The Supervisor Rodriguez Conundrum

(c) by Mark Dempsey

In Sacramento County Supervisor Rosario Rodriguez's latest newsletter, she decries the County's budget deficit as a threat to public safety. Why? Because cops, courts and cages are not fully funded. And this, she says, is a big, big problem.

Sure:

• Incarceration is seven times more expensive than medical treatment for addiction (rehab) 
• The US incarcerates at five times the world average, per-capita. 
• Funding for cops, courts and cages has increased, nationwide, four times faster than US population growth since the '80s, and 
• Police solve less than 15% of crimes (13.2% of felonies in California in 2022). 

But we must have more policing!

Per-capita, Canada incarcerates one-seventh as many as the US, yet has lower crime rates. Of course the US has more than half a million medical bankruptcies annually, while Canada has single-payer healthcare, so social services might actually be cheaper and more effective at preventing crime.

She asserts that the Mays Decision - a lawsuit the County Jail lost for mistreating prisoners - requires physical improvements to the jail. That's not true, but the likes of Ms. Rodriguez would love a multi-million-dollar mega-jail renovation there. Why we don't incarcerate nearly enough people at five times the world's average per-capita rate!

In fairness, the jail is full. But 60-80% of the prisoners are not convicted of anything other than being unable to pay bail. In Sacramento County, you're not "innocent until proven guilty," you're "guilty until proven wealthy."

And if you believe prosecutors don't use that pre-trial incarceration as a lever to extort plea bargains, then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. It's not justice; it's an extortion racket.

Is there any discussion of no-cash bail (as Illinois currently has) or pre-trial supervision? Not that I can detect. 

The Supervisor also complains that the County's maintenance costs are rising. Is there any move to deny land speculators their big payday, and curtail edge city development? Not that I can detect. After all, the region has 20 years' worth of unbuilt infill, and infill maintenance costs half as much to maintain as edge city development since the roads and utilities are shorter and already in place.

What Ms. Rodriguez (and her predecessor) are advocating is the domestic equivalent of the "No war is too expensive to fund or fight" international policy that has the US starting wars it can neither afford nor finish. That domestic equivalent isn't e pluribus unum ("from many, one"), it's "The beatings will continue until morale improves." 

Update #1: Signs of Reform - German prisons inspire changes. (appears in the same issue of the Davis Vanguard where the original essay appeared.

Update #2: The Mays Decision (settlement summary) In case you're wondering whether Rodriguez argument we need to expand the jail is true (it's not):

"On June 10, 2019, the parties submitted a joint notice of settlement in the form of a proposed Consent Decree, which involved a Remedial Plan requiring the County to expand its mental health programs and services, provide constitutionally-adequate medical care, provide additional safeguards to reduce suicides by people in custody, identify people with disabilities and ensure that they receive appropriate accommodations, and expand mental health input into the jail's disciplinary and use of force practices. Under the proposed Consent Decree, the Court retained jurisdiction to enforce the Consent Decree and the agreement would last for six years from the date it was entered by the court." 

Update #3: Internal records expose no real layoffs for Sacramento deputies

[From the Sacramento News & Review: It turns out the budget "cuts" are an illusion summoned in service to further the Copaganda]

Sheriff Jim Cooper has warned publicly that Sacramento County’s proposed 2026-27 budget would force his department to gut specialized units and trigger a “public safety crisis,” claiming patrol deputies and detectives would drop from 480 to 394.

County Supervisor Rosario Rodriguez echoed the alarm on social media, posting that the proposed budget would “significantly reduce law enforcement services” and weaken neighborhood safety.

An examination of the Sheriff’s Office’s internal budget submittal, obtained by The Observer, tells a different story.

The sheriff proposed eliminating approximately 140 positions and several specialized units to meet county budget targets, but the document states those positions would be reassigned into existing vacancies rather than eliminated.

In other words, the proposed budget would lay off no active law enforcement personnel.

....

Warnings of an impending safety crisis also are undercut by the sheriff’s own crime data.

The office investigated 18 homicides in 2025, down from 37 in 2024, 38 in 2023, and 39 in 2022. Spokesperson Lt. Amar Gandhi told the Sacramento Bee in January that last year’s figure represents the lowest annual homicide total the office has investigated since the 1980s.