Sacrificing Public Safety to Please Special Interests- Their Death has Already Been Paid For by Rob Morse

Mental Health vs state employee unions- Many mass murderers have a history of mental illness. Now that we’ve closed our mental hospitals, your local sheriff is often the largest provider of mental health services in your county. That is one of the larger expenses on the sheriff’s budget. Mental health evaluation and treatment consume lots of time from law enforcement officers, corrections officers, nurses, doctors and lawyers. Notice the varied backgrounds of the providers. Some of them might be contract providers rather than state employees. In general, they are not as well connected, as politically organized, as unionized teachers and prison guards. In fact, every dollar a politician spends keeping the mentally ill out of jail is a dollar that could go towards the bloated pensions of state employees. That is why politicos would rather give money to state employees and statewide unions rather than to local providers. Is it more politically profitable to put someone in prison than to treat the mentally ill before they commit a crime? It often is. Could that explain why we see, what we see in our deteriorating mental health system?

Incarceration vs state employee unions- It seems that law enforcement is reluctant to take repeat offenders off the street. For example, California recently went so far as to release large numbers of prisoners. The legislature and the parole board redefined the term “violent criminal” so that repeat offenders are sent to county jails or released rather than housed in state prisons.

Is it more politically profitable to release someone from prison than to keep them there? Could it be? Could that explain why we see, what we see in our prisons and jails?