To the editor: The Sure on Proposition 36 marketing campaign’s $1-million donation to the California Republican Party 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 tug California again to failed “robust on crime” insurance policies.
This transfer reveals marketing campaign backers’ allegiance to a political get together that has traditionally championed insurance policies that disproportionately incarcerated individuals of colour. 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 individual. 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 must always put money into job coaching applications, academic alternatives for incarcerated people and community-based violence prevention companies.
The marketing campaign’s donation clearly reveals this measure is about political acquire, 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.
