I’m very pleased with yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Brown v Plata. In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that California’s prisons are so overcrowded that they are unconstitutional according to the 8th amendment, which protects citizens from cruel and unusual punishment.
I understand and emphasize with those who oppose this decision. It is difficult to make sense of releasing nearly 37,000 convicted criminals. Justice Sacalia, who authored the fourteen page dissent, provides a scathing rebuke and eloquently lays out the opposing talking points.
It is entirely true that this decision will lead to prisons opening their gates and allowing thousands of inmates back on to California’s streets. It is true that an already battered state economy will have difficulty absorbing thousands of potential workers (that is, if companies elect to hire convicted felons) and that law-abiding, tax paying citizens may flee the state in fear of the newly released convicted felons. It is also true that the opinion orders the release of prisoners, but provides NO guidance on how to actually do it.
But these worries, among countless others, fail to consider the bigger picture. Prison reform has long been an ill-debated and under reported issue in this country. The US has the leading incarceration rate and the courts impose draconian sentences on non-violent criminals. Prisons have nefariously become a profit making industry and most greatly affect blacks and latinos. Additionally, and I make no claim to be prison historian, but I have lived my life believing that the system is meant not only to punish, but rehabilitate inmates. I fear the latter goal has gone ignored. Our prison system leaves inmates disenfranchised and unskilled, and today, released inmates are more likely than ever to return to a life of crime.
My hope is that prison reform gets the debate it is worthy of. Politicians loath such debates because they don’t want to appear weak on crime or have blood on their hands. So the easy course is to keep our prisons brimming with inmates. With any luck, this supreme court decision will set in motion a healthy debate about reform and how to better handle non-violent criminals.
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