Prison budget woes

Over one in a hundred Americans are in state and federal prison. In California, 31% are in prison for drug-related crimes. My state will likely choose to cut education spending by 10%, yet is not considering decriminalizing drug use because the Republicans have to be "tough on crime" and the Democrats are backed by the prison guard union (to his credit, Arnold has threatened to pardon some nonviolent offenders with less than 20 months left in their sentences and suggested cutting the prison budget by $250 million). Also, we constantly hear complaints about prisoners getting cable TV, three meals a day, etc. from the same people who insist on incarcerating drug users. Even if they really do get cable, our prison-industrial complex's inefficiencies cost much more than cable TV subscriptions.

Much of the money gets wasted on bureaucracy; in fact, overall the prisoners get very little. According to a friend's female family member who went to prison, they use a two cups (480 ml) of detergent per 100 lbs. of clothes and inadequately supply menstrual fluid protection products. Though I bet the feminine hygiene and laundry detergent lobbies are much weaker than the cable television lobby, a more likely reason that we spend too money per prisoner is that we really don't spend much on the prisoners themselves but instead spend too much money on unneeded bureaucracy, corrupt contracts, and overly unionized prison employees.

Ironically, one thing we need is more prison guards per prisoner, or at least a better system of running prisons so that pecky, violent hierarchies don't form. We can pay for it by ending the war on crime and breaking the prison lobby, including weakening the prison employee union. Then we'd have more money for balancing the budget, tax cuts, and education.

However, the prison budget's unlikely to shrink with state Republicans refusing to raise taxes or end the wars on drugs and crime for social reasons, and state Democrats refusing to end the wars on drugs and crime because they're backed by the prison guard union.