You Might Not Care, But….

It really depends on your notion of justice. We are “prison crazy” in the United States, with tons more crimes and longer sentences than most countries, inner city schools with overcrowding, lousy facilities, danger lurking down the halls and a “crime is a better way to make money than this” dropout rate that swells the local convicted felon numbers to sometimes as much as 20% of all local young adult males. The U.S. nets out to 25% of the world’s prisoners with a mere 5% of the world’s population.

So our criminal justice system is a processing mill, driven by plea bargains and harsh sentences, a parole/release system that, according to the Bureau of Justice (a government body), produces a 67.5% recidivism rate (people who arrested within three years of release from prison). Realistically, how many convicted felons are likely to find a normal employment path after release? Particularly in this day and age! Once you are in that criminal justice system, for most it is a lifetime commitment to crime and a lifestyle that would make most of the population cringe. So what, you say, they’re criminals who made free choices that got them there in the first place. Think if you grew up in the crime-breeding sections of America you would really be able to rise to where you are today?

To make matters worse, as we arrest more people, usually those with limited or no resources to defend themselves, not only do we put more pressure on courts, prosecutors, jails and prisons and the infrastructure of criminal justice – all hefty costs, including north of $40K a year to house most of those incarcerated – we have placed a particular pressure on the public defenders called upon to provide counsel to those charged with crimes and unable to afford a lawyer. In the federal system, it seems as if the “sequester” has slammed the public defenders’ office the most.

“The public defender system hasn't just been stripped bare by sequestration, its bones have been chiseled away as well. There has been a 9 percent reduction in the roughly $1 billion budget for federal public defender's offices, while federal defenders in more than 20 states are planning to close offices. Careers have been ended and cases have been delayed. All of it has occurred in the name of deficit reduction -- and yet, for all the belt-tightening being demanded of the nation's public defenders, money is not actually being saved.

“When federal public defenders aren’t able to take a case because of a conflict, or because their workload is too great, the job falls to private court-appointed attorneys known as Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys. Those lawyers are paid from the same pool of money as federal public defenders, but they cost much more and, according to some studies, are less effective.

“To keep the budget from completely exploding, the Judicial Conference, a group of senior circuit judges that helps administer guidelines for the courts, could -- indeed, may have to -- reduce the rates paid to private attorneys, but that could mean fewer CJA lawyers would be willing to take up such cases. That, in turn, would result in the accused spending more time in prison waiting for trials -- only further driving up costs. ” Huffington Post, July 22^nd. Defenders are being furloughed, denied travel to jails far from their offices, and even deprived of simple office supplies... for those able to keep their jobs at all.

It does seem to be the American way. Cut budgets without thinking – definitely the consequence of the sequester – only to delay or shift that burden elsewhere. Deferred maintenance on infrastructure only multiplies in cost when the infrastructure fails and we have to react to the disaster. Cut education, and we cut the future earning power of average Americans who are supposed to pay down our deficit and spur new growth in future years. Fire government employees and watch federal agencies shift the job to vastly more expensive private contractors. Replace spending money on training and education with much more money on the criminal justice system. Cut the public defender system only to see costs shift elsewhere. Or maybe you like giving the government money to waste.

 I’m Peter Dekom, and what do you expect from a road-blocked Congress that moves to satisfy Gerrymandered districts where simplistic slogans have long since replaced common sense and a desire for good government.