Not Another Jail

While a solid majority of our supervisors wisely voted not to take a stand on this ill-conceived measure, a group of judges felt compelled to come out publicly in support of measure S.

Aren’t judges to be non-partisan and impartial—or has that time-honored tradition been discarded for reasons that have not been explained to us?

I find it disingenuous when judges, who at least partly are responsible for the overcrowding of our jails, are pushing for a full-employment policy for

their profession.

We don’t know much about incarceration rates in China. But we do know that the United States, with approximately 5 percent of the world’s population,

houses about 25 percent of the world’s prison inmates within its correctional systems.

The United States locks up more than 700 of its residents (including illegal immigrants) per 100,000 population, or .7 percent, and thus is the world’s leader, way ahead of any other country of the world, perhaps with the exception of China, North Korea, Myanmar, and a few other rogue states.

And more than 50 percent of all inmates in the U.S. are doing time for offenses related to drugs!

This is unacceptable by any standards. Building more jails is counterproductive. We urgently must reform our broken criminal justice system and attack the causes that have made us the world champion in incarcerating our people.

Maybe we should ask our European partners how they manage to keep their incarceration rates around 100 or less per 100,000 population or at .1 percent? Do their inhabitants feel less safe than we do? I do not think so!

Vote no on measure S, on or before November 2!