Vielka's Guide to the Propositions: Prop 5

VOTE YES

Imagine drug offenders go to prison and instead of getting access to more drugs and their addictions getting worse, they go to rehab. What a world! So that's Prop 5. Currently, some drug offenses will get you rehab with a reduced sentence or no sentence at all. Prop 5 expands the list of drugs that fall under this list (and amounts). Of course, these are non-violent drug offenses, so nothing involving weapons, etc. And this does not apply to folks who have been to prison before.

This one is pretty easy so I really want to drive a few points home so that you don't ignore this one. As we know, the majority of prisoners are Black and Brown men (somewhere in the 80 percentile). The majority of them are in prison for non-violent drug offenses (about 60%). Once someone goes to jail, s/he has something around an 87% chance of going back. Finally, a Black man between the ages of 18-25, is six times more likely to be in prison; for Brown men it's four. We also have a major prison overcrowding situation in California. Instead of investing money in schools or rehab, the state keeps building more prisons. If you add up all the CSUs and UCs, you still wouldn't have the amount of prisons and jails in the state. With the Prison Industrial Complex, schools and neighborhoods have become basically a pipeline into the prisons.

If that doesn't convince you, let Hollywood try to convince you:

"Blood In, Blood Out: Bound by Honor"--Meeklo's story should do it
"Mi Familia"--Jimmy Smits' character's story
"American Me"--Damn, that entire movie
"Boyz in the Hood"--when Furious breaks down how buying houses leads to poor neighborhoods