The Real Issues Won’t Be Brought Up in the Jail Debate

In 16th-Century England, flogging, branding and mutilation--while admittedly uncomplicated forms of punishment--were proving unsatisfactory in dealing with beggars. Recognizing that, King Edward VI donated a mansion to serve as a penitentiary.

Things went downhill from there.

In 18th-Century England, jails had open sewers running through them. Rats and fleas played cards with the prisoners, with the result being that typhus killed not only many of the inmates but also jailers and neighboring townsfolk.

In their book “The American Jail,” authors J.M. Moynahan and Earle K. Stewart note that, in one particularly troubling period in English history, the lord mayor of London, two of his judges, some aldermen, many lawyers and the undersheriff died after contracting “jail fever.”

Not surprisingly, colonial America incorporated many of the punitive practices of merry old England, including stocks and pillories, whipping posts and dunking stools. When the sentence involved the stool, the authors note, the perpetrators were strapped into a chair, which was positioned over a stream or pond. The prisoner then was dipped into the water for varying numbers and lengths of time while crowds gathered on shore to jeer and taunt the poor sap.

Would that life were that simple today, eh?

How many dunking stools would we need to handle the current Orange County jail population? Would dousings in Irvine Lake stem the tide of crime?

Between now and May 14, when you’ll be asked to vote on a proposed half-cent sales tax increase for a new jail and other facilities, Sheriff Brad Gates and others will try to persuade you that they can build a better dunking stool.

Early on, I had hoped that the argument over the jail would include some public education about the role of incarceration in the criminal justice system. For starters, if you had the hundreds of millions of dollars that Measure J would generate, would you want to put most of it into a huge new jail, or would you rather target it toward some other points in the criminal justice system, with the idea of keeping people from committing serious crimes and going to jail in the first place, only to be recycled over and over again?

To make that decision, you’d need some kind of public debate on the subject. That’s where my well-documented naivete shows itself again.

That debate isn’t going to happen. The election is going to come down to some pretty basic arguments that won’t do much to address the more overriding problems of crime in America, or Orange County, or your town.

Gates will appeal to your gut: The system is overcrowded, and without the new beds, convicted criminals will continue to be released early from their sentences.

The other side’s argument is so tinged with self-interest (they don’t want the jail built near their neighborhood) that it suffers a built-in credibility gap.

However, the potential argument against a jail of this proposed size (6,700 beds ultimately) would revolve around the larger questions of who should be in jail and who shouldn’t. For instance, people as conservative as William F. Buckley Jr. think that drugs should be legalized (most penologists say that up to three-fourths of any prison population is there because of a drug-related issue).

Question: If drugs were legalized, how many jail beds would the system need? How much money would be freed up for drug education and treatment?

Obviously, such questions are complicated and controversial. To discuss them is going to take more imaginative and courageous government than we’ve had locally or at the state level.

So, this election is already being targeted toward no more than 25% of the eligible electorate--those people who have shown that they’re the most likely to vote in a special election.

Consultant Eileen Padberg, who is helping strategize for the pro-Measure J side, said the realities of politics dictate that the focus be on the small target group.

With a campaign of only about three months, there wasn’t enough time to thoroughly educate the public on the nuances of the criminal justice system. In recent weeks, she said, Gates has been out of the county on various business trips, so he hasn’t had a chance to make lots of public appearances. And even if he did, and even if he lectured every time on the criminal justice system, there’s no guarantee that the press would report it or that people would make an effort to digest it, Padberg said.

So, with limited time and limited campaign funds, one-fourth of the voting public will likely make this momentous decision on the jail tax.

Come May 14, people will vote their fears: either a fear of an additional tax or a fear of criminals running around when they should be in jail.

The issue is much more complicated than either of those. But rest assured that neither side is going to try to explain it to you.

Oh, for the days of flogging, branding and mutilation.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.