Monday, January 13, 2003
Page 7
AFFAIRS OF STATE (Column)
‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Is a Bad Budget Idea
By DAVID KLINE
Among the many cost-cutting proposals being brewed up by state lawmakers, one stands out as being particularly ill-conceived. Senate President John Burton has hinted that he will introduce a plan to save money by releasing inmates from prison before they complete their sentences.
As Burton explained it to a reporter last month, he is mulling changing the law which automatically sends parolees back to prison if they fail a drug test, and he also might recommend transferring elderly prisoners to house arrest “unless they’re Charlie Manson.”
The San Francisco Democrat is likely to encounter stiff opposition from Gov. Gray Davis, who has been a solid supporter of “lock ‘em up” anti-crime policies, but since Burton is widely acknowledged to wield more power than any other state lawmaker, his proposals cannot be dismissed out of hand.
Some liberal activist groups already are touting similar get-out-of-jail-free proposals. The Drug Policy Alliance in San Francisco is arguing that taking “non-violent offenders” out of prison and sending them into drug treatment plans would save money and eventually would increase the tax base when the druggies kick the habit and become productive members of society.
It all sounds well and good, as long as you ignore the fact that these people are criminals who were put behind bars because they were preying upon law-abiding Californians.
The get-out-of-jail proposals also require us to ignore the concept of justice. It would be grossly unfair to pull the rug out from under crime victims who were fortunate enough to see their perpetrators caught, convicted and sentenced to prison.
The set ‘em free proposal also fails on strictly fiscal terms. For example, if California were to transfer all of its over-70 prisoners—there are about 500 of them—to house arrest, the state would save a mere $13.4 million in prison costs.
This savings would be offset by the cost of hiring more parole officers to monitor the elderly criminals’ whereabouts, along with the cost of catching and re-prosecuting those who return to their old ways—those like Kenneth Parnell, a disabled 71-year-old who served five years in prison in the ’80s for kidnapping Steven Stayner and just recently tried to buy a child for $500.
Another logistical problem presents itself. You can’t release an elderly prisoner to house arrest if he doesn’t have a house, and a person who has been in prison and estranged from family and friends for decades probably is not going to have any place to live. It’s a good bet that the taxpayers of California would wind up subsidizing the housing costs of most of the long-incarcerated elderly, wiping out even more of the cost savings.
Nor are these problems specific to elderly prisoners. The so-called non-violent druggies also would create new costs upon release. More parole officers, more police and court costs for the recidivists, more taxpayer-funded subsidies for housing and drug-treatment programs.
And most importantly, more casualties. Even the “non-violent” crimes can take lives, like that of the 64-year-old Sacramento woman who died on Christmas after being knocked over by a purse snatcher a week earlier.
Burton, a former alcohol and cocaine addict, apparently is banking on a hope that most prisoners incarcerated for drug offenses could follow in his footsteps and beat their addictions. But statistics show that most released prisoners are more likely to end up back in the shadow of a guard tower. California’s recidivism rate is in the neighborhood of 60 percent.
More often than not, drug offenders keep using chemicals even after going through treatment programs, and many of them steal to fund their addictions. The cost of this theft is borne by the taxpayers, negating any savings in the prison system.
Yes, California’s state government is in a budget mess. But opening the prison gates is not the way to get out of it.
— Capitol News Service
Copyright 2003, Metropolitan News Company