The high cost of being hard on crime and soft on social programs
California last week executed its first convict in three years. By not commuting the sentence, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is sending a strong message to the prison population, the right wing of the Republican party and the state in general that he is tough on crime.
Tough on crime is one of those political positions that is impossible to argue with, yet provides no real solutions to the underlying problems of our society. It is the safe place for a politician to be, since it affords them a protection from having to think through a position, or worse, explain a position to an electorate. No candidate would ever want to be tarred with the brush of “soft on crime.” It’s electoral suicide.
The problem is, this leads to a game of “top this” by our elected officials on being tough on crime. Mandatory minimums, three-strike laws and a public that is clamoring for greater safety have led to a penal system that is overloaded, stupidly expensive and is costing us the benefits of a free society.
People think that by jailing criminals we have made our society safer, but I disagree. I think that we have imprisoned not just the prisoners, but ourselves. We are forced as a society to feed, clothe, house, provide medical care for these people, and we are paying for it with the dollars that we should be spending on arts programs, athletics, vocational training and building improvements. We are the ones who are no longer free. We are not free to enjoy the fruits of an advanced civilization. We are not free to see the beauty that is all around us when we have homeless camped on our streets, mentally ill people running in the avenues and the children don’t have the tools they need to learn.
Last week the Los Angeles Times ran an article about how the state is opening up privately run prisons. This practice was stopped in 2003 because it was considered to be too expensive. However, the prison operators hired top lobbyists and, viola, that which was closed is now open.
It’s sad when the government coffers are opened by a few top lobbyists for things like prison operation, but we destroy the future when we pay for it with the money that should be going to our schools. The budget is about $5 billion short, and the proposals are to cut education again.
I think that’s a profoundly bad idea. I believe that we will only see an increase in the number of crimes and criminals, and I have a very clear reason why I think that is so. I believe that every time we cut education, we are actually increasing the need for people to become criminals. Every time we eliminate a vocational training course, all the people that would have been trained by it are now banished to a lower level of society. It is my sincere belief that if we wanted to get serious about reducing crime and criminals we would give them real tools to get back into society in a productive manner.
In the governor’s state of the state address, he said California invents the future. He asked for big ideas.
Here’s an idea. Let’s release our prisoners who are non-violent offenders, but let’s not just set them free. Let’s make them complete at least one vocational training program that will give them a skill that is truly marketable in today’s workplace.
This shouldn’t be that hard. The governor is not that hip on illegal immigrants, so let’s just train the prisoners to do the work that the illegals do, and then when inmates are released from prison, they will have skills that can put food on their tables and roofs over their heads. This has the added benefit of hopefully stopping all those illegal aliens from driving on our roads.
I’m quite serious about this. People need to have skills. If we want them to live as productive members of society, then we should teach them the skills to be productive. It would reduce the recidivism rate, lower the costs of prison maintenance and then free up some money to provide for those high school classes in art, autoshop, woodshop, electronics, typing, printing, graphics design, music, sports and afterschool activities like theater, journalism, debate, junior statesmen of America and a host of other programs that have been cut.
I was on a TV panel show this past week. The show consists of three guest segments and one open discussion. One of the guests was a woman who had done 16 years for a crime she did not commit. I asked her what the biggest obstacle was in re-entering society, and her answer was the lack of training and support that was provided to her.
Earlier in that same show was a man who was on the board of trustees for a summer program that teaches kids how to make movies, dance, create art and give expression to their artistic side. It’s a program that has room each summer for 550 students. Its budget is $1.9 million. The kicker is that they don’t know until each summer begins if they have the money or not for the program, thanks to the state budget process.
According to the California Department of Corrections Web site, it costs $30,929 a year to house an inmate. That’s $84 a day. If they live 20 years, that’s a cost of $618,000 and change. There are 639 men on death row — after last week’s execution — which equates to $19 million a year spent on them, not including court costs.
If they average 20 years on death row, that is $395 million that we could have spent somewhere else — like on tools and equipment to teach the next generation how to avoid being a criminal.
Tough on crime sounds great in a 15-second TV commercial, but it is costing us more than we know. It is costing us our future, and that is priceless. (David Pisarra is a business-development lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He or (310) 664- 9969).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 25, 2005. Read the original PDF.