Despite the rhetoric behind the prison construction boom, our prisons simply are not full of violent murderers. The “typical” California inmate is not a hardened murderer but a young, non-violent, substance abusing, semi-literate, unemployed man of color. And again, many of these inmates — nearly half each year — are incarcerated not for new crimes, but for violations of parole.
Parole Violators in California: A Waste of Money, A Waste of Time