In his article in The Observer on October 4th, Paul Harris asks the question, "Will California Become America's First Failed State?" Governor Schwarzenegger's specious California Vacation commercials notwithstanding, this is a question that needs asking. Indeed, in a scene reminescent...
Fifty Cents Worth of Justice is better than millions of dollars spent by the California justice system. Fifty cents is all it would have cost to have saved the life of a little girl. Fifty cents. And not fifty cents per day, like they tell you on those commercials for saving some little kid in Somalia...
How difficult it is for state planners to fully recognize the scope of costs and unintended consequences behind criminal justice policies. I'd bet dollars to donuts increases in the parole system were at one time sited as a release valve for prison...