While our state’s fiscal strategy continues to spin out of control like a drunk guy with an inner ear infection log-rolling on a choppy lake, states like California are considering a novel strategy to ease their mounting financial woes by letting some prisoners go free. Cells are so full in California’s prisons that inmates are forced to sleep in open spaces.
While it’s a daunting task, the state of California must choose whether to let 35,000 prisoners go free or house them in already-too-full county jails.
As a prisoner myself, I know Washington faces the same problem, in that several thousand prisoners must be set free or new prisons will have to be built. Keep in mind that to build more prisons — with money taxpayers can ill afford to part with — to address the crime dilemma is tantamount to paying for more graveyards to address a fatal disease.
We’re still living in the dark ages, folks.
John Letellier
Aberdeen
