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The High Cost of Keeping Richard Ramirez in Prison
Serial killers in the United States often gain cult status due to their strange courtroom antics and dramatic personalities. Recently deceased death row inmate Richard Ramirez was definitely one of the most famous serial killers of all time before he passed away of liver failure in California’s San Quentin State Prison.
After a dramatic arrest in 1985 in East Los Angeles by residents who recognized Ramirez from photographs displayed all over the news, Ramirez would sit in jail for years while awaiting a trial that finally began in 1989. There would be no more expensive trial in the history of Los Angeles County except for the O.J. Simpson trial that occurred a few years later.
At a cost of $1.8 million dollars, Los Angelinos would pay dearly for the privilege of trying Ramirez in a court of law. Incredibly, however, this massive sum wasn’t the only cost associated with this vicious serial killer. Because he was sentenced to death and due to the incredibly long appeals process associated with death row inmates, Ramirez sat in jail for over two decades without any fear of actually being put to death by the state of California.
Over the past hundred years, the number of individuals incarcerated in the United States has ballooned from a few hundred thousand people to almost 2.5 million prisoners. The most expensive people to incarcerate are death row inmates, who sit in a type of solitary confinement for decades. A moratorium on future executions in California has ensured that inmates like Ramirez have been costing taxpayers millions of dollars for housing and appeals with no likelihood of being put to death.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there are around 700 people sitting on death row in California, which require a massive investment of tax dollars. The state’s ongoing budget crisis and inability to balance its budget has put great strain on the prison system to house so many death row inmates at such an incredible cost.
Richard Ramirez’s untimely death at the age of 53 and his decades-long residency within a state prison brings to light a disturbing fact: more inmates die of natural causes while on death row than are actually put to death. Whether support for the death penalty exists or not, the billions of dollars spent by the state to keep inmates on death row has resulted in just 13 executions since the late 1970s.
A study in 2011 that was conducted by a judge and professor in the state suggested that California has spent over $4 billion since the death penalty was reinstituted. Out of those funds spent, at least a billion dollars was used for housing and incarceration of the inmates, including serial killers like Richard Ramirez.
A further study presented by the Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice in 2008 suggested that keeping the system intact with inmates on death row would cost around $137 million dollars a year. On the other hand, if California was to commute those death sentences to life in prison and abolish the death penalty, the yearly cost would drop to $11.5 million a year.
Offering the families of victims of death penalty-worthy crimes the chance to see a killer or other criminal experience the ultimate punishment may offer some sort of closure. Unfortunately, with the expectation that individuals on death row are more likely to die of natural causes than be put to death in California, the implementation of the death penalty in the state must be reexamined.
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Good Friday
We don’t have daycare on Good Friday.
We do, however, both have to work today. Two rounds of little-girl tonsillitis have zapped our available vacation time.
On an entirely related note, we put our 12 year old son through Red Cross babysitter training a few weeks ago, just for something like this.
My wife gets nervous at the idea of leaving the girls with the boy for very long. I think she thinks the world will explode if he takes care of them correctly.
Our solution for today is to have a slightly older friend come over and help.
She’s 13 and she brought her 10 year old brother with her.
That’s kids aged 3,5,10,12, and 13 in my house today. Total Lord of the Flies.
Hold that thought.
My son, being 12, doesn’t feel it’s necessary to brush his hair for school, or change his clothes every day, and he needs to be reminded to brush his teeth.
This morning, he woke himself up and ran into the bathroom. He emerged with clean teeth and combed hair. I asked him if he was wearing the same shirt as yesterday, and he flew into his room to change.
Hmm. Something is afoot.
While I was putting my shoes on, I reminded him to take care of the house and his sisters, and he made some smart-aleck joke in response.
She giggled.
Watson, I think I’ve found a clue.
Her father told me, just yesterday, the she thinks boys are gross.
The boy has never shown an interest in girls, until this morning.
Grr. The next decade just got considerably more interesting.
Time to lock them both in their respective basements until college.
Insane Incentives
Spring is in the air.
At my son’s school, that means it’s time for the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment tests. These are the standardized tests created by the No Child Left Behind Act that determine if a school is doing its job in educating children. If too many kids have lousy scores, the school gets put on the “Adequate Yearly Progress” list and will eventually get penalized financially.
That creates a perverted incentive in the school system. The main metric for a publicly-funded school’s success in Minnesota is the MCA. If a school can churn out illiterate trench-diggers, they will get increased funding as long as the test scores are good.
For a full two weeks before this test, the school effectively shut down the education program to prepare for the MCA test. That’s two weeks of studying for a set of standardized tests that focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic. I’m a fan of schools prioritizing the three Rs over other subjects, but that’s not what they did.
They spent two weeks studying testing strategies, not the material contained in the test.
In science class, they covered essential scientific elements like “Answer all of the easy questions first, so you can go back and spend time on the hard ones later.”
Spanish class covered verb usage similar to “When the time is almost out on the test, answer ‘C’ for all of the hard questions you have left, que?”
They weren’t being educated, they were learning the most effective way to solve a test to gain funding for next year.
For 2 weeks.
That’s not reading practice, or reviewing the parts of speech, or covering the necessary math skills. It’s “This is a #2 pencil. This is a circle. Practice until lunch.”
Is this really what NCLB was trying to accomplish? Standardized tests to measure school proficiency should be a surprise. Let’s randomly send in test proctors to take over a school for a day and see what the kids have actually learned.
Does a Gay Marriage Cost more than a straight marriage?
The costs of a wedding will depend on what state you live in. For gay couples this is even more important as only a few states allow gay marriage. These states are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington D.C.
Recent political events have reduced some of these costs by revoking Proposition 8 and returning gay marriage to California. Additionally, by removing the Defense of Marriage Act federal benefits are now available to all married couples gay or straight.
The biggest difference in the cost of the essential part of the marriage (the license) and any travel costs for those who do not live in states that allow gay marriage. The most expensive is Maryland which costs $85. Most marriage licenses seem to cost about $50 such as California’s $68, and Delaware’s $50. However in Connecticut and Iowa the license is only $30.
If you do not live in a state that allows gay marriage, there may be options including domestic partnerships. These states are Oregon, Nevada, New Jersey, Illinois, and Hawaii. Be careful considering these states however, as many domestic partnership benefits do not apply when traveling out of state. These are also not eligible for over 1000 federal benefits of marriage. In fact, domestic partnerships can act differently from zip code to zip code. Carefully read any agreement, as some do not provide any legal rights or protections but are simply a written commitment of a couple.
Also some states may recognize same sex marriages performed in other states though they do not allow the marriage to take place there. If you live in one of these states it may be worth the travel costs to go to a nearby state that allows gay marriage.
According to market watch, average spending on a ceremony is $25,000 however it varies depending on personal preferences and resources. Costs can depend on what season you get married in, real simple reports venue costs being reduced up to 20% if a wedding is in the winter, and not on a Saturday (the most common day for a wedding). Brides and grooms can consider renting their outfit to reduce costs. You can also consider cheaper alternatives such as having a family member doing the catering, or decorating your cake yourself. Party favors can be made by family members who like crafts.
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Garage & Yard Sale Manual
After months of research and planning I recently had a successful garage. Here’s my how-to yard sale manual.
Step 1: Preparation. You can never be too prepared. I detail advertising, setup, planning and more.
Step 1.5: Marketing. Here is the text of the ads I placed.
Step 2: Management. Pricing, haggling, staffing, and other “Day Of” issues.
Step 3: Wrap-up. It’s done. What now?
Finally, we’ve got a Page of Tips. This is sure to grow over time.
