States have been spend­ing tens to hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars extra per year in order to pur­sue the death penal­ty, while crime fight­ing strate­gies that have been proven effec­tive are start­ing to suf­fer as states face severe bud­get deficits. The New York Times recent­ly col­lect­ed some of the cut­backs to essential services:

  • In Multnomah County, Oregon, where Portland is locat­ed, the dis­trict attor­ney’s office is so short of mon­ey that they have stopped pros­e­cut­ing drug and prop­er­ty crimes until at least July 1, 2003. In addi­tion, Sheriff Bernie Giusto said he has had to lay off prison guards as a result of the state’s bud­get deficits, and the lay­offs have reduced the num­ber of prison beds avail­able by more than 25%.
  • Seattle’s police force has been reduced by 24 offi­cers and 50 civil­ians this year to make up for bud­get cuts from the Washington’s leg­is­la­ture. Burglaries, car thefts, and shoplift­ing are up 18% this year.
  • John Welter, San Diego’s Police Chief, says that he’s fac­ing ​“the worst sit­u­a­tion I’ve faced in 24 years on the job” because the city is no longer able to fill the posi­tions of six or sev­en offi­cers who retire each month, leav­ing the city 100 offi­cers short by Spring 2004.
  • New York City, which is fac­ing a $3.8 bil­lion bud­get deficit, has slashed $250 mil­lion from the Police Department in recent months. The force has elim­i­nat­ed more than 4,000 offi­cers in the past 3 years.

Some law enforce­ment offi­cials believe that com­mu­ni­ties will be feel­ing more dev­as­tat­ing affects of the deficits in the months to come. Portland Police Chief Mark Kroeker stat­ed, “(T)he worst results are still six months down the road, as the bad guys real­ize noth­ing is going to hap­pen to them, and then you start to get an increase in gang shoot­ings, armed rob­beries and homi­cides.” (The New York Times, June 7, 2003). See Costs.

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