Student leaders working with the American Civil Liberties Union held a public forum Monday night to discuss the potential impact of reforming California’s criminal justice system on state funding for public education.
The town hall aimed to explore the feasibility of state prison divestment for addressing social issues and increasing the availability of state funds for other uses. The event was organized by Cal Berkeley Democrats, the Northern California branch of the ACLU and UC Berkeley junior Obai Rambo.
Rambo described the forum as less of an attempt to advocate for a particular agenda and more of an effort to inform students so they can make policy judgments for themselves.
“I view the town hall as a chance for students to take charge and get the knowledge they need so that we can build on student movements and lead actions instead of being reactionary,” he said.
While Rambo sought to facilitate discussion, ACLU representatives Caitlin O’Neill and David Moss supported more specific policies aimed at reducing the prison system’s burden on state coffers. According to the ACLU, California taxpayers pay an average of $50,000 per inmate every year.
O’Neill said that sentence reform should be an important part of any prison reform. She was also critical of monetary bail policies in California, saying they were discriminatory against people of the poor and working classes and suggesting abandoning the policy altogether.
Moss, who has been in and out of California prisons on 14 different drug charges in what he called “a struggle with his personal demons,” characterized the size of California’s current criminal justice budget as a waste of money.
“I got treatment,” he said. “I was treated as a criminal. The war on drugs is an abject, abysmal failure.”
Attendees also discussed the trend of growing prison spending and diminishing public funding for education. Graduate student Joshua Green compared the current climate of California politics to ordering pizza in a residence hall room. He said special interest groups like the prison guard union were like big, athletic rugby players who could muscle their way to a slice, while financially strapped students — like a smaller, weaker computer programmer — would get left out.
Tony Thurmond, a former Richmond City Council member and a current candidate for the California State Assembly, said efforts to increase expectations of success were vital to keeping students away from crime. He said Californians have had multiple opportunities to decide on propositions that would improve the state’s public education system but that “manipulative messages” by special interest groups caused them to fail.
The town hall did not end with a specific plan of action. Nonetheless, Rambo said he saw it as a positive step forward, part of a larger movement only just under way.
Jeremy Gordon covers higher education. Contact him at [email protected].