USD Professor Hinman on Jail, Prison Reform

Turning jails into prisons: An opportunity for real reform

San Diego Union-Tribune -- Lawrence Hinman, a professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego, writes often about ethics. He is a member of the U-T Community Editorial Board.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s prison realignment initiative to transfer nonviolent offenders from state prisons to local facilities may be motivated primarily by cost-cutting concerns, but it provides California with a golden opportunity to take a leadership role in transforming our nation’s penal system. Decades ago, California initiated the three-strikes rule, resulting in a disastrous overcrowding of California’s prisons and – to the extent that other states followed our lead – a nationwide increase in prison populations that has now reached staggering proportions. (Full Story)