It was 1981 and then-Gov. Jerry Brown had a problem. Californiaâs 12 prisons were bulging at the seams with more than 28,000 inmates, thanks largely to tougher sentencing laws he signed, and he was told to expect another 20,000 more inmates within a few years.
The state hadnât built a new prison in two decades, stretching back to when Brownâs father, Pat Brown, was governor. The Department of Corrections, as the prison system was then called, wanted Brown to launch a major prison construction program to handle its rapidly growing inmate load.
The young governor, nearing the end of his second and final term, was reluctant to ask voters for billions of dollars in bond money to build new prisons. His state architect, Sim Van der Ryn, had even refused to endorse plans for new prisons, reflecting opposition by those on Brownâs left flank.
Antelope-valley
California
United-states
California-correctional-center
Lassen-county
Deuel-vocational-institution
Los-angeles-county
Kings-county
Gavin-newsom
Los-angeles
Jerry-brown
Pat-brown
The young governor, nearing the end of his second and final term, was reluctant to ask voters for billions of dollars in bond money to build new prisons. His state architect, Sim Van der Ryn, had even refused to endorse plans for new prisons, reflecting opposition by those on Brown’s left flank.
Finally, after months of negotiations and debate within his administration, Brown took a minimalist approach, asking the Legislature to place a $495 million prison bond issue on the 1982 ballot, enough to build space for about 10,000 more inmates, a fraction of the projected need.
Voters approved the measure, and over the next two decades the number of prisons tripled. However, the state sidestepped the need for voter approval with a clever, if deceptive, system of financing that borrowed many billions of construction dollars. Under the “lease-revenue” system, a state agency legally separate from the prison system issued bonds to build prisons, then leased them to the corrections de
Antelope-valley
California
United-states
California-correctional-center
Lassen-county
Los-angeles-county
Deuel-vocational-institution
Stockton
Kings-county
Gavin-newsom
Los-angeles
Dan-walters
It was 1981 and then-Gov. Jerry Brown had a problem. Californiaâs 12 prisons were bulging at the seams with more than 28,000 inmates, thanks largely to tougher sentencing laws he signed, and he was told to expect another 20,000 more inmates within a few years.
The state hadnât built a new prison in two decades, stretching back to when Brownâs father, Pat Brown, was governor. The Department of Corrections, as the prison system was then called, wanted Brown to launch a major prison construction program to handle its rapidly growing inmate load.
The young governor, nearing the end of his second and final term, was reluctant to ask voters for billions of dollars in bond money to build new prisons. His state architect, Sim Van der Ryn, had even refused to endorse plans for new prisons, reflecting opposition by those on Brownâs left flank.
Antelope-valley
California
United-states
California-correctional-center
Lassen-county
Deuel-vocational-institution
Los-angeles-county
Kings-county
Gavin-newsom
Los-angeles
Jerry-brown
Pat-brown
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