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!
