Better schools, not more prisons

The California Corrections Department projects that the inmate population will not grow as rapidly as expected, with figures showing California will not run out of prison space until January 2000.

Nevertheless, Gov. Pete Wilson is pushing state legislators to allow for more construction of bigger, so-called "big- box" prisons.

The Wall Street Journal's California journal reported that next year, the 21st prison erected in the past 14 years will open. The cost for the prison was $4.5 billion.

But Wilson wants to build more and is expected to ask for three to six new prisons in his January budget proposal.

Wilson is asking for the money because the Corrections Department has no more money for construction.

The Journal also reported that State Assembly members, such as Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), are against construction of more prisons and are looking for alternatives to overcrowding by proposing other methods.

These include reducing the number of non-violent prisoners being housed in state prisons and moving them to work camps, using cheaper building material such as metal, wood and concrete to build pre-fabricated cells and allowing for private correction companies to operate facilities.

Money for these facilities is issued by the same California General Fund that issues money for schools.

According to a survey from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, the corrections funding has risen by 847 percent but funding for education has increase by only 116 percent during the past 16 years.

Something is wrong with this picture. Funding for prisons should not be above that for education.

Perhaps it is because Wilson has put so much emphasis on his tough-on-crime image that he has failed to realize the importance of education.

There is no question prisons and jails are needed but big, expensive ones are not needed.

A Department of Finance audit shows that it costs 19 to 28 percent less to build prisons in Arizona, Florida and Georgia than in California. Currently, the state-of-the-art Twin Towers Prison in downtown Los Angeles sits vacant.

Funding for education and prisons needs to be given the same weight by legislators. An 8-to-1 ratio in funding is unacceptable.

Prisoners do not need state-of-the-art facilities to house them. Triple bunk beds should be put in every cell.

Placing 20,000 of these beds by 1998 would cost the state $168 million, much less than building a prison from the ground up. The twin Towers cost $350 million to build. From 1984 to 1994 California built 19 prisons and only one state university, according to a report conducted by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.

The California Post-secondary Education Commission estimated that more than 450,000 students will enter higher education by the year 2005.

Where does the governor expect these student to attend schools? In jails?

Both prisoners and students need facilities. Funding should be made available to both, but at the same ratio. Colleges should be given the same priority as prisons.

After all, if higher-education institutions are not built for students to pursue careers, then they will be pursuing something else -- perhaps in the streets.

If Wilson thinks there is an overcrowding problem now, he should wait and see what happens when would-be students turn to crime.

Michael Luevano is a reporter for the Daily Forty-Niner.