SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Running the state's prisons costs a hefty amount of funding, but things are changing as the state's incarcerated population drops.
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In the past, the state's prisons have been overcrowded for several years. For a long time, the state was in violation of the 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment as well as excessive bail and fines.
The issue even made its way up to the Supreme Court. In response, there were prisoner releases and the state passed AB 109, which made it so state prisons would no longer be available for nonserious, nonviolent, nonsexual offenders. Those offenders would serve their time at the local, county level.
"As a result, the state’s prison population dropped pretty dramatically," said W. David Ball, a Santa Clara Law School professor teaching classes in criminal law, criminal procedure, and sentencing and corrections on KCBS Radio's "Ask an Expert" with Margie Shafer on Monday.
The population went from a high of about 140,000 to about 100,000 currently. Now, there are about 15,000 empty beds in the state prison system, which is projected to increase to 20,000.
"The problem with having empty beds in California state prisons is that you'll often hear the statement that it costs about $100,000 per prisoner," said Ball.
But that's not really how it works. With one less prisoner, it's not as if then that $100,000 shows back up in the state’s budget.
Instead, there's a fixed cost to keeping a prison open and the lights on.
"So it's really by only closing prisons that you can start to see some of the costs fading, that you would otherwise expect from a lower capacity," he said.
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