[Luis Argerich photo]
Tony Platt, visiting professor of justice studies at San Jose State University in California, wrote this post about the 50 years he's been involved in trying to reform the prison system.
Recently, with a steady decline in the prison population and cutbacks in prison construction reported nationwide, the American penal binge seems to have reached a point of exhaustion, primarily the result of fiscal necessity. Some commentators are so encouraged by these developments that they imagine the “punitive turn” has run its course. They point to a significant drop in the rate of African American imprisonment; a decrease in the use of capital punishment (with eighteen states now in favor of abolition); judges taking a stand against unconstitutional police and prison practices in New York and California; and an increasing public receptivity to critical analysis, such as Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Also, they are encouraged by the willingness of leading neo-cons, such as Richard Viguerie, to speak out against “excessive and unwise spending” on prisons.
In my view, this optimism is premature. In California, supposedly a leader in prison reform, the political class is committed to maintaining the state’s reputation for the most punitive and expensive criminal justice system in the country. With policies that echo southern states’ efforts to derail the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Governor Jerry Brown and a majority of Democrats advocate expanding the prison system; dumping state prisoners into hard-pressed county jails; doing deals with global private prison entrepreneurs; stonewalling court-ordered reforms in the health care of prisoners; and maintaining the routine use of long-term solitary confinement for thousands of prisoners.
http://goodtogo.typepad.com/tony_platt_goodtogo/2014/05/recovering-from-rehab.html
Comments (0)