Palta and the rockstars at KALW public radio have been delivering important reporting on the California prison crisis over the last few years; two recent must-reads on jobs after prison are here and here.

I'm sure the governor-elect is just taking it easy over this holiday season, lounging in the pool and catching up on episodes of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (his constituents, after all). Email him a copy of this report -- he could probably use a good read while he's chilling over the holidays and these words might just sink in before he starts the real work in January.

Seriously, though. Brown has experience with these issues at many levels of government. He served eight years as governor from 1975 to 1983, he has been the mayor of Oakland and he's the outgoing state attorney general. While his record on crime and prisons is mixed, it seems his heart is in the right place, with some lukewarm words opposing the war on drugs over the years and a clear personal opposition to the death penalty (though we'll see how that plays out as governor).

His familiarity with the issue means he already knows how important it is to provide pathways for released prisoners to participate in our communities and our economy. The tangible recommendations offered in the Berkeley report include common sense initiatives like involving the private sector in conversations about job training both in prison and out, and ensuring that released prisoners have easy access to a form of identification. The report also focuses on an often-overlooked problem -- private background-check companies that fail to provide accurate data. I've heard too many stories about people denied interviews or fired on the basis of background checks that show old convictions, incorrect parole data and other errors. Simple oversight can fix this problem, and Brown can make that happen.

Jerry Brown's plate will be full come January, and he's certainly busy preparing now (although he may wish he could be watching Real Housewives). Prison reform and a focus on effective reentry programs could have a real impact on the direction of the state's economy, and Brown would be wise to give the issue some attention.

Read the Berkeley report for yourself here -- and send it along to Brown here.

Photo Credit: Original via Adam Baker, Photoshopped by me