Catch and Release in CA

What can our state do with 30,000 excess prison inmates? A story from May 24, 2011 stated that the Supreme Court pronounced a verdict that the state of California must reduce its prison population by more than 30,000. How?

It’s a tough situation to be in. First of all, stricter laws were made as part of the “war on drugs,” because the general public wanted to get drugs off of our streets and away from our children. The stricter laws led to more drug traffickers being locked up for longer periods of time, and the prisons began to fill. There was a limit to how many new prisons could be built, because there is a limit to how much money our state, or any other state for that matter, possesses. California is $10 billion in debt, but how much more can the taxpayers bear? These are tough questions.

Justice Antonin Scalia made a fiery dissent, predicting that "terrible things are sure to happen as a result of this order," and warning of men "who have developed intimidating muscles pumping iron in the prison gym." Who will be let go – the murderers and rapists, or the drug dealers?

Well, one way to solve the problem is to shift the responsibility onto someone else. Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation shifting the low-level offenders to the counties instead. Great. Now the counties can have the overcrowding and try to figure out what to do.

The drug-war climate seems to be changing, with the United Nations as well as many others saying that we need to step back and take a look at how the “war” has actually caused the market for drugs to increase because the scarcity made it lucrative. This overcrowding of prisons is just one example of an overall problem.

The change is leaning towards helping those with addictions with treatment plans instead of with handcuffs and iron bars. Treatment can make a huge difference in salvaging the lives of these dealers, and it will keep them from becoming sardines in “the can” as well.