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"There's no real solution other than build new prisons, hire new people and transfer prisoners."

Changing idiotic laws that land harmless people in jail would help a lot.

There's no real solution other than build new prisons, hire new people and transfer prisoners.

There's a lot more solutions than that.

Decriminalizing drug use, and treating it like a public health issue (which it is) would drastically reduce incarceration rates. It would save the nation a lot of money too. Just tax and regulate it.

Spending time and money to help people not re-offend (and go back to jail) would also be cost-effective.

Unfortunately, there are big interests that want to keep the status quo.

After legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, Colorado has seen a 50% increase in Marijuana related DUI arrests [0].

The state/counties already tax the hell out of the plant (roughly 23% in my county). The state always finds ways to make money off their citizenry. This created a market for a less expensive product that's also conveniently illegal.

The dispensaries can't open bank accounts and are forced to maintain multi-million dollar cash stockpiles. They are so afraid of being robbed, they hire ex-military to travel around town with them armed with semi-automatic rifles [1]. Isn't this asking for more violent crime?

[0] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/06/26/col...

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/business/marijuana-industr...

The dispensaries can't open bank accounts and are forced to maintain multi-million dollar cash stockpiles. They are so afraid of being robbed, they hire ex-military to travel around town with them armed with semi-automatic rifles [1]. Isn't this asking for more violent crime?

Well, if Marijuana was legal at the federal level too, then maybe the dispensaries could do business like everybody else. I don't see that as a valid argument to stop decriminalization.

I didn't say drug use wasn't a problem, just that it should be treated like a public health issue, instead of a criminal justice one.

> I don't get why a prison guard should be paid higher than a cop

A quick web search shows cops making $100k, while guards make $70k.

I'd imagine the police are more selective though. It might not be "within reach" of a lot of people (low turnover, and higher requirements).

Most police officers have college degrees.

I don't know that a degree is specifically regard to get a job as a police officer but I do know that most cops have degrees.

My quick search shows 30-57k for a police officer's average salary.

One thing to keep in mind is that guards put in a lot of overtime. Example: Prisoner gets hurt and has to go to the hospital? A guard has to go with him, and he gets paid for all of it.

It's a pretty shitty job, mostly due to the work-life balance, but it pays pretty well for a job that doesn't require a college degree. A guard who puts in enough overtime can make 100k+ pretty easily, and that's in areas that aren't very expensive. After all, many prisons are in the middle of nowhere. For every San Quentin, there are a lot more Vacavilles.

Source: Girlfriend worked as a corrections nurse for a few years at the state prison and county jail levels. That's another shitty but well-paying job.

Cops making 100k? That's like saying programmers make 200k. Average for cops is 56k. http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/06/news/economy/police-pay/

Sorry, should have specified that it's for California (both cops and guards). And it might be a highball figure (I didn't search too much).

From your article:

> There's also a lot of range between salaries in different parts of the country. In San Francisco, one of the least affordable cities in the country, cops get paid the most to reflect the cost of living, with an annual mean wage of $99,000. Meanwhile, cops in rural Mississippi earn the least: $29,870.

Similarly, prison guards also get paid more in California.

Whatever the case, I think cops do get paid a bit more, but I think it's much harder to get the job. Police might be penalised a bit for being in a glamour profession though (there's more people who want to be cops than prison guards - not many movies have a prison guard as the hero).

Then you should specify San Francisco, not California. There's a big difference, you know, between SF and, say, Bakersfield.

One real good way to reduce prison overcrowding would be to abide by court precedent.

Oregon Advocacy Center v. Mink, 9th Circuit, 1993 (IIRC) ruled that when a judge orders a defendant to a mental hospital, the state has seven days to get the defendant actually admitted to the hospital.

The 9th Circuit governs the Western United States, including California, but even so despite that the ruling was made in 1993, it is quite uncommon for the state to obey the law by getting inmates into psych hospitals despite being specifically ordered to do so by a judge.

I personally fault the defense attorneys for this. Every defense attorney should move for dismissal on day 8, but I myself am the only defendant that I am aware of that has had his case dismissed this way.

My attorney was completely unaware of the 9th circuit's ruling until I brought it to his attention. I learned it from a jailhouse lawyer who found it in the jail's law library.

Among the reasons that I get arrested a lot, is that I learned in High School American History that the Supreme Court does not write "advisory opinions" as do the high courts of some other nations.

That is, one cannot simply request that a law be struck down as unconstitutional. Loosely speaking one must actually violate the law then face all the consequences in hopes that one's appeal will be heard in the Supreme Court.

It happens all the time that one loses over really petty things, such as that one's case could have been settled by a state court. While SCOTUS regards its job as deciding Constitutional issues it is also reluctant to make any decision that it does not really have to make.

I don't have any statistics readily at hand but I have reason to believe that it is more dangerous to be a guard than a police officer.

Consider the Attica prison riot in which roughly 250 died.

Guards generally do not carry firearms because they could be snatched by an inmate. They do carry Tazers these days but they have a very short range and are limited to two shots. If a bunch of inmates all gang up on a guard there's not a whole lot he can do to defend himself.