1) Something is wrong with the system! Imprisonment has become the new slavery. Profiling happens at every step, related to who gets stopped, arrested, tried, and convicted, and how severe their sentence, not to mention the profiling that happens in the media. That is wrong, and yet an integral part of the policies of maintaining exploitation. When people have fewer options outside of prison – options like good education and well-paid jobs – they can be exploited, or dismissed, as workers, consumers, and voters. Prisons also reward campaign contributions with contracts for construction, services, and prison labor.
2) Yes, change it. For decades the percentage allocated to the prison budget has increased, while education has decreased. In other parts of this questionnaire, I outlined why this course is being followed by governors of both Democratic and Republican parties, which I now call Titanic Parties since they are heading straight for the iceberg, and their leaders are not changing course. Needed changes are many, and include: legalize marijuana; handle drug abuse outside of prison, reduce imprisonment due to technical parole violations, honor the parole board decisions, eliminate the death penalty, and correct or eliminate Three Strikes.
3) Three Strikes was a manipulative proposition designed to play on people’s fears and enhance the prison industrial complex. Ten years later, a billionaire’s last minute manipulations, helped by Jerry Brown, defeated Prop 66, which would have amended Three Strikes. Voters need to change Three Strikes via citizen initiative. I believe a necessary step is happening: a People’s Movement is building to counter the “prison military industrial corporate complex.” Evidence of this growing movement includes the Justice for Oscar Grant movement, which is supported by the March 4th Student Movement demanding good educational opportunities, and a Latino movement demanding fair treatment.
4) I would appoint as head of CDCR someone focused on rehabilitation, someone who continues to learn everything possible about what has worked here and elsewhere, solutions both tried and true and innovative. They would have received high marks from peers, from employees, and even from inmates and ex-inmates. They would have a deep respect for people’s ability to turn themselves around. As a personal story, my fiancé is a retired probation counselor for juveniles. We’ve had the pleasure of seeing many young men approach us at restaurants to tell him that they straightened out their lives thanks to him.
5) Over-ruling parole decisions is harmful to the would-be parolees, their families and supporters, and to the taxpayers, but helpful to the prison industrial complex, and that points to the solutions. Changes I support include one very basic change in our government which is to elect candidates who are not bought. That would require a much more level playing field in elections than we have now. As a Green Governor I would not be beholden to the prison industrial complex, and I would follow the intention of the laws and not over-rule parole board decisions.
