PETITION CLOSED

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Tell Alabama To Fund Schools, Not Prisons
  1. Signatures
    159 out of 500
    Petitioning
    1. Alabama Governor-Elect (Dr. Robert Bentley)
  2. Created By
    Matt Kelley
    New Haven, CT
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates

The biggest recipient of Alabama's federal education stimulus funds in 2010 wasn't a school system at all -- it was the state's prisons.

Alabama this year diverted $118 million in federal dollars this year intended for education to instead pay for correctional officers' salaries and benefits, prisoner health care and other corrections costs. Pouring cash into a crowded prison system only perpetuates the cycle of incarceration. Alabama needs innovation to break free of the budget sinkhole of prison.

Urge incoming Alabama Governor Robert Bentley to fund schools before prisons and to explore alternatives to long sentences that will make Alabama safer and more productive.

Recent Signatures

Fund schools not prisons

Greetings,

I was saddened to learn that Alabama’s leading recipient of federal education stimulus funds wasn’t a school or college -- it’s the prison system.

These are tough times, and you’ll be facing a grim budget picture when you take office next month. I’m writing to urge to consider innovative solutions to reduce both crime and prison spending simultaneously. By saving on prisons, Alabama will free up funds for schools. Education, as you know, if one of the best weapons against crime.

Alabama has the nation’s most crowded prisons and spends nearly half a billion dollars a year locking up 30,000 people. Projections show the state’s prison population continuing to grow, far beyond the capacity of the state’s cells.

Convincing research has shown that short, swift sentences reduce crime and save billions of dollars (See UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman’s book “When Brute Force Fails” for more - http://www.amazon.com/When-Brute-Force-Fails-Punishment/dp/0691142084). Judges in your own state have begun to explore alternatives to incarceration in order to avoid the kind of spiral of incarceration and spending you’ve seen in recent years. And leading conservative governors and policymakers recently announced the “Right on Crime” initiative to divert wasteful prison spending to methods proven to reduce both crime and incarceration - http://www.rightoncrime.com/

When you take office as Alabama’s next governor, you’ll have the opportunity to lead a sea change in criminal justice policy that will save millions of dollars and create a safer, more productive state. I urge you to consider moving Alabama toward “smart on crime.”

Thank you for your attention to this important issue.

[Your name]

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