How would you solve California’s budget problems?
Ke Lam: There is a need to reconstruct the penal system with more effort towards restorative justice instead of punishment. Less money will be diverted towards incarceration and that money can be channeled towards education.
Kevin Carr: Address the prison overcrowding situation and revising the Three Strike law while looking into releasing prisoners who are over 60 with terminal illnesses and indeterminate lifers who have met their matrix and done all the Parole Board has asked of them. Start releasing lifers because statistics prove 98 percent of Lifers who get out don’t come back. Therefore, saving money from what they spend to house Lifers, the end result would be saving billions of dollars.
Cole Bienek: The budget problem is too large to solve with a single solution; it must be attacked from all sides as if it were an invading army. A safe and progressive prison yard can be run (see prisonhonorprogram.org). With this program we find that we’re saving $20 million in reduced costs associated with violence, overtime and medical costs associated with violence.
Nathaniel Rouse: It costs $47,000 plus medical expenses (per year) to house a prisoner. I would release inmates who have proven over a period of time they’ve changed their lives. In this economical climate, I would reduce prison guards’ pay, and they would get 60 percent of their retirement and no annuities. No quitting and coming back as an annuity that hurts the state. Once you retire, that’s it.
Malik Harris: Repeal Proposition 13, the Three Strikes law, Marsy’s law, Jessica’s law and any law that has mandatory minimums. Cowardice of politicians is bankrupting California. They don’t want to do their job so they throw it off on the voters using scare tactics. Privatize and localize grades K-12, get rid of junior high schools and keep taxes low for everybody: the rich, the middle class and the poor. It won’t work in the first year, but in three to five years, California will be back on track.
