Pity that California's parole board can't overrule their governor, instead of the other way around. It might produce decent results.
Gray Davis does illustrate everything wrong with the "law and order" approach to punishment. The approach judges crimes, and not people. It takes everything and fits it into neat little slots without making allowances. California's particular version allows the governor to substitute his judgement for the parole board's, for no particular reason. (I would imagine that arouns 1986, 1987, there was a notorious case or two where the parole board released someone, the governor objected but was powerless, and the person committed another heinous crime; otherwise, the change in the laws makes little sense.) And at this point, with 18 criminals granted release by the board over the governor's objection (he has no jurisdiction over lower level crimes) and only one back in jail, it would seem that California's parole board is perhaps a better judge of people than is their governor.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!