Sheriff’s Solution to Decrease Crime

Surely Sheriff Brad Gates jests (“Sheriff Replies to ACLU Lawyer,” June 4) when he proffers the highly biased, self-serving view that “the only way to protect ourselves against drugs and violent crime is to invest in facilities to put criminals where they belong--in jail.”

Gates sounds like a cheap shill for the costly, ineffective and inefficient “prison-industrial complex.” Already, the United States incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than any country in the West. Worldwide, only the Soviet Union and South Africa have higher percentages of their people in jails.

I believe that it is Gates who frankly misperceives and possibly intentionally misrepresents the nature of reality causing him to misdirect his fight against drugs and crime.

While Gates’ rhetoric that Orange County has a jobless rate of 3% is the “official” unemployment rate, the sad and very cruel reality is that many of the available jobs do not offer decent, livable wages.

The real root causes of crime continue to be unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, racism and, among Orange County Republicans, you have to add greed and double-standard justice--tough on the poor; lenient on the wealthy, especially the politically well-connected. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Rebecca Jurado is correct: Create jobs that pay enough to support a family and crime will decrease.

Gates would also have us believe that the arrestees released, 43,000 in 1988 and over 50,000 projected for 1989, all were drunk drivers, drug pushers and violent felons. How many fit in the above classifications? How many were convicted? Had charges dropped? Gates could have provided this information but he chose not to do so. Why not?

The estimated cost of constructing a new jail cell varies from $50,000 to $75,000 or more! Maintaining a convicted criminal (or accused criminal) in prison costs from a low of about $12,000 to a high of over $30,000 a year. The costs vary according to many variables. There are lower-cost alternatives to incarcerations. Plus “graduates” of these alternative (to jail) programs are less likely to become hardened, lifelong criminals.

Some communities have set up residential treatment centers for alcohol and drug abusers, preferring to view such people as afflicted with an illness and in need of medical help and not incarceration. Some states operate “boot camps,” which run like military boot camps. These criminals live under tight regimentation. Illiterates are given instruction. Good work habits are instilled. Other areas use electronic ankle bracelets to monitor the whereabouts of certain nonviolent criminals. Basically, these offenders are under “house arrest.”

Still, other areas require offenders to warn others by “advertising” their crimes. For example, drunk drivers have to display a decal noting their driving-under-the-influence conviction. Convicted customers of prostitutes get their names in the newspapers--hence, potential embarrassment becomes a deterrent. In another case, one sex offender was required by the court to place a sign on his house to warn parents and kids that here lives a convicted sex offender. (However, these punishments often raise Eighth Amendment issues of “cruel and unusual” punishment.)

As to state Sen. Marian Bergeson’s legislation, she should stop pandering to the narrow interests of her present narrow-minded constituents of Orange County. It simply won’t wash statewide. Sophisticated, law-biding and tax-weary voters realize the futility, astronomical cost and ineffectiveness of confinement. Perhaps Gates makes the point most cogently and accurately, certainly unwittingly, when he admits, “(many of these criminals) have spent plenty of time in jail before and surely will again.”

GEORGE C. BALDERAS

Corona