Lungren Urges More Spending on Prisons, Jails

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, saying taxpayers shouldn’t expect safer streets to be cheap, called Wednesday for more spending on prisons and jails, despite a crime rate that continues to decline.

“We ought to take a steady look at how many prisons we need and build them,” Lungren said during a daylong forum at Chapman University. “They’re going to cost money and nobody ought to be misinformed about that.”

Contrasting his views with those of experts who have said that decreases in crime can’t be credited to get-tough measures such as the state’s 1994 “three strikes” law, Lungren contended the law has taken criminals off the street and saved billions in costs from 750,000 crimes that he projected would have been committed without it.

“The crime rate is going down because of decisions by voters in California,” Lungren, a Republican candidate for governor, said. “This is not the time to say ‘Stop building prisons.’ If we’re going to make ‘three strikes’ mean something, we have to have facilities.”

Lungren was one of several speakers at the forum that examined the economic impact of crime. Among the other scheduled speakers were Orange County Superior Court Judge David O. Carter, Sheriff Brad Gates and several scholars and corrections experts. About 100 lawyers, judges, law enforcement officials and scholars also attended.