Saipan\u2019s crime woes remain headline fodder here. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam has a headline of his own in the making: This year (so I predict) the number of folks in U.S. hoosegows will top the 2 million mark.<\/p>\n
Two million…that\u2019s a lot of folks in horizontal pin stripes. By my reckoning, it exceeds the population of each of the following states: West Virginia, Nevada, New Mexico, Nebraska, Maine, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota (wherever the hell that is), North Dakota (ditto), Alaska, and Wyoming.<\/p>\n
Oh, and Vermont. Almost forgot that one. I think it\u2019s in South Dakota somewhere.<\/p>\n
There are towns in which prisons are the major industry, the big enchilada employer. I know a correctional officer in California who seemingly lives as well as some doctors do; he\u2019s got a massive house on the hill, two nice cars\u2013or is it three now\u2013and even a beautiful wife to cap the deal. Not bad at all. And talk about job security\u2013this guy is in a growth industry, big time. He\u2019ll always have a job. And, after that, a sweet retirement too…while I\u2019m sure most of my other pals and I will be toiling away in hateful obscurity because we haplessly chose to be on the wrong side of the government coin (i.e. funding it, not working for it…how stupid).<\/p>\n
When\u2013not if, but when\u2013the prisoner population tops the 2 million mark, a lot of hooting and hollering will be done about it. The ghetto faction will opine that we need more tax money to build bigger, better ghettos, so welfare moms and crack daddies can breed more kids. I\u2019m all for that, actually, given that the entertainment value is hard to surpass, and as long as they\u2019re raping each other and not my dog, it\u2019s all perfectly fine with me.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, civil libertarians\u2013if there are any left\u2013will observe that many folks locked up were guilty of “victimless” transgressions, such as drug offenses. This point is worthy of thoughtful discourse, but “thought,” if not overtly illegal, is pretty unpopular these days, so I\u2019ll let that one pass. After all, anyone who doesn\u2019t know where South Dakota is shouldn\u2019t weigh in on such intellectual matters.<\/p>\n
America\u2019s days of low crime were among many things sacrificed when the nation declared war on its own culture. There are entire cities\u2013and I know, because I\u2019ve seen some of them\u2013that have been written off as uninhabitable based on the nation\u2019s New Reality. It\u2019s more of a regional issue than a blanket national one, but these kinds of trends tend to manifest exponentially…which is a fancy way to say that snowballs roll downhill. This is going to be THE major issue in about 10 years stateside.<\/p>\n
Which, for us, will provide a fun show, what with C.O.P.S. on TV and all of that. On a more somber note, however, I\u2019ve known of a few people to leave Saipan because of violent crime worries. Saipan is a friendly place to live, and I, for one, hope we keep it that way. If we don\u2019t, though, we can only blame ourselves…and then maybe move to South Dakota…if only I could find my map.<\/p>\n
Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. \u201cEd4Saipan@yahoo.com\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saipan\u2019s crime woes remain headline fodder here. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam has a headline of his own in the making: This year (so I predict) the number of folks in U.S. hoosegows will top the 2 million mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}