As California heads toward spending another 3.5 billion on new prisons, with hundreds of new positions for members of the guards union, the social costs of this authoritarian approach mount, and the fiscal burden staggers the folks who have to earn their living, there isn't much public conversation about how to improve our system.

Sanity in sentencing would have a huge effect on the California economy, and would even increase our security. California should adopt the measures tried and proven in other states to ensure that prison capacity is used to house violent and preditory criminals, while others are sent to less expensive alternative programs such as community service, home detention, "the farm", and so on.

When our California prison conditions become so over crowded that all immates are deprived of basic rights, all are brutalized and the self-fulfilling cycle is perpetuated as these people recycle into our society. If we reduce our prison population through the development of alternative programs including diversion and treatment, provide more flexibility in sentencing for some crimes, then our society will free up resources for economic development that are way more productive than the few prison jobs that won't be added.

It will take some time for changes in parole, changes in sentencing, changes in family support to produce the beneficial effects on society that will be recognized widely. Shifting the use of capital from prisons to education, medical care for the uninsured, etc. and a lower tax burden will produce jobs in our communities and address some of the misery that breeds crime.

I don't advocate eliminating prisons, just bringing the benefits and costs into line, understanding that many of the people in California prisons wouldn't be there for that crime if they were in Ohio, Colorado, or even New Hampshire. Clearly immigration issues are involved, so it's not only a California, not only a Federal issue, it involves our neighboors to the south, the influx of illegal aliens from Asia, and won't be solved by building a few more prisons. The three billion program wouldn't be the end of it unless our population shrinks or the policy changes.

Measures could include changes to the three strikes law to focus it on the violent preditors, changes in our support for community programs for parolees, more rational sentencing, wider use of home detention, work-release programs, support for the families of incarcerated people to reduce the collateral damage caused by the criminal, improved medical care for prisoners, even reform in classifying prisoners to reduce the brutalization of otherwise normal people caught in the system. There are hundreds of alternatives that deserve implementation, hundreds more that we must evaluate in order to shift our resources to a more effective policy.

Key to this shift is the prison guards union. Unless this union supports a more rational approach, there is little hope for change. Neither the legislators nor the Govenor will change policy unless the prison guards union supports the change.

I believe that the prison guards union members know better than the rest of us how much the system needs change, but it's not clear that the present union leadership sees a reduction in prison jobs ( resulting from a shift in policy) as part of the solution. I think that guard members have an interest in working in less crowded conditions, an interest in better medical care in prisons, and in living in a society that isn't so burdened by the huge cost of supporting such a large incarcerated population. Union membership voices haven't been leading the discussion on change, and I'd like to hear more from them. I'd like to see more reporting on what goes on in our system. We need to ensure that these changes don't compromise our security of course, but there is plenty that needs to change that would only increase our security.

My hope is that guards union members will use their considerable political capital to push for reform, for the sort of system that will reenforce respect for our system of laws, that will allow our society to be knowingly responsible for what goes on in our name behind bars. Unions pushing for more jobs is understandable, but as responsible members of society, these Unions could do more with their knowledge and influence to help Californians make smart choices.

The economy of California could easily benefit more from the effect of shifting the jobs created by public employment from new guards to new nurses, new educators, new foster care and disabled care workers. These jobs are not quite so concentrated in one politicians district, and the benefit isn't easy to fit into the ledger.

Our society more easily measures the growth of prisons than the growth of wellness,but the productivity growth from a healthier population will show in GDP. We also don't easily measure environmental quality as a social benefit, but the improvements in public health and the declining cost of care from pollution related health problems is well understood. Environmental laws have improved our country overall, and a similar shift in our social climate would follow if we implement the reforms I discuss here.