Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on the Conservative Response to the Supreme Court's Prison Crowding Decision

The Supreme Court ruling in Plata v. Brown ordering California to relieve prison overcrowding has outraged the Court's conservatives. But as Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia notes in her latest column in The Daily, their reaction is just as overblown as the liberal reaction to welfare reform was 15 years ago. Just as liberal predictions that welfare reform would lead to destitution for the poor didn't come to pass, likewise conservative predictions that prison reform will jeopardize public safety are baseless now. That's because much of the Golden State's overcrowding is the result of its insanely draconian three-strikes law that keeps non-violent, non-serious offenders behind bars much longer than necessary.

"Many of their [second- and third-strikers] sentences could be commuted without endangering public safety given that these laws have had little impact on crime rates," notes Dalmia.

Read the whole thing here.

Comments

[Alan Vanneman]

Terrific piece. Poor Nino, worrying (or is it dreaming?) about those "fine physical specimens who have developed intimidating muscles pumping iron in the prison gym."

Going to San Francisco, Nino? Don't wear the robe, or if you do, take some KY jelly with you!

[Ken Shultz]

"Many of their [second- and third-strikers] sentences could be commuted without endangering public safety given that these laws have had little impact on crime rates," notes Dalmia.

Okay, I'm just openly questioning this statement.

One of the more interesting aspects of crime statistics over the past few years is that the stats seem to buck conventional wisdom, the conventional wisdom being that crime rates go up and down with unemployment.

But that has not been the case this go-round. As unemployment has increased dramatically over the past several years--especially among the urban uneducated--crime rates have continued to plummet.

There isn't any explanation for that divergence more persuasive than the existence of three-strikes laws.

I'm against three-strikes laws on moral grounds. You should only need to serve the sentence you're given for the crime you're convicted of; not sentenced for the non-crime of clogging up the court system three times...

But there's no need to pretend that three-strikes doesn't do what it's meant to do--which is keep likely reoffenders in jail for a long, long time.

If we want to attack the State of California on this, what we should focus our attacks on is how much money California has squandered on their public employees. They've squandered so much money that they're made it impossible to keep convicted criminals behind bars according to the Supreme Court.

And this didn't come as a surprise to anyone. This case was fought by Jerry Brown before he was the Governor--when he was the Attorney General. This case has its roots going back more than ten years!

For more than ten years, the California state legislature knew this case was a big problem and looming up in the background--and for ten years, the California state voted to line the pockets of its state employees unions rather than make sure convicted criminals stayed in jail.

That's the tack to take on this--that's the ugly truth!

[Mo]

There's the unleaded gas hypothesis. Leaded gas was made illegal in 1975 and as a result, the average lead levels of people went down significantly following the shift to unleaded gas. There is a significant correlation between childhood lead exposure and violent crime. Violent crime also happens to be most common among 15-25 year olds living in urban areas (also the areas where lead exposure from gas fumes would be highest). So in the 90s, we started to get kids in their prime crime committing age that didn't have significant childhood exposure to lead.

Also, if there was a three strikes effect, why did crime go down just as much, or more, in states without three strikes laws (like NY) as they did in states with three strikes laws.

[Ken Shultz]

I'm not saying correlation necessarily means causality; I'm saying that there's an explanation for why crime rates became unhinged from unemployment.

And from what I'm seeing, three-strikes is the most compelling reason.

Just because correlation doesn't necessarily equal causality doesn't mean I shouldn't assume the obvious. If my thumb hurts like hell, there are all sorts of possible explanations--but if I just happened to hit it with a hammer, that's a highly likely candidate, isn't it?

If we have a law on the books that keeps repeat offenders in jail so they can't repeat offend--why shouldn't the average person assume that three strikes is the reason the crime rate in California keeps dropping--bucking the unemployment trend?

Like I said--I'm against three strikes on moral grounds. ...but I don't have to be dumb about it.

It is possible that something immoral--like three-strikes--could also be effective. It's just like torture for me; I question whether torture is effective, but even if it is effective, that doesn't mean I support it.

The point to take away from all this is that the state of California--at some point over the last ten years--could have built more prisons!

Why didn't they?

Is it because they didn't have the money? Or is it because they chose to spend the money on something else? That's the case we should be making to the people of California. Our leaders are incompetent in the most basic function of government--keeping convicted felons in jail.

[Mo]

But that doesn't explain why crime rates went down in places without three strikes. The drop in crime in NYC is even more drastic than it was in LA and New York doesn't have a three strikes law. If one is going to point to three strikes as a reason for the crime drop, you also have to explain why the control group (in this case, states without three strikes) had just as drastic a drop in crime.

[Ken Shultz]

I would never say there's only one contributing factor to anything.

That being said, even if New York doesn't have a three-strikes law, are their incarceration rates up from where they've been in the past?

In California, the incarceration rate may be up mostly because of three-strikes--but my understanding is that incarceration rates are up nationally.

[Rhywun]

I have no qualms whatsoever about keeping unrepentant pickpockets and burglars in jail for 25 years or more. It's the thousands of political prisoners (i.e. drug users) that are clogging up the system.

[Danny]

Welfare reform didn't hurt poor people?

Really?

From what I see around me, people on the bottom of the wage scale are having it pretty bad right now -- exactly what one would expect from increased supply (viz. people cut off of welfare looking for jobs), in an already-crowded seller's market (viz. low-skill workers), with rather few buyers (viz. actively-hiring employers).

I realize that pre-Clinton welfare was, for the libertarian right, slightly more revolting than a cesspool filled with maggot-infested corpses, but it did what it was supposed to do: it kept a floor under low-wage workers by modestly mitigating competitive downward pressure on their earnings.

That's all gone now, and you see what we got instead: a glut of low-wage workers (even after a mass self-repatriation of illegal immigrants), earned income dead in the water, unemployment in the 8%-9% range, and a food-stamp pandemic.

All hail our great and glorious victory over TEH MOOCHERS!!!!!!!

Just don't kid yourself about what's actually going on.

[Ken Shultz]

"I realize that pre-Clinton welfare was, for the libertarian right, slightly more revolting than a cesspool filled with maggot-infested corpses, but it did what it was supposed to do: it kept a floor under low-wage workers by modestly mitigating competitive downward pressure on their earnings."

False.

It shielded people from the consequences of their poor decisions. Pre-Clinton welfare encouraged people to engage in self-defeating behavior.

Dropping out of school and having children you can't afford to care for--should have severe consequences. Encouraging that sort of behavior by giving people a better income from the state than they could make in the local job market was cruel.

It was objectively racist too.

[Danny]

Nothing you said refutes what I said.

In fact, what you said didn't even connect to what I said.

Something from the hint-box: your rambling stream of ipse dixits is not improved simply by typing "False" on top of your entry.

Quit while you're behind.

[Ken Shultz]

Just because you're too blind to see your own racism doesn't mean you're not a racist.

Libertarians aren't about to shut up about policies that keep the poor trapped in government subsistence programs--just because you don't want certain people joining the middle class and moving into your neighborhood.

[Danny]

The only racism in play here is your insipid assumption that welfare and welfare-reform is a "race" issue.

Welfare helped low-wage workers of all races facing a labor glut, and welfare-reform harmed low-wage workers of all races by exacerbating the labor glut.

Your palaver about "dependency" is just an update of old racist canards about the "lazy, shiftless" dark-skinned people, now diluted with a pretension of being equally contemptuous of all epidermal shades of the poor.

[Ken Shultz]

If there's anything racist about this, it's the assumption that paying people to stay out of the job market and stay out of the middle class is a good thing.

[Danny]

There is nothing racist about a position that, right or wrong, has zero race-based implications.

Work on your logic and your vocab. "Racist" means something more than "bad."

(moron overload in 10 ... 9 ... 8 ...)

[Ken Shultz]

"That's all gone now, and you see what we got instead: a glut of low-wage workers (even after a mass self-repatriation of illegal immigrants), earned income dead in the water, unemployment in the 8%-9% range, and a food-stamp pandemic."

How can both of those things be true?

How can pre-Clinton welfare be "all gone now"--and there be a "food stamp pandemic"?

Oh, and for bonus points, can you explain why we have both a "food stamp pandemic" and an "obesity epidemic" at the same time?

http://children.webmd.com/news.....y-epidemic

[Danny]

Because food stamps weren't part of Clinton-era welfare reform?

Because fattening and unhealthy foods can be bought with food stamps?

You really need help with this stuff?

Or in your fevered imaginings, do you think of yourself as posing devastating rhetorical questions?

[Ken Shultz]

If you're suggesting that food stamps aren't "welfare" and didn't exist prior to the Clinton-era welfare reform?

Then you're being silly.

[Danny]

Do you have a point?

Are you trying to say that welfare reform didn't happen?

Do you understand that the central component of the welfare system - the cash supports - was the target of the "reform"?

Do you understand that cash welfare is something different from S.N.A.P./foodstamps?

[Jim]

Danny, just be honest. Tell me with a straight face that you believe that taxpayers should be on the hook for, and permanently support, someone who drops out of school in order to have children at a young age. Tell me that it's my fault they did that, and that I should pay to keep them fed and housed for their entire lives, whether they put any effort into bettering their situation or not.

[Ken Shultz]

I would just add that there's at least some parental responsibility there too.

Nobody can watch their kids 24/7, but government funding can dissuade parents from watching their daughters like a hawk.

[Danny]

We're on the hook as taxpayers or as wage earners. You can support a single mom with tax dollars, or you can compete with her in the wage market. Either way, you lose.

For me, I figure I have more to lose as a wage earner than a taxpayer.

"Fault": a question about which I give not a single sh!t.

"Bettering their situation": I'm all for it, but it will cost you more. Subsistence welfare is the cheapest option for taxpayers, at least in the short run. If you want to kick in more so that school/training/daycare are available, that's fine with me. It will probably pay off in the long run, but you have to be willing to put in for it up front.

[Ken Shultz]

"We're on the hook as taxpayers or as wage earners. You can support a single mom with tax dollars, or you can compete with her in the wage market. Either way, you lose."

That's the argument the Northern Democrats used against the Republicans just before the Civil War. "If the Republicans free the slaves", the racists would say, "they'll all come up north and take away your jobs!"

That's the same argument anti-immigration retards use to try to advance their twisted, racist agenda.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

[Ken Shultz]

Just to be clear, if you're afraid you can't compete with economically disadvantaged single mothers for a job?

You should be ashamed of that too, but using the same argument as the Northern Democrats who were arguing against freeing the slaves? Using the same argument as the anti-immigration freaks?

That you should really be ashamed of.

I knew what you were about all along.

[Danny]

Immigration does increase seller competition in the labor market. There is nothing racist about noting that irrefutable fact.

Even if all immigrants were white and spoke English, immigration would still increase seller competition in the labor market.

[Ken Shultz]

If you can't compete for a job with people who can't read or write English, much less speak it?

Then you should stop smoking crack.

[Danny]

We all can compete for jobs with one another. It just drives the wages down.

Economic competition for jobs doesn't mean that one worker wins and one worker loses. It means that both competitors end up working for a lower wage.

[Danny]

Even if empirically correct in their predictions, the Northern Democrats were morally wrong because enslaving surplus workers is not a morally acceptable way of dealing with a labor glut, any more than killing or deporting surplus workers is a morally acceptable way of dealing with a labor glut.

Welfare, whatever its drawbacks, is not the moral equivalent of chattel slavery, or murder, or deportation. Using welfare to abate a labor glut is not the same thing as using slavery or murder or deportation to abate a labor glut.

[Britt]

This is the first time I've ever seen welfare sold as a scheme for addressing a "labor glut", whatever that is.

[Ken Shultz]

I appreciate that you rarely see people as openly honest about their motivations as this joker is?

But this was the reason pre-Clinton welfare was reformed during the Clinton Administration. It kept people on welfare further out of general society--it helped keep them from entering the job force and joining the middle class...

You rarely see people on the other side of the issue argue for it on that basis, but that was the biggest reason why people on the other side of the issue--who wanted to reform it--did so during the Clinton Administration.

Keeping poor people out of general society and the middle class through government programs is morally disgraceful. ...and effectively racist.

[Troy]

I understand that "cruel and unusual" is a term like "reasonable" or "foreseeable." That it is a squishy concept. But, you know, humanity has progressed. We no longer burn witches, treat fellow humans as chattels, feed people to lions as sport, spool intestines slowly from one's gut, etc. And the question I have, is, as asked before, what the fuck would it take for the Robed One's to say, "dudes, you've gone too far?"

I no longer question Scalia's integrity. He's shown long ago he has none. I don't question his intellect. Scalia isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. RC or Ken would make much smarter Justices. And I now I guess I no longer question his humanity. Scalia apparently lacks humanity is to the same degree of vapidity that he lacks in those other virtues

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because much of the Golden State's overcrowding is the result of its insanely draconian three-strikes law that keeps non-violent, non-serious offenders behind bars much longer than necessary.

If I were cynical, cold-blooded statist in authority at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, I wouldn't turn second- or third-strike drug users loose. I would look to release unrepentant recidivists of all stripes from thieves, to burglars, to rapists, to murderers, and once they re-offend I would claim, with all due seriousness, that if the state and federal governments had just given me more money for incarceration, this tragedy wouldn't have happened.

[Ken Shultz]

They've been releasing violent prisoners early for more than a year already.

"SACRAMENTO, Calif. ? Inmates convicted of violent crimes are among those being freed early from California jails to save money, despite lawmakers' promises that they would exclude most dangerous prisoners and sex offenders.

An Associated Press review of inmate data shows that some of the freed criminals were convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, battery, domestic violence, and attacks on children and the elderly."

----Huffington Post, March 31, 2010

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....20781.html

And, once again, this exposes the ugly truth--California was releasing violent prisoners early long before this court ruling. ...because of our budget problems.

This is just another face of legislature's incompetence in its dealings with the government employees unions. It's about the budget--and what Sacramento has squandered our money on.

When they should have been building prisons.

I'm for legalizing marijuana. I'm against three-strikes. But this isn't about legalizing marijuana. This isn't about getting rid of three strikes--it's about the budget.

And it's been about the budget for a long time.