30 Percent of California's Forest Firefighters Are Prisoners

[nadinbrzezinski]

72. I am all for ending the war on drugs

major reason we are where we are. But I would never consider fully getting rid of labor. You will have prisoners in prison even if we end the war on drugs. Hopefully go down to 1970s levels, where we as a nation were closing some prisons. But I would end every private prison in the land. If the state needs to punish, this is not something you privatize.

But 90 percent of people in prison will get out. Spending all day in a cell or the yard is not quite healthy or particiularly good at giving people the skills they need to rejoin life. We used to have mandatory education programs inside the walls. So people finished High School, some even got advanced degrees. Most were cancelled over the years because little Johnny is getting into debt but cons are getting it for free?

The first thing I would do, if I could wave a wand is end the war on drugs...and the use of fines as income by many police departments as well as civilian asset forfeiture laws. Second thing, start the process to have the same level of education in schools in La Jolla and oh, Lincoln Heights. These are in the same school district but they might as well not be. Private prisons would go away. And for really low risk offenders, try Norway's model.

But you also need to get rid of barriers to reentry, such as the box asking people if they have ever been convicted of anything...that alone is a huge problem. And I would also make these people eligible for section 8 housing, which currently they are not. So homelessness is an issue. I could go on.

As to the math, to be fair to a program you need to look at the cost not just the pay. It costs more to house and feed each inmate than it would to outright hire seasonal volunteers. It is rob from Peter to pay Paul truly, because the cost is fixed. But cal fire would "save money" by just hiring seasonals. This is why my county dropped the idea.