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"Lawmakers more worried about safe seats than safe streets"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this effective opinion piece in the Los Angeles Daily News that is effectively attacking the California legislature from making the hard choices that are required to reform the state's sentencing and prison problems.  Here are snippets: Our dysfunctional state legislators are doing it again ? so afraid of appearing soft on crime, they are quaking at the hard decisions necessary to balance the state budget.... California lawmakers currently spend 10 percent of the state general fund on prisons, about what they spend on education. The state spends about $27,000 a year to lock up each of its 167,000 prisoners. Before deciding to postpone action on prison costs, the Assembly ripped sections out of the Senate plan that reduced the number of inmates released by 10,000...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 26, 2009 (boomark / email).