Quick News from California

A very kind reader passes along a couple of good items on recent news from CA and its efforts to deal with its Gordian Knot corrections sentencing problems. One is this item from the governor's new budget, detailing a bit the new proposed sentencing commission:

Governor’s Budget Summary 2007‐08
California Sentencing Commission
The Governor proposes to create the California Sentencing Commission to review and make
recommendations on sentencing guidelines. The Commission, which will be permanent,
will include the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, and 15 members appointed by the Governor representing various stakeholders
including the Legislature, law enforcement, victims, labor, and other groups. The Commission
will act as a clearinghouse and information center for sentencing, review proposed
legislation affecting sentencing, and submit recommendations on sentencing guidelines
to the Legislature each year. In the first year, the Commission will focus on California’s
parole system. The Budget includes $457,000 General Fund for the Commission.

Pretty standard, although I understand that the governor will be appointing almost all the commissioners. If it's the Schwarzenegger who's taking the national lead on global warming issues, might not be bad. If it's the one who got his head handed to him on initiatives a couple of years back, uh-oh. I'm not automatically opposed to having someone with central control over the commissioners if that someone has a mission and doesn't brook much dissent before removing them. It's good to be King. Or Terminator, I guess.

Here's the other very interesting notice:

The Winter 2007 issue of The Criminal Record, the Stanford Criminal Justice Center's newsletter, is now available on the Center's website: http://www.law.stanford.edu/program/centers/scjc/.

Check it out and give them some love. They're going to need it.