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The Polanski Tax
Hannibal Hanschke / Reuters
California’s prison population is overflowing with old guys who no longer threaten society—like you know who. Joe Mathews on why prosecuting Polanski is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.
Want to understand why California is such a political and budgetary mess? Consider the case of Roman Polanski.
In a strange way, the attempt by Los Angeles County prosecutors to arrest, extradite, and presumably send the French-Polish film director to prison for a 30-year-old crime—having sex with an unwilling 13 year old—offers a clear example of this state’s governing myopia.
Putting Polanski in prison might serve ideals of justice, but it’d also be a crime against this state’s taxpayers. If L.A.’s district attorney doesn’t come to his senses and drop the case, the governor should step in and use his powers of commutation to end the matter.
Much like Jake Gittes, the private detective in Polanski’s Chinatown whose obsession with personal and moral questions blind him to the systemic and financial nature of the crime he’s investigating, Californians are focusing on the admittedly interesting moral questions about Polanski’s case. But the real issue it raises is fiscal.
California’s budget was busted because of unchecked growth in three big sitems: health and human services programs, tax breaks, and—here’s the one relevant to Polanski—corrections.
The state’s prison population has increased by 125 percent over the past 20 years, from 76,000 to more than 170,000 inmates. In the same period, state spending on corrections has increased more than $8 billion, or 450 percent, in the past 20 years, and now represents 11 percent of the state’s budget, up from 5 percent two decades ago.
• Polanski scandal full coverage
• Marcia Clark: Is Polanski the New O.J.?
• Ben Crair: How Polanski Could Help the RightDriving that spending: the prison lobbies, most notably the state’s powerful prison guards’ union. With the union’s backing, crime victims and politicians of both parties have convinced voters to support tougher sentences—especially on repeat offenders, sex offenders, and juveniles. Longer sentences produce not only more prisoners (leading to dangerous overcrowding that was blamed for a major prison riot earlier this year) but also an older prison population.
Older people need more health care. Even with big increases in prison budgets, California has been unable to provide prison health care at a level that meets modern standards. That has forced federal judges to step in and demand costly health-care improvements and, more recently, the release of thousands of inmates from the overcrowded prisons.
But most state politicians (Gov. Schwarzenegger, to his credit, has been an exception) have resisted these federal demands in the interests of their own political safety. Far better to push California further over the fiscal cliff than risk being labeled “soft on crime.” Tough-on-crime legislators, cops, and prosecutors have led the fight against common-sense legislation to reduce sentences or release older, nonviolent offenders.
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Joe Mathews is a journalist, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing writer at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as Justice Department reporter for the Wall Street Journal and as a city desk reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of The People's Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy.
sillylemur
Why downplay the crime by calling it "having sex with an unwilling 13 year old." Are you worried that if you call it the *rape* of a thirteen year old, this argument doesn't sound quite as reasonable?
flashnew1
Maybe the Jaycee case brought back the State's responsibilty to protect minors from all predators even the wealthy and artistic.
AiriqS
Not to mention that after he copped a plea, Polanski fled. An example needs to be made.
Autopilot
Mr. Mathews,
Please just read the transcript. If you don't have a daughter, then imagine you did. If that's too hard then study the law. If that's too hard then it's time for a job change.
Tina, paying these slippery-slope-relativists to bloviate such nonsense is not in keeping with your mission. We're all after intelligent discourse. This kind of methane diminishes it - and pours more gasoline on the flames of the unstable right. It's these kinds of articles that led me to understand how the family values movement was born.
KemCho
i am glad Polanski is not a Republican. Otherwise, Mathews and liberal media will be going after him. Even if Polanski has to have sexual orgy with underage females, Mathews will defend him.
motrbotr
What an idiot of an author. One can only hope that someday, you have a 13 year old daughter that is drugged, raped, and sodomized. Will you get back to me on your thoughts then? Thanks.
Sophisticatedlady
I really don't think you meant what you said just there. There's a danger in responding to something like this when you're still seething...you can end up saying something that is actually against your own beliefs.
Gorbud
If the ideals of justice must take a back seat to fiscal issues you can expect vigilante justice, chaos on the streets and all manner of lawlessness. Any population has a strong need for basic justice or the appearance thereof. If people think they can't get justice because some elected official wants to use taxpayer monies to fund a pet project (real or imagined) many folks will take it upon themselves to settle the matter how they see fit. Just think if the local burglar was released, over and over because it was just a property crime not worth prosecuting. My guess is someone would get tired of it and take some action to insure he was stopped in the future. Times that by hundreds and hundreds and civil society goes over a cliff. Sure release some old timers. But does Polanski get a pass because he had the funds to run away after conviction and he is famous? Justice is not only denied but it has ceased to exist. If he had been just an unknown citizen these tortured arguments would be left where they belong in the gutter.
dailyplanet
To reduce the Polanski matter to a "fiscal" issue and then extend that to an analysis of the California justice/prison system is intellectually misleading and morally unacceptable.
The justice system is a highly flawed system, too often in practice anything but "just" where money and influence weigh the scales of verdict.
So...there are too many prison inmates, and California can't afford to keep them? Well, we got what we got and we have to find the money to pay for it. If not the people will pay for it in a far worse scenario, dangerous inmates repeating crimes on the outside because "there's no room at the inn."
If anything there are people out in society that should NOW be in prison, but for various reasons are not incarcerated.
Public safety is not an area to pinch pennies. If there wasn't so much pork, graft, and mis-direction of tax money by politicians the state could probably have funds for the prison system and for the social services a civilized society demands.
gittes
Excellent point of view. This has been on my mind since day one of this farce. What Polanski did 32 years ago was appalling and criminal, no question about it. But he is today a stand up citizen, a husband and a father with teenage children and he poses no threat to the society whatsoever. To bring him back to LA and prosecute him is not going to be cheap. And are the Swiss going to send us a bill for their expenses? They should. I bet the final tally is going to run into the millions and for what? The pleasure of having justice served? Personal vendetta? Revenge on the Hollywood liberals and the rich and famous in general? Come on! At a time when the city takes to advertising for help from the public to pay for Michael Jackson's funeral, cases like this should have been culled from the DA's roster a long time ago. Or maybe they are considering putting up a Prosecute Polanski website and receive tax deductible donations from all over the country. I bet there are enough hardliners out there willing to send a few bucks to help California make the world a better place by putting Polanski behind bars. Let them pay for it, I certainly don't want to.
jus1drun
how else would this be read by every average joe other than if you're rich the rules don't apply to you?
why are so many people bending over backwards for roman? it's not as though his act was humanitarian, although there is the possibility that he may egotistically think "sharing" his appendage should be so viewed.
perhaps there are those perplexed by this law. if so consider attempting changing the law because excusing the rich perpetrator will not forward justice for all.
teodora
I am amazed at the author's profound ignorance on both law and finance. First of all, Roman Polanski didn't just rape a thirteen year-old, he did something far worse than any crime - he ran away from the law. In other words, he gave the entire legal system, or the state if you will, the finger. The idea that somebody shouldn't pay for their crimes, no matter how old they are or how expensive that might be for the state, is ridiculous. Following that logic, why don't we release all first time offenders and people who haven't committed "serious crimes"? After all, a one-time thief is far less dangerous or deserving of punishment than the abovementioned rapist, but maybe that's just me.
On fiscal responsibility, on the other hand, I have to say this: taxpayers pay taxes so that the state could provide them with things such as safety and protection from pervy filmmakers, among other things.
dailywackos
This fiscal argument is plain stupid. DB is circling the journalism drain with these kind of idiots writing.
If the government of Yemen got zero dollar in their treasury and can still imprison bad guys, I say California can still prosecute this pedophile and child rapist.
It would make better sense if you argue for immediate execution of these criminals.
RedJeep
Putting or warehousing any criminal in prison is a waste of money and is not an effective deterrent.
What should be brought back is the chain gangs and older non violent prisoners working in settings like libraries etc in their prison garb. They can live in tent cities. Get them out in public.
Why? Basically to give a teaching moment to our kids: "Mommy, why is that man wearing the funny stripes?" Also as a visible reminder to all what the results of criminality can be. It also can be a teaching lesson to prisoners getting out and seeing all of life they are missing.
YARROW
Since California is in a real financial crisis, I think people that haven't commited murder anbd are very old should be released. That's why I am for Polanski getting off the hook, otherwise, I wouldn't want that.
Genni2002
Yarrow, no one died...sheesh...just a little rape, drugging and rough hanky panky and besides, she was asking for it. Good grief, it is not like she was 12 or something...then, yes, it would be serious, but she was 13...c'mon, we neeeeeed to save money on THIS case....
robjh1
For pete's sake! Stop it already with the excuses. Throw this man's arse in jail. He is a pedophile, rapist and sodomist. To jail with this criminal. I wouldn't dare let him near me or any love one. Had this been Michael Jackson you turds wouldn't rest until he was in jail. Now that it is Polansky you are making every damn excuse in the book! For what? He is a fugitive PEDOPHILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And an admitted one at that.
"and we are not saved..."
OldCrow
If money is an issue, sue Polanski in civil court to recoup the fees California spends on trying and jailing the old pervert.
converseleigh
Is there anyone this idiot didn't offend in this "commentary?" Let's see- raping children is okay if it happened long enough ago, check. Old people are too incompetent to be held accountable for their actions and they are expensive to keep around, check. Crime victims and the justice system just want to steal from the rest us to pay for their little vendettas, check.
Hey, Mathews I don't know what planet you are from but some of us here in the real world like to see justice administered when a horrible crime is committed no matter how long it takes and regardless of the cost.
simplicity
Polanski's arrogance and denial in regard to raping a young girl, becomes fodder for the media. So far, Switzerland is paying for food and shelter. If the same proposal presents itself as it did in Fidler's courtroom, Polanski will not serve any time, and will be placed on probation.
I'll hope it's followed by deportation.
GPatton
Law enforcement officials dubbed the three strikes you're out approach as "the American Felons Retirement Act." Not without reason. But Polanski might end up doing a lot of time, nonetheless. Maybe it serves him right. And he'll take the place of some harmless octogenarian pot head! George Patton
collinrb
Mathews wants to save California prison money, and he prefers a single celebrity rapist and pedophile to the myriad petty drug dealers and car thieves caught by three strikes. This is different from the claim that Polanski should get off because he is an artist or because his parents suffered Nazi evils. But it is no better.
DakLak
Sounds like the older California population might be better off in prison - better conditions that living on the street.
That said Polanski will cost a fortune to bring back: 2 or 3 Federal marshals return tickets, a single for Polanski a return post-sentencing, hotels, etc. Then tens of thousands for each year of incarceration.
Crazy waste of money. Little wonder the US is bankrupt, as well as California.
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