This year, California is in the full throes of a budgetary meltdown and because of this, the state is going to have a hard time funding the more than $8 billion annual price tag to support its prison system and inmate population.

As a result, we’ve started to see reports that California is making plans to release inmates earlier than scheduled to save some money.

When this information begins to circulate more broadly, it’s going to scare the bejeezus out of people. They will be shocked, angry and deeply fearful.

When the Associated Press reported on this early release development in California and several other states, the article described the move in a distinctly editorial voice as “drastic and potentially dangerous.”

And while releasing people who have committed crimes is potentially dangerous, that is indeed how our penal system works. When people are judged guilty of criminal behavior, they are locked away with other criminals for varying periods of time, but not usually forever.

Fear of crime—or more specifically, fear of criminals—is ingrained in the American psyche. And historically, we have been willing to support pretty much any legislation that puts more people behind bars or incarcerates them for longer periods of time.

In theory, prison sentences are based on some formula stemming from a given crime’s perceived harm or level of taboo. When that pre-determined period of time elapses, prisoners are released. They are released back into society, back into communities, back into your zip code.

Terms served for armed robbery, assault, child molestation and murder are all capable of coming to an end.

Even a life sentence can be paroled in fewer than 20 years. Most people who enter the prison system eventually come out. The fact that in California, a significant number of them will end up right back in prison again is a digression for a different column.

Few Americans harbor illusions that criminals are reformed or rehabilitated by their time in prison. This is clearly illustrated by how panicked we become when we contemplate prisoners being set free months earlier than originally intended.

Time is served in prisons. And time is the only tangible metric of the American criminal justice system.

When someone gets sent up, no one in their right mind thinks to themselves: “Well, these next nine years will be really good for her. She’ll gain valuable perspective on the harm she did when she stabbed her landlord and the state of California will teach her to control her negative impulses and make better choices in the future.”

And while some inmate reform programs occasionally trot out token success stories for taxpayers to see, we should ask ourselves why our initial reaction was to send these damaged but inherently redeemable souls away to prison in the first place. Even the most remedial sociology is able to dismiss the “scared straight” model of rehabilitation as bogus.

What our prison system does well is hide a human problem away from the bulk of citizens for a finite amount of time. If the human cost is too difficult or painful to consider, the financial costs are becoming hard to ignore.

Californians spend exorbitantly —profligately—on incarceration.

As financial and credit crises reveal the need for Californians to live within their means and make hard decisions about where limited resources should be spent, my hope is that we can set aside fear and be pragmatists instead of reactionaries.

Californians need to start seeing ourselves as the consumers of the prison system that we are. At over $35,000 per inmate annually, our investment is undeniable. That investment should bear more than false security.

With more than $8 billion a year at stake, it’s time we either demand a superior prison product or find a way to get a better deal on the one we’ve got. Adjusting our priorities and raising our standards will mean accepting changes like shorter, less expensive prison sentences.

An honest conversation needs to begin about what we want and need from our punitive justice system and how much education, housing, health care and social support programming we are willing to sacrifice to fund it.