Devil's Advocate

View state-of-arizona-budget-reductions-options-fy-2010-gf-pdf

You know, I am going to play the devil's advocate.



First of all, out of 10 priorities, this one is number 10. Number 11 is really just an extention to #10C.

Second, by unloading 10K plus inmates either into county jails or on parole would eliminate 10 plus prisons.

Third, the county jails will have to house more inmates 600 plus from DOC and that isn't going to fly with the counties too well.

Fourth, eliminating 10 prison facilities means laying off close to 1200 employees. Although, one suggestion is to lease out the DOC prisons to private prison companies (creating an income) and house out of state inmates possibly opening up new jobs for those employees that will loose their job with DOC.

Fifth, AZ will either need to increase the parole officers case loads or create new jobs, because the parole officers are already over loaded. Again, possibly more jobs for the laid of DOC workers.

Sixth, there will need to be a revision of the current law, something that is very complex, because of other language that is used in ARS codes determining inmate eligiability. Would this only be for non-violent, medium, minimum inmates not convicted of certain crimes? They will really need to hammer and smooth this out to prevent some inmates that should qualify falling through the cracks and not getting released which will cause unrest with inmates and family members angry that one inmate gets this program while another with the same crime does not especially based on the fact that the only difference is they are house in a closed custody yard or level 5 yard. I guess this would have to be an internal DOC policy based on internal scoring and behavior....

Some other things to consider I heard, I haven't verified this yet, but DOC was only asked to reduce their current budget of 1 billion 8.5% so in other words $85 million dollars. If DOC reduces the budget by each priority in order, then they would reach that reduction prior to priority number 10C the modification in truth-in-sentencing.

Just some food for thought so that we can look at this in a realistic approach.