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California has set a dubious state record since Gov. Jerry Brown took office — the largest number of prison inmates with life sentences released.

Gov. Jerry Brown has released 1,400 such inmates since his term began in 2011 and concurred with the parole board 82 percent of the time, the Associated Press reported.
…

More than 80 percent of those with life sentences are convicted murderers, with the rest largely consisting of rapists and kidnappers, AP reported.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... z2uNNRLMe5

When a "life sentence" is meaningless, this reinforces support for the Death Penalty.

Not keeping enough people in prison for long enough is the opposite of America's problem.

Life sentences with the possibility of parole sometimes results in parole. Life without parole also exists. This is normal.

Petition/early release rates seem a bit different.

Grandpa's Spells wrote:Not keeping enough people in prison for long enough is the opposite of America's problem.

Life sentences with the possibility of parole sometimes results in parole. Life without parole also exists. This is normal.

You really do struggle with these sorts of things. It's just one straw man after another. The article says nothing about more people going to jail. It asks why the release rate of very serious offenders is comparatively high. The answer, if the article is to be believed is "The Brown administration argues that it is merely dealing with court orders that attempt to deal with overcrowded prison populations." According to Christine Ward, executive director of the Crime Victims Action Alliance, that's a poor reason. “This is playing Russian roulette with public safety. This is a change of philosophy that can be dangerous.” It really isn't just the glib answer that "the possibility of parole sometimes results in parole." It's why it now appears the possibility is going up for a specious reason that is at the article's focus.

Sua Sponte wrote:

Grandpa's Spells wrote:Not keeping enough people in prison for long enough is the opposite of America's problem.

Life sentences with the possibility of parole sometimes results in parole. Life without parole also exists. This is normal.

You really do struggle with these sorts of things. It's just one straw man after another. The article says nothing about more people going to jail.

Neither did I. Nonetheless, America imprisons a shocking percentage of its citizens for a very long time.

It asks why the release rate of very serious offenders is comparatively high.

Since it would appear to be good policy, given the prior status quo, it seems like a poor trend to be critical of without extremely good reasons. I don't buy the public safety argument. Violent crime is overwhelmingly a young man's game. Unless a guy with a life sentence is getting out in 5 years, he's likely to be in no position to be out there bangin.

Grandpa's Spells wrote:

Sua Sponte wrote:

Grandpa's Spells wrote:Not keeping enough people in prison for long enough is the opposite of America's problem.

Life sentences with the possibility of parole sometimes results in parole. Life without parole also exists. This is normal.

You really do struggle with these sorts of things. It's just one straw man after another. The article says nothing about more people going to jail.

Neither did I. Nonetheless, America impressions a shocking percentage of its citizens for a very long time.

It asks why the release rate of very serious offenders is comparatively high.

Since it would appear to be good policy, given the prior status quo, it seems like a poor trend to be critical of without extremely good reasons. I don't buy the public safety argument. Violent crime is overwhelmingly a young man's game. Unless a guy with a life sentence is getting out in 5 years, he's likely to be in no position to be out there bangin.

Unless he's been thoroughly institutionalized, and has a criminal background + no skills that will do him wonders in a lousy economy. Hard to see this working, even though I hope you're right. But Moonbeam's gotta pay for that bullet train somehow.

johno wrote:

More than 80 percent of those with life sentences are convicted murderers, with the rest largely consisting of rapists and kidnappers, AP reported.

This won't sit well with the average voter. Regardless of whether the parolees reoffend.

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world (743 per 100,000 population), Russia has the second highest rate (577 per 100,000), followed by Rwanda (561 per 100,000).[8] As of year-end 2009 the USA rate was 743 adults incarcerated in prisons and jails per 100,000 population.[5][8] At year-end 2007 the United States had less than 5% of the world's population[31] and 23.4% of the world's prison and jail population (adult inmates).[9]

This is fucked up, and locking up all the folks who don't need to be locked up for long sentences results in no room for the true shitbags.

Unlike many on this board, I was unlucky enough to live in that shit hole of a state.

This has nothing to do with public safety, proper sentencing etc. The California Penal system is one of the most corrupt and mismanaged prison systems in the country. The prison guard union about owns the democrat party in CA and with the help of meddling federal judges, they have destroyed the finances of the prison system. I don't remember the exact number, but it costs the state of CA 3-4 times the amount to house a prisoner vs other states. Even then, their services and infrastructure are in the toilet. Their prison health system is so pathetic, that the federal courts intervened.

This is all about saving money and trying to keep the system limping along.

Yeah, it's those damn dirty unions that drive incarceration rates, not endless decades of right-wing law and order bullshit (ie "three strikes").
It's certainly not the anti-union private prison corporation that pinko Brown contracted with to build new prisons.

Pro-tip: if you don't lock up nonviolent drug offenders, you can lock up murderers for longer.

Oh, shit, I didn't even notice that the characterization of those being released as "murderers and rapists" comes from the Moonie Times. Can that be linked to a source that doesn't believe a Korean cult leader is the second coming of Jesus?

milosz wrote:Oh, shit, I didn't even notice that the characterization of those being released as "murderers and rapists" comes from the Moonie Times. Can that be linked to a source that doesn't believe a Korean cult leader is the second coming of Jesus?

I searched for it earlier and didn't find it. FOX is reporting that most of the people released are murderers and most other sites are referencing them.

The ACLU, probably popular on this board, says the following:

No one sentenced to life without parole has ever been released on parole, in California or in any other state. Prisoners sentenced to LWOP actually remain in prison for the rest of their lives and die in prison.

All sentences, including the death penalty, are equally subject to clemency from the governor. However, no Democratic or Republican governor has ever granted clemency to a prisoner serving an LWOP sentence in California, and no such prisoner has ever been released on parole.

The last time a governor used his power of executive clemency in a murder case was more than 30 years ago, when Ronald Reagan commuted the death sentence of a mentally ill inmate to a life sentence.

Stop your rationals.

milosz wrote:Yeah, it's those damn dirty unions that drive incarceration rates, not endless decades of right-wing law and order bullshit (ie "three strikes").

Like the ones who've dominated the CA legislature since before you were born?

milosz wrote:Yeah, it's those damn dirty unions that drive incarceration rates, not endless decades of right-wing law and order bullshit (ie "three strikes").
It's certainly not the anti-union private prison corporation that pinko Brown contracted with to build new prisons.

Pro-tip: if you don't lock up nonviolent drug offenders, you can lock up murderers for longer.

Oh, shit, I didn't even notice that the characterization of those being released as "murderers and rapists" comes from the Moonie Times. Can that be linked to a source that doesn't believe a Korean cult leader is the second coming of Jesus?

You're a fucking dumb ass. I didn't accuse them of driving the incarceration rates up. I blamed them for driving up the costs of incarceration to 2,34 times the national average. CA actually finds it cheaper to farm out prisoners to other states. It's cheaper to send a CA inmate to any other state to serve their time than have them stay in CA. If there was enough room in other states and the CA prison union would let them; CA would farm all of them out.

Nor did I mention anything about those being released. Other than to point out it had nothing to do with being soft on crime or being altruistic. It has everything to do with money. I didn't even blame moonbeam, as the governoator was doing this in the last few years while in office.

This non-violent drug users shit is just that; shit. I'm all for legalizing drugs, but stop with the flat out lies. The idiots behind bars on drug charges are almost always there on other charges. This idea that thousands innocent waif like drug using hippies are languishing in CA prisons is a fairytale. The CA legal system is fairly tolerant of drug users. Most get mandatory treatment etc. This idea that CA legal system is populated by hanging judges that can't wait to throw druggies in the slammer is laughable.

The key problem with CA is it's too busy taxing spending their tax payers money on bullshit to actually carry out the key responsibilities of government.

Is there a good reason to distrust the parole board, with whom Brown has "agreed" 82% of the time?

T>1200 wrote:Is there a good reason to distrust the parole board, with whom Brown has "agreed" 82% of the time?

Depends on their decision criteria. Intuitions and using traits/characteristics that have no proven predictive ability have been commonplace among parole boards. There are reportedly some traits, characteristics of the crime committed and the person's background that do have statistical predictive ability. None are 100% and there's always risk in statistical decision making but it's better than intuition or its intellectual kin. The 'older don't folk commit violent crime' statistic doesn't apply as the population in that statistic is at odds with the conditional probability of what's the likelihood of recidivism for a person convicted and incarcerated for a given period of time. In this case, if the article is accurate, Brown isn't saying anything about trusting the board one way or another or why he decided on which 18% to go against the board. He's only saying he has to reduce prison population. While most people these days think it's absurd to lock up people for petty drug crime, me included, I suspect they are not in the same prisons as the violent offenders, not sure on that. If it is true, letting them free may not free up the space in the maximum security prisons.