States may free inmates to save millions »
Posted by: not2needy 5 months ago172 Comments Report this Story
Lawmakers from California to Kentucky are trying to save money with a drastic and potentially dangerous budget-cutting proposal: releasing tens of thousands of convicts from prison, including drug addicts, thieves and even violent criminals.
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not2needy5 months ago
FTA:
Officials acknowledge that the idea carries risks, but they say they have no choice because of huge budget gaps brought on by the slumping economy.
Isn't that just what every state needs right now, felons, thieves, car jackers, crazed druggies and pedophiles turned loose, with what could result in a reduced police force, also caused by the economy slump!!!!????
Just who would we have to thank for this good news?
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Blackacereturn5 months ago
HA hahahah this is soooo funny. Do you know that prison stocks were at $37.00 a share. They have a lot of people in prison that shouldn't be there. This is another GOP idea that has gone to the dogs. The tree strikes were designed to turn the prison business into a cash cow, it was these scumbags way of bilking the tax payers going and coming and now it blows up in their faces. I saw this special on TX where a judge sent a kid to jail for life for Jay walking. It was not about keeping people safe it was about making their pockets fatter now that they are not making money they are releasing these guys back on the streets where they will have no other choice but to commit crimes since they cant get a job. I am not a proponent of criminals, however they brought this on themselves with their greed and on us at the same time!
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mntnman4445 months ago
Why incarcerate people for marijuana in the first place if you're just going to finally admit that you can't afford to keep them?
Arnold was offered a solution last year that would have solved the Cal budget crisis but he chose to ignore it,now he wants to release violent criminals???
This is the 1 billion dollar offer ...
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2007/a...
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dunkirk5 months ago
The interesting fact is their are medicinal uses for the drug that Dumya refuses to acknowledge. Several countries in Europe offer the legal purchase of marijuana under govt control and the violent crime caused by druggies has declined dramatically. Then again here its viewed as a big business so why remove a source of revenue formn teh Cons?
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Dionys5 months ago
So you're saying that only CONservatives are targeted by immigrants? Somehow I doubt that 1/3 of prisoners are immigrants when I've seen numerous reports on how they're hardly held a day or two before they're shipped back by bus or plane to their home country.
Then again I guess it could be true. Seeing as how it's primarily CONservatives that hire illegal immigrants to do the work Americans are too lazy to do. Maybe they do suffer more of the attacks. Even though they provide all the reasons and jobs the immigrants need to come here.
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flyonthewallzz5 months ago
http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.ny...
"Over all-combining federal and state prisons-6.4 percent of the nation's prisoners were non citizens in 2005. This is down from 6.8 percent in 2000."*
*Immigrant or non-citizen does not always mean illegal immigrant.
Sorry if The NYT source is not good for you. I could not connect to DOJ.
This report from the GAO comes close to supporting your statement,
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05337r.pdf
It says that 27% of "Federal" Prisoners where "Criminal Aliens"
"Generally, criminal aliens are considered to be non-citizens who are residing in the United States legally or illegally and convicted of a crime."
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Jaydee405 months ago
"Isn't that just what every state needs right now, felons, thieves, car jackers, crazed druggies and pedophiles turned loose"
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed saving $400 million by releasing more than 22,000 inmates who had less than 20 months remaining on their sentences. Violent and sex offenders would not be eligible"
Try reading the entire article, it said different places that violent offenders and sex offenders would not qualify.
I think in some cases this will work but in other cases it will simply lead to re offending as soon as they hit the streets and we all know who pays the price for that, each and every one of us. Makes you wonder if it wouldn't be better just to put an extra tax on us to help pay for prisons, it could be cheaper in the long run and save people a lot of trouble.
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walden35 months ago
We have way too many people in jail. I think that I've read we have more people in jail then Russia and China. 1/3 of black men are involved in the penal system. It's wrong in a free country.
Jeesh, now every small town needs own their high tech anti-terrorist huge RV and SWAT team. The militarization of our police force is sucking the breath out of our country.
1. Legalize drugs. License their distribution. Tax them.
2. Get rid of mandatory sentencing.
3. Offer real occupational training and support for when inmates are released.
4. Don't imprison the those convicted of less serious crimes with serious felons where they become hardened to learn additional criminal ways.
5. Release the non-violent to make room for the violent.
6. Those that will never be released store them in basic, cheap warehouses/barracks so we can divert funds and resources to those that can be rehabilitated.
Unfortunately, due to politics, it's always about being tougher on crime.
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flyonthewallzz5 months ago
The OECD was formed under the Marshal Plan.
It would be worth while to look at this chart.
http://lysander.sourceoecd.org/vl=1058387/cl=12...
There is more intersesting, but tangental stuff here.
http://www.sourceoecd.org/factbook
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tanglang5 months ago
Put them to work in prison camps making $1 an hour along the mexico border building the wall. When they getout of jail they will not only be capable of doing the construction jobs the illegals are doing, but will have several thousand dollars in a high interest savings account from the work they did while in prison. That way they will be able to get their lives on track.
Also, kill more violent criminals. And don't spent 4 million dollars on public defenders for a man who was caught on tape murdering his judge, court reporter, baliff and another sherrifs deputy durig his trial for raping and beating a woman with a rifle. There were nearly 100 witnesses in the court room when this happened! 3 years later his trial can't even start because the public defenders office is broke.
Seriously though, make the punishment fit the crime. When criminals fear the law, they will not commit the crime.
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quackpot5 months ago
One more for your excellent list, Walden:
A bit more thought in meting out penalties. With rare exception, jail time is the only option that is employed and length of jail time is the only variable of severity.
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slate5 months ago
If the government were to decriminalize some of the 'less' harmful drugs, sell them on the free market and have them taxed. They would still be cheaper than they are now (which they would have to be for that to work or the Black market would still thrive). You'd have way fewer people in jail. The drugs would be cheaper, most likely safer than the ones on the street. People should be able to put into their bodies what they want, as long as they aren't harming others. The same restrictions they have on alcohol as far as driving, equipment use and such should apply.
If there were no money to be made on the black market with drugs, there would be less people killed for them, less gangs and less people in jail. It won't be perfect as with alcohol, but it would be a star. Then you set up programs to keep people off them like cigarettes and reduce the number of people on drugs as a whole.
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tanglang5 months ago
The main problem with legallizing pot is that pot smokers involved in fatal car accident would go to jail for vehicular homicide. Why? Because the only way you can know for sure if a person who was involved in the wreck was on drugs would be to test them. Since pot stays in the blood for so long you would not be able to tell if the person was not high at the time of the accident and the person would get 5-10 for dui homicide.
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flyonthewallzz5 months ago
Hey Slate:
Always good to see you and Tanglang!
I have the Federal Government receipts in front of me, We have collected more than $488 billion from Alcohol and Tobacco excise tax since 1962. or $16 billion in 2007.
In Outlays there are only 36 of 4,361 accounts greater than $16 billion in 2007.
Here are some 2007 outlays that come close:
Aircraft Procurement, Air force $11 billion.
Special Education, $11.5 billion.
Foreign military sales $14 billion. (sorry moonbat thing)
Military Personnel, Marine Corps $10.4 billion.
Child Nutrition programs $12.8 billion
Ship building and conversion, navy $10.5 billion.
Student Financial Assistance $15 billion.
DOD Medicare-Eligible Retiree Health Care $15.6 billion.
Children and families Services programs $8.5 billion.
I have not Smoked pot for the last ten years.
It would be honest to say that if it where legal and taxed I would. I would not even mind if the proceeds where split among our interests. (except for the military sales thing)
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cleare5 months ago
just one thing i'd like to add to walden's excellent resolutions: spend one third of the money saved from the prisons on our poorest public school systems, so the poor urban blacks and poor rural whites have opportunity to do something other than commit crime to earn a living and to develop activities of interest other than drugs (including alcohol).
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BronxBomber5 months ago
n2n When we get the ballots to vote for the local judges here. Nothing is established to learn they're personal histories as pertaining to they're qualifications except either to vote or not to vote for these re-ocurring incumbents. That's in NYC. I don't know about the rest of the country though.
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icono15 months ago
I wonder if the elected politicians in those states mentioned would also consider a personal reduction in pay as a way to save money? Or would they, the politicians, release the prisoners then give themselves a pay raise for such a progressive money saving move on their part?
Then after the released criminals start doing crimes again the same 'save the tax payers money' politicians could jump on the anti-crime bandwagon 'again' and give themselves another pay raise for being tough on crime 'again'. I don't see this 'release the criminals to save money' as a money saving move. It's just a move that will enable career and ambitious politicians a way to secure their jobs and/or pay raises into the future by being anti crime then being anti waste then back to being anti crime,,, etc, etc, etc.
Would our politicians treat us that way? Sure they would, for there is big money for them, not us, in this move.
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cowboygrandpa5 months ago
I say put all the rapist's, pedophiles, murderer's,and violent criminals on an Island. Surrounded by a fence with man eating sharks in the waters. Any craft seen leaving the Island can be destroyed by a laser system. A no fly zone would be in place.
Let them kill themselves if they please or learn to farm and build shelters and act like civilized men. No more funds spent on them. Lets put some of that money toward helping the victims of those crimes and their families.
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lvrofwolves5 months ago
I would be very disapointed in the justice system if they released violent criminals and pedophiles. And what about illegal aliens?
I'm for WORK camps for violent prisoners to pay back society for their crimes and pay their own room and board. Why should society be victimized twice!
As far as drugs go, legalize some, tax them etc....that would solve alot of small petty possession drug cases.
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BronxBomber5 months ago
My gosh! Can you imagine if they let out the real hard cases out in the street??? Watch the homicide rate grow, well actually some of us might not get to see that as we might wind up being the statistics ourselves God forbid!...
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jordan115 months ago
I have no problem in freeing anyone in prison for smoking pot. It's insane to incarcerate them.
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3539
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mntnman4445 months ago
And now...let's pause for a brief message from Jim Hightower...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYkG5-RYMJ8
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