Each Friday, LA Progressive presents a comment we editors find to be most profound, insightful, or just plain unusual — we then highlight the comment in an effort to bring attention to the broad range of positions taken by our readers. This week B. Cayenne addresses California’s Prison Industrial Complex.

In responding to LA Progressive publisher Sharon Kyle’s inquiry, “Is California Reducing Prison Overcrowding Without Fixing Its Cause?,” B. Cayenne Bird writes:

We will have a police state that arrests non-violent offenders for crimes that aren’t really crimes for as long as we allow Jerry Brown to sit as governor. The legislature uses prisons and jails as a means by which to finance the bureaucracy. They use it for job creation and the $1.8 million that Brown took from CCPOA dictates his loyalty to the prison guards. There are 3 million people related to a state prisoner or someone on probation/parole. All we need to take him out is 6500 workers and 6500 ordinary people who will put up a few dollars so that we can get the special interests out of our government. Please support the campaign Liberals to Recall Jerry Brown. After 15 years of writing to puppets owned by the guards, protesting at the Capitol, filing lawsuits and working on initiative campaigns, it is clear that The People (you) need to help with the organizing work. There are many fine people who would make a better Governor than Brown!

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