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: Grits for Breakfast

Californians bypass their Legislature on sentencing policy

I received an email over the weekend from a friend in California asking my opinion about Proposition 5, a ballot initiative focused on drug treatment and prison diversion that could reduce the Golden State's inmate population by as much as 10%. While I agreed with her that the initiative and referendum process isn't a great way to pass laws and has caused California a lot of problems, I told her "I'd likely vote for it if I were there."Regular readers know California faces an very immediate prison overcrowding crisis made even more pressing by an imminent federal contempt order for failing to build new prison hospitals. And I was impressed by recent comments from a former San Quentin warden that Prop 5 "may well be California's last chance to bring about a solution to the many, intertwined problems in our criminal justice system that cause overcrowding...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on November 03, 2008 (boomark / email).