Critics point to cases like Robert Ferguson, who faced life in prison for stealing a $3.99 bag of cheese, as to why the state of California is on the verge of a total and catastrophic economic collapse.
Prison reform advocates and opponents of three strikes and mandatory minimums says Ferguson’s case also shows the need for reform of the state’s criminal justice system and the extremely overcrowded prisons.
The prison industrial complex in California alone is the largest of its kind in the world, and the colossal cost to the taxpayers is the reason Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been looking like a lapdog, begging federal government to feed him and his millions of beleagured residents.
Ferguson, a repeat offender, has a criminal record going back 30 years. He spent 22 of the last 27 years behind bars. Prosecutor Clinton Parish altered Ferguson’s “automatic” life sentence because state psychologists found he was bipolar and cannot control his urge to steal. But, in essence, the prosecutor did not give him life because Schwarzenegger ordered a 12 percent cut in the state prison budge, to $8.1 billion, the Sacremento Bee reported.
Two months ago, a federal ordered the state to reduce overcrowding by 55,000, the same week that a state court approved a life sentence for a man convicted of possessing 0.03 grams of methamphetamine.
It’s seemingly contradictory actions such as these that have caused America’s most populous state to be crippled by political discord and unable to close a $20 billion budget gap that keeps growing by the day. –terry shropshire
