Crime, time and our tax dime

Anyone using the phrase years ago that “crime doesn’t pay” hasn’t taken a hard look at today’s statistics.

The United States Department of Justice late last week reported one out of every 32 adults were in prison, on parole, or on probation by the end of last year. That figure amounts to seven million people, an all‑time high.  

Drug offenders accounted for 49 percent of the total prison population growth in federal prisons from 1995 to 2003, the department reported.

Consider the financial toll all this is taking on taxpayers–and not just for incarceration.

Prosecuting nonviolent drug offenders is likely costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars when you calculate what it costs for police, guards, jails, food, medical care as well as the public defenders, judges, court staff, probation officers, counselors, and clerks to pave the entire process with legal paperwork.

The ugly truth is that crime does pay because of the language of some laws. Call it the criminal justice‑industrial complex. It has become a money‑sucking racket for the state.

Ponder this. On the day the Justice Department stats were released, Gov. Janet Napolitano announced she wants to start charging Maricopa County residents if a new plea bargain policy amounts to putting more people in prison, according a Capital Media Services story.

County Attorney Andrew Thomas reportedly said the only plea deals he’ll approve for second offenders are ones that require prison time.

“Thomas estimated that would mean 2,600 more inmates in prison each year.

At an average cost of $56.19 per inmate per day, that tops $53 million a year,” the article stated.

These staggering statistics–both the human toll and the dollar figures–are obscene. But the actual price society is paying is much higher.

The Justice Department “figures fail to capture incarceration’s impact on the thousands of children left behind by mothers in prison,” said Marc Mauer in an Associated Press story about the statistics.

Mauer is executive director of a Washington‑based group seeking reform in sentencing.

“Misguided policies that create harsher sentences for nonviolent drug offenses are disproportionately responsible for the increasing rates of women in prisons and jails,” Mauer said.

The time has come to reform these misguided policies so that justice is served in the name and spirit of justice–not for the almighty dollar.