While much attention centered on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to reduce the state prison population, which went into effect Monday, the University of California Students Association is instead concentrating on the issue of privatization of the state’s penitentiaries.
In his recent State of the State address, Schwarzenegger proposed a constitutional amendment that would prevent the state from spending more money on prisons and increase funding to higher education from 7 to 10 percent.
This decrease in prison funding would result in the privatization of California prisons through outside entities for operation and management, a move with which the UCSA is not fully comfortable.
“If (Schwarzenegger) wants to divert funds to public education … we can’t just blindly accept any funds if the source of funds is not something students are not in favor of,” said Christopher Santos, a third-year psychobiology student and chair of the UCSA Undergraduate Committee.
However, he emphasized that the organization was still researching the details and significance of these funds before taking a strong stance on the issue.
Nevertheless, Santos said when other states enacted similar measures of privatization, human rights violations increased, since these independent contractors were not as accountable to the state in terms of maintaining standards.
“The way (Schwarzenegger) is going about doing that is something that we don’t support and we’re sure many across the state as well,” said Victor Sanchez, president of UCSA, adding that comprehensive prison reform, not privatization, was a better way of balancing the budget to fund education.
This type of reform would give nonviolent offenders admission to rehabilitation programs, instead of being kept in prisons, Santos said.
He added that the organization also hoped to see changes to the state’s three-strikes law, which mandates that those convicted of three felony crimes could spend life in prison.
“This costs money for California that frankly, we don’t have right now,” Santos said, adding that the law can be harsh for nonviolent offenders.
Thus, Monday’s state prison changes, which will release 6,500 inmates by decreasing their sentences through work on firefighting crews, obtaining high school diplomas or trade school certificates, or completing drug or alcohol rehabilitation programs, were a topic of interest for the organization.
“As individual members of UCSA, we look favorably on these changes, as opposed to privatization,” Santos said.
However, he said the organization cannot specifically support this issue without a formal vote and especially because the estimated half billion dollars in savings from such changes will not go toward higher education.
“When the money from these changes go to higher education, that’s when we’ll be involved,” he said.