Originally Posted by
eja_ bottecchia
Come to California and watch our “tough” penal system in action.
Such a joke.
Yes, there are people incarcerated; but as Baretta was quoted as saying, “if you can’t do the time don’t do the crime.”
And don’t even talk about “dropping” crime rates. In California, the only state that I professionally acquainted with, the way that the Legislature made crime rates look like they are dropping was by taking crimes off the books and eliminating jail sentences and lowering probation times.
California is spending something on the order of $15 billion a year on the corrections system. And that doesn't count the front end costs of enforcement and trials. From what I understand of the budget situation in California, you really can't afford to spend more. But if you want to lock up more people for longer periods, you'll certainly need to. I doubt that will sell as a ballot proposition.
And how effective has this approach been? By your own assessment, the efficacy is questionable.
I hate crime as much as the next person. And I recoil in horror when I see the seemingly short sentences often served for heinous crimes. But to me that is evidence that the current system isn't serving the needs of society. If we aren't able to incarcerate the most dangerous criminals for appropriate sentences due in part to overcrowding, something has to change.
When I hear complaints that our system is "too lenient" I think we have to recognize that what we are now doing really isn't working. It's insanely expensive and the end results don't really seem to be benefiting society in the best possible way. Perhaps more crimes should be taken off the books. Maybe we're locking up too many of the wrong people for the wrong reasons. As our colleague from the antipodes suggests, we might consider reallocating more resources to try to alleviate the conditions that lead to increased crime.
The bottom line in my view is that we don't have any more money to allocate to the current system, so we either have to accept it as is or find a better path. And I think there's room for improvement in our approach.