It is distressing to be on the same side of an issue as Newt Gingrich—the man whose Contract with America, based on a Heritage Foundation wish list, started our government on the road to hyper-partisanship. The man who introduced us to the Taking Back Our Streets Act, which included funding for prison construction to accommodate the prisoners that it would have produced. The man who pushed for the impeachment of a president over a blow job while engaging in an extramarital affair with a House staffer.
On the same side of an issue with a man like that? I don't even want to be in the same universe. And when I read the Los Angeles Times editorial that he co-authored in support of California's Proposition 47, I rushed to re-read the ballot measure to find what I had missed that made it attractive to someone like him.
His co-author was B. Wayne Hughes Jr., a wealthy conservative and board member of the American Action Network (affiliated with Karl Rove's American Crossroads, which counted Hughes' father as its largest donor) and founder of the non-profit, Serving California. Hughes formed Serving California after meeting Chuck Colson, who recruited him into investing in Colson's Prison Fellowship, which is tied to The Family, a group from the religious right.
According to the Serving California website:
Serving California implemented a program in 19 state prisons involving to date over 1050 California inmates. The Urban Ministry Institute (TUMI) is a three and a half year Christian educational and personal character reformation program. Roughly the equivalent of a Master’s Degree in Theology, the TUMI curriculum consists of 16 different courses requiring the completion of 43 different books and other related materials. Each student engages in Biblical course studies designed to improve reading and writing techniques, critical thinking, ethics, leadership and character development.
Somehow, spreading the gospel according to the Family didn't make me any more comfortable with the alliance, but Hughes has been willing to sink $1.255 million of his own money into the campaign for Proposition 47, making him its largest financial supporter. Follow me below the fold to find out what it is that we agree on.
Acccording to Matt Taibbi, in 1994, with memories of the murder of Polly Klaas by a repeat offender still fresh, Californians went to the polls and voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 184, the original Three Strikes law. Under its draconian terms, a third crime by a twice-convicted felon would result in a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life, with no time off for good behavior.
And so we had thefts of a slice of pizza, or a pair of socks, that resulted in a life sentence as the third strike movement spread across the nation. Third Way Democrats like Bill Clinton who wanted to be seen as "tough on crime" supported three strikes laws, even though the victims were those that the Democratic Party had fought for in the past.
As Taibbi says:
... some 40 percent of three-strikers are either mentally retarded or mentally ill. "Homeless guys on drugs, that was your typical third-striker," says Romano. "And not that the money is the issue, but you could send hundreds of deserving people to college for the amount of money we were spending."
The typical third-striker wasn't just likely to be homeless and/or mentally ill – he was also very likely to be black. In California, blacks make up seven percent of the population, 28 percent of the prison population and 45 percent of the three-strikers.
In November of 2012, Californians passed Proposition 36 that
revised the original three strikes law to permit a life sentence only if the third felony was serious or violent, unless the offender was a murderer, rapist or child molester, in which case a minor felony crime could earn the perpetrator a life sentence.
Newt Gingrich supported that measure as well.
Living facilities in California State Prison (July 19, 2006)
When California's prison population was at twice its capacity, in August 2009, the state was ordered to reduce that population to 137.5 percent of capacity within two years. The state hopes to comply with this
Three-Judge Court order by February 2016.
One of the reasons that the state missed an earlier deadline was the unexpected 36 percent increase in three-strikes prison admissions in 2013. The California District Attorneys Association claimed that the increase had nothing to do with Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment program that was passed in 2011. However:
State reports show the number of felons arriving in prison with two strikes began rising immediately after the Legislature passed Brown's realignment program in late 2011. That part of the prison population is now more than 34,000 inmates, a record high.
No one would want to suggest that this was the prosecutors' way of retaining their power over California citizens charged with crimes, but they fought the realignment program as well as Proposition 36.
And with few exceptions, they are fighting against Proposition 47. If Proposition 47 passes, prosecutors will lose the ability to decide whether to charge a $500 shoplifting as a felony or a misdemeanor. It will be a misdemeanor, no matter how much a district attorney would wish it otherwise. In this area, the ultimate power of the prosecuting attorney would be restricted.
Proposition 47 will reduce nonviolent property crimes (petty theft, receiving stolen property, and forging/writing bad checks) of less than $950 to misdemeanors, which means they can no longer be used as second or third strikes. The same is true with possession for personal use of drugs, including heroin and cocaine. None of the reductions would apply if the perpetrator has been found guilty of rape, murder, or child molestation.
The Los Angeles Times reports that:
More than 58,000 of the 202,000 felony convictions in California in 2012, the latest figures available from the state, were for crimes listed in the ballot measure. Analysts say about 40,000 such cases would be reduced to misdemeanors.
According to the state
Legislative Analyst,
- Net state criminal justice system savings that could reach the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually. These savings would be spent on school truancy and dropout prevention, mental health and substance abuse treatment, and victim services.
- Net county criminal justice system savings that could reach several hundred million dollars annually.
The changes that Proposition 47 bring could have an impact on that almost invisible segment of the California prison population, women. According to
a report from the
Women’s Foundation of California, women are three times more likely to be incarcerated for forgery and fraud and twice as likely to be in prison for petty theft than are men in California. Nationally, women are 63 percent more likely to receive jail or prison sentences for drug possession than are men.
The report found that "formerly incarcerated women are more likely to be a person of color, disproportionately poor, and they have more difficulty obtaining public benefits and finding and maintaining stable housing." Bill Clinton's "One Strike and You're Out" policy means that a felony drug conviction can lead to a denial of public housing assistance, making the reintegration into society of a woman with children all the more difficult.
Even worse are the employment prospects for women after serving their sentence. They remain branded as felons and as such may be unable to quality for work in traditionally female fields such as retail, child care, and home health care. For men, fields such as construction work are less likely to require a felony-free record.
I sincerely doubt that the predicament of California's incarcerated women topped the list of Gingrich's concerns or that it was even on the radar of the Soros Foundation or Hughes. However, the issues that Gingrich and Hughes included in their editorial opinion are also valid. California does spend $62,396 per prisoner each year, while only spending $9,200 per student. We have built 22 new prisons in the past 30 years, and only one public university. It is time to change course.
Monday, October 20, is the last day for Californians to register to vote in November's election. Californians can request an absentee ballot until the October 28. Be sure to vote on, or before, November 4. Even though California is not offering the fun and fans of Florida, or the nail-biting race of South Dakota, there is always an issue, or a local race, that needs your vote. Please cast it.