I don't pretend to know how to completely solve California's fiscal crisis, but we know one step that could be taken to help the process. Examine every lifer in tyhe California prison system for possible parole, and give the deserving ones their freedom. A lot of them deserve it.
This isn't an idle, uninformed comment. I spent full-time for six months reading parole hearing transcripts and other official documents relating to the Board's activities and what I found made me think of Alice in Wonderland. In the end, I wropte a 12-page friend of the court brief proving beyond any doubt that the members of the Board were not doing their legislatively-mandated task, actually considering whether or not inmates deserved parole. It became clear that the Board had been instructed by Governor Gray not to grant parole except in certain cases -- when the applicant was a friend of a well-connected Republican, or was an ex-lawman.
At the time, the victims of crime were a strong lobby with the Prison Guard's Union. The San Francisco Chronicle once called the union "The Invisible Government." Their greed has costs the taxpayers of the State of California billions of dollars, and if their wings could be trimmed, this would help bring the California budget under control.
This isn't an idle, uninformed comment. I spent full-time for six months reading parole hearing transcripts and other official documents relating to the Board's activities and what I found made me think of Alice in Wonderland. In the end, I wropte a 12-page friend of the court brief proving beyond any doubt that the members of the Board were not doing their legislatively-mandated task, actually considering whether or not inmates deserved parole. It became clear that the Board had been instructed by Governor Gray not to grant parole except in certain cases -- when the applicant was a friend of a well-connected Republican, or was an ex-lawman.
At the time, the victims of crime were a strong lobby with the Prison Guard's Union. The San Francisco Chronicle once called the union "The Invisible Government." Their greed has costs the taxpayers of the State of California billions of dollars, and if their wings could be trimmed, this would help bring the California budget under control.
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