State Assembly members were in Chula Vista on Wednesday for a public hearing on the future spending priorities of California's prison system.
"We are spending now for 125,000 people about $13 billion," said Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco.
State lawmakers said they intend to spend even more, but want the money to go toward keeping people out of prison.
"So we’re basically putting together stronger programs with more things for people to do so they don’t come back," said Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego.
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That includes more education and career development programs
"We thought if you just simply reduce population that that in itself would save dollars but it doesn’t if you begin to talk about programming and preventing people from coming back," Weber said.
The state's legislative analyst office is projecting that the inmate population will decline by nearly 7,000 people over the next few years due primarily to new sentencing laws.
But even with a declining prisoner population, legislators are hoping that investing more now means taxpayers will save later.
"We’re going to have to invest upfront so that when people come back out to their community that they’re prepared to be in the community," Ting said. "While initially, it may cost more we’re trying to save money much further down the road."
Although it was only Democratic assembly members attending the hearing, they insisted that prison reform is a bipartisan issue in California.
