Letter to the Editor

The inflated budget of the California Department of Corrections is at least indirectly related to the lack of funds available to higher education. The exorbitantly expensive death penalty is one of the reasons why there isn’t more taxpayer money for the University of California. Students and their parents end up paying for higher tuitions because funds are not allocated to the university yet it is to programs such as the death penalty.

By voting YES on Proposition 34 UC students, faculty and staff will have the opportunity to replace the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole. The California death penalty has cost more than $4 billion since 1978 and there have been only 13 executions. Just the expense of death row housing is $100,000 more per year per death row inmate than for those serving life sentences.

And just in case you think that the death penalty makes us safer, please know that 46% of murders and 56% of rapes go unsolved each year in California. Wouldn’t it make you feel safer if we spent our hard-earned money on crime detection and prevention as well as on education?

Please register to vote if you are not registered. And when you vote, vote as if your education or job depends upon it, because it just might. Please start by voting YES on Proposition 34.

Carol Crabill
UC Davis Alumna
Business Officer of UC Davis Mathematics