Priorities II

Although this point and its supporting article apply only to California, I think the trend and the sentiment they express apply reasonably well to America in general. The punchline? How California will soon be spending more on prisons and prisoners than on education.

Let me tell you, folks, this is a sign of a culture / civilization / nation, however you want to classify America, in decline. There are many factors that play a role in the problem—an out-of-control and altogether too powerful labor (prison guards) union, a nearly-broken state government that appears entirely incapable of dealing with the kind of major problems that face a nation-state like California, the easy votes that pandering politicians can secure by promising to be "tough on crime," reality-impaired state and federal laws drug laws, the ever-more strident demands from a fearful public to be protected from every imaginable kind of crime, "three strikes" laws that sentence people to 25 years for stealing videos and pizzas—the list goes on. But the overall result, that of choosing to invest more of our limited resources in prisons than in education, speaks volumes about what kind of people we are and where our priorities lie.

See the San Francisco Chronicle article of 21 May 2007 for more details.