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Randy Alcorn: Santa Barbara County Jailhouse Blues
There is nothing like a deep, painfully persistent economic recession to focus folks on what and how they spend money. When cash flow slows to a trickle, every dollar becomes precious. Not since the Great Depression have so many Americans experienced such a drought of dollars — either earned or borrowed. New jobs are scarce and credit is tight.
While American households and businesses are quietly resigned to adjusting their spending downward, the public sector — facing growing budget shortfalls — stridently insists it can not make spending cuts without unleashing the dragons of dire consequence on the public. We are repeatedly told that public safety, health and welfare are at risk if government cuts back its spending.
The budget crunch in the public sector has revealed the nature of some public servants and the depth of their dedication to the public welfare and to each other. How many public employees, particularly union members, have volunteered to accept a pay reduction to ensure the public welfare and to prevent layoffs of their fellow public servants? If the pay and benefits in the public sector were adjusted down even to a level on par with the private sector, there would be significant savings.
But, rarely does government voluntarily cut spending or give up a level of revenue once that revenue has been extracted from taxpayers. As this Great Recession strains their budgets, governments at all levels are howling, pleading and threatening for tax increases. But, more revenue is not the answer, nor is less revenue the problem. The problem is spending. The answer is fiscal common sense — a quality that has been virtually nonexistent in government.
Since the public believes that law enforcement is a primary and essential public service provided by government, cops usually get whatever they ask for. In the city of Santa Barbara, police get six-figure compensation packages with incredible retirement benefits. Why? Well, because when they demanded them few council members said no. City police have even gotten a quarter-million dollar armored truck. For what, to deal with all the civil unrest and street anarchy Santa Barbara has? That’s just Fiesta. Do we really need a war-wagon for that?
Now comes Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown, with a number of other local public officials tagging along, asking county taxpayers to fund a new $80 million jail by adding a half-cent to our sales tax after California’s 1 cent sales tax surcharge expires next July. The slippery sophistry here purports that the additional half-cent would really not be a tax increase because the total sales tax rate would drop to a less ridiculously high 8.25 percent from its current ridiculously high 8.75 percent.
Frankly, a 7.75 percent sales tax was too high, given that Californians already endure nearly every type of tax ever devised by the devious denizens of public sector profligacy. We suffer all those taxes because our governments at all levels cannot or will not control their spending. And as long as we keep saying yes to taxes, guess what, we’ll get more taxes.
The proposed new county jail would be costly to build and costly to maintain. Just because the police and the politicians want it doesn’t mean we really need it. Have we asked enough questions as to why we need to make this expenditure and to incur another eternal tax increase to fund it?
How many county inmates are incarcerated for victimless crimes like drug possession or prostitution? Why are we wasting tax money jailing people for personal choices that harm no one? Even if the feds continue to pursue the futile war on drugs, that doesn’t mean our local police have to make it a priority and fill our local jails with the catch of the day. How much time and resources are local police, especially the Sheriff’s Department, devoting to uprooting marijuana plants in the hinterlands? Is this the best use of expensive police resources? Destroy one farm today and another will be planted tomorrow. It’s endless.
And, if our jails are overcrowded with truly dangerous criminals, do we really need an $80 million facility to incarcerate them? Why not construct camps in remote locations, surrounded by trenches, enclosed with high razor-wire fences and guarded from towers? Do we really need air conditioning, gyms and TV rooms for inmates? Maybe Brown can speak with Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., and learn about more economical methods of incarceration.
This Great Recession offers an opportunity to force governments into fiscal responsibility. Let’s not waste it by bailing them out with more taxes. By applying some common sense to public service needs, government can reduce its craving for ever more tax money.
— Santa Barbara political observer Randy Alcorn can be contacted at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Comments
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» on 07.26.10 @ 09:38 AM
Good one again. Yes, more economical solutions should be explored. Perhaps low risk inmates could be housed in foreclosed homes in Santa Maria.
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» on 07.26.10 @ 12:08 PM
The war on drugs is a complete failure, and needs to end—Take the profit out of it, and stop putting people in jail for drug use—What a waste of our money—They need treatment—
Jail makes them hard and mean when they get out.
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» on 07.26.10 @ 12:20 PM
well said Randy. Thank you for showing me there’s at least one person out there that can pass an intelligence test. However, I’m sure your voice will be drowned out by the never ending supply of gang members and their endless trials. some are saying the emergency center should go…we’d all feel safer if we just kept locking people!
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» on 07.31.10 @ 09:13 PM
We should be sending our inmates out of state where the cost to provide for them is significantly cheaper than Santa Barbara.
No reason we should be housing and providing for them with high cost property and high cost union employees.
The average cost in CA is $45/yr/inmate vs out of state of $28/yr/inmate. Measure S alone is $30K/yr/inmate… too much.
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» on 08.31.10 @ 07:53 AM
Worse-than-Useless Agencies: Local, State and Federal: A True Story
Worse-than-Useless Agencies: Local, State and Federal: A True Story
If you KNOW, without ANY DOUBT and you can also PROVE WITHOUT ANY DOUBT, that you are a VICTIM of FRAUD, which is, by the way, a CRIME, then the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department, the Santa Barbara Police Department, the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office, the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors, the California State Licensing Board (Contractor’s), the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Protection Agency, and a few others that I cannot remember at the moment, are, in my own personal experience ALL WORSE THAN USELESS. Not only are they ALL truly worse than useless, and not only do our hard-earned tax dollars pay for these supposed public service agencies, but each and every PUBLIC SERVANT that I have had the displeasure in contacting personally, did have the NERVE to speak directly to me with the most unbelievably condescending, bewilderingly arrogant attitudes. Further, not a single person in any of these agencies was willing to lift a finger AT ALL to help me.
A CRIME was indeed committed by a true SOCIOPATH, A REAL CON MAN. This is what happened to me: I had one flickering light in my hallway, so I hired an electrician out of the Santa Barbara Yellow Pages. I picked Dan’s Electric at random because they advertised as local Santa Barbara electricians, reasonable rates, etc. Well, I later found out that this electrician, Dan a.k.a. “Patrick” Horan of Dan’s Electric actually drives up here all the way from Sylmar, CA. These crooks pose as Santa Barbara electricians only to con consumer out of unnecessary and insanely overpriced work. (WATCH OUT!!) Anyway, I was utterly CONNED out of nearly $20,000 of my poor mother’s money and, as it turns out, I was not the ONLY VICTIM of FRAUD and MISREPRESENTATION. There have been several others. But that is beside my point; my point is my own experience with the AGENCIES that I contacted about this CRIME.
The FACT of the matter is that not ONE person in ANY one of these agencies CARED AT ALL. And NO ONE would help me in ANY WAY. My experience has been so baffling with these agencies and these public servants’ attitudes that I will never again trust any of them to do anything for anyone. Here is exactly what happened:
I first spoke with Deputy Freseley at the Carpinteria Sheriff’s Station to report the crime. Well, I explained what happened and this Deputy Fresely, actually LAUGHED at me and then and even further, he insulted me by saying that “You would make as good a prosecutor as you are at hiring an electrician.” And he WOULD NOT FILE A POLICE REPORT. I then spoke with Lt. Koopmans and it was EXACTLY the same rude and condescending attitude; He FINALLY relented and did write a police report, but he also made it clear to me that I was a nuisance to him. Can you imagine being treated that way by ANYONE let alone your own community police?!?! I mean, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?!?!
When I contacted the District Attorney’s Office I spoke with Mr. Kreyger and tried to explain that I was defrauded. He said, quite rudely, “So, why are you calling ME?!?!” “What do you want ME to do about it?!?!” He flatly REFUSED to help me in ANY WAY.
And just an aside: To make things even worse, about six months ago, a strange man was banging on my front door, yelling for me to let him into my secluded Summerland home. I asked who it was and the stranger started to jiggle the door handle, trying to get in through my front door, and then started to look through my windows. I yelled at him to get off of my property and that I was calling 911 and he still wouldn’t leave. Of course, I called 911…and I stayed on the phone with the dispatcher for 45 minutes waiting for the police to come. They never did. No one even bothered to show up AT ALL. The guy did eventually leave, but the next morning I called the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department to file a formal complaint. They sent someone to my house and I politely told him exactly what happened. He didn’t write anything down, so I doubt very much that he took my statement and followed through on filing my complaint.
So, now that I must do EVERYTHING MYSELF, I am still mystified and shocked at the horrible, condescending and totally unhelpful treatment by each one of those people along with their VERY APPARENT ATTITUDE PROBLEMS.
An Irritated Santa Barbara Citizen & CRIME VICTIM,
Christina Marlowe
Summerland, CA
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