New York: a great place to go to jail
Before The Times or any other local newspaper runs another story comparing public services in L.A. to those in New York, let's just stipulate something: New York always spends more. When LAPD Chief William Bratton complains that he doesn't have enough officers, he likes to point out how far the department lags behind New York (it has one officer per 207 residents, compared with one for every 411 residents in Los Angeles). New York also spends roughly twice as much on services for the homeless. And in media reports on L.A. County's troubled jail system, it has become standard practice to mention that New York has dramatically more jail guards overseeing a smaller inmate population than L.A.'s.
An otherwise excellent report on jail killings in Sunday's Times by Stuart Pfeifer and Robin Fields repeated that familiar theme, pointing out that 3,300 uniformed deputies in L.A. County must watch over about 18,000 inmates, while in New York there are three times as many guards overseeing 5,000 fewer prisoners. This is frequently offered by the Sheriff's Department as an excuse for the oversight problems that may have contributed to the 14 jail homicides in L.A. County since 2000. Certainly, the comparison makes L.A. jails look shockingly underfunded -- unless you look at any other big city besides New York.
L.A. County spends roughly $27,800 annually per inmate, compared to $61,000 in New York. Yet L.A. still spends more than the next three biggest cities in the United States. Philadelphia spends $23,700 per inmate, Chicago's Cook County spends $20,000 and Houston's Harris County spends only $15,800. Harris County happens to be the nation's death-penalty capital, and killing the inmates off does save on room and board. Still, it's clear that L.A. is only a laggard on jail spending when compared to New York.
Why does that city spend so much? Probably because it has more to spend, given sky-high property and sales taxes. But while Sheriff Lee Baca would like people to believe that an ongoing crisis in the local jails is the result of underspending on his department, that isn't necessarily the case. A bigger problem is the shortage of people who want to be sheriff's deputies, creating a recruiting shortfall that makes it hard to fill open slots. It's also more than possible that training and oversight of the deputies who serve as jail guards leave a lot to be desired, while computer systems and jail facilities are badly outdated.
What's certain is that L.A. is never going to match New York when it comes to spending on law enforcement and other services, and unless Angelenos want to pay much higher taxes, that isn't going to change. So comparisons on such things aren't really very valuable.
Jose,
I don't necessarily diagree with your points, but anti-social has always been cool.
Posted by: David | December 27, 2006 at 08:04 AM
Instead of talking about jails and services let's get down to the nitty-gritty. I am a Latino who has seen the rise of crime in every town. One of the major factors is popular teen culture in America now endorses criminal active as “cool”, especially in the minority community. Gangster rap, and the culture that is associated with it has been very popular, yet most people don’t want to acknowledge that it exists. Guns, violence, incivility, drugs and drug dealer, anti-social behavior is now considered normal and by many children as “cool”. Most people living in "suburbia" in the United States have not notice or acknowledged this trend. It is because many community leaders of our minority groups, including mine, have not addressed this fact. They are too busy blaming everybody but the true causes of this, Music and Media corporate interest. Being a “gangsta”, criminal, big-mouth, a-moral is considered something to be admired by children, because the media has not denounced it. I think it might even be too late. Low rider and Vato culture has now been exported to other countries to through their respective ethnic communities. You can know find low riders, American style hip-hop ‘gangstas’ in Vietnam, El Salvador, Mexico, Laos, and other countries. People, especially the white intelligentsia have never discussed this because they don’t want to appear ‘racists’ or live in a safe bubble. It is now destroying many different communities and it is growing. Many whites, like those who live in the suburbs have children who have never been exposed to this, but it is growing so fast that it is spreading wildly though out all communities and even into the suburbs. It has been going on for years since the early years of rap. Guns, violence, rape, murder, drug dealing is being glamorized and young people are now brainwashed to believe it is very ‘hip’ to be stupid and a criminal. They see education for “whites” and ‘weak nerds’. VH1, MTV, videos, music and movie industry and even games push that being a low life criminal Gangsta is what is cool now. This is only going to get worse unless something is done. This not only affects the crime rate, but business, housing and other things. We reap what we sow.
Posted by: Jose | December 19, 2006 at 01:20 AM