After almost five decades of worldly adult experience and with reasonable knowledge of man's sordid history, I consider myself fully jaded. Nevertheless, the following story had me shaking my head.
While driving home from their Thanksgiving holiday, a Sonoma family of four, mom, dad and two young children - eight and five - were killed when a car ran a red light rammed their minivan. The driver of the other car was a 19-year old with a previous record of DUI arrests, according to the San Jose Mercury News. A witness reported seeing him at a bar-restaurant that evening and his car was estimated travelling 90 mph prior to the accident. The teen also died and police are running tests for alcohol and other substances. If you believe this story is over you are wrong.
Three days after the family died burglars ransacked their home and stole their second car, jewelry, credit cards, DVD player and other things. Police arrested two suspects and they are assuming that the thieves targeted the house because they knew it was empty. Empty indeed.
At the time of his arrest, one of the burglary suspects was out on $50,000 bail for drug, gun and stolen property possession in San Mateo and methamphetamine possession charges were pending against the second suspect. One of them was driving the missing vehicle and the police found articles belonging to the dead family in the suspects' car and house.
Last week, former sheriff's deputy Michael Rodrigues was sentenced, essentially, to life in prison for multiple sexual assaults. The cost for his public defense was $148,000. If you believe this story is over you are wrong again.
I have no idea of the total trial costs or future appeal costs, but I do know the cost of incarceration. This year the average annual cost to incarcerate an inmate in California was $47,102. If Rodriques spends 25 years in prison, his incarceration will cost about $1.2 million in today's dollars - provided cost increases do not exceed the Consumer Price Index (inflation rate).
That is not likely, the cost of incarceration is not merely exceeding the inflation rate - it is crushing it. Since 2001, national inflation has increased 22 percent, but the cost of incarceration increased 70 percent, three times that. Inmate healthcare costs went up the most, 200 percent, nine times the CPI; security costs went up 56 percent two and a half times the CPI. At those rates, the Rodrigues incarceration could easily cost $2.5 million in 2009 dollars. You may believe you're finished with Mr. Rodrigues and other inmates, but if you're a taxpayer, they are not finished with you.
Thursday I walked past the newspaper rack displaying the headline, "Salinas' 26th homicide sets tragic record." Friday morning I read the details - a 25-year-old man on his way to work was shot and killed outside his home. Salinas has been a shooting gallery for as long as I can remember. The former mayor is now finishing her term in the state Assembly as our representative - she has moved on nicely - but the killings stayed behind.
The human and economic costs of America's crime epidemic are almost unimaginable. What are those forfeited and ruined lives worth in love and loss? What is the waste of personal and national treasure? In past times we were a free society with criminal problems. We are now becoming a criminal society where violent and uncaring human predators terrorize ordinary people.
There is something seriously wrong and it's a lot more dangerous than foreign terrorists or global warming.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident. Reach him at cwo4mgr@yahoo.com.
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