Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Obama's Spending Freeze Won't Apply To The Pentagon Or For That Matter, To Prisons...
"Last week the D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute issued a fact sheet describing its new DOJ budget in bleak terms. The report, "More Policing, Prisons, and Punitive Policies," warns that the "funding pattern" represented by Obama's budget "will likely result in increased costs to states for incarceration that will outweigh the increased revenue for law enforcement, with marginal public safety benefits."The Last Thing We Need is More Money for Prisons, But That Is What Obama Wants
AlterNet / By Liliana Segura
At the same time the Obama administration is talking about a dramatic "spending freeze" on any and all projects unrelated to war-making, it is quietly increasing the federal budget for even more prisons...
On February 1, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the administration would request $2.9 billion for the Department of Justice 2011 budget -- "a 5.4 percent increase in budget authority," according to the DOJ. Approximately $527.5 million would go to the federal Bureau of Prisons, a chunk of which would provide “bed space” to house prisoners currently at Guantanamo Bay (and ostensibly slated for transfer to the supermax prison in Thomson, IL).
"We have an obligation to protect our country in smart, reliable ways at every level," Holder said, invoking both the "fight against global terrorism" as well as the need to enforce "civil rights and the rule of law."
Smart and reliable, however, aren't words many Americans would use to describe our existing prison system, which has grown so rapidly and reached such epic proportions that serious efforts are underway across U.S. states to slash their prison populations out of sheer necessity...
Read On..."We have an obligation to protect our country in smart, reliable ways at every level," Holder said, invoking both the "fight against global terrorism" as well as the need to enforce "civil rights and the rule of law."
Smart and reliable, however, aren't words many Americans would use to describe our existing prison system, which has grown so rapidly and reached such epic proportions that serious efforts are underway across U.S. states to slash their prison populations out of sheer necessity...
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