A New Jail for “Dangerous” Criminals

 

Drive downtown along 3^rd St. and you can see it working its way up toward the sky.  Is it a bird, a plane, Superman?  No, this is the multi-million dollar extension of the Clark County Detention Center.  Recall that the voters of Clark County approved a bond issue a couple of years ago, after being told by local authorities that they were running out of space at the present jail (in newspeak language, it=s called a Adetention center@).  I recall hearing the dire warnings, as the man with the deep voice (part of the big ad firm, R & R Advertising) told us that there were too many dangerous criminals on the loose in Las Vegas.  The Aobvious@ solution was the simply build another 500 bed facility.  (The existing facility was built around 20 years ago or so for the exact same purpose - to relieve overcrowding at the old facility - which was built to relieve overcrowding at the previous facility - which was....)

I recall writing an op-ed piece for the Review-Journal complaining about the Aneed@ for such a facility - that such Aneed@ was in fact created by some good political sound bytes, complete with the favorite technique used against an ignorant public - fear.  Fear of what?  Well, dangerous criminals that=s what!  I tried in vain to tell everyone that the jail was not there to house Adangerous@ criminals - there aren=t enough to go around, at least not enough to justify the existing 1,500-bed facility, let alone another 500 bed addition.  But no one would believe me.  They believed the authoritative voice from R & R.  Not to mention all the local dignitaries, like Kenny Guinn (before he became governor), Jerry Keller, Rex Bell, Nancy Becker at al.  They wouldn’t lie to the citizens of Las Vegas, would they?  Well, they did - big time.  Let me tell you a little secret - something that all the afore-mentioned folks know full well.  Read on.

I just reviewed some data I was privy to that gives us a breakdown of the charges for those booked into the county jail (sorry, I mean Adetention center@) for a few sample weeks earlier this year.  Here=s what it looks like - are you ready for the truth?  Can you handle the truth?  The most common charge was that famous category of Aother offenses,@ constituting 26% of the total.  The most common charge within this category (constituting 36%) was that of Acontempt of court@ - sometimes referred as Acriminal attempt.@  The defendant probably pissed off the judge or something like that!  Another example is disturbing the peace and probation violation.

Guess what the next most common Acrime@ was?  Traffic offenses!  Yes, things like driving too fast, driving without a license, driving without insurance, driving without your seat belts on, driving with an expired license plate, etc.  No, the cops don=t take people to jail when they first cite them - they give you a ticket, as we all know.  These charges result in booking at the jail because the perpetrator never paid the fine.  It is called Aoutstanding warrants@ and the cops have no other choice but to Abring >em in and book >em@ - at least that is what I’ve been told.  Why we can=t figure out something else, I don=t know.  Regardless, this charge constitutes 20% of the bookings.  That=s almost half so far (46%). 

What=s third?  A miscellaneous assorting of property crimes, a few shoplifting cases, some minor frauds (bad checks, etc.), possession of stolen property and burglary (a good number is burglary from an automobile).  Mostly small-time stuff. Hardly Adangerous@ folks here.  These constitute 16% of the cases

Ranked fourth were drugs.  And most are for possession (61%) and most of the drug sales could be questionable - things like Apossession with the intent to sell@ (always debatable in court).  These constituted just under 16% of all cases.