GLORIA PENNER (Host): In his ‘State of the State’ speech, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also talked about the amount of money California is spending on its prisons. The state’s overcrowded and expensive prison system is the focus of KPBS’s Envision series. And joining me now to talk about our investigation is KPBS reporter, Joanne Faryon. So welcome back, Joanne.
JOANNE FARYON (KPBS news): Thanks, Gloria.
PENNER: And before we begin, lets hear what Governor Schwarzenegger had to say to say about what the state is spending on prisons.
GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: 30 years ago, 10% of the general fund went to higher education and only 3% went to prisons. Today, almost 11% goes to prisons and only 7.5% goes to higher education. Spending 45% more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future. So I will submit to you a constitutional amendment so that never again do we spend a greater percentage of our money on prisons than on higher education. (Applause)
PENNER: How is the governor going to reverse the rising cost of operating the state prison?
FARYON: Well, in his address he talked about privatizing prisons. He didn’t give a lot of detail. But really, after researching this issue for the past several weeks, I don’t understand how privatization will necessarily fix this problem. According to the numbers that we’ve been crunching, the data that we’ve collected, the issue of rising costs really seems to be the increasing number of inmates. Especially the increasing number of old and sick inmates.
PENNER: Why are old and sick inmates adding to the cost?