Op-ed | The Supervisor Rodriguez Conundrum

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!…

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