http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/kodiakbears/163296
The pile-on in Arizona politics is to continue building more
prison beds instead of addressing the current issues and reduce prison
populations like many other states are doing as we speak. The deficit, although
handled through innovative funding and cutting services or reallocating
resources throughout the state, will not stabilize and reduce without the
burdensome prison system out of control. Instead of focusing on prison reforms,
sentencing alternatives and reducing prison population, Arizona has chosen to
do just the opposite duplicating the roadmap California took ten years ago
before they hit financial dire straights and realized they can’t keep spending
or growing like this any longer.
Fear Mongering in Arizona
Reading an article written by Jackie Goldberg for The Bee in
California made me realize that Arizona is following the footsteps of
California politics whether they want to admit it or not. Their views are just
as strong and misaligned on matters such as public safety and prison growth.
Fear mongering is an effective tool to convey and pursue an
agenda that benefits only a select few individuals and business and taxes the
majority of us heavily in dealing with our budget concerns and spending. Their
plan to persuade others to think like them is the number one priority so to
assure a strong support system for those legislative bullets to pass without
resistance and endorsements by the governor to make them laws.
A year ago, Governor Jerry Brown stepped up to the plate and
announced a prison plan called “Realignment” that would require the release of
thousands of prisoners back to county jails for supervision and custodial
responsibilities. This was met with opposing views of endangering the public
unnecessarily and had failure written by many who stood against it. The plan
was simple. It was an “attempt to overhaul and redirect a prison system that
has been floundering for at least a decade.”
Today many fear mongering citizens and politicians are
silenced as more than 25,000 prisoners have been released back to the community
or county jails in a little as 16 months after the plan began. Even more
impressive is the report that states “The count of people on parole is down
almost 30,000, and the number of people held in private out-of-state prisons is
down 10 percent; all that without a spike in crime.” It goes on to report that
“Based on an encouraging first year, can we expect further parole and
sentencing reforms resulting in even more reductions in corrections spending in
the next few years?”(1)
I am confident that Arizona politicians have the ability to
reduce deficit and prison costs but realize that their personal agendas,
commitments and other promises prevents them from doing so. In the meantime, it
has been clear Arizona has not been exempt from the negative effects of the
recession and will continue to suffer needlessly unless these prison costs are
curbed and brought back where the funding is adequate and not infringing on
other state services year after year as it has for the past ten years.
Arizona citizens and taxpayers must realize that in order to
climb out of this rut, it must spend less and invest more into the community
businesses rather than private prison contractors who serve only themselves and
not the public in any shape or form regardless of the rhetoric of more jobs and
better economic conditions locally where the prisons are built. Factual data
will disprove any significant contributions and rather, show a strong
dependency on state resources to continue their own existence and beneficial
relationship with the state through pre-arranged financial arrangements not
disclosed to the public.
Whether or not these Arizonian lawmakers can reverse the
vicious cycle of creating the “financial apocalypse” of the future depends on
how they handle the funding and expenses today. There are some lawmakers who
say there are ways to break this cycle of budget deficits and that instead of
not doing anything about the growth they should adopt a strategy that could
accomplish a solid budget without taking such critical risks to continue
spending at the current rate today.
Those who believe in sound fiscal management should push
their peers to take a look at these alternatives already identified and not yet
brought to the table and suggest they join together in an attempt to resolve
Arizona’s fiscal crisis and stabilize their state’s financial condition
immediately rather than later.
It is for certain that some will continue their “fear
mongering” attitude and make statement of reckless rhetoric to gain attention
on their views but in the long run, citizens should insist in responsible
government and prudent spending for the next few years to return back to the
Arizona we all love and care for..
(1) Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/29/4521707/fear-mongers-were-wrong-about.html#storylink=cpy