Relegated to the minority, the House Republicans have whittled their priorities to four main goals. This story is several days old. I know TDW and others have commented on it. But one quote from minority leader Bosma caught my eye.
First, the 4 priorities: preventing general tax increases, cracking down on crime, making changes to education and promoting economic development.
The part that caught my eye:
One proposal would require violent offenders to serve at least 85 percent of their prison sentence before becoming eligible for parole.
House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, said he has concerns about the potential cost of keeping people in prison longer.
“Every action has a reaction,” he said.
Bosma said officials are working to determine the long-term fiscal impact of the proposal.
“I almost don’t care what the fiscal is,” Bosma said. “The government’s top priority is to make our neighbors safe. They are not safe today.”
Sure, passing “tough on crime” longer sentences makes you feel better. It might even make you feel safer. But I don’t think the evidence shows that longer incarcerations, beyond a certain point, will actually make you safer. It will certainly cost more.
Unconcerned about the fiscal impact of longer sentences, opposed to a general tax increase, and in favor of locking up criminals for longer periods of time. Certainly, these things aren’t out of the main stream — but how do you harmonize these goals? I suppose you have to either cut government services or dump more burdens on local governments. In the 2005 budget, the General Assembly mainly chose the latter. In any event, we can’t let our emotions — in this case, fear of crime — impair our reason. We have to figure out what works to prevent crime and whether we can afford implementation. We can’t just build more prisons because it feels good.
“I almost don’t care what the fiscal is”? Cripes, this is as bad as the nonsense that Bauer spouted.
The only thing the Republicans have going for them is that they at least have the goal of keeping the budget balanced. Of course, they’re shady on the details of how they intend that to happen, but at least it’s a goal.
I mean, there’s all this talk about giving local governments more taxing options, but then you’ve got other folks in the Legislature who don’t want to give local government those options. So I really don’t know what will come of that.
Honestly, though, the Republicans look good with a score of 5… because the Democrats come in with a score of 2… on a scale of 100.
I assume that they’ll pay for these prisons by privatising more of the State. Quick money good, long term solutions bad.
Possibly, locking up nonviolent criminals for less time, or imprisoning fewer nonviolent offenders would be effective, but that solution would make them look “soft” on crime–a political gamble that no public servant is willing to take. Draconian punishment good, long term solutions bad.
In my experience, the party in the minority always starts looking better and better the longer they’re out of power.
I thought there was an interesting pair of articles in today’s News Sentinel online: 1) “Odds better for pro-life bills” and 2) “State may stop paying for some vaccines” (for children).
Non-violent offenders should be significantly lowered or removed from the priority list. Then the state can be free to lock up murderers and rapists for 100% of their sentence. On the balance, I have to believe that murderers and rapists being such a tremendously smaller percentage of the inmate population, the state will be money ahead.
Mike Kole,
In the spirit of the recent snowfall, Nixon’s going to have to put on a sweater where he is, because, again, I agree with you.
However, I don’t think things will change soon for two related reasons.
1) For-profit prison corporations such as Correction Corporations of America and GEO Group have a pecuniary incentive to not just maximize the prison population, but exceed capacity so that the state will subsidize construction of new prison facilities. This is one reason we see a such a heavy push for harsher immigration enforcement in states interior states away from the Mexican border, where illegal immigration isn’t as much of a problem. (See this 19 July 2006 New York Times article.)
2) Prison labor is much more profitable than market labor, because, as Noam Chomsky put it:
(source)
Note that “throw them out” doesn’t mean “release them from prison”, it means stop paying the convicts the few cents on the hour they get, and let them sit in their cells until and unless their labor is needed again. They’ll be waiting — what else are they going to do?
Branden, I think you would find that if you sat down with me and had a conversation, we would agree on far more than you expect!
Mike Kole,
Why don’t we see if Doug wants to throw a Super Bowl party for his loyal commenters and find out? :)
Besides, I still owe somebody from this blog a half-dozen White Castles, though he said he’d accept a beer instead. ;-)