'Chelsea's Law' Passed in California is Unaffordable, Too Severe

by Colin Asher · 2010-08-26 07:08:00 UTC
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California needs more prisoners and harsher sentencing legislation like it needs the San Andreas fault to open its maw and swallow the Bay Area. Someone should tell that to the state's legislature, which just passed new sex offender legislation with a unanimous vote.

The new legislation (expected to be signed by the Governator) will extend prison sentences and parole terms for some sex offenses. Some sentences will be accompanied by a lifetime parole provision. And it will make it possible for some first time offenders to be sentenced to life without possibility of parole.

Dubbed “Chelsea's Law” in honor of Chelsea King, a seventeen-year-old who was brutally murdered earlier this year by a convicted sex offender, it has initially estimated that the bill will cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars per year. California currently has a $19 billion deficit; and spends about $10 billion a year on its sprawling prison system.

The bill's author, Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, a San Diego Republican, modified the legislation after the Legislative Analysts Office made that cost estimate, but not by much. Even in revised form, the state can't afford Chelsea's Law.

California has been on a heady run lately: They started testing laser beams on LA County inmates; they're trying borrow $65 million to build a new death row; and now this.

Legislation like this is difficult to debate. It is draped in sentimentality. It's backers equate respect for the deceased with support for the legislation they are hawking (usually, cynically). Asked for evidence that the legislation will be efficacious, and benefit the state, they point over their shoulder at the crime scene (Chelsea King was murdered only months ago). And they howl about justice, when they really mean vengeance.

And the fundamentals get lost: The state can't afford the legislation, the sentences are too severe, and legislation should never be passed as a balm to hurt feelings if it does not benefit the state as a whole.

Photo credit: Joevare

Colin Asher is a former social worker and award-winning freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, among many others.
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