The budget for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation increased from about 3% of the state's general fund in 1980 to 11.2% for this fiscal year, according to figures prepared at the request of The Bay Citizen by the state Department of Finance. Meanwhile, funding for UC and CSU dropped from 10% of the state's general fund 30 years ago to about 6.6% this fiscal year.
"The growth in spending for pay and benefits for prison guards, prison health care mandated by various lawsuits, and the extraordinary amounts of money we are paying prison doctors" all contribute [to mounting prison costs], he said. "California is clearly the worst in the U.S. for what we get and what we spend. California has the largest prison system in the U.S., it is the most expensive per capita rate in the U.S. and the state has some of the highest recidivism rates of any state in the nation."
For more, see Education vs. Prisons: Shifting Priorities by , August 30, 2011 at The Bay Citizen.
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