To the editor: The Sure on Proposition 36 marketing campaign’s $1-million donation to the California Republican Celebration reveals the true nature of this poll measure. Regardless of claims of bipartisan help, this substantial contribution exposes Proposition 36 as a partisan effort to pull California again to failed “robust on crime” insurance policies.
This transfer reveals marketing campaign backers’ allegiance to a political social gathering that has traditionally championed insurance policies that disproportionately incarcerated folks of coloration. Proposition 36 threatens to undo the progress made by Proposition 47, which lowered the state’s jail inhabitants and saved taxpayers greater than $800 million because it was handed in 2014.
California spends $132,860 per yr to incarcerate one particular person. This exorbitant price ignores the basis causes of theft-related crime: poverty and lack of alternative.
As a substitute of reverting to failed insurance policies, we should always put money into job coaching packages, academic alternatives for incarcerated people and community-based violence prevention providers.
The marketing campaign’s donation clearly exhibits this measure is about political achieve, not public security. Californians ought to reject Proposition 36 and demand evidence-based insurance policies that improve security with out sacrificing fairness and justice.
Let’s put money into combating poverty, not filling prisons.
George Galvis, Oakland
The author is government director of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, which opposes Proposition 36.
