Question by DWAYNE R C: statistics on inmates leaving prison verses enteringprison in california?

Best answer:

Answer by Tara M
In the quest for “punishment,” the state of California has given very little effort to try to rehabilitate or educate offenders. Throwing them in prisons and dehumanizing every aspect of their existence leaves little or no sympathy to treating them as humans and trying to help build them into better human beings.
Even if success rates aren’t perfect, there is much evidence that suggests that the successes are worth it. Sixty-five percent of 3-Strikers are in prison because of drug related offenses. Rather than expensive prisons, less expensive rehabilitation programs are worth more for the buck to the taxpayer.
Education is essential for prisoners in our society. Someday, most of them will be out of prison again. In our growing information age, the “haves” and the “have nots” are being separated by education. Recent studies show that educating inmates decreases their recidivism rates.
California has a few education and rehabilitation programs–unfortunately, only a few. If California really wants to do something about crime, they should expand these programs. In addition, other new programs should be attempted and tested.
FACTS has mixed feelings about jobs and labor programs for prisoners. While we encourage the teaching of new skills so prisoners have a better chance for employment when they get on the “outside,” we are concerned that the prison system and society will look at prisoners as cheap labor and therefore abuse prisoners (and even look at increasing our population of prisoners as a good thing). One way of preventing this from happening is to continue to allow prisoners to join the job programs on a truly voluntary basis, maintain safe working conditions, and then to increase their pay. In addition, FACTS encourages programs that are challenging and really give prisoners skills for good jobs on the “outside” (e.g., computer manufacturing).
While there are signals that California politicians may be more willing to put in place rehabiliation and prevention programs, keep an eye on the actual numbers of prisoners affected and also recognize that these programs do nothing for the 3-strikers who have already received unjust sentences. In addition, when the CDC promotes more “rehabilitation facilities,” let’s make sure that the money really is going towards more rehabilitation and not just to an increase in the prison industrial complex.

California spends approximately $ 5.7 billion on its prisons and jails ($ 4.5 billion on youth and adult corrections and $ 1.2 billion on county jails).
Even before the 3-Strikes law, California was already pouring nonviolent offenders and drug offenders in its prisons. The 3-Strikes law became an exclamation point on a bankrupt policy that wants to spend billions on nonviolent and non-serious offenders.
. .But California’s prisons are more crowded today than when the building program began and the Department of Corrections asserts that California must immediately begin another round of prison expansion nearly as large as the one just completed.
Prison officials estimate that within two years the state will run out of space for additional inmates. Without new facilities or another strategy for dealing with felons, the state could easily be required by a federal court to release prisoners before they have served their time. The problem is real. It is upon us now. And it must be solved.
But California’s prisons are more crowded today than when the building program began and the Department of Corrections asserts that California must immediately begin another round of prison expansion nearly as large as the one just completed.

Prison officials estimate that within two years the state will run out of space for additional inmates. Without new facilities or another strategy for dealing with felons, the state could easily be required by a federal court to release prisoners before they have served their time. The problem is real. It is upon us now. And it must be solved.
While more felons are going to prison for a longer time, 90 percent of all prison inmates are eventually returned to our communities – and half of them will be released within two years. Each year, more that 100,000 inmates are released from state custody
More than 80 percent of inmates are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Half of them cannot read at the sixth-grade level. Moreover, the vast majority of inmates do not receive education, work training or drug treatment – even though those services have proven repeatedly to help inmates successfully reintegrate into society and are far cheaper than re-incarcerating inmates.
A full two-thirds of all of the inmates entering state prisons either violated the condition of their parole or committed new crimes while on parole. While some of those parolees committed serious and violent crimes, the vast majority of returning parolees committed low-level property or drug crimes.

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