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."