Sunday, June 10, 2007

May I speak seriously about ... Paris Hilton?

I admit it: I'm a news junkie. And unless you were watching CSpan, if you were watching cable news on Friday you were watching Paris coverage. And, believe it or not, this rather silly celebutant has alerted me to something serious.

Jail overcrowding.

Yes, it's one of those phrases that politicians bandy about during election campaigns -- or when they're making an argument for or against placing an incarceration facility near where you live. But the ramifications of overcrowding are seldom discussed.

Until Paris. Kathy Hilton's sweet, sheltered little girl may actually have done public a favor. I look at this photo and feel that anything positive she does is done by accident, but that's not the point.

Judges sentence convicted offenders, and the LA County Sheriff routinely lets them go after serving 10% of their sentence. And it's not because he believes the sentences are too harsh; it's because LA County doesn't have the resources to merely house -- much less rehabilitate -- these people. The results are far more serious than getting Paris back out onto the celebrity party circuit. According to the LA Times, "In the last five years, the Sheriff's Department has released more than 200,000 inmates early, including some who ended up committing murders and other serious crimes when they otherwise would have been behind bars."

I don't know what the answer to this is. I'm just now getting my mind around the problem. The issue used to be whether jailtime should be about justice, or punishment, or rehabilitation. Now I'm adding public safety to this syrupy stew. If convicts aren't even in jail, justice isn't being served, they aren't being punished, and they certainly aren't being rehabilitated. This brings us to taxes, and how we choose to spend those tax dollars on both a federal and a municipal level.

re·ha·bil·i·ta·tion
in·car·cer·a·tion

Wow! Such big words for a post about Paris Hilton!

I want an Elliott/Olivia romance

I've been watching the SVU Marathon off and on all day, and I'm convinced Elliott Staebler and Olivia Benson are in love and completely right for one another. Ah, romance against the backdrop of pedophilia, arson, and rape. I know it sounds kinda sick, but I think it would also be very life affirming. Isn't that a Buddhist proverb? Something about a lotus that grows out of the mud and blossoms above the dirty water? Amidst all this sin and degradation, Elliott's and Olivia's love could blossom and something beautiful could be borne.

Oh, I know, I know. It's just a TV show. But I can be such a cornball mush when it comes to romance.

(BTW, my cat Reynaldo seems to be gripped by the spectre of sexually-based offenses. He's actually being QUIET as I watch!)