California Governor Pete Wilson has once again suggested whopping increases in state spending on prison construction -- despite the fact that voters have turned down prison bond issues in recent elections. Wilson's plan involves a somewhat creative use of the state's bond-issuing power, according to PNS commentator Vincent Schiraldi, rather than a creative approach to the very real problems in the area of corrections. Schiraldi is director of the Justice Policy Institute in Washington, DC.

This year, as he has every year he has served as governor, Pete Wilson put prisons on the top of his wish list. He has proposed that prisons receive a larger percentage increase than any item in the state budget.

But the politics of prisons may have shifted. Prison and jail bond issues placed before the voters have gone down to double digit defeat -- and politicians are now reluctant to put more such bond issues on the ballot. A recent poll conducted by the state prison guard's union found voters prefer school bonds to prison bonds five to one.

At the same time, because of the "Three Strikes and You're Out" law -- and 1,200 other bills passed since 1977 which lengthen sentences or create new crimes -- California's prison population has grown so fast that even the state's $5.3 billion prison construction program cannot keep up. The Department of Corrections predicts that state prisons, now at 185% of capacity, will literally run out of room in three years.

This leaves the governor and some in the legislature hoist on their own petards. A decade-long contest over who could talk toughest on crime has made it hard for some politicians to see prisons as the expensive drain that they are and to make rational choices with respect to corrections.

At this point, the governor could see passage of "Three Strikes" and defeat of prison bonds as a message that Californians are willing to imprison repeat offenders, but they want prisons reserved for the truly dangerous. Or he could assume that voters were naive and did not understand that three strikes would require building more prisons.

So far, Wilson has refused to take voters' rejection seriously. Instead, he has shepherded $2.7 billion worth of "revenue" bonds through the legislature.

"Revenue" bonds are designed to allow government entities to borrow money for public works which actually generate income -- like a toll road or a convention center. Unlike "general obligation" bonds which are repaid directly through taxes, these bonds generally do not require voter approval.

But Governor Wilson found a loophole in the law which allows use of revenue bonds to fund prison construction -- though they generate no revenue. He has used this maneuver more than any governor in the state's history.

By taking this approach, the governor ignores several problems. For one thing, revenue bonds can cost taxpayers up to twenty percent more to repay than general obligation bonds, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

A far more serious problem is that using this loophole makes a mockery of the idea of voting on bonds. When the state takes on debt, taxpayers are supposed to approve that action. The Governor's scheme is particularly indefensible in light of voter rejection of the lower-cost general obligation bonds.

In the past, prison revenue bonds were proposed as bills, and could be debated and voted on, and receive media attention. But in his proposed budget this year, the Governor has buried a $250 million revenue bond amidst hundreds of other items, making it unlikely to receive scrutiny from voters or legislators.

It's especially unfortunate that the Governor has chosen this path at a point when the state -- projected to run out of prison space by the year 2000 -- desperately needs creative thinking in the corrections arena.

For several years, Senate President Bill Lockyer has offered an imaginative proposal, a "Community Corrections Act."

As things stand, a judge in Santa Monica or Oakland can sentence a convicted petty thief to imprisonment at no cost to his county, or to probation -- which is entirely paid for by the county. With this sort of incentive, there are now 6,000 defendants in California prisons for petty theft, at an annual cost of $132 million. It has also caused a massive shift in funding overall -- into prisons and away from county probation departments, drug treatment, intensive supervision and the like.

The Lockyer bill would fund cash-strapped counties and allow them to establish a network of no-nonsense community options for such offenders. Unfortunately, the prison guard's union -- the largest single contributor to Governor Wilson -- vigorously opposed this legislation and the Governor has repeatedly vetoed it.

Prisons have been treated with extraordinary favor in state budgets over the last 10 years. While most programs have increased in that time, prison funding has increased at twice the rate of funding for education or health programs or social services. California has built twenty one prisons and only one state university since 1984. We can no longer afford this. Governor Wilson must sit down with the legislature and hammer out a common sense plan that will securely confine dangerous offenders and create a range of workable, cost-effective options for those who do not need to be imprisoned.