“Cash-strapped Californians would rather ease “third-strike” penalties for some criminals and accept felons as neighbors than dig deeper into their pockets to relieve prison overcrowding, a new poll shows.”

Yep, that headline grabbed my attention too.    According to a recent survey, administered by The Times and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, it reports that people in CA voted to oppose a tax hike, that would help offset the overcrowding issues in jail; therefore making it easier to honor the court order of releasing more than 30,000 inmates back onto the street or moved into smaller county jails, where they are equally ill equipped to handle the overcrowding issue. 

While I am not a political junkie, nor do I even pretend to like it a little; this obviously disturbs me because it impacts my public safety.  I recognize that we are all struggling in an economy that has everyone panicked and clutching their every penny, but at what cost do we sacrifice our right to be and feel safe in our communities?  I understand that a long-term effect of the CA voters approving the Three Strikes Law back in 1994, helped contribute to this overcrowding issue, but we can’t abandon what we set out to do back then, because suddenly our pocket books are feeling the pinch.

More than a decade ago, we decided that what was important to us as a state, a community, was to protect our neighborhoods, our families and ourselves, therefore we agreed to take a hard stance on crime.  And while maybe not everyone supported it, it is an effective law and has proven results: (http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm).  According to The Department of Justice’s California Crime Index : “Crime Rates Since 1994. The overall crime rate in California began declining before the passage of the Three Strikes law. In fact, the overall crime rate declined by 10 percent between 1991 and 1994. The crime rate continued to decline after Three Strikes, falling by 43 percent statewide between 1994 and 1999, though it has risen by about 11 percent since 1999. Similarly, the violent crime rate declined by 8 percent between 1991 and 1994 and then fell an additional 43 percent between 1994 and 2003.”   We obviously can not prove that the Three Strikes Law is the ONLY reason the rates have fallen, but it certainly is a factor that we can not disregard.

Are we prepared to watch those numbers possibly increase because we didn’t want to pay a few more bucks in taxes?  Well maybe given our choices, we are.

At first glance, I was mad at the people in CA for not putting the safety of our neighborhoods first … but upon further review, I am back to being angry at the politicians who can’t figure out how to clean up this mess without leaving the voters in the predicament of having to choose between health care and education, and crime/public safety.  Is it really fair to blame us for this problem or to insinuate that we care less about crime/punishment than we do about education?  I don’t know if people do or don’t … but is it reasonable to pit those categories against one another in a vote and then make grandiose assumptions about our priorities?

Has anyone ever put to the voters the cost of the health care and education programs that they think they are voting to support?  Do we know this number as it relates to the cost on our society of releasing thousands of inmates early?  I wonder if voters truly understand the ramifications of not putting public safety at the top of their list of concerns. The incredible burden that will be placed on our local law enforcement entities (jails, police departments, parole officers, district attorney’s, etc) is far too great as it stands now; we are already operating with lesser resources due to budgetary constraints … so now we will also have to worry about the additional cost associated with the early release of 33,000 inmates?  Just because they are not deemed “violent”, does that mean we need to bear the brunt of their disrespect for the law?  Have they been properly rehabilitated?  Do we know FOR SURE none of those 33,000 criminals will strike again?  Because if they do, isn’t it tax payer money that pays to have them prosecuted and put back in jail …so how are we saving money again?

Honestly, I don’t know the answer; but I do know that forgoing the commitment to public safety is negligent and irresponsible.  And I worry that our complacent position today, both by the elected officials and subsequently by the voters will reverse all of the hard work of the last decade and create more problems for our future generations.  They don’t deserve to be afraid to walk out their front door.  Call me a simpleton, but I would much prefer to pay a higher deductible for my insurance plan, than I would to pay for the prosecution of the repeat offenders who got a “get out of jail early card”.  Just sayin’.