OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — When Harry Coates campaigned for the Oklahoma state Senate in 2002, he had one approach to crime: “Lock ‘em up and throw away the key.”
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Now, Coates is looking for that key. He and other tough-on-crime lawmakers across the country, faced with steep budget shortfalls, are searching anxiously for ways to let inmates out of prison faster and keep more offenders on the street.
Oklahoma's preferred answer for crime has collided head-on with a budget deficit estimated at $600 million, and prison costs that have increased more than 30 percent in the last decade. For years, lawmakers have pushed each other to lengthen prison sentences and increase the number of criminals behind bars. Not now: This week, new Republican Speaker of the House Kris Steele is expected to unveil a package of proposals that would divert thousands of nonviolent lawbreakers from the prison system and ramp up paroles.
Similar crash prison reductions are going on from coast to coast. Michigan has shuttered 20 correctional facilities and slashed spending by nearly 7 percent. South Carolina expects to reduce its inmate numbers by 8 percent by putting drug dealers, burglars and hot check writers into community programs instead of behind bars. Nationwide, the number of state inmates actually decreased last year for the first time in nearly 40 years.
Are the sure drug dealers and burglars are the first ones they want to let out?
Hot check writers, sure; pot smokers, absolutely, but drug dealers and burglars?
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parados
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Tue 1 Feb, 2011 02:46 pm
@DrewDad,
In MN, the Chief Justice of the MN Supreme Court warned that reduced funding of the courts would mean that certain crimes could not be prosecuted simply because the lack of funds would make the case backlog so great that many cases would be thrown out for violating the speedy trial provision. Basically he warned that anyone challenging a speeding ticket would get off which would cause everyone to challenge their tickets.
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talk72000
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Tue 1 Feb, 2011 03:04 pm
@DrewDad,
It is cheaper to lock criminals in prisons than having them let loose as the damage to the economy is far greater.
Higher crimes leads to higher property damage from car chases to bullets and other collateral damage; higher medicals as more people are injured; lower efficiency as traffic can be stalled or slowed; less business as area affected is closed off; justification for higher police wages from dangerous environment, proliferation of drugs and other illegal activities that debilitate innocent victims and siphon money out of the system that leads to higher unemployment; kill or maim workers; etc.
White collar crimes like the Wall Street corruption siphon money out of the system that leads to recession or depression with high unemployment.
I don't think I ever claimed that there isn't a societal cost associated with crimes. Certainly there is. Everything from higher insurance rates to bodily harm.
My question to you, though, is "would you pay higher taxes in order to keep locking up all of these prisoners?"
Because the current tax rate isn't enough to pay for them to stay in jail.
“There has been a dramatic shift,” said Adam Gelb, a policy specialist with the Pew Center on the States in Washington, D.C.. “The old question was simply, how do I demonstrate that I'm tough on crime?” Now, it's “a much better question: How do I get taxpayers a better public safety return on their corrections dollars?”
But if we cut taxes more there won't be car chases involving criminals because the roads will be in such bad shape no one will be able to drive.
WIN -WIN
lower taxes and lower crime
0 Replies
talk72000
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Tue 1 Feb, 2011 08:18 pm
@DrewDad,
Either you live with higher taxes or higher crime which is not uniform but if it hits you such as getting shot or your house being burnt or a victim of home invasion then you might see the wisdom of locking criminals in. However, if you are in the boondocks with nary even break and enter you would see nuthin in keeping the criminals in.
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