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Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers

By Jeralyn, Section Inmates and Prisons
Posted on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 12:42:31 PM EST
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The SanFrancisco Chronicle approvingly notes California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a change will take place in the California Department of Corrections, through a shift from focusing on punishment to rehabilitation. He will even change the name from California Department of Corrections to California Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.

Compared to Gray Davis, Schwarzenegger has a far better record of allowing parole for some who have been convicted of murder.

In only 15 months, he has already released 94 "lifers" -- 15 times more than Davis did during a much longer period....Schwarzenegger's willingness to release even those convicted of capital crimes is a significant step with broad national implications. It will reinforce an emerging national movement to make rehabilitation rather than punishment a central focus of the criminal-justice system.

... At the same time, the lifers whom Schwarzenegger has released still leave more than 27,000 inmates serving indeterminate life terms in California. It is an astonishingly high number. Incarcerating them costs the state nearly $1 billion a year.

Many of them have committed crimes so heinous that they presumably will never be released. But thousands of others deserve a fair hearing to make the case that they've been fully rehabilitated. Unlike his predecessor, Schwarzenegger has sent a welcome signal that he will not prejudge their pleas before they even reach his desk.

Some background is here.

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    Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers | 12 comments (12 topical)
    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 07:45:15 PM EST
    I know I am supposed to dislike and distrust everything about him, but I can't help appreciating his approach to the prison system. If republicans would embrace prison reform, end the amazingly stupid wars on drugs and terror, and start pushing energy independence, I might have to vote republican.

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#2)
    by Che's Lounge on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 08:43:18 PM EST
    CA, Don't rush to judgement. This is a good start, but I don't think AS can stop the war on drugs. But this is encouraging.

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:07:29 PM EST
    Arnold is a terrible Governor, and this is one more example. One of the few things that Gray Davis did right was keep murderers in prison. Democrats will never be able to get anywhere until they address the crime issue. Convicted murderers should spend a life behind bars. All it takes is one notable case and you'll get a reaction. Nobody wants their kid or spouse or parent murdered by some low life released from prison for murder. Or kidnapping. Or rape. Minor drug offenses, sure. That's sensible. But AS went to far and he'll deservedly get burned.

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 04, 2005 at 04:59:06 AM EST
    i understand attempting to tackle budgets... but releasing convicted murderers back onto the streets?

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 04, 2005 at 05:17:52 AM EST
    I'll be interested to watch how the releasing of convicts is handled by both sides during Arnold's re-election campaign.

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 04, 2005 at 06:14:18 AM EST
    Ahnold's approach to budget problems is typical Republican: cut services to the poor, destroy education, give tax breaks to the rich. He has done a few good things, but releasing prisoners to save money seems nuts.

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#7)
    by Che's Lounge on Mon Apr 04, 2005 at 08:26:30 AM EST
    He's also a union buster.

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 04, 2005 at 08:30:26 AM EST
    One advantage Ahnuld has in this area is a perception of being a tough guy and criminal buster before being elected. Therefore it will be harder to call him a wimp than someone like ex-guv. Davis. Some of us would argue that the Reaganesque shift to punishment as vengeance exacted by society - fueled by victim's demands for retribution and exacerbated in CA by the gang-violence and seemingly incorrigible youth only comes back to bite us in the long run. We've been using imprisonment for thousands of years - it has shown very little success in rehabilitation and zilch in crime prevention. Violent, desperate people don't usually stop and look up the "price they'll pay" because no criminal thinks they're going to get caught (or don't care). I say let's review the sentences of everyone with felony murder and drug convictions and ensure that the sentences they receive are in the best interest of public safety and of public taxpayers. As a country, we can't afford to act as the Colosseum of public media hype and outrage. Nor do victims have rights beyond prosecution of their case under the law (as cold as that sounds). An unloved, unmourned victim has the same rights to justice in our system as do the Laci Peterson's.

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#9)
    by Richard Aubrey on Mon Apr 04, 2005 at 07:02:08 PM EST
    I don't recall that anybody bothered to go on record predicting this. It would be too obvious to be worth the effort. But the lefties said life without parole ought to be the alternative to execution. Of course, they were lying. They meant as little time behind bars as could be managed, as an alternative to execution. Months?

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 04, 2005 at 07:17:37 PM EST
    I believe people can be rehabilitated. Once rehabilitated it does no one any real good to keep them in jail.

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#11)
    by Richard Aubrey on Mon Apr 04, 2005 at 09:04:02 PM EST
    Conscious, you miss the point. The left lied. They said LWOP in place of execution. It was your selling point. Now we see that the murderers get out as soon as they can put on a show for the parole board. If not sooner. BTW, if there is no point in putting people in jail once rehabilitated, there is no point putting people in jail once there's no possibility of their reoffending, right? So what could Pinochet possibly do to anybody? Based on your logic, there's no reason in the world to continue to chase him, or the geriatric ex-Nazis in this country. Ooops. You didn't mean letting people you don't like go just because they're harmless. There's other stuff. Justice. Lessons. Deterrence. Respect for the victims. Except none of it applies to murderers. You strung yourself up, sport, all of you.

    Re: Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Apr 05, 2005 at 09:27:25 AM EST
    If you're so hot to punish people for their crime how come you're so blase about corporate crime? For decades big tobacco hid the fact that cigarettes were lethal, and even today a couple of 9/11's worth of people die every week from that drug, yet we somehow seem to manage that awful price as a society. Add in exploding gas tanks, TV sets that immolate themselves, lies from big pharma, and industrial criminal negligence like Bhopal and it should be pretty obvious that we're far more threatened by our corporations than individual miscreants. On top of that, we can expect corporations to respond far more rationally to the threat of real punishment than your average low-life punk. If you want to really do something about crime, here is where you can start.

    Gov. Arnold and Releasing Lifers | 12 comments (12 topical)