By Mark Dempsey
SACRAMENTO, CA – Although my County Supervisor, Sue Frost, likes to portray herself as “fiscally responsible”—”No New Taxes” was her campaign slogan—she recently voted to approve a $450 million expansion of the County’s jail, adding an additional justice-related expense to the 70 percent of the County’s budget already spent on policing and incarceration.
A few facts on the matter: If throwing money at police and prisons made us safer, we would probably already be the safest country in the history of the world. We are not, because insufficient punishment is not the root cause of violence.
And if people are talking about how tough they are and how scared you should be, they care more about keeping you scared than keeping you safe…
In Denver, a five-year randomized control trial of a program that provides housing subsidies to those at risk of being unhoused found a 40 percent reduction in arrests among participants. These kinds of results are why localities from New Jersey to New Mexico are restructuring their local governments to invest in the social determinants of health and safety…
“If you want policies that actually work, you have to change the political conversation from ‘tough candidates punishing bad people’ to ‘strong communities keeping everyone safe.’ Candidates who care about solving a problem pay attention to what caused it.
“Imagine a plumber who tells you to get more absorbent flooring but does not look for the leak.” (from The Root Cause of Violent Crime Is Not What We Think It Is, NY Times)
The supervisors who voted for this $450 million monstrosity that will be a financial burden for the County for decades are asking us to get “more absorbent flooring.” Ms. Frost’s newsletter portrays this decision as “Build a bigger jail” vs. “Let everyone go,” but it’s not so.
There are alternatives, as governments from New Jersey to New Mexico have found, but the County believes more policing is the answer.
For a little perspective, the U.S. population increased by 42 percent between 1982 and 2017. Money spent on policing and incarceration increased by 187 percent during that same period.
What was that definition of insanity? Repeating more of the same, but expecting a different outcome…? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Insane County of Sacramento.
