As others have pointed out, nobody is serving time in California prisons because they are an illegal immigrant. The illegal immigrants in California prisons are there because they were convicted of some other crime.
Presumably most people can see the problem of enacting a policy that any illegal immigrant who commits a crime in California will not be sent to prison. That’ll drive both illegal immigration and all other crime rates through the roof as a horde of foreign criminals enter the state where they can commit crimes without fear of punishment. Not that it would be good times for the other forty-nine states - we’ll be getting all the American criminals who are driven out of California by the foreign competition.
i agree with the non violent people being let go, jail should be for people who comit violent crime, who are not meant for society.
Murder = death penalty and before said person is put 2 death all and any evidence in the case is re examined, by a CSI team, and a public deffender/arbitratior. There would be a special office for this it would go case by case in a 3 week period. if new evidence was found if something does show up, there would be a new court trial lesser charge. there is no appeal (unless a pardon), and the person is put 2 death the next day.
Rape/sex crime= death penalty if the victim is scarred or hurt for life. life in prision, or if it was like date rape… still bad but not terrible the person is evaluated and chemically castrated if they dont seem like they can be helped… all re offenders are put 2 death.
Child sex crimes= death penalty for most, and then chemical castration for all who can not be proven by a docotor to be fit for society, then all second offenders put 2 death
DWI/DUI= if you kill anyone else u get life or death penalty if your BAC or drug levle is over a certain ammount, or 2nd offender… non of these three strikes… people who drive over .12 or shit like that dont deserve to live
Accidental murder etc= long prision times
Now for non violent crimes like selling drugs… screwing people in business deals… etc etc… thats were the three strike system should be… like if you sell drugs and get caught the cops take them, give you a ticket with a crazy fee then send you on your way. the second time its weekends, and keeping roads clean with another huge fine, and then the third time its jail with more huge fines. Now some say well poor people who selll drugs will never pay, ok so we garnish any social benifits they might recieve.
Leaving the rest of your post aside, life is not like a TV show, and in real life a CSI team is not a team of magic professionals who can solve a crime in 45 minutes, and who never makes any mistakes.
The discussion of illegal immigrants is a bit off-topic nonetheless, since the California state government has no authority to deport them. In other words, California can’t opt to respond to the S.Ct. ruling by sending some subset of prisoners back to their home countries. It has to find places for them in the US, either in a constitutionally acceptable prison setting or by release.
What about thieves? Suppose a guy is making his living stealing cars and selling them to chop shops. Dozens of cars every year. Are you saying he shouldn’t be sent to prison?
What about a white collar criminal like Bernie Madoff? He should be set free?
I think only irredeemable non-violent criminals should be incarcerated. Basically your car thief, if he was caught repeatedly and kept committing his crimes, he would have to be incarcerated. Incarceration shouldn’t be the first thing that ever happens to him, though. After his first conviction he should be on supervised release, forced to attend educational classes and other things to try and rehabilitate him.
Note I’m very far from the definition of “bleeding heart”, I’m going at this from the fiscal reality that such programs are far cheaper than 24/7 incarceration.
Bernard Madoff is a special case. His crimes were persistent over many decades, and he committed many, many, many separate crimes. In his unique case and cases like them I would argue that the serial, ongoing, and massive nature of his crimes in and of itself demonstrate his irredeemability and make him unfit for society.
However, Martha Stewart for example essentially did one illegal thing. It was stupid and wrong, but there was no gain to putting Martha in a prison camp for a few months. I don’t “feel” for Martha, but as a first time offender who had not committed ongoing and flagrant violations, I see no reason to put her away.
Likewise, (and the SCOTUS ended up agreeing with me on this one) the bogus charge against white collar criminals of “not providing honest services” was so vague and difficult to defend against and the actions that were found to constitute the offense were not normally things I think someone should be incarcerated for.
Leaving to one side the wisdom of your Draconian sentencing, please note that this discussion is about the present sentences of incarcerated criminals in California. Whatever their sentences “should” have been in your or my opinion, the fact of what they actually were is what’s relevant – and note that the Constitutional prohibition of ex post facto laws means that the crimes in question and their sentences cannot be changed after the fact – only the sentences commuted or modified as seems wise to comply with the SCOTUS decision (which does not require anyone’s release, only that the prison system house only what it can house within Eighth Amendment guidelines – they can be released, paroled, transferred to county facilities, boarded out to other states, sent to new camp-style facilities, etc., to relieve the overcrowding).
I’m sure you’d continue to feel this way if you’d been wrongly convicted. No, wait, I’m not.
We’re not very good at ensuring that people sentenced to death are guilty with the current 10+ year trial and appeal timeline. I can assure you we’d be even worse at it in a three week period.
Hell, you can’t even have a small claims case heard within three weeks of the original filing.
If you’re going to redesign our criminal justice system, perhaps you should put some actual thought into it.
The reality is that it’s actually pretty hard to get sent to prison. People don’t go to prison for stealing a car or smoking a joint.
You get sent to prison because you either committed a serious crime (like murder or rape or stealing $50,000,000,000) or you committed a lot of crimes (it’s not uncommon to see prisoners who have twenty or forty or sixty convictions).
There are exceptions. Some states have enacted foolish “third-strike” laws. It’s one thing to send somebody to prison for fifty years if he’s been convicted of three violent crimes but universal third strike laws are a dumb idea.