Senator George Runner
Serving the 17th District which incorporates portions of the Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura and Kern counties.

On Tuesday, three federal judges decided 44,000 California state inmates ought to be released early from prison as a pretext for improving health care for prisoners who already receive lavish medical and dental services.

Rest assured, Republican legislators will not sit idly by while federal judges meddle in the affairs of California, and in the process endanger our communities. We plan to take this matter all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

Yes, California has prison issues – for which Republicans have offered many solutions throughout the years – but the conditions are not as dreadful as the Democrats and three-judge panel would have you believe.

For example, prisoners’ health care is supposedly so poor that it has been declared unconstitutional. Yet California spends $17,000 per inmate each year on health care – more than any other state. Good luck finding a law-abiding citizen who has that kind of money to spend on medical insurance each year.

A recent federal study reveals that the mortality rate for California prisoners was lower than inmate mortality rates in 37 other states and lower than mortality rates for the law-abiding public.

What California leaders need to do is take a step back and start speaking the truth about California’s prison system and stop spreading hyperbolic rumors.

I authored a paper last year that does exactly that.

“Who Is In Our State Prisons?” points out a variety of facts, including these:

Crowding: California does not have the crowding and health care problems that some liberals would have you believe. As a matter of fact, when it comes to prison populations, California is about in the middle when compared to other states, according to the Pew Institute – a Left leaning think tank.

“Three Strikes” law: Both before and immediately after Three Strikes became California law in 1994, it was widely predicted, in public documents and the media, that California’s prison population would explode. Prison population estimates for mid-year 1999 were recalculated by the California Department of Corrections after Three Strikes passed and increased from 171,000 to 245,000. Neither estimate was reached. On June 30, 1999, the actual state prison population was 162,000. Ten years later, the states’ prison population is still below 170,000. With the advantage of hindsight, it is evident that the explosion in inmate growth never occurred.

Tough penalties deter crime: Opponents of tough criminal laws cannot accept that penalties deter crime. They presume that the same number of people will commit a crime whether the penalty is 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years. They are wrong. Since 1999, certain offenses with low penalties like vehicle theft have surged while the number of residential burglaries, which constitute “strikes,” have remained lower. When tough penalties contribute to fewer crimes there are also fewer criminals being sent to state prison.

I will keep you posted on the California prison debate and our battle to keep 44,000 prisoners released early.