Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
california is spending more on its prison system that on education
something that's pretty much unsurprising to the most the majority of
people who are living in california now public policy group known as california
common sense
decided on this just to see are
what the implications are and just how much more were spending on the prison
system
as opposed to education so they look at the numbers from nineteen eighty one to
twenty eleven and they found out that higher education spending is down by
thirteen percent
however spending on california prisons and correctional programs
four hundred thirty six percent now dot
part of the reason why this is happening is because we are putting more more
non-violent offenders
in prison
four
things like drug violations you know that that
reasons
people shouldn't be in prison
basically
over the past three decades the numbers of inmates in california prisons has
actually increased eight times faster
then the size of the overall population
and this isn't something that we're jesse in california which is part of the
reason why bring this story it to you guys today
this is something that we're seeing across the country
we have created
for-profit prison companies throughout the country
because our state and county prisons are so overcrowded we're putting so many
people away for nonviolent drug offenses
we are now
depending on private businesses that make money
to lock people up right of course those businesses also lobbied cop congress
to pass tough on crime legislation
and you know it more and more people get put behind bars
so we are that's partly partly out as a drug offenses partly three-strikes laws
partly
such as they were putting more people in but that we're leaving them in jail
longer so that and it makes you accumulate a bigger population
uh... eight times the rate of their the size of population does anyone
as they were watching this think that there are eight times as many criminals
as their once were will but with the crime is a little bit up because the bad
economy but there are less rights each year than there were a decade ago west
murders less burglaries all of those things so why should the population jail
be coming up
it's its
is bad at worst anymore in prison ne all spending on prisons that they they
highlight a few things like um... increased healthcare in some cases you
know and we would want that uh... if they're spending it to rebuild take
prisoners that costs money i have no problem spending more on that but if
you're simply locking up more people especially if you're locking them up
in a more expensive fashion by saying that a for-profit prisons that i don't
i don't see why we should be in favor of that and we put up against education
spending which is going down i think that that puts our priorities at least
for the state level i interesting level focus now one of the reasons why i
spending for the prison system is so expensive in california's because of the
salary that we paid for a corrections officers
and i'm not arguing that we should pay them less well we we have a prison for
eight near san francisco for instance seven cisco's inexpensive place to live
so i can understand why be given so much more
and keep it real their corrections officers working in a prison
that is not an easy job uh... but at the same time when you look at the amount of
money we're paying our educators and you compare that to the amount of money
we're paying
uh... staffing employees within our prison system i mean there's no
comparison whatsoever
when you look at alarms your picture and you focus on higher education as well
you realize that higher education has been deep funded significantly in the
last decade and as a result students are needing to take out more loans i mean
the cost of course the transferred onto the students so they take out more loans
there are more debt
uh... and they also getting less in terms of quality education here
self this is a real problem not just in california throughout the country and
it's something that needs to be addressed we have to stop putting
non-violent
criminals and i think
annuity people use drugs ok should not be imprisoned we should focus on
getting that helped so they quit their addiction to give them not auction you
know if the if u_n_ genuinely concerned about how harmful
drug use can be on society then let's do something to help them with their
addiction as opposed to throwing them in prison were ill rule in their lives
forever basically no one wants a higher convicted
uh... you know criminal or anything like that so it basically
falls of around for the rest of their lives all because they you know
did *** or whatever kind to me that it's rediculous
here's an idea of take some of the money that you would otherwise spend in prison
put that into elementary high schools give kids a better education given the
consummate you'll have less criminals ten twenty thirty years down the line