Trading Books for Cellblocks

 

Despite the lofty rhetoric of our elected officials, both locally and nationally, that “children are our future,” the reality shows that kids don=t count for much.  Except, of course, the kids of the well-to-do, who get just about everything a kid might want.  This was driven home passionately by a recent City Life commentary by Elinor Richey Holcomb (“Neglect or Crookery,” December 28, 2000) who observed that our elected officials here in Nevada screwed around and lost out on about $18 million earmarked for poor kids.  But this is standard practice in this country. After all, in this updated AGilded Age@ at least one out of every five kids (and half of all black kids) live in poverty.  Everywhere you look you find kids getting short-changed on the goodies in life, especially when it comes to public schools.

There is, of course, plenty of money to go around when it comes to beefing up an already bloated criminal justice system.  Between 1982 and 1996, according to Department of Justice data, criminal justice expenditures soared by more than 400%.  During this same period of time, the overall crime rate went down by less than 10%, while violent crime went up by about 13%.  Also, during about the same time period, according to one study, the number of faculty members in higher education went up a mere 20%, compared to a rise of almost 140% for correctional officers.  An examination of one recent fiscal year found that, nationally, total expenditures on corrections went up by $926 million, while expenditures on higher education went down by the almost identical amount, $954 million.  This has become standard practice in virtually every state in the country during the past 20 years.

Which brings us to a related subject, that of libraries. While I am not aware of any scientific study directly comparing expenditures on libraries with those of the criminal justice system, we have before us right here in Clark County an almost ideal natural comparison. (The only other one I am aware of was in San Francisco around 10 years ago, where city officials voted to cut the library budget by around $10 million and then turned around and voted for an almost identical increase in the local criminal justice budget.)  As noted in a recent article appearing in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Clark County Library District is proposing to put a bond issue on the June ballot asking voters to approve expenditures of around $74 million for six new libraries.  Heaven forbid!  You=d think that they were asking for the Holy Grail, given some initial reactions from the County Commission!  Myrna Williams, for instance, intoned that AI can=t think of a worse time to ask for this bond,@ given the rising costs of electricity.  She said further that AThirteen dollars a year, or $1 a month, for people already making a decision between medicine and food is a lot of money.@  

Yvonne Atkinson Gates said that such a request “doesn’t make sense to me,@ insisting that the existing libraries Aare not that full.  There are not a lot of people there.@  She=s done her own scientific study of library use, of course, stating that she regularly visits two libraries and, contrary to what library officials claim, never finds them crowded.  I guess her visits are representative and based on solid scientific sampling methods, unlike the library districts own surveys.  And we know that Atkinson Gates would never stretch the truth.  Library officials, however, point to a sample of 1,000 residents surveyed, finding that 56% of them are willing to pay more for better library services.  But elected officials are known to ignore the wishes of the people, and cater to the wishes of their corporate paymasters, especially developers asking for a zoning change in order to build yet another casino.  After all, these are the people who really matter, not children.

I suppose that this is the wrong time to be asking for more libraries.  After all, it was just a couple  of years ago when these same commissioners enthusiastically supported a huge bond issue of around $140 million to build that new jail and courthouse downtown plus the expansion of the juvenile detention facility.  These expenditures were a top priority, given the huge increase in crime we were experiencing in Clark County during the 1990s and all those Adangerous Acriminals and Asuper-predator@ delinquents running around loose!  (For readers new to the area, the crime rate has dropped quite a bit here in recent years.)

My sarcasm and cynicism is purposive, for the arguments put forth by our elected officials in both cases are ludicrous and totally baseless.  We know, for instance, that despite official rhetoric there was no need to expand the Clark County Detention Center, build a new courthouse and add more than 200 beds to the juvenile detention center.  On the contrary, the money could have easily been directed to much needed alternative sentencing options (and there are scores available around the country) and, as numerous studies have shown (including my own analysis of local data), the existence of a huge number of Adangerous felons@ running amok is a myth.  Expenditures on the criminal and juvenile justice system does one thing and one thing only: adds to the profits of businesses and perks for those employed within the system.  As I already stated, such huge increases have had little impact on the crime rate.  (By the way, is anyone out there aware of what the FBI calls Acrimes cleared by an arrest@?  This term is derived as a percentage of Acrimes known to the police@ that result in an arrest.  So for instance, out of every murder Aknown to the police@ there are a certain number of suspects eventually arrested.  Same goes with robberies, burglaries, etc.  According to FBI data, during the past 20 years, the percentage of all crimes cleared by the arrest went from 19.5% to 21.3%.  In other words, statistically speaking, there=s been no change, despite a 400% increase in expenditures over this time period, including all sorts of advanced technology available to modern police departments to be used, ostensible, for solving crimes!)

What about expenditures on libraries and schools and the like?  Why do we always have to battle tooth and nail against the powers-that-be for even a pittance for these much needed components of our public infrastructure?  I have a simple answer: there=s no profit to be made!  The results of having libraries and plenty of books and good schools are not easily quantifiable.  They don=t fit nicely into accounting balance sheets like cars and casino profits.  But in our modern world, capitalism rules, along with all of its own distorted logic where the Abottom line@ of profits rules supreme.

I am hoping for something different this time, but the ultimate decision lies with something called the ADebt Management Commission,@ a county committee made up of 11 members that review bond proposals in order to determine their impact on property tax rates.  This issue will come before them in March.  You know how they decided when it came to fund the new jail, courthouse and juvenile detention center.  Apparently $140 million would not have an adverse impact on property rates.  Logic would demand that the $74 million would have an even smaller impact on property tax rates.  But when dealing with local governments (or any government for that matter), logic is too often thrown in the toilet.  And, as usual, those asking for more money for schools and libraries and the like have to almost get down on their knees and beg, for they rarely have a bunch of rich corporate backers and money for a big media blitz.       Libraries have always been an important component of an educated society.  Libraries fulfill an important need for, among other things, they are not just for educated people but also for the poor and uneducated.  Going to the library has always been something important; indeed, almost magical, especially for children.  But in modern times the Internet has unfortunately taken many people away from the library and, sadly, away from one of the fundamental joys of life: reading.  While the Internet contains a wealth of valuable information, I hope it never takes the place of books.  You can=t really read a book on the Internet (although technically you can), for you miss the absolute joy of holding it in your hand, of experiencing the smell of a new book, the feel of it and, when you are finished, looking at it on the bookshelf.  If libraries were to disappear, one of the most important parts of our culture would die.