Oregon's proposed new class of terrorists

[Tim May]

Something else that should be mentioned is the _economic analysis_ of 
silly proposals like Oregon's to make fairly minor transgressions or 
just associations into life sentence felonies:

It costs a _lot_ to imprison a person. A lot per year, a lot over 25 
years, and a lot over a life sentence. It costs a lot in direct costs 
of operating a prison, it costs a lot in terms of the lost economic 
production and taxes of the incarcerated person, and it costs a lot in 
terms of intangibles for the society to have prisons filled with 
nonviolent, minor convicts.

If local communities  had to pay directly for the upkeep of prisoners 
things might be different. If a small town with a thousand residents 
and maybe 400 tax-paying households had to pay the $150,000 per year 
(rough estimate, could be low) to incarcerate Theresa Treehugger, they 
might complain to their legislature.

"Yep, we were required to build an extension to our jail to house the 
Terrorists from our community. Theresa Treehugger, over there in Annex 
B, used to be a programmer down in Silicon Valley. But she joined a 
protest march against the logging company, saying they had used 
imminent domain to seize a ranch. Someone in the protest dropped a tree 
across the Old Redwood Highway, shutting it for 3 hours. We never did 
find out who. But all 150 protesters were convicted under the 
Protection of the Environment and Safe Forests Act of 2003, so she's 
doing life without the possibility of parole in our little prison. We 
can't get fire sprinklers for the school cuz of her! And I hear that 
Annex B is filled up now and we've got four of those kids from the 
community college who participated in a frat party that got out of 
control and forced a delay in classes the next day. Yep, they were all 
convicted and got life sentences. Now we've got to come up with another 
$600,000 a year to deal with _them_!"

(Note that in actual small towns where local criminals actually _are_ 
incarcerated at town expense, instead of by some nebulous "society 
pays" system, it takes a fair amount to incarcerate a person. Drunks 
are released after one night in jail, village idiots are just that, and 
so on. Even a shoplifter probably ends up doing a few days's worth of 
hot, sweaty work on the County road crew and then thinks twice about 
whether stealing a pair of sunglasses is worth it. No small town would 
dare to incarcerate a college kid or Green Party activist for 25 years 
in their own jail for the "crime" of having been at a rally where 
someone went too far. The Oregon bill does not give the courts any such 
discretion, though, if the law is applied consistently.)

The issue is decoupling costs of the actual from abstract proposals.

California, for example, is building or subcontracting the building of 
numerous new prisons: the costs of felonizing more and more behaviors 
is not being felt directly. Rather, "everyone pays." A small town would 
likely not pay to put a pot smoker in its jail for several years, but 
by making the crimes "state" or "Federal" crimes the costs are 
transferred and obfuscated.

It's like the familiar example (used by me for many years, independent 
of the Wall Street Journal's nearly identical usage some years ago) of 
a party going to a restaurant and agreeing to split the check evenly. 
Diners are incentivized to order more expensive items, as their 
incremental cost is 1/N. Diners who might be trying to save money by 
ordering less expensive items find themselves screwed. Net result: the 
overall bill goes up. A classic game theory situation. Even worse is 
when society pays for the meals, as with health insurance (combination 
of subsidized health care and mandatory employer insurance, for 
example).

When paying for a choice is decoupled from the choice, mischief occurs. 
Market economics 101.

In the case of Oregon's proposed new definition of terrorism and the 
draconian sentences intended to be meted out, those making the 
proposals and those voting to approve them don't have to _pay_ for 
incarcerating college kids and Green Party marchers for the rest of 
their lives.

This is the real act of terrorism.


--Tim May