The Cushy Prisons for Murderers Act of 2025

Just when one thinks that the California Legislature has already maxed out its soft-headedness on crime, it goes and demonstrates that there is no limit. A bill has passed the California Senate by a wide margin declaring that “life inside prison should be as close to life outside of prison as much as possible.” [Sic.] As amended in the Assembly, Senate Bill 551 now includes this provision*:

The Legislature recognizes that life in prison can never be the same as life in a free society. However, active steps should be taken to make conditions in prison as close to normal life as possible, aside from loss of liberty, and to ensure that this normalization does not lead to inhumane prison conditions.

Unbelievable. Yes, we do not want our prison conditions to be inhumane. But “as close to normal life as possible”? It’s supposed to be punishment. And since the 2011 realignment, nearly everyone in California state prison (as opposed to county jail) is there for serious crimes, multiple repeated crimes, or both.

For premeditated murder, death is justice and anything less is mercy. Mercy is sometimes the right choice, but that does not mean we have to go overboard. A premeditated murderer who gets life in prison with a possibility of parole has already gotten off with less than he deserves. So now we have to take “active steps” to make sure he is comfy and entertained during his too-short time in the slammer? And we spend taxpayer money to do so while far more important functions of government go unfunded?

Who votes for this insanity?

Criminal Justice Legal Foundation (CJLF) is not a partisan organization. Yet we cannot ignore the sharp partisan divide on nonsense like this. Here is the Senate floor vote, copied from the Legislature’s own web site, to which I have added only the party designations:

Ayes: Allen-D, Archuleta-D, Arreguín-D, Ashby-D, Becker-D, Blakespear-D, Cabaldon-D, Caballero-D, Cervantes-D, Cortese-D, Durazo-D, Gonzalez-D, Grayson-D, Hurtado-D, Laird-D, McGuire-D, McNerney-D, Menjivar-D, Padilla-D, Pérez-D, Richardson-D, Rubio-D, Smallwood-Cuevas-D, Stern-D, Umberg-D, Wahab-D, Weber Pierson-D, Wiener-D

Noes: Alvarado-Gil-R, Choi-R, Dahle-R, Grove-R, Jones-R, Niello-R, Ochoa Bogh-R, Seyarto-R, Strickland-R, Valladares-R

No Vote Recorded: Limón-D, Reyes-D

That’s about as stark as it gets. Among those voting, it was a straight party-line vote.

Do the majority of the people of California actually want country club prisons for murderers and rapists at taxpayer expense? I very much doubt it. The people need to know what their legislators are voting for and vote the bums out.

* The block-quoted provision is subdivision (b) of new section 5000.5 of the Penal Code in the Assembly version. The more concise version that passed the Senate was in a new subdivision (a)(1) of amended Penal Code section 1170.

Originally published by the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation